The Light and the Dark

24: Two Dismissals

After Boscastle I saw little of Roy for months. He altered his plans, and returned to Germany for the summer and autumn; I heard rumours that he was behaving more wildly than ever in his life, but the difference between us was at its deepest. We met one day in September, when he flew back at the time of Munich. It was a strange and painful afternoon. We knew each other so well; at a glance we knew what the other was feeling; though we were on opposite sides, we were incomparably closer than with an ally. Yet our words were limp, and once or twice a harsh note sounded.

I talked about myself, on the chance of drawing a confidence from him. But he was mute. He was mute by intention, I knew. He was keeping from me some inner resolve and a vestige of hope. He was secretive, hard, and restless.

I thought for the first time that the years were touching him. His smile was still brilliant, and made him look very young. But the dark nights had at last begun to leave their mark. The skin under his eyes was prematurely rough and stained, and the corners of his mouth were tight. His face was lined less than most men’s at twenty-eight — but it showed the wear of sadness. If one met him now as a stranger, one would have guessed that he had been unhappy. The mould was shaped for the rest of his life.

There was another change which, as I noticed with amusement, sometimes ruffled him. It ruffled him the morning of our discoveries about Bidwell.

Roy had come back to the college in November and was working in Cambridge until the new year. One December morning, Bidwell woke me in the grey twilight with his invariable phrase: “That’s nine o’clock, sir.” He pattered soft-footed about my bedroom and said, in his quiet soothing bedside voice: “Mr Calvert sends his compliments, sir. And he wonders if you would be kind enough to step up after breakfast. He says he has something to show you, sir.”

The message brought back more joyous days, when Roy “sent his compliments” two or three mornings a week — usually with some invitation or piece of advice attached, which Bidwell delivered, as honest-faced, as solemn, as sly-eyed, as a French mayor presiding over a wedding.

I went up to Roy’s rooms immediately after breakfast. His sitting-room was empty: the desks glinted pink and green and terra cotta in the crepuscular morning light. Roy called from his bedroom: “Bidwell is a devil. We need to stop him.”

He was standing in front of his mirror, brushing his hair. It was then I noticed that he was taking some care about it. His hair was going back quickly at the temples, more quickly than I had realised, since he managed to disguise it.

“Still vain,” I jeered. “Aren’t you getting too old for vanity?” I was oddly comforted to see him at it. The face in the mirror was sad and grave; yet somehow it brought him to earth, took the edge from my forebodings, to watch him seriously preoccupied about going bald.

“Nothing will stop it,” said Roy. “The women will soon be saying — ‘Roy, you’re bald.’ And I shall have to point a bit lower down and tell them — ‘Yes, but don’t you realise that I’ve got nice intelligent eyes?’”

Then he turned round.

“But it’s Bidwell we need to talk about. He’s a devil.”

Roy had now been back in his rooms for a fortnight. During that time, he had made a list of objects which, so far as he remembered, had disappeared during his months abroad. The list was long and variegated. It included two gowns, several bottles of spirits, a pair of silver candlesticks, most of his handkerchiefs and several of his smartest ties.

I was amused. Our relations with Bidwell had been curious for a long while past. We had known that he was mildly dishonest. There was a narrow line between what a college servant could regard by tradition as his perquisites and what his fingers should not touch. We had known for years that Bidwell crossed that line. Any food left over from parties, half-empty bottles — those were legitimate “perks”. But Bidwell did not content himself with them. He took a kind of tithe on most of the food and drink we ordered. Neither of us had minded much. I shut my eyes to it through sheer negligence and disinclination to be bothered: Roy was nothing like so careless, and had made one sharp protest. But we were neither of us made to persist in continuous nagging.

We happened to be very fond of Bidwell. He was a character, sly, peasant-wise, aphoristic. He had a vivid picture of himself as a confidential gentlemen’s servant, and acted up to it with us. He loved putting on his dress suit and waiting at our big dinner parties. He loved waking us up with extreme care after he had found the glasses of a heavy night. He loved being discreet and concealing our movements. “I hope I haven’t done wrong, sir,” he used to say with a knowing look. We did not mind his being lazy, we were prepared to put up with some mild dishonesty: we felt he liked us too much to go beyond a decent friendly limit.

Roy worked him harder than I did, but we were both indulgent and tipped him lavishly. Each of us had a suppressed belief that he was Bidwell’s favourite. Our guests at dinner parties, seeing that wise, rubicund, officiating face, told us how much they envied our luck in Bidwell. All in all, we thought ourselves that we were lucky.

I was half-shocked, half-amused, to hear of his depredations at Roy’s expense. I was still confident that he would not treat me anything like as badly: we had always been on specially amiable terms.

“You haven’t much for him to pinch,” said Roy. “He doesn’t seem to like books.”

Then suddenly a thought occurred to Roy.

“Do you look at your buttery bills?” he said.

“I just cast an eye over them,” I said guiltily.

“Untrue,” said Roy. “I bet you don’t. I once caught the old scoundrel monkeying with a bill. Lewis, I want to look at yours.”

I had not kept any, but Roy found copies in the steward’s office. Soon he glanced at me.

“You drink too much,” he said. “Alone, I suppose. I never knew.”

He made me study the bills. I used to order in writing one bottle of whisky a fortnight; on my account, time after time, I was put down for four bottles. I asked for the latest order, which, like the rest, had been taken to the office by Bidwell. The figure 1 had been neatly changed into a 4. As I looked at other items, I saw some other unpleasant facts. I felt peculiarly silly, angry and ill-used.

“He must have cost you quite a bit,” said Roy, who was doing sums on a piece of paper. “Haven’t you let him ‘bring things away’ from your tailor’s?”

“I’ll bring it away from the shop” was a favourite phrase of Bidwell’s.

“Yes,” I said helplessly.

“You’re dished, old boy,” said Roy. “We’re both dished, but you’re absolutely done.” He added: “I think we need to speak to Bidwell.”

Neither of us wanted to, but Roy took the lead. He sent another servant to find Bidwell, and we waited for him in Roy’s room.

Bidwell came in and stood just inside the door, his face benign and attentive.

“They said you were asking for me, sir?”

“Yes, Bidwell,” said Roy. “Too many things have gone from these rooms.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”

“Where have they gone?”

“What might the old things be, sir?” Bidwell was wary, deferential, impassive. In the past he had diverted Roy by his use of the word “old”, but now Roy had fixed him with a hard and piercing glance. He did not wilt, his manner was perfectly possessed.

Roy ran through the list.

“That’s a terrible lot to lose, I must say.” Bidwell frowned. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I never did like the steward using this as a guest room when you were away. We had men up for examinations” — Bidwell shook his head — “and I know I’m doing wrong in speaking, sir, but it’s the class of men we have here nowadays. It’s the class of men we get here today. Things aren’t what they used to be.”

Bidwell was not an ordinary man in any company, but he ran true to his trade in being a snob, open, nostalgic and unashamed.

Roy looked at me. I said: “I’ve been going through my buttery bills, Bidwell.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’ve never ordered four bottles of whisky at a go since I came here.”

“Of course not, sir. You’ve never been one for whisky, have you? I spotted that as soon as you came on my staircase. It was different with an old gentleman I used to have before your time, sir. When I had you instead of him, it made a big old difference to my life.”

“I gave you an order for one bottle last week. The buttery say that when you handed it in, that order was for four bottles.”

Bidwell’s face darkened, and instantaneously cleared.

“I meant to tell you about that, sir. I may have done wrong. You must tell me if I have. But I heard the stock was running low, and I took it on myself to bring away what you might call a reserve—”

“Come off it, Bidwell,” said Roy clearly. “We know you’ve been cheating us. And you know we know.”

“I don’t like to hear you saying that, sir—”

“Look here,” said Roy, “we like you. We hope you like us. Do you want to spoil it all?”

Bidwell ceased to be impassive.

“It would break my heart, Mr Calvert, if either of you went away.”

“Why have you done this?”

“I’m glad you’ve both spoken to me,” said Bidwell. “It’s been hurting me — here.” He pressed his hand to his heart. “I know I oughtn’t to have done what I have done. But I’ve got short of cash now and again. I don’t mind telling this to you two gentlemen — I’ve always said that everyone has a right to his fancy. But it’s made me do things I shouldn’t have done. I haven’t treated you right, I know I haven’t.”

His mouth was twitching, his eyes were tearful, we were all raw and distressed.

“Just so,” said Roy quietly. “Well, Bidwell, I’m ready to forget it. So is Mr Eliot. On one—”

“You’ve always been every inch a gentleman, sir. Both of you.”

“On one condition,” said Roy. “Listen. I mean this. If anything else goes from these rooms, I go straight to the steward. And you’ll be sacked out of hand.”

“It won’t happen again, sir.”

“Wait a minute. Listen again. I shall go through Mr Eliot’s bill myself each week. You can trust me to do it, can’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Mr Eliot can never be bothered with his old bills, sir.”

“I can,” said Roy. “You’ve got it clear? If you take another penny from either of us, I shan’t stop to ask Mr Eliot. I shall get you sacked.”

“Yes, sir. I’m very much obliged to both of you gentlemen.”

Bidwell went out, his face once more rubicund, open, benign and composed. Both Roy and I were puzzled. His emotion was genuine: yet he had pulled it out with his intuitive cunning. How had he played on that particular note, which was certain to affect us both? Was there a touch of triumph about his exit? Like Arthur Brown, Bidwell’s was a nature that became deeper and tougher when once one was past the affable fat man’s façade.

Roy teased me because I — “the great realist”, as he called me — was upset at Bidwell’s duplicity. He told me that I bore major treacheries better than domestic ones. For my part, I was thinking how final his own manner had become. In giving his ultimatum to Bidwell, his voice was keen, as though it were a relief to take this action, to take any kind of action. He was restless, he was driven to do things once for all.

I heard him speak with finality again before that term ended. The college chaplain had just resigned, as some friendly bishop had given him preferment. As soon as he heard the news, Arthur Brown set unhurriedly to work: the chaplaincy did not carry a fellowship, it had no political importance in the college, but Brown’s instinct for patronage was too strong for him: he was obliged to keep his hand in. So he went round “getting the feeling of a few people”, as he explained to Roy and me. The upshot was that, before he spoke to us, he had invited Udal to spend a night in college. “I’m not committing anyone, naturally,” said Arthur Brown. “But I thought it might be profitable to explore the ground a little. I’m afraid I’ve rather taken it for granted that you wouldn’t object to the idea, Calvert, if we get as far as mentioning his name. I remember that you backed him strongly at several meetings.”

Roy gave a slight smile — I wondered if it was at his own expense.

“I don’t know how you’d feel about it, Eliot? I’m inclined to think myself that Udal would be rather an addition to the combination room.”

“If you all want him,” I said, “I’m ready to fall in.” I looked at Roy: he smiled again, but the mention of Udal had disturbed him.

Udal arrived in time for dinner, and Arthur Brown brought him into hall. It was one of the few occasions that I had seen him wearing a dog-collar. He towered above the rest of us in the combination room, polite, cheerful, perfectly at ease. If he wanted the job, I thought in hall, he was doing pretty well. Perhaps he was a little too casual; most societies liked a touch of nervousness when a man was under inspection — not too much, but just a fitting touch. Udal would have been slightly too natural in any company or any interview.

After we had drunk port in the combination room, we moved on to Brown’s rooms — Brown and Udal, Roy and I. The room was warm, the fire bright as usual: and as usual Brown went straight to unlock his cupboard.

“I don’t know what the company would say to a sip of brandy,” he remarked. “Myself, I find it rather gratifying at this time of night.”

We sat round the fire with our glasses in our hands, and Brown began to speak with luxurious caution.

“Well, Udal,” he said, “we were a bit rushed before dinner, but I tried to give you the lie of the land. We mustn’t promise more than we can perform. The chaplain is elected by the college, and the college is capable of doing some very curious things. Put it another way: I never feel certain that we’ve got a man in until I see it written down in black and white in the order book. I shouldn’t be treating you fairly if I gave you the impression that we could offer you the chaplaincy tonight. But I don’t think I’m going further than I should if I say this — let me see” — Brown chose his words deliberately — “if you see your way to letting your name go forward, I regard it as distinctly possible that we should be able to pull it off. I can go as far as that. I’ve spoken to one or two people, and I’m fairly satisfied that I’m not being over-optimistic.”

This meant that Arthur Brown had a majority assured for Udal, if he decided to stand. There would be bitter opposition from Despard-Smith, but the old man was losing his power, even on clerical matters. Step by step Arthur Brown had become the most influential person in the college.

“It’s very nice of you to think of me,” said Udal. “In many ways there’s nothing I should like better. Of course, there’s a good deal to weigh up. There’s quite a lot to be thought of for and against.”

“Of course there must be,” said Arthur Brown, who had a horror of premature decisions. “I should have thought you ought to sleep on it, before you even give us an indication of which way you’re going to come down. I don’t mean to suggest” — Brown added — “that you can possibly give us an answer tomorrow. But you might be able to produce one or two first impressions.”

I was certain that Udal would not take the job, and so was Roy. I did not know about Brown. He was so shrewd and observant that he must have caught the intonation of refusal: but it was part of his habit to proceed with negotiations for a decent customary period, even when it was clear that the other had made up his mind. Brown’s intuitions were quick, but he disliked appearing to act on them. He preferred all the panoply of reasonable discussion. He knew as well as any man that most decisions are made on the spot and without thought; but it was proper and wise to behave as though men were as rational and deliberate as they pretended to be. So, with every appearance of interest and enjoyment, he answered Udal’s questions about the chaplaincy, the duties, stipend, possibilities of a fellowship: he met objections, raised some of his own, compared prospects, examined the details of Udal’s living. He even said: “If, as I very much hope, we finally manage to get you here, Udal, there is just one slightly delicate matter I might take this opportunity of raising. I take it that you wouldn’t find it absolutely necessary to introduce observances that some of us might think were rather too high?”

“I think I could promise that,” said Udal with a cheerful smile.

“I’m rather relieved to hear you say so,” Brown replied. “I shouldn’t like to interfere between any man and his religion. Some of the Catholics we’ve had here are as good chaps as you’re ever likely to meet. But I do take the view rather strongly that the public services of the college ought to keep a steady middle course. I shouldn’t like to see them moving too near the Holy Joes.”

“Someone once said,” Roy put in, “that the truth lies at both extremes. But never in the middle. You don’t believe that, Brown, do you?”

“I do not,” said Brown comfortably. “I should consider it was a very cranky and absurd remark.”

At last Udal said that he thought he could soon give a reply. Brown stopped him short.

“I’m not prepared to listen to a word tonight,” he said. “I’m not prepared to listen until you’ve slept on it. I’ve always regretted the occasions when I’ve spoken too soon. I don’t presume to offer advice to people like Eliot and Calvert here, but I’ve even sometimes suggested to them that they ought to sleep on it.”

Brown departed for his home in the town, and the rest of us went from his room to mine. It was dark, bare, inhospitable after Brown’s; we drew the armchairs round the fire.

Roy said to Udal: “You’re not taking this job, are you?”

“No,” said Udal. “I don’t think I shall.”

“Less money. Much more work.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” said Udal, slightly nettled.

“No?” Roy’s smile was bright.

“No,” said Udal. “I don’t specialise in bogus reasons, as you know. But there are genuine ones why I should like to come. It would be pleasant” — he said with easy affection — “to be near you.”

“What for?” said Roy sharply.

“It doesn’t need much explanation.”

“It may,” said Roy. “You used to hope that you’d catch me for your faith. Isn’t that true?”

“I did hope so,” said Udal.

“If you were here, you think it might be more likely. Isn’t that true as well?”

“It had crossed my mind,” said Udal.

“You can forget it,” said Roy. “It will never happen now. It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late,” said Udal impassively.

“Listen, Ralph. I know now. I’ve known for some time.” Roy was speaking with absolute finality. I was reminded of that scene with Bidwell. It was as though he were driven restlessly on, cutting ties which had once been precious. Bidwell’s was a minor one; now he was marking the end of something from which he had hoped so much. He was excited, sad but excited. He had to make this dismissal to go on. He said clearly: “I shall not come your way now. I shall not believe. It’s not for me.”

Udal could not mistake the tone. He did not dissent. He said, with compassion and warmth: “I’m more sorry than I can say.”

For the first time, I saw Udal uncertain of himself, guilty, hesitating. He added: “I can’t help feeling some of this is my fault. I feel that I’ve failed you.”

Roy did not speak.

“Have I failed you?” said Udal.

Roy’s eyes, acutely bright, pierced him. Roy could have answered yes. For a second, I thought he was going to. It was at Boscastle that Roy knew without the slightest particle of doubt that Udal was no use to him — when he heard him plan his days, allow one day’s exercises for the integral knowledge of God. It was a little thing, but to Roy it meant much. It turned him away without hope from Udal’s experience, that seemed now so revoltingly “hygienic”, so facile and easy. He had once thought that Udal, never mind his frailties, had discovered how to throw away the chains of self. Now it seemed to Roy that he was unbelievably self-absorbed, content to be self-absorbed.

Roy answered gently: “No one could have made any difference. I should never have found it.”

“I hope you’re speaking the truth,” said Udal simply.

“I think I am,” said Roy.

“I haven’t failed you,” said Udal, “because of Rosalind?”

“Of course not.” Roy was utterly surprised: had she been on Udal’s mind all the time?

“You see,” Udal went on, “I’m thinking of marrying her.”

“Good luck to you,” said Roy. He was taken aback, he gave a bewildered smile, full of amusement, memory, chagrin and shock. “Give her my love.”

“It isn’t certain,” said Udal.

Udal was lying back in his chair, and I watched his face, heavy featured and tranquil. It was a complete surprise to me. I wondered if he could be as confident as he seemed. I wondered about Rosalind, and why she had done it.

Then Roy leaned forward, so that his eyes gleamed in the firelight. He did not speak again about Rosalind. Instead, he said, very quietly: “Could there be a world, Ralph, in which God existed — but with some people in it who were never allowed to believe?”

“It would be a tragic world,” said Udal.

“Why shouldn’t it be tragic?” Roy cried. “Why shouldn’t there be some who are rejected by God from the beginning?”

“It isn’t my picture of the world,” said Udal.

Suddenly Roy’s face, which had been sombre, set and haunted, lit up in his most lively and impish smile.

“No,” he said, “yours is really a very nice domestic place, isn’t it? Tragic things don’t happen, do they? You’re an optimistic old creature in the long run, aren’t you?”

Udal could not cope with that lightning change of mood. Roy baited him, as though everything that night had passed in fun. It was in the same light, teasing tone that Roy said a last word to Udal before we went to bed.

“I expect you think I ought to have tried harder to believe, don’t you? If one tries hard enough, things happen, if you’re an optimistic old creature, don’t they? I did try a bit, Ralph. I even pretended to myself that I did believe. It didn’t come off, you know. I could have gone on pretending, of course, I could have pretended well enough to take you in. I’ve done that before now. I could even have taken old Lewis in. I could have taken everyone in — except myself and God. And there wouldn’t have been much point in that, would there?”

We walked with Udal through the courts towards the guestroom. On the way back, I stumbled over a grass verge: there was no moon, the lamps in the court had been put out at midnight, and I could not see in the thick darkness. Roy took my arm, so that he could steer me.

“I shouldn’t like to lose you just yet,” he said.

I knew that he was smiling. I also knew that he was within an inch of confiding. There had been horror behind what he had said a few minutes before — and yet there was still hope. It was not easy just at that moment to reject our intimacy.

The moment passed. He took me to the foot of my staircase.

“Good night, old boy. Sleep well.”

“Shall you?” I said.

There I could see him smile.

“I might,” he said. “You never know. I did, last Tuesday.”

25: A Nest of People

Roy went back to Berlin just after Christmas. I did not hear from him, but one morning in February I received a letter with the Boscastle crest. It was from Joan, saying that she urgently wanted to talk to me about Roy — “don’t misunderstand me,” she wrote with her bleak and painful honesty. “There is nothing to say about him and me. I want your advice on something much more important, which concerns him alone.”

She suggested that she should give me dinner at her London club. I nearly let her, for I was far less considerate than Roy in the way I behaved to my women friends. Part of this was due to my taste for the company of beautiful women — for beautiful women needed, of course, much less attention, could be entertained much more casually, since one’s bad manners did not touch their self-respect. It was this taste of mine which drew me to Lady Boscastle; I should no doubt have fallen in love with her, if we had been born in the same generation. Roy did not share at all the taste for beauty, and some people found the difference between us the opposite of what they had expected.

But I had learned much from him, and I took Joan to the Berkeley. She dressed herself up, and, though her mission was an anxious one, she was glad to be there. As she sat on the other side of the table, I thought her face was becoming better looking as she grew older; she had lost the radiance of happy love, but the handsome structure of her cheekbones was beginning to give her distinction; it was a face in which character was showing through the flesh.

She went straight to it.

“I’m very worried about Roy,” she said, and told me her news. Houston Eggar had recently got a promotion, after steady and resolute pushing; he had left Rome and been sent to Berlin as an extra counsellor. Late in January, he had written out of the blue to Lord Boscastle about Roy. He said that he was presuming upon his wife’s relationship to Lord Boscastle’s family; he knew that Roy was a friend of theirs, and the whole matter needed to be approached with the utmost discretion. I thought as I listened that Eggar was in part doing his duty, in part showing his natural human kindness, and in part — and probably a very large part — seizing an opportunity of getting into Lord Boscastle’s good books. If he exerted himself, he could be valuable to Eggar’s career. But thoughts of Eggar soon vanished as Joan described his report. It sounded factual, and we both believed it.

Roy, so Eggar said, was being a great social success in Berlin. He was being too great a social success. He was repeatedly invited to official and party functions. He was friendly with several of the younger party leaders. With some of them he had more influence than any Englishman in Berlin. “I wish I could be satisfied,” ran Eggar’s letter, which Joan gave to me, “that he was using his influence in a manner calculated to help us through this difficult period. It is very important that Englishmen with contacts in the right quarters should give the authorities here the impression that they are behind the policy of HMG. Calvert has gone too far in the direction of encouraging the German authorities that they have the sympathy and understanding of Englishmen like himself. I can give you chapter and verse of several unfortunate remarks.”

Eggar had done so. They had the tone of Roy. Some of them might have been jokes, uttered with his mystifying solemnity. One or two had the touch, light, first-hand and grave, which Joan and I had heard him use when he was most in earnest. And Eggar also quoted a remark in “very embarrassing circumstances” about the Jewish policy: at an august official dinner, Roy had recklessly denounced it. “You’re a wonderful people. You’re brave. You’re gifted. You might begin a new civilisation. I wish you would. I’m speaking as a friend, you see. But don’t you think you’re slightly mad? Your treatment of the Jews — why need you do it? It’s unnecessary. It gets you nowhere. It’s insane. Sometimes I think that, whatever else you do, it will be enough to condemn you.”

It had been said in German, and I did not recognise the phrases as typically Roy’s. But the occasion was exactly in his style. It had given offence to “important persons”, and Eggar seemed as concerned about that as about the other “indiscretions”. All his reporting seemed objective, and Joan and I were frightened.

We were not simply perturbed, as Eggar was, that he might commit a gaffe at an awkward time. Eggar obviously thought that he was a frivolous and irresponsible young man, who was flirting with a new creed. Eggar was used to Englishmen in society who for a few months thought they had discovered in Rome or Berlin a new way of life, and in the process made things even more difficult for a hard-working professional like himself. To him, Roy was just such another.

Across the table, Joan and I stared at each other, and wished that it were so. But we knew him too well. We were each harrowed because of him and for him.

Because of him — since we were living in a time of crisis, and it was bitter to find an opponent in someone we loved. Both Joan and I believed that it hung upon the toss of a coin whether or not the world would be tolerable to live in. And Roy was now wishing that we should lose. It was a wound of life. We had taken our stand, we each knew we should not change: but this positive news of Roy weakened our will. For we should be the last people to dispose of him as frivolous. Our doctrinaire friends would no doubt feel convinced that he was nothing but a rich man out to preserve his money: to us, that was a crassness that broke the heart. No one alive knew his vagaries as deeply as we did. We could not pretend to disregard anything he truly believed. We thought his judgment was dead wrong; but anything he felt, came from the depth of his sense of life: anything he said, we should have to listen to.

We were harrowed for him. We could only guess what he was going through, and where this would lead him. But he was without fear, he was without elementary caution. He had none of the cushions of self-preservation which guard most men; he did not want success, he cared nothing for others’ opinion, he had no respect for any society, he was alone. There was nothing to keep him safe, if the mood came on him.

“Ought I to go and see him?” said Joan.

I hesitated. She was distracted for him, with a devotion that was unselfish and compassionate — and also she wanted any excuse to meet him again, in case the miracle might happen. Her love was tenacious, it was stronger than pride, she could not let him go.

“He might still listen to me,” Joan insisted. “It will be difficult, but I feel I’ve got to try.”

Nothing would put her off. That was the advice she had come to get. Whether she got it or not, she was determined to go in search of him.

I heard another, and a very different, account of Roy a few days later. It came from Colonel Foulkes, whom I ran into by chance when I was lunching as a guest at the Athenaeum. Oulstone Lyall had died suddenly at the end of 1938 (I was interested to see in one of the obituaries a hint of the Erzberger scandal: it seemed now that the truth would never be known) and Foulkes had become the senior figure in Asian studies.

“Splendid accounts of Calvert,” he said without any preliminaries, as we washed our hands side by side. The Oriental faculty at Berlin University had decided, Foulkes went on, that Roy was the finest foreign scholar who had worked there since the 1914–18 war. “They’re thinking of doing something for him,” Foulkes rapped out. “Only right. Only right. Subject’s cluttered up with old has-beens. Such as me. Get rid of us. Get rid of us. That’s what they ought to do.”

He had also heard that Roy was sympathetic to the régime, but it did not cause him the slightest concern. “Great deal to be said for it, I expect,” said Foulkes, briskly towelling his hands. “Great deal to be said for most things. People ought to be receptive to new ideas. Only way to keep young. Glad to see Calvert is.”

He had himself, it then appeared, just become absorbed in theosophy. It had its advantages, I thought, being able to overtrump any eccentricity. He remained curiously simple, positive and unimaginative, and he took it for granted that Roy was the same.

I had a letter from Roy himself early in March. He invited me to spend a week or two of the vacation with him in Berlin. He seemed acutely desirous that I should go, but the letter was not an intimate one. It was stylised, almost awkward, almost remote — usually he wrote with liquid ease, but this invitation was stiff. I suspected a purpose that he wished to hold back. There was nothing for it but to go.

I arrived at the Zoo station in Berlin on a snowy afternoon in March. I looked for Roy up and down the platform, but did not see him. I was cold, a little apprehensive; I spoke very little German, and I stood there with my bags, in a fit of indecision.

Then a young woman spoke to me: “You are Mr Eliot, please?”

She was spectacularly thin. Beneath her fur coat, her legs were like stalks. But she had bright clever grey eyes, and as I said yes she suddenly and disconcertingly burst into laughter.

“What is the joke?” I asked.

“Please. I did not quite understand you.” She spoke English slowly, but her ear was accurate and her intonation good.

“Why do you laugh?”

“I am sorry.” She could not straighten her face. “Mr Calvert has said that you will look more like a professor than he. But he said you are really less like.”

She added: “He has also said that you will have something wrong with your clothes. Such as shoelace undone. Or other things.” She was shaken with laughter as she pointed to the collar of my overcoat, which I had put up against the cold and which had somehow got twisted. She thought it was an extraordinarily good joke. “It is so. It is so.”

It was one way of being recognised, I thought. I asked why Roy was not there.

“He is ill,” she said. “Not much. He works too hard and does not think of himself. He must stay in bed today.”

As we got into a taxi, she told me that her name was Mecke, Ursula Mecke. I had already identified her as the “little dancer”: and she told me: “I am tänzerin.” I liked her at sight. She was ill, hysterical and highly-strung; but she was also warm-hearted, good-natured, and had much insight. She was quick and businesslike with the taxi driver, but when she talked about her earnings on the stage, I felt sure she was hopelessly impractical in running her life. I did not think she had been a love of Roy’s. She spoke of him with a mixture of comradeship and touching veneration. “He is so good,” she said. “It is not only money, Mr Eliot. That is easy. But Mr Calvert thinks for us. That is not easy.” She told me how that winter her mother had fallen ill in Aachen. The little dancer could not afford to go; she was always in debt, and her salary, after she had paid taxes and the party contributions, came to about thirty shillings a week. But within a few hours she found in her room a return ticket, a hamper of food for the journey, an advance on her salary, and a bottle of Lanvin scent. “He denies it, naturally,” said Ursula Mecke. “He says that he has not given me these things. He says that I have an admirer. Who else has given me them, Mr Eliot?” Her grammar then got confused in her excitement: but she meant who else, in those circumstances, would have remembered that she would enjoy some scent.

The Knesebeckstrasse lay in the heart of the west end, between the Kurfürstendamm and the Kantstrasse. No. 32 was near the Kantstrasse end of the street; like all the other houses, it was six storied, grey-faced, and had once been fashionable. Now it was sub-let like a complex honeycomb. Roy had the whole suite of five rooms on the ground floor, but the stories above were divided into flats of three rooms or two or one: the tänzerin had a single attic right at the top.

All Roy’s rooms were high, dark, and panelled in pine which had been painted a deep chocolate brown; they were much more sparsely furnished and stark than anywhere else he had lived, although he had added to them sofas, armchairs, and his inevitable assortment of desks. The family of von Haltsdorff must have lived there in dark, dignified, austere poverty; now that Roy had leased the flat from them they had gone to live in austere poverty on their estate on the Baltic. They had permitted themselves one decoration in the dining-room; on the barn-like expanse of wall, there stood out a large painted chart on which their eyes could rest. It was the family genealogy. It began well before the Great Elector. It came down through a succession of von Haltsdorffs, all of whom had been officers in the Prussian Army. They had intermarried with other Prussian families. None had apparently had much success. The chart ended with the present head, who was a retired colonel.

We had to pass through the dining-room on the way to Roy. I glanced at the chart, and wondered what Lord Boscastle would have said.

Roy’s bed was placed in the middle of another high, spacious room: the bed itself had four high wooden posts. Roy was lying underneath a great pillow-like German eiderdown.

“How are you?” I said.

“Slightly dead,” said Roy.

But he did not look or sound really ill. He was pale, unshaven and somewhat bedraggled. I gathered that he had had a mild influenza; his friends in the house, Ursula Mecke and the rest, had rushed round fetching him a doctor, nursing him, expressing great distress when he wanted to get up. He could not laugh it off without hurting them.

That night I sat at his bedside while he held a kind of levee. A dozen people looked in to enquire after him as soon as they arrived home from work (they did not get home so early as their equivalents in England). Several of them stayed talking, went away for their supper, and returned after Roy had eaten his own meal. There was a clerk, a school teacher, a telephone girl, a cashier from a big shop, a librarian, a barber’s assistant, a draughtsman.

Some of them were nervous of me, but they were used to calling on Roy, and he talked to them like a brother. It mystified them just as much. His German sounded as fluent as theirs, and after supper, when I was alone with Ursula, I asked how good it was. She said that she might not have known he was a foreigner, but she would have wondered which part of Germany he came from. It was not surprising he was so good; he was a professional linguist, had been in and out of Germany for years, and was a natural mimic. But I envied him, when I found the fog of language cutting me off from his friends. Both he and I picked up so much from words and from the feeling behind words. He could tell from the form of a sentence, from the hesitation over a word, some new event in the librarian’s life, just as piercingly as though it were Despard-Smith saying “in his own best interests”. I wanted to know these people, but I could not begin to. I saw an interesting face, Roy told me a scrap of a story, and that was all. It was a frustration.

Faces told one something, though. The lined forehead of the librarian, with the opaque pallor one often sees in anxious people: he had a kind, gentle, terrified expression, frightened of something he might have left undone. The hare eyes and bulbous nose of the elderly woman school teacher, who had strong opinions on everything, not much sense of reality, and an unquenchable longing for adventure: at the age of fifty-eight, she had nearly saved up enough money for a holiday abroad. The diagonal profile of the draughtsman; he was musical, farouche and shy. The hot glare, swelling neck and smooth unlined cheeks of the clerk, who was a man of forty: he had got religion and sex inextricably mixed up. It was he who was keeping the barber’s assistant, Willy Romantowski; though some of the rooms in the house were very cheap, like Ursula’s, none of them would have come within that boy’s means.

They were interesting people, and I wished I could talk to them as Roy did. Of them all, I found the little dancer the most sympathetic. I did not much like young Romantowski, but he was the oddest and perhaps the ablest of them. He had the kind of bony features one sometimes meets in effeminate men: so that really his face, and his whole physique, were strong and masculine, and his mincing smile and postures seemed more than ever bizarre. His manner was strident, he insisted on getting our attention, he was petulant, vain, selfish and extremely shrewd. He was not going to be content with a two-room flat in the Knesebeckstrasse for long. He was about twenty-two, very fair and pale: Roy called him the “white avised”, by contrast with his patron, who was the “black avised” and who doted on him,

When they had all gone, I asked Roy their stories; he lay smoking a cigarette, and we speculated together about their lives. What would happen to the little dancer? Was there any way of getting her into a sanatorium? She must have been a delightful girl ten years before: she had wasted herself in hopeless devotions for married men: why had it happened so? Might she find a husband now? How long would Romantowski stay with his patron? Would the school teacher be disappointed in her holiday, if ever she achieved it?

Roy was fond of them in his own characteristic fashion — unsentimental, half-malicious, on the look-out in everyone for some treat he could give without their knowing, attentive to those secret kindnesses which appeared like elaborate practical jokes.

Perhaps he had a special tenderness for some of them, for they were riff-raff and outcasts: and often it was among such that he felt most at home.

But I had a curious feeling as we talked about those friends of his. He was interested, scurrilous, tender — but he was cross that I had seen them. He was impatient that I had become caught up, just as it might have been in Pimlico, in a tangle of human lives. Whatever he had invited me for, it was not for that.

26: Loss of a Temper

Although Roy got up the day after I arrived, it was too cold for him to leave the house. Through the afternoon and evening, we sat in the great uncomfortable drawing-room, and for a long time we were left alone.

All the time, I knew that Roy did not want us to be left alone. He was listening for steps in the hall, a knock on the door — not for any particular person, just anyone who would disturb us.

I was distressed, apprehensive, at a loss. He was affectionate, for that was his first nature. He was even amusing, as he made the minutes pass by mimicking some of our colleagues: but he would have done the same to an acquaintance in the combination room. I felt he was desperately sad, but he did not utter a word about it: once he had been spontaneous in his sadness, but not now. He seemed to be suppressing sadness, suppressing any relief, suppressing any desire to let me know. It was as though he had fixed his eyes on something apart from us both.

There was one interruption, when for a few minutes he behaved as in the old days. By the afternoon post he received a letter with a German stamp on; I saw him study the postmark and the handwriting with a frown. As he read the note, which was on a single piece of paper, the frown became fixed and guilty.

“She’s run me down,” he said. Joan had arrived in Berlin, and was staying with the Eggars. Roy looked at me, as he used to when he was out-manoeuvred by a woman from whom he was trying to escape. For Joan he had a special feeling; he thought of her more gravely than of any woman, and with incomparably more remorse; yet there were times when she seemed just another mistress, and when he felt he was going through the accustomed moves.

He was confused. Clean breaks did not come easy to him. He would have liked to spend that night with Joan. If it had been someone who minded less, like Rosalind, he would have rung her up on the spot. But he could not behave carelessly with Joan. He had done so once, and it was a burden he could not shift.

So he sat, irresolute, rueful, badgered. There was something extremely comic about the winning end of a love affair, I thought. It needed Lady Boscastle’s touch. For she never had much sympathy with the agony of the loser, the one who loved the more, the one who ate out her heart for a lover who was becoming more indifferent. Lady Boscastle had not suffered much in that fashion. She had been the winner in too many love affairs — and so she was superlatively acid about the comic dilemmas of love.

At last Roy decided. There was no help for it: he must meet Joan; it was better to meet her in public. He started to arrange a party, before he spoke to her. From his first call, it was clear the party would be an eccentric one. For he rang up Schäder, his most influential friend in the German government. From Roy’s end of the conversation, I gathered that Schäder was free for a very late dinner the following night and that he insisted on being the host. When Roy had put down the telephone, he looked at me with acute, defiant eyes.

“Excellent. I needed you to meet him. He is an interesting man.”

I asked what exactly his job was. Roy said that he was the equivalent of a Minister in England, the kind of Minister who is just on the fringe of the cabinet.

“He’s extremely young,” said Roy. “About your age. You must forget your preconceived ideas. He’s not a bit stuffed.”

They had arranged that Roy should invite the party. He found one German friend already booked, but got hold of Ammatter, the orientalist whom I had met in Cambridge. Then he rang up Joan. She was demanding to see him at once, that afternoon, that night: Roy nearly weakened, but held firm. At last she acquiesced. I could imagine the fierce, sullen, miserable resignation with which she turned away. She was to bring Eggar “if he does not think it will set him back a peg or two”. Roy also invited Eggar’s wife, but she was expecting a child in the next fortnight. “It looks like being Joan and five men,” he said. He was smiling fondly and mockingly, as he must have done when they were in love.

“That’s her idea of a social evening. A well-balanced little party. She likes feeling frivolous, you know. Because it’s not her line.” He sighed. “Oh — there’s no one like her, is there?”

The next morning, he was well enough to take me for a walk through the Berlin streets. It was still freezingly cold, and the sky was steely. The weather had not changed since the German army marched into Prague, a few days before I set out. Outside Roy’s house, the pavement rang with our footsteps in the cold: the street was empty under the bitter sky. Roy was wearing earcaps, as though he were just going to plunge into a scrum.

He took me on a tour under the great grey buildings; lights twinkled behind the office windows; the shops and cafés were full, people jostled us on the pavements, the air was frosty and electric; an aeroplane zoomed invisibly overhead, above the even pall of cloud. We walked past the offices of the Friedrichstrasse and the Wilhelmstrasse; the rooms were a blaze of light. Roy was only speaking to tell me what the places were. He showed me Schäder’s ministry, a heavy nineteenth century mansion. Official motor cars went hurtling by, their horns playing an excited tune.

We came to the Linden. The trees were bare, but the road was alive with cars and the pavements crammed with men and women hurrying past. Roy stopped for a moment and looked down the great street. He broke his silence.

“It has great power,” he said. “Don’t you feel that it has great power?”

He spoke with extreme force. As he spoke, I knew for sure what I had already suspected: he had brought me to Berlin to convert me.

For the rest of that morning we argued, walking under the steely sky through the harsh, busy streets. We had never had an argument before — now it was painful, passionate, often bitter. We knew each other’s language, each of us knew all the experience the other could command, it was incomparably more piercing than arguing with a stranger.

When once we began, we could not leave it all day; on and off we came back to the difference between us. Most of the passion and bitterness was on my side. I was not reasonable that day, either as we walked the streets or sat in his high cold rooms. I kept breaking out with incredulity and rancour. We were still talking violently, when it was ten o’clock and time to leave for the Adlon.

He seemed to be using his gifts, his imagination, his penetrating insight, his clear eyes, for a purpose that I detested. He had not wanted me to become absorbed in the rag tag and bobtail of the Knesebeckstrasse. He loved them, but it was not that part of Germany he wanted me to see. They did not talk politics, except to grumble passively at laws and taxes which impinged on them; the only political remarks on the night I arrived were a few diatribes against the régime by the school teacher, who was as usual opinionated, hot-headed and somewhat half-baked. Roy warned her to be careful outside the house. There was an asinine endearingness about her.

Roy wanted me to see the revolution. That day he made his case for it, in a temper that was better than mine, though even his was sometimes sharp; sometimes he put in mischievous digs, as though anxious to lighten my mood. He had set out to convince me that the Nazis had history on their side.

The future would be in German hands. There would be great suffering on the way, they might end in a society as dreadful as the worst of this present one: but there was a chance — perhaps a better chance than any other — that in time, perhaps in our life time, they would create a brilliant civilisation.

“If they succeed,” said Roy, “everyone will forget the black spots. In history success is the only virtue.”

He knew how to use the assumptions that all our political friends made at that period. He had not lived in the climate of “fellow travellers” for nothing. Francis Getliffe, like many other scientists, had moved near to the communist line: we had all been affected by that climate of thought. Men needed to plan on a superhuman scale, said Roy with a hint of the devil quoting scripture; Europe must be one, so that men could plan wide and deep enough; soon the world must be one. How could it become one except by force? Who had both the force and the will? No price was too high to pay, to see the world made one. “It won’t be made one by reason. Men never give up jobs and power unless they must.”

Only the Germans or Russians could do it. They had both got energy set free, through a new set of men seizing power. “They’ve got the energy of a revolution. It comes from very deep.” They had both done dreadful things with it, for men in power always did dreadful things. But the Promethean force might do something wonderful. “Either of them might. I’ve told you before, the truth lies at both extremes,” said Roy. “But I’ll back these people. They’re slightly crazy, of course. All revolutionaries are slightly crazy. That’s why they are revolutionaries. A good solid well-adjusted man like Arthur Brown just couldn’t be one. I’m not sure that you could. But I could, Lewis. If I’d been born here, I should have been.”

Not many people had the nature to be revolutionaries, said Roy. And those who had, felt dished when they had won their revolution and then could not keep their own jobs. Like the old Bolsheviks. Like Röhm. The Nazis had collected an astonishing crowd of bosses — some horrible, some intensely able, some wild with all the turbulent depth of the German heart. “That’s why something may come of them,” said Roy. “They may be crazy, but they’re not commonplace men. You won’t believe it, but one or two of them are good. Good, I tell you.”

It was that fantastic human mixture that had taken hold of him. They were men of flesh and bone. They were human. He said one needed to choose between them and the Russians. He had made his choice. Communism was the most dry and sterile of human creeds — “no illustrations, no capital letters. Life is more mixed than that. Life is richer than that. It’s darker than the communists think. They’re optimistic children. Life is darker than they think, but it’s also richer. You know it is. Think of their books. They’re the most sterile and thinnest you’ve ever seen.” Roy talked of our communist friends. “They’re shallow. They can’t feel anything except moral indignation. They’re not human. Lewis, I can’t get on with them any more.”

Inflamed by anxiety and anger, I accused him of being perverse and self-destructive: of being intoxicated by the Wagnerian passion for death; of losing all his sense through meeting, for the first time, men surgent with a common purpose: of being seduced by his liking for Germany, by the ordinary human liking for people one has lived among for long.

“This isn’t the time to fool yourself,” I cried. “If ever there was a time to keep your head—”

“Are you keeping yours?” said Roy quietly. He pointed to the mirror behind us. His face was sombre, mine was white with anger. I had lost my temper altogether. I accused him of being overwhelmed by his success in Berlin, by the flattery and attentions.

“Not fair,” said Roy. “You’ve forgotten that you used to know me. Haven’t you?”

Out of doors, as we walked to the Adlon, the night was sullen. The mercury-vapour lamps shone livid on the streets and on the lowering clouds. We made our way beneath them, and I recovered myself a little. Partly from policy: it was not good to let a man like Schäder see us shaken. But much more because of that remark of Roy’s: “You used to know me”. He had said it without a trace of reproach. Deeper than any quarrel, we knew each other. Walking in the frosty night, I felt a pang of intolerable sorrow.

At the hotel, we were shown into a private room, warm, glowing, soft-carpeted, the table glittering with linen, silver, and glass. Houston Eggar had decided that the party would not harm his prospects; he gave us his tough, cheerful greeting, and talked to us and Joan in a manner that was masculine, assertive, anxious to make an impression, both on the niece of Lord Boscastle and on a comely woman. He had also noted me down as potentially useful — not useful enough to make him fix a lunch during my remaining days in Berlin, but quite worth his trouble to say with matey heartiness that we must “get together soon”. I had a soft spot for Eggar. There was something very simple and humble about his constant, untiring, matter-of-fact ambitiousness. Incidentally, he was only a counsellor at forty-five: he had still to make up for lost time.

Joan said to Roy: “Are you better? You look very tired.”

“Just so,” said Roy. “Through listening to Lewis. He gets more eloquent.”

“You shouldn’t have got up. It’s stupid of you.”

“He could talk to me in bed.”

Joan laughed. His solemn expression had always melted her. For the moment, she was happy to be near him, on any terms.

Servants flung open the door, and Schäder and Ammatter came in. Roy introduced each of us: Schäder spoke good English, though his accent was strange: in an efficient, workmanlike and courteous fashion, he discovered exactly how much German we each possessed.

“We shall speak English then,” said Schäder. “Perhaps we find difficulties. Then Roy shall translate and help us.”

This left Ammatter out of the conversation for most of the dinner. But he accepted the position in a flood of what appeared to be voluble and deferential compliments. It was interesting to notice his excessive deference to Schäder. Ammatter was, as I had seen in Cambridge, a tricky, round-faced, cunning, fluid-natured man, very much on the make. But I was familiar with academic persons on the make, and I thought that, even allowing for his temperament, his obsequiousness before official power marked a real difference in tradition. At the college, Roy and I were used to eminent politicians and civil servants coming down for the weekend; the connection in England between colleges such as ours and the official world was very close; perhaps because it was so close, the visitors did not receive elaborate respect, but instead were liable to be snubbed caustically by old Winslow.

Ammatter made up unashamedly to Schäder, who took very little notice of him. Schäder said that it was late, asked us whether, as soon as we had finished a first drink, we would not like to begin dinner. He took Joan to the table, and I watched him stoop over her chair: he had come into more power than the rest of us had ever dreamed of. I might not meet again anyone who possessed such power.

He was, as Roy had said, in the early thirties. His face was lined and mature, but he still looked young. His forehead was square, furrowed and massive, and there was nearly a straight line from temple to chin, so that the whole of his unusual, strong, intelligent face made up a triangle. His hair was curly, untidy in a youthful fashion; he seemed tough and muscular. It was the kind of physical make-up one does not often find in “intellectual” people, though I knew one or two business men who gave the same impression of vigour, alertness and activity.

As he presided over the dinner, his manners were pleasant, sometimes rather over-elaborate. He was the son of a bank clerk and in his rush to power he had, as it were, invented a form of manners for himself. And he showed one aching cavity of a man who had worked unremittingly hard, who had attained great responsibility early, who had never had time to play. He was getting married in a month, and he talked about it with the naïve exaggerated trenchancy of a very young man. He was a little afraid.

I thought that he knew nothing of women. It flashed out once that he envied Roy his loves. As a rule, his attitude to Roy was comradely, half-contemptuous, half-admiring. He had a kind of amused wonder that Roy showed no taste for place or glory. With pressing friendliness, he wanted Roy to cut a figure in the limelight. If nowhere else, then he should get all the academic honours — and Schäder asked Ammatter sharply when the university would do something for Roy.

Dinner went on. Schäder passed some elaborate compliments to Joan: he was interested, hotly interested like a young man, in her feeling for Roy. Then he called himself back to duty, and addressed me: “Roy has told me, Mr Eliot, that you are what we call a social democrat?”

“Yes.”

Schäder was regarding me intently with large eyes in which there showed abnormally little white: they were eyes dominating, pertinacious, astute. He grinned.

“We found here that the social democrats gave us little trouble. We thought they were nice harmless people.”

“Yes,” I said. “We noticed that.”

Roy spoke to Schäder.

“Don’t think that Eliot is always orthodox and harmless. His politics are the only burgerlich thing about him. I can never understand why he should be such an old burger about politics. Safe in the middle of the road.”

“I am sure,” said Schäder with firm politeness, “that I shall find much in common with Mr Eliot.”

It was clear that I had to do the talking. Eggar was too cautious to enter the contest; he made an attempt to steer us away to placid subjects, such as the Davis Cup. Roy gave him a smile of extreme diablerie, as though whispering the letters “CMG”. It was left to me to stand against Schäder, and in fact I was glad to. It was a relief after the day with Roy. I was completely in control of my temper now. Joan was an ally, backing me up staunchly at each turn of the conflict. I had never felt her approve of me before.

First Schäder tried me out by reflecting on the machinery of government. What did I think about the way governments must develop — not morally, that should not enter between us, said Schäder, but technically? Did I realise the difference that organised science must mean? Two hundred years ago determined citizens with muskets were almost as good as the King’s armies. Now the apparatus is so much more complex. A central government which can rely on its armed forces is able to stay in power forever. “So far as I can see, Mr Eliot, revolution is impossible from now on — unless it starts among those who hold the power. Will you tell me if I am wrong?”

I thought he was right, appallingly right: it was one of the sinister facts of the twentieth century scene. He went on to tell me his views about what the central government could and must control, and how it must operate. He knew it inside out; there was no more sign of the young man unaccustomed to society, timid with women; he was a born manager of men, and he had already had years of experience. Although he was a minister, he did much work that in England would have been done by his permanent secretary: as a matter of fact, he seemed to do a considerable amount of actual executive work, which in an English department would never have reached the higher civil servants, let alone the minister. It had its disadvantages, but I thought it gave him a closer feel of his job. He ran his department rather as an acquaintance of mine, a gifted English industrialist, ran his business. It was the general practice of the régime; sometimes it made for confusion, particularly (as Schäder straightforwardly admitted) when the party officials he had introduced as his own staff got across the old, regular, German civil service. He made another admission: they were finding it hard to collect enough men who could be trained into administrators, high or low. “That may set a limit to the work a government can do, Mr Eliot. And we are an efficient race. If you plan your society, you will find this difficulty much greater — for you educate such a small fraction of your population. Also, forgive me, I do not think you are very efficient.”

“We’re not so stupid as we look,” I said.

Schäder looked at me, and laughed. He went on questioning me, stating his experience on the technique of government — the mechanical technique, the paper work, the files, the use of men.

He was being very patient in coming to his point. At last he knew enough about me. He said: “Tell me, Mr Eliot, what is to cause war between your country and mine? You are not the man to give me hypocritical reasons. Do you think you will fight for the balance of power?”

I waited for a second.

“I think we should,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes.

“That is interesting. You cannot keep the balance of power forever. Why should you trouble—”

“No one is fit to be trusted with power,” I said. I was replying to Roy, as well as to him. “No one. I should not like to see your party in charge of Europe, Dr Schäder. I should not like to see any group of men in charge — not me or my friends or anyone else. Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he’s capable of. If he does not know it, he is not fit to govern others. And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. I am not speaking of you specially, you understand: I should say exactly the same of myself.”

Our eyes met. I was certain, as one can be certain in a duel across the table, that for the first time he took me seriously.

“You do not think highly of men, Mr Eliot.”

“I am one,” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. He got back to his own ground, telling me that he did not suppose my countrymen shared my rather “unusual reasons” for believing in the balance of power. I was taking up the attack now, and replied that men’s instincts were often wiser than their words.

“So you think, if we become too powerful, you will go to war with us?”

I could see nothing at that table but Roy’s face, grave and stricken. During this debate he had been silent. He sat there before my eyes, listening for what I was bound to say.

“I think we shall,” I said.

“You are not a united country, Mr Eliot. Many people in England would not agree with you?”

He was accurate, but I did not answer. I said: “They hope it will not be necessary.”

“Yes,” said Roy in a passionate whisper. “They hope that.” Joan was staring at him with love and horror, praying that he would not say too much.

“We all hope that,” she said, in a voice that was deep with yearning for him. “But you’ve not been in England much lately. Opinion is changing. I must tell you about it — perhaps on the way home?”

“You must,” said Roy with a spark of irony. But he had responded to her; for a moment she had reached him.

“Will they not do more than hope?” said Schäder.

“It depends on you,” said Joan quickly.

“Will they not do more than hope?” Schäder repeated to Roy.

“Some will,” said Roy clearly.

Joan was still staring at him, as though she were guarding him from danger.

Eggar intervened, in a cheerful companionable tone: “There is all the good will in the world—”

“Let us suppose,” said Schäder, ignoring him, “that it comes to war. Let us suppose that we decide it is necessary to become powerful. To become more powerful than you and your friends believe to be desirable, Mr Eliot—”

“Believe to be safe,” I said.

“Let us suppose we have to extend our frontiers, Mr Eliot. Which some of your friends appear to dislike. You go to war. Then what happens?”

“We have been to war before,” I said.

“I am not interested in history. I am interested in this year and the next and the next. You go to war. Can you fight a war?”

“We must try.”

“You will not be a united people. There will be many who do not wish for war. There will be many who like us. They see our faults, but they like us. If there is a war, they will not wish to conquer us. What will they do?”

He expected Roy to answer. So did Joan and I. But Roy sat looking at the table. Was he moved by her love? Was he considering either of us? His eyes, usually so bright, were remote.

Schäder looked at him curiously. Not getting an answer, Schäder paused, and then went on: “How can you fight a war?”

In a few moments the conversation lagged, and Joan said, quite easily: “I really think I ought to get Roy to his house, Dr Schäder. This is his first day out of bed, you know. He looks awfully tired.”

Roy said without protest: “I should go, perhaps.” He gave a slight smile. “Eliot can stay and talk about war, Reinhold. You two need to talk about war.”

Schäder said, with the comradely physical concern that one often meets in aggressive, tough, powerful men: “Of course you must go if you are tired. You must take care, Roy. Please look after him, Miss Royce. He has many friends who wish to see him well.”

He showed them out with elaborate kindness, and then returned to Eggar and me. Eggar had realised that he must let Joan have Roy to herself, and he stayed listening while Schäder and I talked until late. I told Schäder — much more confidently than I felt at the time — that he must not exaggerate the effect of disunity in England. It was easy to alter opinions very quickly in the modern world. We had a long discussion on the effectiveness of propaganda. In the long run, said Schäder, it is utterly effective. “If we entertained you here for a few years, Mr Eliot, you would accept things that now you find incredible. In the long run, people believe what they hear — if they hear nothing else.”

He was a formidable man, I thought, as I walked home with Houston Eggar. I was troubled by his confidence: it was not the confidence of the stupid. He was lucky in his time, for he fitted it exactly. He was born for this kind of world. Yet he was likeable in his fashion.

“Calvert is not as discreet as he ought to be,” said Eggar, as we walked down the deserted street.

“No.” All my anxiety returned.

“It does not make our job easier. I wish you’d tell him. I know it’s just thoughtlessness.”

“I will if I get the chance,” I said.

“Between ourselves,” said Houston Eggar, “this is a pretty thankless job, Eliot. I suppose I can’t grumble. It’s a good jumping-off ground. It ought to turn out useful, but sometimes one doesn’t know what to do for the best. Everyone likes to have something to show for their trouble.”

I was touched. For all his thrust and bounce, he wanted some results from his work.

A clock was striking two when I let myself in at Roy’s front door. I had been anxious ever since he left the dinner. Now I was shaken by a sudden, unreasonable access of anxiety, such as one sometimes feels on going home after a week away.

I tip-toed in, across the great cold rooms. Then, worried and tense, I meant to satisfy myself that he was no worse. I went to his bedroom door. I stopped outside. Through the oak I could hear voices, speaking very quietly. One was a woman’s.

I lay awake, thinking of them both. Could Joan calm him, even yet? I wished I could believe it. It was much later, it must have been four o’clock, before I heard the click of a door opening. By that time I was drowsing fitfully, and at the sound I jumped up with dread. Another door clicked outside: Joan had left: I found it hard to go to sleep again.

27: Under the Mercury-Vapour Lamps

Roy did not refer to Joan’s visit. She stayed with the Eggars a day or two longer, and then moved on to some friends of the Boscastles in Stockholm. I saw her with Roy only once. She seemed precariously hopeful, and he gentle.

For the rest of my week in Berlin, he was quiet and subdued, though he seemed to be fighting off the true melancholy. He took time from his work to entertain me; he arranged our days so that, like tourists, we could occupy ourselves by talking about the sights.

We slippered our way round Sans Souci, stood in the Garrison Church at Potsdam, sailed along the lakes in the harsh weather, walked through the Brandenburg villages. We had often travelled in Europe together, but this was the first time we had searched for things to see: it was also the first time we had said so little.

I did not meet Schäder again, nor any of his official friends. But I saw a good deal of Ammatter and the university people, in circumstances of fairly high-class farce. Months before, Ammatter had interpreted Schäder’s interest in Roy to mean that the university should give him some honour. Ammatter promptly set about it. And, academic dignitaries having certain characteristics in common everywhere, his colleagues behaved much as our college would have done.

They suspected that Ammatter was trying to suck up to high authorities; they suspected he had an eye on some other job; they could not have been righter. The prospect of someone else getting a job moved them to strong moral indignation. They promptly took up positions for a stately disapproving minuet. What opinions of Roy’s work besides Ammatter’s had ever been offered? Ammatter diligently canvassed the oriental faculty in Berlin, Tubingen, Stuttgart, Breslau, Marburg, Bonn: there seemed to be no doubt, the senate reluctantly admitted, that this Englishman was a scholar of extreme distinction.

That step had taken months. The next step was according to pattern. Though everyone would like to recognise his distinction (which was the positive equivalent of “in his own best interests”), surely they were prevented by their code of procedure? It was impossible to give an honorary degree to a man of twenty-nine; it would open the door to premature proposals of all kinds; if they departed from custom for this one orientalist, they would be flooded with demands from all the other faculties. It was even more impossible to make him a Corresponding Member of the Academy: the orientalists were already above their quota: it would mean asking for a special dispensation: it was unthinkable to ask for a special dispensation, when one was breaking with precedent in putting forward a candidate so young.

Those delays had satisfactorily taken care of several more months. I thought that the resources of obstruction were well up to our native standard — though I would have backed Arthur Brown against any of them as an individual performer, if one wanted a stubborn, untiring, stone-wall defence.

That was the position at the time of our dinner with Schäder. Ammatter had taken Schäder’s question as a rebuke and an instruction to deliver a suitable answer in quick time. So, during that week, he conferred with the Rector. If they abandoned the hope of honorary degrees and corresponding memberships, could they not introduce the American title of visiting professor? It would recognise a fine achievement: it would cost them nothing: it would do the university good. No doubt, I thought when I heard the story, there was a spirited and enjoyable exchange of sentiments about how the university could in no way whatsoever be affected by political influences. No doubt they agreed that, in a case like this which was crystal-pure upon its own merits, it would do no harm to retain a Minister’s benevolent interest.

The upshot of it all was that Roy found himself invited to address a seminar at very short notice. At the seminar the Rector and several of the senate would be present: Roy was to describe his recent researches. Afterwards Ammatter planned that the Rector would make the new proposal his own; it would require “handling”, as Arthur Brown would say, to slip an unknown title into the university; it was essential that the Rector should speak from first-hand knowledge. Apparently the Rector was convinced that it would be wise to act.

I heard some of the conferences between Ammatter and Roy, without understanding much of them. It was when we were alone that Roy told me the entire history. His spirits did not often rise nowadays to their old mischievous brilliance: but he had not been able to resist giving Ammatter the impression that he needed recognition from the University of Berlin more than anything on earth. This impression had made Ammatter increasingly agitated; for he took it for granted that Roy told Schäder so, and that his, Ammatter’s, fortunes hung on the event. Ammatter took to ringing up Roy late at night on the days before the seminar: another member of the senate was attending: all would come well. Roy protested extreme nervousness about his address, and Ammatter fussed over the telephone and came round early in the morning to reassure him.

I begged to be allowed to come to the seminar. With a solemn face, Roy said that he would take me. With the same solemn face, he answered Ammatter on the telephone the evening before: I could hear groans and cries from the instrument as Ammatter assured, encouraged, cajoled, reviled. Roy put down the receiver with his most earnest, mystifying expression.

“I’ve told him that I must put up a good show tomorrow,” he said. “But I was obliged to tell him that too much depends on it. I may get stage fright.”

Roy dressed with exquisite care the next morning. He put on his most fashionable suit, a silk shirt, a pair of suede shoes. “Must look well,” he said. “Can’t take any risks.” In fact, as he sat on the Rector’s right hand in the oriental lecture room at the university, he looked as though he had strayed in by mistake. The Rector was a bald fat man with rimless spectacles and a stout pepper-coloured suit; he sat stiffly between Roy and Ammatter, down at the lecturer’s desk. The theatre ran up in tiers, and there sat thirty or forty men in the three bottom rows. Most of them were homely, academic, middle-aged, dressed in sensible reach-me-downs. In front of their eyes sat Roy, wooden-faced, slight, elegant, young, like a flâneur at a society lunch.

It was an oriental seminar, and so Ammatter was in the chair. He made a speech to welcome Roy; I did not understand it, but it was obviously jocular, flattering, the speech of an impresario who, after much stress, knows that he has pulled it off. Roy stood up, straight and solemn. There was some clapping. Roy began to speak in English. I saw Ammatter’s face cloud with astonishment, used as he was to hear Roy speak German as well as a foreigner could. Other faces began to look slightly glazed, for German scholars were no better linguists than English ones, and not more than half a dozen people there could follow spoken English comfortably, even in a tone as clear as Roy’s. But many more had to pretend to understand; they did not like to seem baffled; very soon heads were nodding wisely when the lecturer appeared to be establishing a point.

Actually Roy had begun with excessive formality to explain that his subject was of great intricacy, and he found it necessary to use his own language, which of course they would understand. His esteemed master and colleague, his esteemed professor Ammatter, had said that the lecture would describe recent advances in Manichaean studies. “I think that would be much too broad a subject to attempt in one afternoon. It would be extremely rash to make such an attempt,” said Roy solemnly, and uncomprehending heads began to shake in sympathy. “I should regard it as coming dangerously near journalism to offer my learned colleagues a kind of popular précis. So with your permission I have chosen a topic where I can be definite enough not to offend you. I hope to examine to your satisfaction five points in Soghdian lexicography.”

He lectured for an hour and twenty minutes. His face was imperturbably solemn throughout — except that twice he made a grotesque donnish pun, and gave a shy smile. At that sign, the whole room rocked with laughter, as though he had revealed a ray of humour of the most divine subtlety. When he frowned, they shook their heads. When he sounded triumphant, they nodded in unison.

Even those who could understand his English must have been very little the wiser. For he was analysing some esoteric problems about words that he had just discovered; they were in a dialect of Soghdian which he was the only man in the world to have unravelled. To add a final touch of fantasy, he quoted long passages of Soghdian: so that much of the lecture seemed to be taking place in Soghdian itself.

He would recite from memory sentence after sentence in this language, completely incomprehensible to anyone but himself. The strange sounds finished up as though he had asked a question. Roy proceeded to answer it himself.

“Just so,” he said firmly, and then went on in Soghdian to what appeared to be the negative view. That passage came to an end, and Roy at once commented on it in a stern tone. “Not a bit of it,” he said.

I was sitting with a handkerchief pressed to my mouth. It was the most elaborate, the most ludicrous, the most recherché, of all his tricks: it was pure “old-brandy”, to use a private phrase. He knew that, if one had an air of solemn certainty and a mesmerising eye, they would never dare to say that it was too difficult for them. None of these learned men would dare to say that he had not understood a word.

An hour went by. I wondered when he was going to end. But he had set himself five words to discuss, and even when he arrived at the fifth he was not going to leave his linguistic speculations unsaid. He finished strongly in a wave of Soghdian, swelled by remarks in the later forms of the language, with illustrations from all over the Middle East. Then he said, very modestly and unassumingly: “I expect you may think that I have been too bold and slapdash in some of my conclusions. I have not had time to give you all the evidence, but I think I can present it. I very much hope that if any of my colleagues can show me where I have been too superficial, he will please do so now.”

Roy slid quietly into his seat. There was a little stupefied applause, which became louder and clearer. The clapping went on.

Ammatter got up and asked for contributions and questions. There was a long stupefied silence. Then someone rose. He was an eminent philologist, possibly the only person present who had profited by the lecture. He spoke in halting, correct English: “These pieces of analysis are most deep and convincing, if I may say so. I have one thing to suggest about your word—”

He made his suggestion which was complex and technical, and sounded very ingenious. At once Roy jumped up to reply — and replied at length in German. In fluent, easy, racy German. Then I heard the one complaint of the afternoon. Two faces in the row in front of me turned to each other. One asked why he had not lectured in German. The other could not understand.

Roy’s discussion with the philologist went on. It was not a controversy; they were agreeing over a new possibility, which Roy promised to investigate (it appeared later as a paragraph in one of his books). The Rector made a speech to thank Roy for his lecture. Ammatter supported him. There was more applause, and Roy thanked the meeting in a few demure and solemn words.

Before we departed from the lecture theatre, Ammatter went up to Roy in order to shake hands before parting for the day. He was smiling knowingly, but as he gazed at Roy I caught an expression of sheer, bemused, complete bewilderment.

Roy and I went out into the Linden. It was late afternoon.

“Well,” said Roy, “I thought the house was a bit cold towards the middle. But I got a good hand at the end, didn’t I?”

I had nothing to say. I took him to the nearest café and stood him a drink.

That afternoon brought back the past. I hoped that it might buoy him up, but soon he was quiet again and stayed so till we said goodbye at the railway station.

He was quiet even at Romantowski’s party. This happened the night before I left, and many people in the house were invited, as well as friends from outside. Romantowski and his patron lived in two rooms at the top of the house, just under the little dancer’s attic. It was getting late, the party was noisy, when Roy and I climbed up.

The rooms were poor, there was linoleum on the floor, the guests were drinking out of cups. Somehow Romantowski’s patron had managed to buy several bottles of spirits. How he had afforded it, Roy could not guess. Presumably he was being madly extravagant in order to please the young man. Poor devil, I said to Roy. For it looked as though Romantowski had demanded the party in order to hook a different fish. There were several youngish men round him, randy and perverted.

I asked what Schäder and his colleagues would think of this sight. “Schäder would be shocked,” said Roy. “He’s a bit of a prude. But he needn’t mind. Most of these people will fight — they’ll fight better than respectable men.”

That reminded him of war, and his face darkened. We were standing by the window over the street: we looked inwards to the shouting, hilarious, rackety crowd.

“If there is a war,” said Roy, “what can I do?”

He was seared by the thought. Living in others, he was seared by his affections in England, his affections here. He said: “There doesn’t seem to be a place for me, does there?”

The little dancer joined us, lapping up her drink, cheerful, lively, bright-eyed.

“How are you, Ursula?” said Roy.

“I think I am better,” she said, with her unquenchable hope. “Soon it will be good weather.”

“Really better?” said Roy. He had still not contrived a plan for sending her to the mountains: he did not dare talk to her direct.

“In the summer I shall be well.”

She laughed at him, she laughed at both of us, she had a bright cheeky wit. I thought again, how gallant-hearted she was.

Then Romantowski came mincing up. He offered me a cigarette, but I said I did not smoke. “Poor you!” said Willy Romantowski, using his only English phrase, picked up heaven knows how. He spoke to Roy in his brisk Berlin twang, of which I could scarcely make out a word. I noticed Roy mimic him as he replied. Romantowski gave a pert grin. Again he asked something. Roy nodded, and the young man went away.

“Roy, you should not!” cried Ursula. “You should not give him money! He treats poor Hans” (Hans was the clerk, the “black avised”) “so badly. He is cruel to poor Hans. He will take your money and buy clothes — so as to interest these little gentlemen.” She nodded scornfully, tolerantly, towards the knot in the middle of the room. “It is not sensible to give him money.”

“Too old to be sensible.” Roy smiled at her. “Ursula, if I don’t give him money, he will take it from poor Hans. Poor Hans will have to find it from somewhere. He is spending too much money. I’m frightened that we shall have Hans in trouble.”

“It is so,” said Ursula.

Roy went on to say that we could not save Willy for Hans, but we might still save Hans from another disaster. Both Roy and the little dancer were afraid that he was embezzling money, to squander it on Willy. Ursula sighed.

“It is bad,” she said, “to have to buy love.”

“It can be frightful,” said Roy.

“It is bad to have to run after love.”

“Have you seen him today?” said Roy, gently, clearly, directly.

“No. He was too busy.” “He” was an elderly producer in a ramshackle theatre. Ursula’s eyes were full of tears.

“I’m sorry, my dear.”

“Perhaps I shall see him tomorrow. Perhaps he will be free.”

She smiled, lips quivering, at Roy, and he took her hand.

“I wish I could help,” he said.

“You do help. You are so kind and gentle.” Suddenly she gazed at him. “Roy, why are you unhappy? When you have so many who love you. Have you not all of us who love you?”

He kissed her. It was entirely innocent. Theirs was a strange tenderness. The little dancer wiped her eyes, plucked up her hope and courage, and went off to find another drink.

The air was whirling with smoke, and was growing hot. Roy flung open the window, and leaned out into the cold air. Over the houses at the bottom of the road there hung a livid greenish haze: it was light diffused from the mercury-vapour lamps of the Berlin streets.

“I like those lamps,” said Roy quietly.

He added: “I’ve walked under them so often in the winter. I felt I was absolutely — anonymous. I don’t think I’ve ever been so free. I used to put up my coat collar and walk through the streets under those lamps, and I was sure that no one knew me.”

28: Self-Hatred

In Cambridge that May, the days were cold and bright. Roy played cricket for the first time since the old Master’s death; I watched him one afternoon, and was surprised to see that his eye was in. His beautiful off-drive curled through the covers, he was hooking anything short with seconds to spare, he played a shot of his own, off the back foot past point; yet I knew, though he did not wake me nowadays, that his nights were haunted. He was working as he used in the blackest times; I believed he was drinking alone, and once or twice I had heard in his voice the undertone of frantic gaiety. Usually he sat grave and silent in hall, though he still bestirred himself to cheer up a visitor whom everyone else was ignoring. Several nights, he scandalised some of our friends by his remarks on Germany.

Towards the end of May, he had a letter from Rosalind, in which she said that she would soon be announcing her engagement to Ralph Udal. When he told me, I wondered for an instant whether she was playing a last card. Had she put Roy right out of her mind? Or did she allow herself a vestige of hope that he would swoop down and stop the marriage?

He smiled at the news. Yet I thought he was not quite indifferent. He had been wretched when the letter came, and he smiled with a kind of scathing, humorous fondness. But Rosalind had been able to rouse his jealousy, as no other woman could. In their time together, she had often behaved like a bitch and he like a frail and ordinary lover. Even now, in the midst of the most frightening griefs, he was sharply moved by the thought of losing her for good. He wrote to Ralph and to her. Somehow, the fact that she should have chosen Ralph added to Roy’s feeling of loss and loneliness, added to an entirely unheroic pique. He said that he had told Rosalind to call on him some time. “I expect she’ll come with her husband,” said Roy with irritated sadness. “It will be extremely awkward for everyone. I’ve never talked to her politely. It’s absurd.”

The announcement was duly published in The Times. Roy read it in the combination room, and Arthur Brown asked him inquisitively: “I see your friend Udal is getting married, Roy. I rather fancied that I remembered the name of the young woman. Isn’t it someone you introduced me to in your rooms quite a while ago?”

“Just so,” said Roy.

“From what I remember of her,” said Brown, “of course it was only a glimpse, I shouldn’t have regarded her as particularly anxious to settle down as a parson’s wife in a nice quiet country living.”

“No?” said Roy blankly. He did not like the sight of their names in print: he was not going to be drawn.

But, annoyed though he was at the news, he could not help chuckling with laughter at a letter from Lady Muriel. It was the only time in those dark weeks that I saw him utterly unshadowed. He had written several times to Lady Muriel about that time; for the Boscastles were visiting Cambridge in June, to mark the end of Humphrey’s last term at Magdalene, and Roy had been persuading Lady Muriel to come with them. So far as I knew, he had not asked Joan — I was not certain what had happened between them, but I was afraid that it was the final, irreparable break.

Roy showed me Lady Muriel’s letter. She was delighted that he was pressing her to come to Cambridge; since she left the Lodge, she had been curiously diffident about appearing in the town. Perhaps it was because, after domineering in the Lodge, she could not bear taking a dimmer place. But she was willing to accompany the Boscastles, now that Roy had invited her. She went on: “You will have seen this extraordinary action on the part of our vicar. I am compelled to take very strong exception to it. Unfortunate is too mild a word. I know this young woman used to be a friend of yours, but that was a different matter. You may sometimes have thought I was old-fashioned, but I realise men have their temptations. That cannot however be regarded as any excuse for a clergyman. He is in a special position, and I have never for a single moment contemplated such an outrage from any vicar of our own church. I do not know what explanations to give to our tenants, and I find Helen no help in this, and very remiss in performing her proper duties. I have found it necessary to remind her of her obligations (though naturally I am always very careful about keeping myself in the background). I consider our vicar has put me in an impossible position. I do not see how I can receive this woman in our house. Hugh says it is your fault for bullying him into giving the living to our present vicar — but I defend you, and tell him that it takes a woman to understand women, and that I knew this woman was a designing hussy from the first moment I set eyes on her. Men are defenceless against such creatures. I have noticed it all my life, or certainly since Hugh got married. I shall be most surprised,” Lady Muriel finished in magnificent rage, “if this woman does not turn out to be barren.”

“Now just why has Lady Mu decided that?” cried Roy.

It gave him an hour’s respite. But the days were dragging by in black searing fears and ravaged nights, in anguish from the moment when, after he had lain awake through the white hours of the early morning, he roused himself exhaustedly to open the daily paper. The news glared at him — for his melancholy was the melancholy of his nature, but it had drawn into him the horror of war.

Most of the college were uncomfortable and strained about the prospect of war; only one or two of the very old escaped. Several men were torn, though not so deeply and tragically as Roy. They were solid conservatives, men of property, used to the traditional way of life; they were not fools, they knew a war must destroy many of their comforts and perhaps much else; they had hated communism for twenty years, in their hearts they still hated it more than national socialism; yet, with the obstinate patriotic sense of their class and race, they were slowly coming to feel that they might have to fight Germany. They felt it with extreme reluctance. Even now, they were chary of the prospect of letting “that man Churchill” into the cabinet. There might still be time for a compromise. In May, that was the position which Arthur Brown took up. He was just as stubborn as he was in college politics: he was appreciably more anti-German than most of the college right. Some were much more willing to appease at almost any cost.

They had all gathered rumours about Roy’s sympathies, they had heard some of his comments in hall. Ironically, his name was flaunted about, this time as an authority, by old Despard-Smith. The old man was virulently pro-Munich, bitterly in favour of any other accommodation. He kept quoting Roy: “Calvert has just come back from Germany and he says…” “Calvert told someone yesterday…” Roy smiled, to find himself approved of at last in that quarter.

But Francis Getliffe did not smile at all. He was away from Cambridge many days in that summer term; we knew he was busy on Air Ministry experiments, but it was only much later that we realised he had been occupied with the first installations of radar. He came back and dined in hall one night, looking as tired as Roy — looking in fact more worn, though not so hag-ridden. It happened to be a night when most of the left were not dining. Nor was Winslow, who was an old-fashioned liberal but spoke caustically on Getliffe’s side — he had quarrelled acidly with the older men over Munich.

That night Despard-Smith and others were saying that war was quite unnecessary. Francis Getliffe, short-tempered with fatigue, told them that they would soon present Hitler with the whole game. “Calvert says,” began Despard-Smith. Getliffe interrupted him: “Unless you all keep your nerve, the devils have got us. It’s our last chance. I’m tired of this nonsense.”

The high table was truculent and quarrelsome in its own fashion, but it was not used to words so openly harsh. With some dignity, old Despard-Smith announced that he did not propose to drink port that night: “I have been a fellow for fifty years next February, and it is too late to begin having my head bitten off in this hall.”

Arthur Brown, Roy, Francis Getliffe and I were left in the combination room, and Brown promptly ordered a bottle of port.

“It’s rather sensible to drink an occasional bottle,” said Brown, looking kindly and shrewdly at the others. “We never know whether it will be so accessible in the near future.”

“I’m sorry, Brown,” said Francis Getliffe. “I oughtn’t to have cursed the old man.”

“It’s all right, old chap,” said Arthur Brown comfortingly. “Everyone wants to address a few well-chosen remarks to Despard on some subject or other. How are you yourself?” He smiled anxiously at Francis, for Arthur Brown, whatever his hopes of a compromise, believed in keeping his powder dry: and hence scientists wearing themselves out in military preparations had to be cherished.

“In good order,” said Francis. But it was false: he seemed as though he should be put to bed for a fortnight. He was painfully frayed, thinking of his experiments, thinking of how he could flog himself on, thinking of how many months were left. He turned to Roy: “Calvert, you’re doing harm.”

“Harm to what?”

“To our chances of winning this war.”

“The war hasn’t come.”

“It will. You know as well as I do that it will.”

“I’m frightened that it will,” said Roy.

“The only thing to be frightened about,” said Francis harshly, “is that we shall slide out of it. That’s what I’m frightened of. If we get out of it this time, we’re finished. The fascists have won.”

“I suppose you mean the Germans,” said Arthur Brown, who never accepted anything which he suspected was a left-wing formula. “I don’t think I can go all the way with you, Getliffe. It might suit our book to have another breathing space.”

“No,” said Francis. “Our morale will weaken. Theirs will get tougher.”

“Yes,” said Roy clearly, “theirs will get tougher.”

“You like the idea, don’t you?” Francis cried.

“They are remarkable people.”

“Good God.” Francis’ face was flushed with passion. “You like authority wherever it rears its head.”

“That may be so. I haven’t been very clever at finding it, have I?”

Roy had spoken with the lightness that deceived, and Francis did not realise that he had struck much deeper than he knew. Neither Arthur Brown nor I could take our eyes from Roy’s face.

“I don’t know what you’ve found,” said Francis impatiently. “I should have thought you might be content among your fascist friends.”

“If so,” said Roy, “I might have stayed there.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“No,” said Roy, “you wouldn’t see why not.”

“You’d be less dangerous there than you are here,” shouted Francis, stung to bitter anger.

“I dare say. I’m not so concerned about that as you are.”

“Then you’ve got to be,” Francis said, and the quarrel became fiercer. Arthur Brown tried to steady them, offered to present another bottle of port, but they were too far gone. Brown listened with a frown of puzzlement and concern. He admired Francis Getliffe, but his whole outlook, even his idioms, were foreign to Brown. Francis took it for granted, in the way in which he and I and many of our generation had been brought up, that there were just two sides in the world, and that the battle between them was joined, and that no decent man could hesitate an instant. “My Manichaeans had the same idea,” said Roy, which made Francis more angry.

To Francis, to all men like him and many less incisive, it all seemed starkly plain in black-and-white. Issues have to seem so at the fighting-points of history. It was only later, looking back, that one saw the assumptions we had made, the ignorant hopes we had indulged, the acts of faith that looked strange in the light of what was actually to come. At that moment, Francis was saying, everything must be sacrificed to win: this was the great crisis, and until it was over we could not afford free art, disinterested speculation, the pleasures of detachment, the vagaries of the lonely human soul. They were luxuries. This was no time for luxuries. Our society was dying, and we could not rest until we had the new one safe.

Roy replied, sometimes with his light grave clarity, sometimes with the kind of frivolous gibes that infuriated Francis most. “Do you believe everything that’s written in Cyrillic letters?” asked Roy. “I must learn Russian. I’m sure you’d be upset if I translated Pravda to you every night.” He told Francis that communism (or Francis’ approach to it, for Francis was not a member of the party) was a “romantic” creed, for all its dryness. “It’s realistic about the past. Entirely so. But it’s wildly romantic about the future. Why, it believes it’s quite easy to make men good. It’s far more optimistic than Christianity. You need to read Saint Augustine, you know. Or Pascal. Or Hügel. But then they knew something of life.”

Once or twice Brown chuckled, but he was uneasy. He was deeply fond of Roy; much of what Roy said came far nearer to him than anything of Francis’.

But Brown was cautious and realistic. He believed Roy was completely reckless — and every word he said on Germany filled Brown with alarm. Brown was ready to anticipate that his protégés would get into trouble. Roy’s folly might be the most painful of all.

As for me, I was watching for the terrible elation. His wretchedness had weighed him down for weeks; it was melancholy at its deepest, and it was beginning to break into the lightning flashes.

I was expecting an outburst, and this time I was terrified where it would end.

It was that sign I was listening for, not anything else in their quarrel. But Roy’s last words that night were quite calm.

“You think I’m dangerous, don’t you?” he said. “Believe this: you and your friends are much more so. You know you’re right, don’t you? It has never crossed your mind that you might be wrong. And that doesn’t seem to you — dreadful.”

For a few days nothing seemed to change. Roy did not often dine in hall, but I listened in dread for each rumour about him: when I saw Arthur Brown walking towards me in the court, intending to carry me off for a confidential talk, I wanted to shy away — but it was only to consider whether the time had come to “ventilate” the question of a new fellow. Wars might be near us, but Arthur Brown took it for granted that the college government must be carried on. I asked Bidwell each morning how Mr Calvert was. “He’s not getting his sleep, sir,” said Bidwell. “No, he’s not getting his sleep. As I see it, sir — I know it’s not my place to say it — but it’s all on account of his old books. He’s overtaxed his brain. That’s how I see it, sir.”

Then, as a complete surprise, I received a note from Lady Muriel. She was staying at the University Arms: would I excuse the short notice, and go to the hotel for tea? I knew that she had arrived, I knew that Roy had given her dinner the night before: but I was astonished to be summoned. I had never been exactly a favourite of hers. I felt a vague malaise: I was becoming morbidly anxious.

Lady Muriel had taken a private sitting-room, looking out upon Parker’s Piece. She greeted me as she used to in the Lodge; she seemed almost to fancy that she was still there.

“Good afternoon, Mr Eliot. I am glad that you were able to come.” Her neck was stiff, her back erect as ever; but it took more effort than it used. Trouble was telling, even on her. “I will ring at once for tea.”

She asked about my work, my pupils and — inexorably — my wife. It all sounded like the rubric of days past. She poured out my cup of Indian tea; it was like her, I thought, to remember that I disliked China, to disapprove of my taste and attribute it firmly to my lowly upbringing, and yet still to feel that a hostess was obliged to provide for it. She put her cup down, and regarded me with her bold innocent eyes.

“Mr Eliot, I wish to ask you a personal question.”

“Lady Muriel?”

“I do not wish to pry. But I must ask this question. Have you noticed anything wrong with Roy?”

I was taken aback.

“He’s desperately overstrained,” I said.

“I considered that you might have noticed something,” said Lady Muriel. “But I believe it is worse. I believe he has some worry on his mind.”

She stared at me.

“Do you know what this worry is, Mr Eliot?”

“He’s very sad,” I began. “But—”

“Mr Eliot,” Lady Muriel announced, “I am a great believer in woman’s intuition. Men are more gifted than we are intellectually. I should never have presumed to disagree with the Master on a purely intellectual matter. But it takes a woman to see that a man is hiding some private worry. Roy has always been so wonderfully carefree. I saw the difference at once.”

She sighed.

“Is it because of some woman?” she said suddenly.

“No.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

“We must put our finger on it,” said Lady Muriel. She was baffled, distressed, unhappy; her voice was firm and decided, but only by habit; her whole heart went out to him. “Surely he knows we want to help him. Does he know that I would do anything to help him?”

“I am quite sure he does.”

“I am very glad to hear you say that. I should like to have told him. But there are things one always finds it impossible to say.”

She turned her head away from me. She was looking out of the window, when she said: “I tried to get him to confide this worry last night.”

“What did you do?”

“I used a little finesse. Then I asked him straight out.”

She burst out: “He put me off. I know men like to keep their secrets. But there are times when it is better for them to talk. If only they would see it. It is so difficult to make them. And one feels that one is only an intruder.”

She faced me again. Then I knew why she had averted her eyes. She was fighting back the tears.

She collected herself, and spoke to me with exaggerated firmness, angry that I had seen her weak.

“There is one thing I can do, Mr Eliot. I shall ring up my daughter Joan. She knows Roy better than I do. Perhaps she will be able to discover what is wrong. Then between us we could assist him.”

I used all my efforts to dissuade her. I argued, persuaded, told her that it was unwise. But the only real reason I could not give: and Lady Muriel stayed invincibly ignorant.

“Mr Eliot, you must allow me to judge when to talk to my daughter about a common friend.” She added superbly: “My family have been brought up to face trouble.”

On the spot, she telephoned Joan, who was in London. There could be only one answer, the answer I had been scheming to avoid, the answer which Joan would want to give from the bottom of her heart. It came, of course. Joan would catch the next train and see Roy that evening.

Lady Muriel said goodbye to me.

“My daughter and I will do our best, Mr Eliot. Thank you for giving me your advice.”

I went straight from the hotel to Roy’s rooms. It was necessary that he should be warned at once. His outer door was not locked, as it was most evenings now — but he himself was lying limp in an armchair. There was no bottle or glass in sight; there was no manuscript under his viewing lamp, and no book open; it was as though he had lain there, inert, for hours.

“Hullo,” he said, from a far distance.

“I think you should know,” I said. “Joan will be here in an hour or two.”

“Who?”

I repeated my message. It was like waking him from sleep.

At last he spoke, but still darkly, wearily, from a depth no one could reach.

“I don’t want to see her.”

Some time afterwards he repeated: “I don’t want to see her. I saw her in Berlin. It made things worse. I’ve done her enough harm.”

“Roy,” I said, pressingly, “I’m afraid you must.”

His answer came after a long interval.

“I won’t see her. It will be worse for her. It will be worse for both of us. I’m not fit to see anyone.”

“You can’t just turn her away,” I said. “She’s trying to care for you. You must be good to her.”

Another long interval.

“I’m not fit to see anyone.”

“You must,” I said. “You’ve meant too much to her, you know.”

Up to then I had had very little hope. In a moment I should have given up. But then I saw an astonishing thing. With a prodigious strain, as though he were calling frantically on every reserve of body and mind, Roy seemed to bring himself back into the world. He did not want to leave his stupor: there he had escaped, perhaps for hours: but somehow he forced himself. The strain lined him with grief and suffering. He returned to searing miseries, to the appalling melancholy. Yet he was himself normal in speech, quiet, sad, able to smile, very gentle.

“I need to put a face on it,” he said. “Poor dear. I shouldn’t have brought her to this.”

He glanced at me, almost mischievously: “Am I fit to be seen now?”

“I think so.”

“I’ve got to look pretty reasonable when Joan comes. It’s important, Lewis. She mustn’t think I’m ill.” He added, with a smile: “She mustn’t think I’m — mad.”

“It will be all right.”

“If she thinks I’m really off it,” again he smiled, “she will want to look after me. And I might want her to. That mustn’t happen, Lewis. I owe her more than the others. I can’t inflict myself upon her now.”

He went on: “She will try to persuade me. But it would do us both in. I was never free with her. And I should get worse. I don’t know why it is.”

Nor did I. Of all women, she was most his equal. Yet she was the only one with whom he was not spontaneous. Somehow she had invaded him, she had not let him lose himself; by the very strength of her devotion, by her knowledge of him, by her share in his struggle, she had brought him back to the self he craved to throw away.

“Poor dear,” he said. “I shall never find anyone like her. I must make her believe that I’m all right without her. If there’s no other way, I must tell her I’m better without her. That’s why I’ve got to look reasonable, Lewis. I’ve done her enough harm. She must get free of me now. It doesn’t matter what she thinks of me.”

He smiled at me with sad and mischievous irony. Then he spoke in a tone that was matter-of-fact, quiet, and utterly and intolerably unguarded.

“I hate myself,” said Roy. “I’ve brought unhappiness to everyone I’ve known. It would have been better if I’d never lived. I should be wiped out so that everyone could forget me.”

I could not go through the pretence of consoling him, I could not reply until he spoke again. He had spoken so quietly and naturally that a shiver ran down my spine. It was anguish to hear such naked, simple anguish. He said: “You would have been much happier if I’d never lived, old boy. You can’t deny it. This isn’t the time to be hearty, is it?”

“Never mind about happiness,” I said. “It can cut one off from too much. My life would have been different without you. I prefer it as it is.”

For a second, his face lit up.

“You’ve done all you could,” he said. “I needed to tell you that — before it’s too late. You’ve done more than anyone. You’ve done more even than she did. Now I must send her away. There will only be you whom I’ve ever talked to.”

He was sitting back in his chair. The limpness had gone, and his whole body was easy and relaxed. His face was smoothed by the golden evening light.

“You won’t sack me just now, will you?” he said. “Whatever I do? I shall need you yet.”

I went back to my rooms, and from the window seat watched Joan enter the court. The undergraduates were in hall, she was alone on the path, walking with her gawky, sturdy step. She passed out of sight on her way to Roy’s staircase. I sat there gazing down; I had missed dinner myself, I could not face high table that night; the court gleamed in the summer evening. The silence was broken as men came out of hall; they shouted to each other, sat on the edge of the grass; then they went away. Lights came on in some of the dark little rooms, though it was not yet sunset and bright in the court. Beside one light I could see a young man reading: the examinations were not yet finished, and the college was quiet for nine o’clock on a summer night.

I turned my thoughts away from Roy and Joan, and then they tormented me again. Would she see that he was acting? Would she feel the desperate effort of pretence? Did she know that tomorrow he would be half-deranged?

At last I saw her pass under my window again. She was alone. Her face was pallid, heavy and set, and her feet were dragging.

29: Realism at a Cricket Match

Lady Muriel’s observations on Roy might once have amused me. I should like to have told him that, for the first occasion since we met her, she had noticed something she had not been told; and he would have laughed lovingly at her obtuseness, her clumsiness, the pent-in power of her stumbling, hobbled feelings.

In fact, that afternoon she had made me more alarmed. Roy must be visibly worse than I imagined. Living by his side day after day, I had become acclimatised to much; if one lives in the hourly presence of any kind of suffering, one grows hardened to it in time. I knew that too well, not only from him. It is those who are closest and dearest who see a fatal transformation last of all.

I reassured myself a little. Apart from Arthur Brown, no one in the college seemed to have detected anything unusual in Roy’s state that summer. He dined in hall two or three nights a week, and, except for his views on Germany, passed under their eyes without evoking any special interest. For some reason he stayed preternaturally silent when he dined (I once taxed him with it, and he whispered “lanthanine is the word for me”), but nevertheless it was curious they should observe so little. They were, of course, more used than most men to occasional displays of extreme eccentricity; most of our society, like any other college at this period, were comfortable, respectable, solid middle-aged men, but they had learned to put up with one or two who had grown grotesquely askew. It was part of the secure, confident air.

After Lady Muriel talked to me, I was preparing myself for a disaster. I tried to steady myself by facing it in the cold merciless light of early morning: this will be indescribably worse than what has happened before, this will be sheer disaster. I might have to accept any horror. What I feared and expected most was an outburst about Germany and the war — a speech in public, a letter to the press, a public avowal of his feeling for the Reich. I feared it most for selfish reasons — at that period, such an outburst would be an excruciating ordeal for me.

After he sent Joan away, he was sunk in the abyss of depression. But he did nothing. The day that the Boscastles arrived, he even sustained with Lord Boscastle a level, realistic and sober conversation about the coming war.

The Boscastles had invited us to lunch, and Lady Muriel and Humphrey were there as well.

Through the beginning of the meal Lord Boscastle and Roy did all the talking. They found themselves in a strong and sudden sympathy about the prospect of war. They could see no way out, and they were full of a revulsion almost physical in its violence. Lady Muriel looked startled that men should talk so frankly about the miseries of war: but she knew that her brother had been decorated in the last war, and it would never even have occurred to her that men would not fight bravely if it was their duty.

“It will be frightful,” said Roy. Throughout he had spoken moderately and sensibly; he had said no more than many men were saying; he had remarked quietly that he did not know his own courage — it might be adequate, he could not tell.

“It will be frightful.” Lord Boscastle echoed the phrase. And I saw his eyes leave Roy and turn with clouded, passionate anxiety upon his son. Humphrey Bevill was still good-looking in his frail, girlish way; his skin was pink, smooth and clear; he had his father’s beaky nose, which somehow did not detract from his delicacy. His eyes were bright china blue, like his mother’s. He had led a disreputable life in Cambridge. He had genuine artistic feeling without, so far as I could discover, a trace of talent.

Lord Boscastle stared at his son with anxiety and longing; for Lord Boscastle could not restrain his strong instinctive devotion, and for him war meant nothing more nor less than danger to his beloved son.

I watched Lady Boscastle mount her lorgnette and regard them both, with a faint, charming, contemptuous, coolly affectionate quiver on her lips.

Then Lord Boscastle took refuge in his own peculiar brand of stoicism. He asked Humphrey to show him again the photograph of that year’s Athenaeum. This bore no relation to the Athenaeum where I had tea with the old Master, the London club of successful professional men. The Cambridge Athenaeum was the ultra-fashionable élite of the most fashionable club for the gilded youth; it was limited to twenty, and on the photograph of twenty youthful, and mainly titled, faces Lord Boscastle cast a scornful and dismissive eye.

At any rate, he appeared to feel, there was still time to reject these absurd pretensions to be classed among their betters. Several of them had names much more illustrious than that of Bevill; but it took more than centuries of distinction to escape Lord Boscastle’s jehovianic strictures that afternoon. “Who is this boy, Humphrey? I’m afraid I can’t for the life of me remember his name.” He was told “Lord Arthur—” “Oh, perhaps that accounts for it, should you have thought? They have never really quite managed to recover from their obscurity, should you think they have?” He pointed with elaborate distaste to another youth. “Incorrigibly parvenu, I should have said. With a certain primitive cunning in financial matters. Such as they showed when they fleeced my great-grandfather.”

Lord Boscastle placed the photograph a long way off along the table, as though he might get a less displeasing view.

“Not a very distinguished collection, I’m afraid, Humphrey. I suppose it was quite necessary for you to join them? I know it’s always easier to take the course of least resistance. I confess that I made concessions most of my life, but I think it’s probably a mistake for us to do so, shouldn’t you have thought?”

The Boscastles, Lady Muriel and I were all dining with Roy the following night. I did not see any more of him for the rest of that day, and next morning Bidwell brought me no news. Bidwell was, however, full of the preparations for the dinner. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It will be a bit like the old times. Mr Calvert is the only gentleman who makes me think back to the old times, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so. It will be a pleasure to wait on you tonight, I don’t mind telling you, sir.”

So far as I could tell, Roy was keeping to his rooms all day. I hesitated about intruding on him; in the end, I went down to Fenner’s for a few hours’escape. It was the Free Foresters’match. Though it was pleasant to chat and sit in the sunshine, there was nothing noteworthy about the play. Two vigorous ex-blues, neither of them batsmen of real class, were clumping the ball hard to extra cover. If one knew the game, one could immerse oneself in points of detail. There could not have been a more peaceful afternoon.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“They told me I should find you here, but I didn’t really think I should.” The voice had a dying fall; I looked round and saw the smile on Rosalind’s face, diffident, pathetic, impudent. I apologised to my companion, and walked with Rosalind round the ground.

“I wonder if I could beg a cup of tea?” she said.

I gave her tea in the pavilion; with the hearty appetite that I remembered, she munched several of the cricketers’ buns. She talked about herself and me, not yet of Roy. Her manner was still humorously plaintive, as though she were ill-used, but she had become more insistent and certain of herself. Her determination was not so far below the surface now. She had been successful in her job, and had schemed effectively for a better one. She was making a good many hundreds a year. Her eyes were not round enough, her voice not enough diminuendo, to conceal as effectively as they used that she was a shrewd and able woman. And there was another development, minor but curious. She was still prudish in her speech, still prudish when her eyes gave a shameless hint of lovemaking — but she had become remarkably profane.

She looked round the pavilion, and said: “We can’t very well talk here, can we?”

Which, since several of the Free Foresters’ team were almost touching us, seemed clear. I took her to a couple of seats in the corner of the ground: on the way, Rosalind said: “I know I oughtn’t to have interrupted you, really. But it is a long time since I saw you, Lewis, isn’t it? Did you realise it, I very nearly tracked you down that day at Boscastle?”

“It’s a good job you didn’t,” I said. “Lady Muriel was just about ready to take a stick to you.”

Rosalind swore cheerfully and grinned.

“She’s in Cambridge now, by the way,” I said.

“I knew that.”

“You’d better be careful. If you mean to marry Ralph Udal.”

“Of course I mean to marry him. Why ever do you say such horrid things?” She opened her eyes wide.

“Come off it,” I said, copying Roy’s phrase. It was years since I had been her confidant, but at a stroke we had gone back to the old terms.

“No, I shall marry Ralph, really I shall. Mind you, I’m not really in love with him. I don’t think I shall ever really fall in love again. I’m not sure that I want to. It’s pretty bloody, being too much in love, isn’t it? No, I shall settle down with Ralph all right. You just won’t know me as the vicar’s wife.”

“That’s true,” I said, and Rosalind looked ill-used.

We had just sat down under one of the chestnut trees.

“I shall settle down so that you wouldn’t believe it,” said Rosalind. “But I’m not going to fool myself. After old Roy, other men seem just a tiny little bit dull. It stands to sense that I should want to see the old thing now and again.”

“It’s dangerous,” I said.

“I’m not so bad at covering up my traces when I want to,” said Rosalind, who was only willing to think of practical dangers.

She asked, with a glow of triumph: “Do you think I oughtn’t to have come? The old thing asked me to look him up. When he wrote about me and Ralph. And he did seem rather pleased to see me last night. I really think he was a bit pleased to see me.”

She laid her hand on my arm, and said, half-guiltily, half-provocatively: “Anyway, he asked me to go to a ball with him tonight.”

“Are you going?”

“What do you think? It’s all right, I’ll see that the old gorgon doesn’t find out. I’m not going to have her exploding down in Boscastle. I won’t have Ralph upset. After all,” she grinned at me, “a husband in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

She and Roy had arranged to go to a ball at one of the smaller colleges, where none of us had close friends. I warned her that it was still a risk.

She pursed her lips. “Why do you want to stop us?” she said. “You know it might take the old thing out of himself. He’s going through one of his bad patches, isn’t he? It will do him good to have a night on the tiles.”

I could not prevent myself laughing. Under the chestnut, an expensive lingering scent pervaded the hot afternoon. There was a bead of moisture on her upper lip, but her hair was swept up in a new, a rakish, a startling Empire coiffure. I asked when she had had time to equip herself like the Queen of the May.

“When do you think?” said Rosalind with lurking satisfaction. “I went up to town first thing this morning and told my hairdresser that she’d got to do her damnedest. The idiot knows me, of course, and when she’d finished she said with a soppy smile that she hoped my fiancé would like it. I nearly asked her why she thought I should care what my fiancé thinks of it. It’s what my young man thinks of it that I’m interested in.”

What was going through her head, I wondered, as I walked back across Parker’s Piece? She was reckless, but she was also practical. If need be, she would marry Ralph Udal without much heartbreak and without repining. But need it be? I was ready to bet that, in the last few hours, she had asked herself that question. I should be surprised if she was in a hurry to fix the date of her wedding.

As I was dressing for dinner, Roy threw open my bedroom door. His white tie was accurately tied, his hair smooth, but I was thrown into alarm at the sight of him. His eyes were lit up.

I was frightened, but in a few minutes I discovered that this had been only a minor outrage. It came as a respite. I even laughed from relief when I found how he had broken out. But I felt that he was on the edge of sheer catastrophe. It could not be far away: perhaps only a few hours. His smile was brilliant, but frantic and bitter; his voice was louder than usual, and a laugh rang out with reedy harshness. The laugh made my pulses throb in tense dismay. This fearful excitement must break soon.

Yet his actions that afternoon were like hitting out at random, and would not do much harm. They had been set off by an unexpected provocation. The little book on the heresies, by Vernon Royce and R C E Calvert, had been published at last, early in the summer. Since Lyall’s death, Roy’s reputation had increased sharply in English academic circles, owing to the indefatigable herald-like praise by Colonel Foulkes, who was now quite unhampered. But the heresy book had been received grudgingly and bleakly; most of the academic critics seemed to relish dismissing Royce now that he was dead. That morning Roy had read a few sentences about the book in the Journal of Theological Studies: “…Mr Calvert is becoming recognised as a scholar of great power and penetration. But there is little sign of those qualities in this book’s treatment of a subject which requires the most profound knowledge of the sources and origins of religious belief and its perversions. From internal evidence, it is not overdifficult to attribute most of the insufficiently thought-out chapters to the late Mr Royce, who, in all his writings on comparative religion, never revealed the necessary imagination to picture the religious experience of others nor the patient and detailed scholarship which might have given value to his work in the absence of the imaginative gifts…”

Roy was savagely and fantastically angry. He had sent off letters of which he showed me copies. They were in the Housmanish language of scholarly controversy, bitter, rude, and violent — one to the editor asking why he permitted a man “ignorant, unteachable, stupid, and corrupt” to write in his journal, and one to the reviewer himself. The reviewer was a professor at Oxford, and to him Roy had written: “I have before me your witty review. You are either too old to read: or too venal to see honestly. You attribute some chapters to my collaborator and you have the effrontery to impugn the accuracy of that work, and so malign the reputation of a better man than yourself. I wrote those chapters; I am a scholar; that you failed to see the chapters were precise is enough to unfit you for such tasks as reading proofs. If you are not yet steeped in your love of damaging others you will be so abashed that you will not write scurrilities about Royce again. You should state publicly that you were wrong, and that you stand guilty of incompetence, self-righteousness and malice.”

Roy was maddened that they should still decry Royce. With the desperate clarity which visited him in his worst hours, he saw them gloating comfortably, solidly, stuffed with their own rectitude, feeling a warm comfortable self-important satisfaction that Royce had never come off, could not even come off after his death: he saw them saying in public what a pity it was that Royce was not more gifted, how they wanted so earnestly to praise him, how only duty and conscience obliged them so reluctantly to tell the truth. He saw the gloating on solid good-natured faces.

As we walked through the court to his dinner party, he broke out in a clear, passionate tone: “All men are swine.”

He added, but still without acceptance, charity, or rest: “The only wonder is, the decent things they manage to do now and then. They show a dash of something better, once or twice in their lives. I don’t know how they do it — when I see what we are really like.”

30: Waiting at Night

The desks in Roy’s sitting-room had been pushed round the wall, where one noticed afresh their strange shapes and colours. In the middle, the table had been laid for eight — laid with five glasses at each place and a tremendous bowl of orchids in the middle. It was not often Roy indulged in the apolaustic; he used to chuckle even at the subdued, comfortable, opulent display of Arthur Brown’s claret parties; extravagant meals were not in Roy’s style, they contained for him something irresistibly comic, a hint of Trimalchio. But that night he was for once giving one himself. Decanters of burgundy and claret stood chambering in a corner of the room; the cork of a champagne bottle protruded from a bucket; on a small table were spread out plates of fruit, marrons glacés, petits fours, cold savouries for aperitifs and after-tastes.

The person who enjoyed it all most was undoubtedly Bidwell. He took it upon himself to announce the guests; the first we knew of this new act was when Bidwell threw open the door, decorous and rubicund, the perfect servant, and proclaimed with quiet but ringing satisfaction: “Lady Muriel Royce!”

And then, slightly less vigorously (for Bidwell needed a title to move him to his most sonorous): “Mrs Seymour!”

“Mrs Houston Eggar!”

Since Lady Muriel left the Lodge, I had escaped my old dinner-long conversations with Mrs Seymour; in the midst of despondency, Roy had been able to think out that joke; it was time to see that she pestered me again. Before they came in, he had been talking to me with his fierce, frightening excitement. As he greeted her, he was enough himself to give me a glance, sidelong and mocking.

I attached myself to Mrs Eggar, whom I had only met once before. Eggar had sent her back from Berlin with her baby, and she was staying with Mrs Seymour for the summer. She was a pretty young woman with a beautiful skin and eyes easily amused, but a thin, tight, pinched-in mouth. She had considerable poise, and often seemed to be laughing to herself. I found her rather attractive, somewhat to my annoyance, for she was obstinate, self-satisfied, vain and narrow, far less amiable than her pushing, humble, masterful husband.

Bidwell came to the door again and got our attention. Then he called out in triumph: “The Earl and Countess of Boscastle!”

It was a moment for Bidwell to cherish.

His next call, and the last, was an anticlimax. It was simply: “Mr Winslow!”

I was surprised; I had not known till then who was making up the party. It seemed a curious choice. Roy had not been seeing much of the old man. He was not even active in the college any longer, for he had resigned the bursarship in pride and rage over a year before. Yet in one way he was well-fitted for the party. He had been an enemy of the old Master’s, Lady Muriel had never liked him — but still he had been the only fellow whom she treated as some approximation to a social equal. Winslow was fond of saying that he owed his comfortable fortune to the drapery trade, and in fact his grandfather had owned a large shop in St Paul’s Churchyard; but his grandfather nevertheless had been a younger son of an old county family, a family which had remained in a curiously static position for several hundred years. They had been solid and fairly prosperous country gentlemen in the seventeenth century: in the twentieth, they were still solid country gentlemen, slightly more prosperous. Winslow referred to his ancestors with acid sarcasm, but it did not occur to Lady Muriel, nor apparently to Lord Boscastle, to enquire who they were.

With Roy in the state I knew, I was on edge for the evening to end. (I was strung up enough to suspect that he might have invited Winslow through a self-destructive impulse. Winslow had watched one outburst, and might as well have the chance to see another.) In any other condition, I should have revelled in it. To begin with, Winslow was patently very happy to be there, and there was something affecting about his pleasure. He was, as we knew, cross-grained, rude, bitter with himself and others for being such a failure; yet his pleasure at being asked to dinner was simple and fresh. I had the impression that it was years since he went into society. He did not produce any of the devastating snubs he used on guests in hall; but he was not at all overborne by Lord Boscastle, either socially or as a man. They got on pretty well. Soon they were exchanging memories of Italy (meanwhile Mrs Seymour, who was, of course, seated next to me, confided her latest enthusiasm in an ecstatic breathless whisper. It was for Hitler — which did not make it easier to be patient. “It must be wonderful,” she said raptly, “to know that everyone is obliged to listen to you. Imagine seeing all those faces down below… And no one can tell you to stop.”)

The dinner was elaborate and grand. Roy had set out to beat the apolaustic at their own game. And he had contrived that each person there should take special delight in at least one course — there were oysters for Lady Muriel, whitebait for me, quails for Lady Boscastle. Most of the party, even Lady Boscastle, ate with gusto. I should have been as enthusiastic as any of them, but I was only anxious that the courses should follow more quickly, that we could see the party break up in peace. Roy was not eating and drinking much; I told myself that he had a ball to attend when this was over. But I should have been more reassured to see him drink. His eyes were brighter and fuller than normal, and his voice had changed. It was louder, and without the inflections, the variety, the shades of different tone as he turned from one person to another. Usually his voice played round one. That night it was forced out, and had a brazen hardness.

He spoke little. He attended to his guests. He mimicked one or two people for Winslow’s benefit: it affected me that the imitations were nothing like as exact as usual. The courses dragged by; at last there was a chocolate mousse, to be followed by an ice. Both Lord Boscastle and Winslow, who had strongly masculine tastes, refused the sweet. Lady Muriel felt they should not be left unreproved.

“I am sorry to see that you’re missing this excellent pudding, Hugh,” she said.

“You ought to know by now, Muriel,” said Lord Boscastle, defensively, tiredly, “that I’m not much good at puddings.”

“It has always been considered a college speciality,” said Lady Muriel, clinching the argument. “I remember telling the Master that it should become recognised as the regular sweet at the Audit feast.”

“I’m very forgetful of these matters,” said Winslow, “but I should be slightly surprised if that happened, Lady Muriel. To the best of my belief, this admirable concoction has never appeared at a feast at all.”

He could not resist the gibe: for it was not a function of the Master to prescribe the menus for feasts, much less of Lady Muriel.

“Indeed,” said Lady Muriel. “I am astonished to hear it, Mr Winslow. I think you must be wrong. Let me see, when is the next audit?”

“November.”

“I hope you will pay particular attention.”

“If you please, Lady Muriel. If you please.”

“I think you will find I am right.”

They went on discussing feasts and college celebrations as though they were certain to happen, as though nothing could disturb them. There was a major college anniversary in 1941, two years ahead.

“I hope the college will begin its preparations in good time,” said Lady Muriel. “Two years is not long. You must be ready in two years’ time.”

Suddenly Roy laughed. They were all silent. They had heard that laugh. They did not understand it, but it was discomforting, like the sight of someone maimed. “Two years’ time,” he cried. He laughed again.

The laugh struck into the quiet air. Across the table, across the sumptuous dinner, Lady Boscastle looked at me; I was just going to try. But it was Lady Muriel who awkwardly, hesitatingly, did not shirk her duty.

“I know what you are feeling, Roy,” she said. “We all feel exactly as you do. But it is no use anticipating. One has to go on and trust that things will get better.”

Roy smiled at her.

“Just so, Lady Mu,” he said.

Perhaps it was best that she had spoken. Her very ineptness had gone through him. He became calmer, though his eyes remained fiercely bright.

With ineffable relief, even though it meant only a postponement, I saw the port go round, the sky darken through the open windows. We heard the faint sound of music from the college ball.

Mrs Eggar had to leave early because of her child. Roy escorted her and Mrs Seymour to their taxi and then came back. He was master of himself quite enough to seem unhurried; no one would have thought that he was waiting to go to a young woman. It was between eleven and twelve. Lord Boscastle and Winslow decided to stroll together in the direction of Winslow’s home; Lady Boscastle wished to stop in my rooms for a little; so Roy was free to take Lady Muriel to the hotel.

I helped Lady Boscastle into an armchair beside my fireplace.

“I haven’t had the chance to tell you before, my dear boy,” she said, “but you look almost respectable tonight.”

But she had not settled down into sarcastic badinage before Bidwell, who was on duty at the ball, tapped softly at the door and entered. “Lord Bevill is asking whether he can see Lady Boscastle, sir.” I nodded, and Bidwell showed Humphrey Bevill into the room.

Humphrey had been acting in an undergraduate performance, and there were still traces of paint on his face. He was exhilarated and a little drunk. “I didn’t really want to see you, Lewis,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to discover where my mother is hiding.” He went across to Lady Boscastle. “They’ve kept you from me ever since you arrived, mummy. I won’t let you disappear without saying goodnight.”

He adored her; he would have liked to stay, to have thrown a cushion on the floor and sat at her feet.

“This is very charming of you, Humphrey.” She smiled at him with her usual cool, amused indulgence. “I thought I had invited myself to tea in your rooms tomorrow — tête-à-tête?”

“You’ll come, won’t you, mummy?”

“How could I miss it?” Then she asked: “By the way, have you seen your father tonight?”

“No.”

“He’d like to see you, you know. He has probably got back to the hotel by now.”

“Must I?”

“I really think you should. He will like it so much.” Humphrey went obediently away. Lady Boscastle sighed. “The young are exceptionally tedious, Lewis, my dear. They are so preposterously uninformed. They never realise it, of course. They are very shocked if one tells them that they seem rather — unrewarding.”

She smiled.

“Poor Humphrey,” she said.

“He’s very young,” I said.

“Some men,” said Lady Boscastle, “stay innocent whatever happens to them. I have known some quite well-accredited rakes who were innocent all through their lives. They never knew what this world is like.”

“That can be true of women too,” I said.

“Most women are too stupid to count,” said Lady Boscastle indifferently. “No, Lewis, I’m afraid that Humphrey will always be innocent. He’s like his father. They’re quite unfit to cope with what will happen to them.”

“What will happen to them?”

“You know as well as I do. Their day is done. It will finish this time — if it didn’t in 1914, which I’m sometimes inclined to think. It will take someone much stronger than they are to live as they’ve been bred to live. It takes a very strong man nowadays to live according to his own pleasure. Hugh tried, but he hadn’t really the temperament, you see. I doubt whether he’s known much happiness.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I could always manage, my dear. Didn’t you once tell me that I was like a cat?”

She was scrutinising her husband and her son with an anthropologist’s detachment. And she was far more detached than the rest of them about the fate of their world. She liked it; it suited her; it had given her luxury, distinction and renown; now it was passing forever, and she took it without a moan. “I thought,” she said, “that your friend Roy was rather égaré tonight.”

“Yes.”

“What is the matter? Is my niece still refusing to let him go? Or am I out of date?”

She said it airily. She was not much worried or interested. If Roy had been exhibiting some new phase of a love affair, she would have been the first to observe, identify and dissect. As it was, her perception stopped short, and she was ready to ignore it.

She leaned back against the head-rest of the chair. Under the reading-lamp, her face was monkey-like and yet oddly beautiful. The flesh was wizened, but the architecture of the bones could never be anything but exquisite. She looked tired, reflective and amused.

“Lewis!” she asked. “Do you feel that you are doing things for the last time?”

I was too much engrossed in trouble to have speculated much.

“I do,” said Lady Boscastle. “Quite strongly. I suppose the chances are that we shall not dine here again. It tends to give such occasions a certain poignancy.”

She smiled.

“It didn’t happen so last time, you know. It all came from a clear sky. A very clear sky, my dear boy. Have I ever told you? I think I was happier in 1914 than I ever was before or since. I had always thought people were being absurdly extravagant when they talked of being happy. Yet I had to admit it. I was ecstatically happy myself. It was almost humiliating, my dear Lewis. And distinctly unforeseen.”

I had heard something of it before. Of all her conquests, this was the one to which she returned with a hoarding, secretive, astonished pleasure. She would not tell me who he was. “He has made his own little reputation since. I am not quite ungallant enough to boast.” I believed that it was someone I knew, either in person or by name.

The whirr and clang and chimes of midnight broke into a pause. Reluctantly Lady Boscastle felt that she must go. I was just ringing for a taxi, when she stopped me.

“No, my dear,” she said. “I have an envie for you to take me back tonight.”

Very slowly, for she had become more frail since I first met her, she walked on my arm down St Andrew’s Street. The sky had clouded, there was no moon or stars, but the touch of the night air was warm and solacing. Her stick stayed for an interval on the pavement at each step; I had to support her; she smiled and went on talking, as we passed Emmanuel, decked out for a ball. Fairy lights glimmered through the gate, and a tune found its way out. A party of young men and women, in tails and evening frocks and cloaks, made room for us on the pavement and went in to dance. They did not imagine, I thought, that they had just met a great beauty recalling her most cherished lover.

Lord Boscastle was waiting up for her in their sitting-room at the hotel.

“How very nice of you, Hugh,” she said lightly, much as she spoke to her son. “I have been keeping Lewis up. Do you mind if I leave you both now? I think I will go straight to my room. Good night, Hugh, my dear. Good night, Lewis, my dear boy.”

Lord Boscastle did not seem inclined to let me go. He poured out a whisky for me and for himself, and, when I had drunk mine, filled the tumbler again. He was impelled to find out what his wife and I had been saying to each other; he could not ask directly, he shied away from any blunt question, and yet he went too far for either of us to be easy. There was a curious tone about those enquiries, so specific that I was certain I ought to recognise it — but for a time I could not. Then, vividly, it struck me. To think that he was jealous of his wife’s affection for me was, of course, ridiculous. To think he was still consumed by the passionate and possessive love for her which had (as I now knew) darkened much of his manhood — that was ridiculous too. But he was behaving as though the habit of that consuming passion survived, when everything else had died. In his youth he had waited up for her; it was easy to imagine him striding up and down the opulent rooms of Edwardian hotels. In his youth he had been forced to question other men as he had just questioned me; he was forced under the compulsion of rivalry, he was driven to those intimate duels. At long last the hot and turbulent passion had died, as all passions must; but it had trained his heart to habits he could not break.

His was a nature too ardent to have come through lightly; I thought it again when he confronted me with Roy’s demeanour that night.

“I was afraid the man was going to make an exhibition of himself,” he said.

I had no excuse to make.

“He’ll have to learn that he mustn’t embarrass his guests. We’ve all sat through dinners wanting to throw every scrap of crockery on to the floor. But we’ve had to hide it. Damn it, I shall wake up in the night wondering what’s wrong with the young man.”

He added severely: “One will have to think twice about accepting invitations — if there’s a risk of being made miserable. One will just have to refuse.”

It sounded heartless. In a sense, it came from too much heart. It was the cool, like Lady Boscastle, who could bear to look at others’ wretchedness. Her husband became hurt, troubled, angry — angry with the person whose wretchedness embarrassed him so much.

When I went out into the street, I stood undecided, unable to make up my mind. Should I look in at the ball where Roy was dancing — to ease my mind, to see if he was there? Sometimes any action seemed soothing: it was better than waiting passively to hear bad news. It was difficult to check myself, I began to walk to the ball. Then, quite involuntarily, the mood turned within me. I retraced my steps, I went down the empty street towards my rooms.

31: Absolute Calm

I slept fitfully, heard the last dance from the college hall, and then woke late. Bidwell did not wake me at nine o’clock; when he drew up the blind, he told me that he had let me sleep on after last night’s party. He also told me that he had not seen Roy that morning: Roy had not been to bed nor come in to breakfast.

I got up with a veil of dread in front of the bright morning. I ate a little breakfast, read the newspaper without taking it in, read one or two letters. Then Roy himself entered. He was still wearing his dress suit: he was not smiling, but he was absolutely calm. I had never seen him so calm.

“I’ve been waiting about outside,” he said. “Until you’d finished breakfast. Just like a pupil who daren’t disturb you.”

“What have you done?” I cried.

“Nothing,” said Roy.

I did not believe him.

“You have finished now, haven’t you? I didn’t want to hurry you, Lewis.” He looked at me with a steady, affectionate glance. “If you’re ready — will you come into the garden?”

Without a word between us, we walked through the courts. Young men were sitting on the window sills, some of them still in evening clothes; through an open window, we heard a breakfast party teasing each other, the women’s voices excited and high.

Roy unlocked the garden gate. The trees and lawns opened to us; no sight had ever seemed so peaceful. The palladian building stood tranquil under a cloudless summer sky.

“What have you done?” I cried again.

“Nothing,” said Roy.

His face was grave, quite without strain, absolutely calm. He said: “I’ve done nothing. You expected me to break out, didn’t you? No, it left me all of a sudden. I’ve done nothing.”

Then I believed him. I had an instant of exhausted ease. But Roy said: “It’s not so good, you know. I’ve done nothing. But I’ve seen it all. Now I know what I need to expect.”

His words were quiet, light, matter-of-fact. Suddenly they pierced me. They came from an affliction greater than any horror. No frantic act could have damaged him like this. Somehow his melancholy had vanished in an instant; during the night it had broken, not into violence, but into this clear sight. At last he had given up struggling. He had seen his fate.

“It’s not easy to take,” said Roy.

He looked at me, and said: “You’ve always known that I should realise it in the end.”

“I was afraid so,” I said.

“That’s why I hid things from you.” He paused, and then went on: “I don’t see it as you do. But I see that I can’t change myself. One must be very fond of oneself not to want to change. I can’t believe that anyone would willingly stay as I am. Well, I suppose I must try to get used to the prospect.”

He did not smile. There was a humorous flick to the words, but the humour was jet-black.

“Shall I go mad?” he asked quietly.

I said: “I don’t know enough.”

“Somehow I don’t think so,” said Roy with utter naturalness. “I believe that I shall go through the old hoops. I shall have these stretches of abject misery. And I shall have fits when I feel larger than life and can’t help bursting out. And the rest of the time—”

“For the rest of the time you’ll get more out of life than anyone. Just as you always have done. You’ve got the vitality of three men.”

“Except when—”

I interrupted him again.

“That’s the price you’ve got to pay. You’ve felt more deeply than any of us. You’ve learned far more of life. In a way, believe this, you’ve known more richness. For all that — you’ve got to pay a price.”

“Just so,” said Roy, who did not want to argue. “But no one would choose to live such a life.”

“There is no choice,” I said.

“I’ve told you before, you’re more robust than I am. You were made to endure.”

“So will you endure.”

He gazed at me. He did not reply for a moment. Then he said, as though casually: “I shall always think it might have been different. I shall think it might have been different — if I could have believed in God. Or even if I could throw myself into a revolution. Even the one that you don’t like. Our friends don’t like it much either.”

The thought diverted him, and he said in a light tone: “If I told them all I’d done — some of our friends would have some remarkable points to make. Fancy telling Francis Getliffe the whole story. He would look like a judge and say I must have manic-depressive tendencies.”

For the first time that morning, Roy gave a smile. “Very wise,” he said, “I could have told him that when I was at school. If that were all.”

He talked, concealing nothing, about how the realisation had come. It had been in the middle of the night. Rosalind was dancing with an acquaintance. Roy was smoking a cigarette outside the ballroom.

“It had been breaking through for a long time. Some of my escapes were pretty — unconvincing. You would have seen that if I hadn’t kept you away. Perhaps you did. But in the end it seemed to come quite sharply. It was as sharp as when I have to lash out. But it wasn’t such fun. Everything became terribly lucid. It was the most lucid moment I’ve ever had. It was dreadful.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I shall be lucky if I forget it. It was like one of the dreams of God. But I knew that I could not get over this, I had seen how things must come.”

“Lewis,” he said, “if someone gave me a mirror in which I could see myself in ten years’ time — I should not be able to look.”

We had been sitting down; now, without asking each other, we walked round the garden. The scent of syringa was overmastering in that corner of the garden, and it was only close to that one could pick up the perfume of the rose.

“It’s not over,” said Roy. “We’ve got some way to go, haven’t we?”

His step was light and poised on the springy turf. After dancing all night, he was not tired.

“So we can be as close as we used to be,” he said. “I hope you can bear it. You won’t need to look after me now. There will be nothing to look after.”

He was speaking with extreme conviction. He took it for granted that I should understand and believe. He spoke with complete intimacy, but without any trace of mischief. He said gravely: “I should like to be some good to you. I need to make up for lost time.”