The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘So you’ve only just seen it?’ said Louise. ‘You said you didn’t know where he lived.’

  ‘He wasn’t living there,’ said Clement.

  ‘That’s what you think,’ said Bellamy.

  ‘The house hadn’t been inhabited for ages,’ said Clement, ‘it was obvious he had only just arrived. I thought it a bit odd. Perhaps he wanted to avoid someone or something.’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted to avoid Lucas,’ said Sefton, ‘perhaps he thought – ’

  ‘Or the police,’ said Harvey.

  ‘Perhaps he had forgotten where it was,’ said Moy.

  ‘It can’t be that,’ said Bellamy, ‘the house is near where I used to live – ’

  ‘So that’s how he found Anax!’ said Sefton.

  ‘He doesn’t live there, but visits it secretly at night!’ said Harvey.

  ‘I was going to say,’ said Sefton, ‘if he accosted Lucas and Lucas acted in self-defence, then he might believe that Lucas wanted to attack him, but – ’

  ‘Surely it was the other way round,’ said Louise, ‘he thought Lucas was attacking him – ’

  ‘Well, Lucas did attack him,’ said Moy.

  ‘I was just going to say that,’ said Sefton.

  ‘Please please,’ said Bellamy, ‘all this is entirely irrelevant, I am telling you that he has regained his memory and wants to make peace – ’

  ‘I don’t think it’s irrelevant, but let us leave it for another time,’ said Louise.

  ‘You say he was a Buddhist,’ said Sefton.

  ‘He is a Buddhist.’

  ‘What kind of Buddhist? Is he Zen?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘Has he lived in India or Japan?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I expect he forgot that too,’ said Harvey.

  ‘There seems to be a lot about him that we don’t know,’ said Louise. ‘Are you sure he’s genuine, that he isn’t deceiving you, or just imagining things? As you say, he has been suffering from shock.’

  ‘I am sure, I am getting to know him better – ’

  ‘That seems to imply that you feel you don’t know him well enough.’

  ‘I know him very well. He is a good man. He is going to make peace with Lucas.’

  Clement said, ‘I think you’ve said enough now. Let’s leave it at that, shall we.’ He motioned to Bellamy and rose, expecting the others to do so too. As they did not, he sat down again.

  ‘But this is very interesting,’ said Louise. ‘What you’ve said is very interesting, and splendid if it’s true.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s going to confess that he was a thief?’ said Sefton.

  ‘No, no, he’s not a thief! He’s just giving up hatred and revenge! He regards all those things as shadows, they are gone.’

  ‘Shadows?’ said Louise.

  ‘You mean it was all a dream?’ said Harvey. ‘Whose dream was it?’

  ‘Don’t Buddhists think that everything is unreal?’ said Moy to Sefton.

  ‘Not quite like that,’ said Sefton. ‘It’s more like Plato.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘Let’s leave Lucas out,’ said Clement. ‘What Dr Mir has decided to say to Lucas is his business. I think we shouldn’t speak about it.’

  ‘But it has been spoken about,’ said Louise, ‘and this seems an opportunity to get things clear. We are told a lot of strange things and then told not to discuss them. All this new stuff is thrust at us and we’re being expected to swallow it and say no more, even if it doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘Oh do be calm, Louise,’ said Clement. ‘Don’t get excited.’

  ‘I am calm, I am not excited!’

  Aleph, who had been sitting with her feet tucked under her, stretched out her legs and put her feet on the ground. She said, ‘I think the main thing that Bellamy wants to tell us is that Peter has regained a part of his mind, and as a result he has become quiet and peaceful, I think this is wonderful, Bellamy has told us something wonderful.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Sefton. ‘I wish him well with his Buddhism. I think it’s quite the best of the world religions.’

  Clement rose, Aleph rose, Sefton got up from the floor. Various voices were raised. Clement marched Bellamy to the door.

  ‘Well, what do you make of all that?’ said Harvey to Aleph.

  Clement and Bellamy had gone. Louise was in the kitchen. Sefton, having rearranged her room, had returned to her studies. Moy had taken Anax for a run on the Green. Harvey and Aleph were sitting in the bar of The Raven. Harvey had insisted on walking there.

  ‘What do I think? I think it’s splendid. Don’t you? Peter is a complete person again. He has regained his whole nature, he’s able to love and to forgive. When he said it was all shadows he meant that so much of evil is unreal. I mean, he saw the futility of blaming Lucas or wanting revenge. One must rise above that. I think I shall become a Buddhist!’

  ‘If Buddhists think evil is unreal they must be mad! Thinking evil is unreal is holding hands with evil under the table.’

  ‘I put it badly. Of course evil itself isn’t unreal, but certain kinds of thoughts we feel about it, like revenge and hatred and so on, are useless, made up of fantasies. Wouldn’t you agree that we should not spend time wanting to revenge and punish?’

  ‘Punishment isn’t the same as revenge. There are crimes and there must be punishments – ’

  ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. Hate the sin but love the sinner. Of course I’m not suggesting that we should abolish Law Courts and imprisoning people! I mean something quite simple really, we should try to overcome our egoism and see the unreality and futility of so much of our instinctive thinking. We occupy too much time blaming and hating and envying other people and wishing them ill. We shouldn’t do it!’

  ‘Where does all this sermonising come from? Have you been having tutorials with Peter, like Sefton used to have with Lucas?’

  ‘No, I’m just thinking, I’m growing up!’

  ‘Are you in love with Peter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to marry him?’

  ‘Harvey, dear!’

  ‘I suspect the study of English literature is doing you no good, it’s full of all sorts of romantic high-flown nonsense. You’ve been reading Shelley.’

  ‘I plead guilty to that crime.’

  ‘I think Bellamy is daft, even dafter than you. Peter Mir has told him a lot of lies to put him off the scent.’

  ‘Off what scent?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what he said about how Peter stayed away from his house in order to avoid people? These people might be the police.’

  ‘So you hinted! One might have all sorts of reasons for avoiding people. It’s none of our business.’

  ‘So you side with him against Lucas. Not that I side with Lucas. I think they’re both liars.’

  ‘Surely you don’t think that Lucas – ’

  ‘No, I just don’t like him. But at least Lucas is wantonly rude and unkind and doesn’t pretend to be saintly. Whereas according to Bellamy, Peter Mir has become perfectly virtuous and wants to be admired, especially by you and the others! Why can’t he be good in private? He asked Bellamy to tell us all about it!’

  ‘It’s relevant, don’t you see? We are involved too. Why are you being so mean?’

  ‘I don’t see why we’re involved. If we think we are, we’re just meddling.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I just think that love is what is important, that is forgiveness and tolerance and mercy – and we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves censuring people and thinking we’re better.’

  ‘I also think that love is what is most important, though I don’t think it necessarily contains all those other fine things you were extracting from it – and I don’t know what love can do for the terrible things of life. I love you, Aleph, I’ve always loved you. I need you all the time. And I’m very sorry you are going to be away so long with Rosemary Adwarden.’

  ‘Not long, d
ear Harvey, I’ll be back!’

  ‘Yes, yes, you will, won’t you, I shall look forward to your return as to a release from prison, I shall feel like a criminal who has served his term, or a hostage who is suddenly unchained and set free. You speak as if you have discovered some new wisdom. Perhaps at last I am finding some new kind of wisdom too.’

  ‘Look at this,’ said Lucas. He handed over the letter. Clement read it. The letter ran as follows.

  Dear Lucas,

  You were kind enough to attend that curious gathering where our original encounter was commemorated, and where I distinguished myself by fainting. As your brother explained, one purpose of the meeting was to generate some will for a reconciliation. The other purpose was to jog my defective memory concerning some aspect of my life which I was conscious of having forgotten. The former objective is still unclarified, the latter has been achieved. As I have explained to Bellamy, who will explain to your brother and to the ladies at Clifton, I have, to put it briefly, remembered my religion. I am, as I told you, Jewish (and, as I told you, I believe that you are too). But I am also a Buddhist, and have undergone a considerable period of disciplined meditation. The shock of that second encounter or ‘event’ has brought me back again to my ‘right mind’. This is to admit that the view of me as ‘deranged’, held I think by you and others, was in a sense a correct one. I had lost my moral consciousness – and have now regained it. I was filled with hatred and desire for revenge. Now I have no hatred and no desire for revenge. The threats and insults which I directed against you I hereby cancel and revoke. I have no ill will toward you, I am very sorry for my aggressive behaviour, and I ask you to forgive me. I now see that vindictive rages and vengeful intentions are but fantasies, the superficial frothing of the ego. I am now able to overcome these selfish and purely phenomenal manifestations. There are moments for war and there are moments for peace. You are no doubt familiar, on this topic, with the discussion between Krishna and Arjuna. Why did Krishna tell Arjuna to fight? Many well-intentioned thinkers have puzzled over this question. The ready answer is that Arjuna, sunk in egoism, could not have made the decision not to fight with a pure mind, his motives would have been self-righteous, his action valueless. Thus far any novice might stumble. But why did Krishna tell Arjuna to initiate a battle in which thousands of men would die – simply in order to perform what he ‘really’ or ‘naturally’ felt to be his duty? (We might discuss this case some time, I would like to hear your opinion.) Philosophy, in which I have dabbled, has long bemused itself with the contest between the right and the good – to which the saint’s cry of ama et fac quod vis is a potent contribution. At any rate, in our affray, a decision for peace can I think be made easily and with a quiet mind. I have in the past (it seems now a very long time since our first meeting) moralised in an intemperate manner concerning your motivation, what you were about to do and why, what made you do what you did do. The clarification of this whole situation in the cause of justice was formerly my main objective. I wished to remove the shadow cast upon my own motives, and to extract from you some sort of retribution. I also wished to see you in the role of one suing for pardon. I have never, and I trust you understand this, had any craving for publicity or wish to drag you back into a law court. This was to be a matter between you and me – as indeed it continues to be. I want now to erase and wash away the whole of that situation, as I have washed away that state of my mind which promoted it. My desire for revenge, an eye for an eye, the humiliation and destruction of my enemy, is now understood by me as an impulse of unenlightened egoism, a submission to determinism, an evil fantasy, which I now hereby repudiate and make to vanish. May I hope that, as I offer you not a mere olive branch, but the total renewal of my soul, you will co-operate with me in ending a ‘feud’ which was itself unreal, and a painful wastage of time and spirit by both of us. May I come to see you? I am now back in my own house (a healthful image!) and my telephone number is above. I venture to add that when we meet (which I hope will be, at your convenience, very soon) that I shall ask you to grant me one small favour, which I shall then explain to you. Also, please may your brother, and he only, be present at our meeting.

  Yours in peace and reconciliation,

  Peter Mir

  Clement read the letter through carefully and handed it back to Lucas. Lucas was seated at his desk, Clement standing facing him. Clement wanted Lucas to speak first, but as he did not speak Clement said, ‘You will see him, of course?’

  ‘I’m not sure about “of course”, but I shall certainly see him.’

  ‘Out of curiosity.’

  ‘Out of what he might call an “enlightened” curiosity.’

  ‘When did you get the letter?’

  ‘I found it yesterday evening, delivered by hand. I assume that Bellamy informed you, and has informed the ladies.’

  ‘Yes. You imply that you will receive him in an affable manner. I expect he will give you every opportunity to “come off” just as you wish.’

  ‘You use an elaborate vocabulary. I think he is an ingenious man, and I respect ingenuity.’

  ‘Won’t you be relieved to get rid of him?’

  ‘Get rid of him? It doesn’t seem, whatever happens, that I or we will be able to get rid of him! He makes himself out in the letter to be as light as a feather and as innocent as a little bird, his sins washed away by the wand of Zen. But what I fear is that he will prove to be an old man of the sea who will continue to hang about our necks.’

  ‘You mean the Clifton ladies?’

  ‘Oh, he will want to get hold of them. He may even fancy one of them – Aleph say – or even Louise. He is, I am prepared to believe, very rich, and is also, in spite of his protestations of simplicity, very strong-willed and very clever, or let us say smart. His ostentatious reference to the Gita shows that he has completely misunderstood that affair.’

  ‘But if all he wants is to make them, somehow or other, into his family, does not that in the end leave you free? Or do you think he wants to have you too?’

  ‘And you, Clement, and you.’

  ‘He has certainly captured Bellamy.’

  ‘When he does come here, and I join him in hoping it will be soon, he will act the part of a holy simpleton. But he will want his reward all the same. He may even want my friendship.’

  ‘He does not as yet know you very well.’

  ‘Indeed, he may be in for more than one disappointment. But all that, which may be indefinitely prolonged, will constitute an emotional situation. I suspect he enjoys such things. He hopes for a baring of bosoms.’

  ‘Well, he will never see yours. I wonder what the “small favour” will turn out to be. That may be the great snag. He will want you, after all, to confess to him, to say you’re sorry, to give him free and for nothing all the things he was so aggressively demanding! At least you must be relieved to know that he has apparently no plans to murder you.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘Or else he may want you to sign some incriminating statement, which he will then treasure as a weapon against you.’

  ‘Nothing of that sort. Anyway we shall soon know. Could you fix it, my dear, there is his telephone number. Any day this week at 10 a.m. will suit me.’

  Harvey was sitting curled up in an armchair reading I Promessi Sposi when he heard the strange sound of a key in the front door. For a second he thought, it’s a burglar! Or is it the cleaning lady? No, she always rings. He leapt up, decanting his book onto the floor. The door of the drawing-room was open. It was Emil.

  ‘Emil! How wonderful, you’ve come home!’

  ‘Harvey! I interrupt your studies! What have you been reading? Ah, very apt and suitable to your age. Have you been happy here?’

  ‘Oh, ever so happy! I’m awfully sorry – I should have moved out after you rang up. I – I just delayed – my mother was still there and – I’m so sorry, I’ll pack up and get out at once – ’

  ‘It needn’t be at once, please do not blame yourself.
Oh, how nice it is to be home!’

  ‘You have such a wonderful home to come to, I wish I – Well, I’ll just go and get my things together.’

  ‘No, no, don’t hurry please, I am so glad to see you, let us talk. What is the time? It is nearly twelve o’clock. Why not stay for lunch? Please stay. I have brought back some goodies in my luggage. Yes, if you could help me to bring it in from the landing. We can have a celebration lunch, and you can tell me all the news.’

  The next hour and a half was spent in the kitchen, where Harvey had hastily cleared away the remains of his breakfast. On the large kitchen table (Emil said ‘It’s nicer in here.’) they had placed a white damask cloth with lace frills (never of course utilised by Harvey) and had laid out Emil’s beautiful best plates and glasses for lunch. Emil had of course a big handsome dining-room where these lovely things, also untouched by Harvey, lived in a large long mahogany sideboard. For lunch they had, from Emil’s goodies, bread, caviar, rollmops, salami, pumpernickel, schnapps, and two bottles of Rhine wine, and, from the house stores, oatmeal biscuits, butter, cheese and Cumberland jelly. Emil commented on the fact that Harvey had not touched any of the fancy tinned foods which were stored in the larder. Whatever had he lived on?

  Harvey did not like rollmops and hoped he could get away with only pretending to eat them, but he liked everything else and as he sat down opposite to Emil and lifted the little round glass of schnapps which had been placed beside the tall thin glass of white wine, he felt a sudden lift of his spirits. Perhaps after all, somehow or other, with Emil’s return, a new era was starting and his luck was going to change! Harvey liked Emil very much, though he had not (partly because of Clive’s jealousy) come to know him well. He was cheered and heartened by Emil’s kindness, by his affectionate smile, by his evident appreciation of Harvey. Emil was tall and soldierly, rather stern and dignified in appearance, with a long sharp straight nose and a well-shaven bronzed complexion and a very high brow with short straight blond hair sleeked well back and closely adhering to his head. Clive used to tease him by saying that he wore a wig, which was patently untrue. His narrow eyes were pale blue, his firm lips suggested determination, perhaps because the full lower lip projected beyond the thin upper lip. Cora Brock, who was very fond of him, said he had ‘truthful lips’. He had been, and to some extent still was, a picture dealer. He was said to have come to England to escape a tyrannical father who disapproved of his sexual preferences, but left him all his money.