The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  Clement, coming down the stairs to collect Harvey called out, ‘Goodnight, Aleph.’

  She called, ‘Goodnight, magician.’

  Behind Moy’s closed door Anax could be heard barking. Harvey insisted on descending to the front door without help, keeping his wounded foot carefully off the ground.

  My dear son,

  Thank you for your long letter and please excuse this reply in haste. I hope that I have not misled you, and that we have not misled each other. ‘A simple shelter, like a garden shed, unheated except for an oil stove in extreme weather, in the wooded part of the grounds’, is not I am afraid to be envisaged. (Your reference to being perhaps ‘immured’ is I assume a metaphor.) I would advise you to reflect further before deciding that you really wish to come here on probation as a lay brother. You speak of a ‘vocation’, but there are many vocations in the world and opportunities to satisfy, at least to some extent, your expressed desire to ‘do nothing but good’. You speak of ‘preparing yourself’, but the surrender of a few worldly pleasures conveys no picture of the austerity of the monastic life – and, moreover, the pride which you so evidently feel in these renunciations may tend to render them valueless. What is required of you is something more radical than, as it now seems to me, you have even attempted to imagine. You must realise that you are deeply stained by the world, the stain is taken deeply, deeply as the years go by. Your wish for a revelation or a ‘great sign’ should be put away, it is a mere stumbling-block. I am glad to hear that you are taking a more sober view of your ‘visions’. As I have said to you before, religion is but too easily degraded into magic. The practice of ‘visualising’ is indeed not to be considered; I fear that you retain much of your early, and if I may say so half-baked, attachment to eastern cults! After your long and full confession I think you should abstain from brooding emotionally over early sins. An excessive cultivation of guilt may become a neurotic, even an erotic, indulgence. You should not imagine yourself to be in an ‘interesting spiritual condition’! What is needed is a cool, even cold, truthfulness: I believe that you will understand me. I am afraid that I have no time to answer the list of theological questions which you append. Let me say again that you should reflect carefully and at length about your future plans. I am sorry that you have so hastily given up your employment – and your flat – and I advise you to wait before you (as you said you intend to) give up your dog! I fear you are in danger of being too romantic about the dedicated life – you say you desire its peace and its joys – but this peace is quite unlike worldly peace, and its joys unlike worldly joys: such things are won only through deep pain in which there is no element of self-satisfaction. Please forgive this brief and I fear unpleasing letter! You know that I speak to you in love, and not in unkindness.

  Yours humbly in Christo,

  Fr Damien

  P.S. About your friend who accidentally killed a man who was attacking him. As he acted in self-defence and without any violent intent I do not see that he need feel guilty. He should however, banishing any resentment and remembering that he too is a sinner, think with compassion about his assailant, perhaps finding out something about his history and circumstances – for instance, it might be suitable for him to assist the man’s innocent wife and family. (You said little about the situation – these are but hasty reflections.)

  My dear Father Damien,

  Thank you very much indeed for your letter. Always your words lift up my heart. I particularly appreciate what you so wisely say about my friend who had the terrible misfortune to kill a man, what you say is so right, and that he might help the man’s family – I shall tell my friend this when he returns to London, it could be a comfort to him, just something wise and good which he might do – not that he is guilty of anything of course, but I fear that he may be in a state of shock. I have taken what you say about my ‘spiritual problems’ very much to heart and am thinking soberly about my plans. I hope you will understand when I say that my uncertainty concerns means not ends. I am quite sure that I want to ‘give up the world’, but still unsure about how and where this can be done. (I have sent my poor dog away.) I think you know what my heart desires. I want to surrender at last to a yearning for holiness which has travelled with me all my life. I want to be, thereby, overcome and destroyed. I desire this death. You will understand me. As I at last grasp this need as a practical possibility and not a romantic dream I have had to think hard about certain matters, hence the list of theological questions which I sent you. (I hope you still have it, I kept no copy, and that you will find time to answer some at least of my questions – if necessary I could try to indicate the most important ones.) I have no doubt that I am a Christian, but I have always left a certain area of my mind quite vacant as if I have already handed it over to God. I feel I can’t be bothered, it doesn’t matter – and, I hope, I feel it in a serious holy sort of way. I mean, of course I’ve read books, people, I mean scholars, say all sorts of things about Christ, that He was an exorcist, a magician, even a charlatan, that He was just one among other half crazy holy men, and the gospel writers just fudged them all together, that He never claimed to be God anyway, and of course there is no evidence for the Resurrection and the whole thing was really invented by St Paul – Paul who so clearly is an ordinary man – but He – could all that be true, could He be a sort of figment, He who spoke from the Mount? He who so clearly is not an ordinary man. So many things have been found out now, so many new ways of thinking. It is as if He is being stripped. Please don’t misunderstand me, I mean I’m not naive, I know that faith in Christ need not be shaken by historical evidence, that the Resurrection is a spiritual mystery, and that what matters is the living Christ whose reality we experience (sorry, I know you don’t like that word). These are just my jumbled thoughts, as you said you would accept them. But I do sometimes feel that, for me, there is this blank in the middle of it all. I want to be, here, in this, in the truth. But can I be if this last missing piece is not clearly seen? Putting it more bluntly, does ‘evidence’ matter? The Buddhists don’t think so, they have a mystical Buddha – if we have a mystical Christ can that be the real Christ? Is a mystical Christ ‘good enough’? Could there be Christ if that man never existed at all? It is almost as though He were telling us not to believe in Him! Is it necessary that I clarify all this before deciding to seek the monastic life? But – the fact is – I can’t wait – I am already captured – I have opened the door and He has entered – I am in His hands. Sometimes I have felt that divine spirits surround me, as if angels. (What do you think about angels?) And I meant to say – all this about Christ, what about God? – Well, I think God can look after Himself. (What does that mean?) Forgive all this rant. I thought of tearing this letter up but won’t. Sometimes I feel scarcely sane. But when I write to you I feel you are already enlightening me! With love from your worthless pupil.

  Bellamy James

  P.S. Another thing. The creed says that after His death upon the cross Jesus descended into Hell and on the third day rose again. What did He do in Hell? Did He rescue the good people from the past who had lived before He came? Or everybody from the past since they hadn’t known about Him, and might have led better lives if they had? Or did He go to see what really bad people were like and to sort of experience badness while He was still in human form? Of course I know this is a myth – though myth doesn’t seem the right word. I can’t help thinking what a bright light there must have been in Hell while He was there and how dark it must have been after He left.

  Bellamy put down his pen and thrust away the blanket which he had drawn over his shoulders. He lived now in one room and it was small and cold. It was late at night. The light of the lamp illumined Bellamy’s hand, and he thought, looking at it, how old my poor hand is becoming! He knew that his reply to Father Damien, swiftly written, was confused, even in places silly. But this impetuous outpouring was, he felt, the only truthful way in which he could write to the priest. Or was it, precisely, not truthful? Was
not his letter ‘picturesque’, itself a case of ‘romanticism’ and ‘neurotic erotic self-indulgence’? It showed no evidence of hard thinking. Should he not tear it up or rather use it as a text to be profitably seen through? He had not answered the questions, he had not replied to the charges. It was as if he immediately ‘de-realised’ the stern things which the priest had to say, softened and sugared and crumbled the grim language about being ‘stained’. Yes, of course he was stained by the world, of course he knew that that existence would not be peace but the continuation of life under very unpleasant circumstances! In refusing to reflect on these things he was simply leaping over the difficulties. But was not this leap just what was now required of him? Was not this faith? Father Damien’s letter, which he was now perusing again, expressed unease. The priest was troubled, startled, by the way in which Bellamy had rushed at the whole matter, and was retreating from the more come-hither position which he had occupied earlier. Bellamy had now known Father Damien for nearly two years, had visited him twice (Father Damien was ‘enclosed’) and written to him many times. Now Bellamy’s letters were disturbing the holy man. But did not Bellamy intend to disturb, was there no end to Bellamy’s duplicity? In his ‘flirtation’ with the doctrines of the East he had perhaps gone further than he had told his mentor. And there were the angels, the visions of which Father Damien thought so poorly and which had made Bellamy’s doctor speak (though the idea was dropped later) of epilepsy. The visual experiences had now gone from him leaving only, and that was now less often, the strong sense of presences, inducing anguish, joy, tears. He thought, the images are withdrawing from me. That is as it should be. What is now is simpler, more humble, more absolute. Simple because it is just a matter of desire, of Love calling unto love. (Sex?)

  Bellamy put his letter into an envelope, addressed it to the remote abbey where Father Damien was incarcerated, licked the envelope and stamped it. By this time his thoughts had wandered a little, returning to the image of Jesus, breathing His last upon the Cross, then hurrying away upon His mission to Hell. He now recalled that he had once seen (where?) a very moving picture of a scene (by whom – a disciple of Rembrandt?) entitled ‘Christ in Limbo’. But surely Limbo was not Hell? Hell was where wicked people went, Limbo was where innocent unbaptised babies went. (He could not recall any babies in the picture.) And also presumably virtuous people who lived before the Incarnation. Perhaps Christ visited Limbo on some other occasion. What was He doing, anyway, in either place? What comfort could He bring, what good could He do? What greater torment than to see that light, and then to see it eternally withdrawn? This picture of the eternal withdrawal of light evoked another distant image: that of a slim fair-haired youth going away down a road, turning, looking, then going on, then vanishing. The figure was faded like an old photograph, just faintly tinted in colour, the pale blue of the boy’s shirt, the pale blue of his eyes. The name of the boy was Magnus Blake, and he looked at Bellamy now, as he had sometimes looked in dreams, not accusingly, but with a mournful puzzlement. Bellamy had seen his tears but there were no tears now. It had all happened at Cambridge and it had all been so short and so simple. They had fallen in love. Magnus was two years younger. Shortly before this thunder-clap Bellamy had decided, after certain messy and inconclusive experiences, that it was all right to love one’s own sex, but in his case this must be done chastely. His brief glimpse of violent passion terrified him. He explained this to Magnus who thought Bellamy’s ideas were mad. They argued fiercely. Bellamy, feeling himself on fire, not able to trust himself near the boy, broke off relations abruptly. It was the end of term. He left Cambridge and did not come back. He did not answer Magnus’s letters. After he sent back a letter unopened the letters ceased. He killed within himself the voice which murmured ‘it is not too late’. Several years later a Cambridge acquaintance, who did not know of Bellamy’s relationship, mentioned Magnus, speaking of a ‘broken love affair’, but adding that Magnus had now ‘found a lovely new partner’ and emigrated to Canada. All Bellamy’s anguish was renewed. A long time had passed and Magnus had probably had other ‘broken affairs’ since Bellamy had left him. Of course Bellamy had to leave him. But he did not have to do so in such a cruel way. He blamed himself for that sudden ruthlessness which he had felt then to be directed against himself only. Perhaps if he had been braver and better he might have talked it out drearily and made Magnus tire of him. But it was precisely this which he couldn’t face. He had to be high-handed with himself, to wound himself and make sure it was his own blood upon his hands. It was his heart that must break, and his consolation would be to brood upon his own pain. He had told this story to the priest, Father Dave Foster, who had converted him to Catholicism, and later on to Father Damien. But somehow, when he told it, it changed, medicated in the telling and handed back to him as an instance of selfish irrational guilt and of youthful problems overcome long ago. The other person he told was Lucas Graffe; and to Lucas alone he told another of his secrets, that when he left Birmingham three years later he had suffered a severe depression, otherwise known as a nervous breakdown. The walking away down the road and the looking back had really happened. From the door of his lodgings he had seen Magnus walk away, look back and walk on. Bellamy closed the door. Magnus expected to see him again, he did not know that the argument was over forever. Bellamy left Cambridge the next morning.

  Bellamy removed his black jacket and undid his white shirt. Since his ‘decision’ he had dressed always in black and white, a solemnity undermined by Clement who said he was just always playing Hamlet. (A part to which Clement had so far aspired in vain.) Bellamy had given up his job at the further education college, and thereafter sold his large flat in Camden Town and moved into the one-room flatlet in Whitechapel. He had sold or given away almost all his belongings. He had given away his dog. These were steps upon the spiritual road of no return. Although Bellamy had had, in spite of his ‘resolution’, some strong ‘temptations’ after he left Cambridge, Magnus had had no successor. He was now thinking about Harvey, another blond boy with blue eyes. It occurred to him that now for the first time he was connecting Harvey with Magnus because of what had happened at the bridge, which had been so entirely Bellamy’s fault. Supposing Harvey had fallen into the ravine. Oh if only Harvey could get absolutely better! For this he prayed silently in an old familiar childish mode of discourse which was one mode of his relation with God; there were perhaps for him more sophisticated modes but none more natural. Bellamy thought about Harvey, about his particular eager beauty and his affected raffishness of a quattrocento dandy and thought too of the crestfallen boy, so disappointed and so shocked, affecting courage and continually making jokes, whom he and Clement had shepherded back to England. And Clement too: everyone knew that Clement was upset by his brother’s disappearance but only Bellamy knew how upset, how strangely, wildly upset Clement was. Bellamy understood. About Lucas’s whereabouts Clement had said: I want to know and yet I don’t want to know. Of course Clement was afraid: afraid that Lucas might have killed himself or else perhaps become insane, lost his memory and after an unsuccessful attempt on his own life be lying unidentified and raving in some mental home. It must be a terrible thing to have killed a man; and Lucas’s reaction would have to be something extreme. The publicity, the ordeal in court when Lucas was accused of ‘excessive violence’ and virtually (as his defending lawyer indignantly said) of murder, would have shaken anyone. Lucas reticent, proud, dignified, secretive, eccentric, must have been overwhelmed.

  Thinking of Clement, then of Lucas, then of Louise, Bellamy’s thoughts returned homeward to Anax, pausing on the way to reflect that now, because of Anax, he could not go to Louise’s house any more. He had not foreseen this separation when he decided to send the dog away; but of course it was implied, Anax must not now see him or hear of him ever again, he must learn to forget him. Bellamy checked what might have been some awful grief. He missed the warm bundle upon his bed at night, tucked into the crook of his knees or lying
stretched out long against his leg, silent and good, adjusting himself patiently to Bellamy’s movements, aware of Bellamy’s sleeping and his waking, knowing when it was morning time and Bellamy would take him in his arms and he would lick his master’s face. Father Damien had said, do not send the dog away. That meant something. But the dog was gone. When Bellamy had spoken to Moy, who remembered everything, about Anax’s judgmental eyes, he had not meant to indicate a censorious look. It was rather the look of perfect innocence, perfect love, which could not but be just. Bellamy thought, a dog is an image of God, better than us. He thought too of Louise and her children and of Harvey who also seemed to be her child, and how they and Clement had made up a family for him, provided him with a family life, something inherited from Teddy, a holy trust, a bond of duty, a place of absolute forgiveness and reconciliation. He loved them all, perhaps especially Moy with whom he had, since her earliest childhood, had some special intuitive understanding, so that they laughed at once, as at some private joke, when they met each other. The innocence of the children, the silent wisdom of the mother. Clement too upon whom that light fell – perhaps it was like a dream, something too perfect which was about to fall away into the distractions of the real world. Did it not depend upon the children who were so soon to lose that magic? Or do I imagine this, Bellamy thought, simply because I am losing it, and I want to believe that it will not survive me? He wrinkled up his face and put his hand before it as if to conceal it from some accusing stare, perhaps the just amorous gaze of Anax. He wondered, smoothing out his grieving mask, whether Anax was now sleeping on Moy’s bed, or was he in his basket. That would of course be, not the basket of the defunct Tibellina, but his very own old basket, brought with him from Bellamy’s flat on that terrible day of parting. Was he asleep, or perhaps awake and thinking of Bellamy, could he forget him? But was not forgetfulness the very goal, the thing itself, the blotting out of the world?