The Place of the Lion

by Charles Williams

  Unthinkingly he put out his hand to the cigarette box which Quentin had given him one Christmas; given both of them, as he had himself pointed out, in remarking on the superior nature of his own present, which had been a neat kind of pocket-book and therefore an entirely personal gift. But Quentin had maintained that the cigarette box, as being of greater good to a greater number, had been nearer to the ideal perfection of giving. “For,” he had argued, “to give to you a means by which you can give to others, is better than to give a merely private thing.”

  “But,” Anthony had persisted, “in so far as you are one of those others—and likely to be the most persistent—you give to yourself and therefore altogether deprive the act of the principle of giving”; to which Quentin had retorted that he was included only as one of a number, and that the wise man would not deprive others of good because he himself might be a gainer. “Otherwise what about all martyrs, missionaries, and philanthropists?” And so the comedy had been played to its end.

  The comedy—but this was no comedy; the fierceness of the Lion was no comedy, nor any of those other apparitions, unless the Lamb … The Lion and the Lamb—and a little child shall lead them. Lead them where? Even a little child was in its own mind presumably leading them somewhere. Or perhaps not, perhaps a little child would be content just to lead. The Lion and the Lamb—if this were the restored balance? Friendship—love—had something in it at once strong and innocent, leonine and lamblike. By friendship, by love, these great Virtues became delicately known. Apart from such love and friendship they were merely destructive and helpless; man was never meant to be subjected to them, unless by the offering up of his being to “divine Philosophy.” In that very chair he had been mocked by Foster for hoping to rule the principles of creation, and he had answered that he had promised to do everything to help Damaris. How far such a profound intention sufficed to rule those principles he did not know—more perhaps than man normally thought. The balance in things—the Lion and the Lamb, the Serpent and the Phœnix, the Horse and the Unicorn: ideas as they were visualized and imagined—if these could be led … if …

  He could not clearly understand what suggestion was being made to him. But an intense apprehension of the danger in which many besides Quentin were grew within him, a danger brought about by the disorder which had been introduced. He could not honestly say that in any sense he loved these others, unless indeed love were partly a process of willing good to them. That he was determined to do, and perhaps this willing of good meant restoration. By order man ascended; what was it that St. Francis had written? “Set Love in order, thou that lovest Me.” First for Quentin and then for all the rest.

  So gradually abandoning himself to the purpose of the great Power that lived in him, he sat on. If the Eagle was to be served the Eagle must show him how to serve. In this place of friendship, among the expositions and symbols of friendship, he was filled with the intention of friendship. Quentin was not here, but here they had been received by the knowledge of good, by comparison with which only evil could be known. Friendship was one, but friends were many; the idea was one, but its epiphanies many. One winged creature—but many, many flights of birds. The sparrows in the garden outside his window—and the brown thrushes that sought in it sometimes—the blackbird and the starling—the pigeons of the Guildhall and the gulls of the Thames—the pelicans of St. James and the ridiculous penguins of the Zoo—herons in shallow waters—owls screaming by night—nightingales, skylarks, robin redbreasts—a kingfisher out beyond Maidenhead—doves and crows—ravens—the hooded falcons of pageantry—pheasants—peacocks magnificently scornful—migrating swallows of October—migrating—migrating—birds of paradise—parrots skrieking in the jungles of India—vultures tearing the bodies in the sands of Africa—flight after flight went by. He knew them in the spiritual intellect, and beheld by their fashioned material bodies the mercy which hid in matter the else overwhelming ardours; man was not yet capable of naked vision. The breach between mankind and the angelicals must be closed again; “a little child should lead them”—back. The lion should lie down with the lamb. Separately they had issued—strength divorced from innocence, fierceness from joy. They must go back together; somehow they must be called. Adam, long since—so the fable ran—standing in Eden had named the Celestials which were brought into existence before him. Their names—how should Anthony Durrant know their names, or by what title to summon again the lion and the serpent? Yet even in Anthony Durrant the nature of Adam lived. In Adam there had been perfect balance, perfect proportion: in Anthony——?

  He was lying back, very still, in his chair. His desire went inwards, through a universe of peace, and hovered, as if on aquiline pinions, over the moment when man knew and named the powers of which he was made. Vast landscapes opened beneath him; laughter rang up towards him. Among the forests he saw a great glade, and in the glade wandered a solitary lamb. It was alone—for a moment or for many years; and then from the trees there came forth a human figure and stood also in the sun. With its appearance a mighty movement everywhere began. A morning of Light was on the earth; the hippopotamus lumbered from the river, the boar charged from the forest, the great apes swung down to the ground before a figure of strength and beauty, the young and glorious archetype of humanity. A voice, crying out in song, went through the air of Eden, a voice that swept up as the eagle, and with every call renewed its youth. All music was the scattered echo of that voice; all poetry was the approach of the fallen understanding to that unfallen meaning. All things were named—all but man himself, then the sleep fell upon the Adam, and in that first sleep he strove to utter his name, and as he strove he was divided and woke to find humanity doubled. The name of mankind was in neither voice but in both; the knowledge of the name and its utterance was in the perpetual interchange of love. Whoever denied that austere godhead, wherever and however it appeared—its presence, its austerity, its divinity—refused the name of man.

  The echo of that high spiritual mastery sounded through the inmost being of the child of Adam who lay tranced and attentive. His memory could not bear the task of holding the sounds, but it was not memory’s business. The great affair of the naming was present within him, eternal, now as much as then, and at any future hour as much as now. There floated from that singing rapture of man’s knowledge of man a last note which rose through his whole being, and as it came brought with it a cloud. “A mist went up and covered the face of the earth.” His faculties relaxed; his attention was gently released. He blinked once or twice, moved, saw, recognized, and drowsily smiled at the Landseer; then his head dropped down, and he was received, until his energies were renewed, into such a sleep as possessed our father when he awaited the discovery of himself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE NAMING OF THE BEASTS

  The railway station at Smetham lay some half-mile out of the actual town, though it was connected by a row of houses and shops. The staff, therefore, though they soon heard whispers of strange things in the town, were still at work when Anthony, late in the evening, returned. He had spent the afternoon at his rooms in solitude and meditation and had then, rather to his own surprise, determined suddenly to go and have a good dinner. After this he had made his way to King’s Cross, and got out of the train at Smetham about half-past nine. His room at the hotel was still kept for him, but he wanted first of all to see Damaris. From the station, however, he telephoned to the hotel to know if there were any messages. He was told that a gentleman was at that very moment waiting for him.

  “Ask the gentleman to speak,” Anthony said, and in a minute heard Richardson’s voice.

  “Hallo,” it said. “That you, Durrant?”

  “Rather,” Anthony answered. “How are things with you?”

  “I don’t know that they are,” the voice said. “Things, I mean. There seem a good many fewer, and anyhow I want to push one of them off on to you.”

  “Sweet of you,” said Anthony cheerfully. “What particular?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t quite know,” Richardson said, “what may happen, though I know what, by God’s extreme mercy, I hope. But there’s this book of Berringer’s—you know, Marcellus noster—it seems the kind of thing that might be more useful to you than to me, if anyone comes at all …”

  “O we’re all coming through,” Anthony interrupted. “Business as usual. Premises will be re-opened to-morrow with improvements of all kinds. But not, I fear, under entirely new management. The old isn’t better, but it can’t be shifted yet.”

  “Can’t it?” the other voice said, grimly. “Well, never mind. You think things will be restored, do you?”

  “The way of the world,” Anthony said. “We shall jolly well have to go on making the best of both. ‘Vague half-believers’—not but what Arnold himself was a bit vague.”

  “O stop this cultural chat,” Richardson broke in, but not ill-naturedly. “I want to give you this book.”

  “But why?” Anthony asked. “Wasn’t it you it was lent to?”

  “It was,” Richardson said, “but I have to be about my Father’s business, and it’s the only thing I’ve got that I ought to do anything with. Where are you? And what are you doing?”

  “I’m at the station,” Anthony told him, “and I’m going straight to Miss Tighe. You might come and meet me, if you’ve time. Where is the necessity taking you?”

  There was a brief silence as if Richardson was considering; then he said, “Very well, I will. Don’t walk too quickly. I’m in rather a hurry and I don’t want to miss you.”

  “Right,” said Anthony. “I’ll walk like a—like the opposite of the Divine Horse till I see you. Unless the necessity drives me.” And he hung up.

  That strange impulse however, to which in the serious and gay humour that possessed him he had given the name of the necessity, allowed him to wander slowly down the station road, till he saw Richardson walking swiftly along to meet him; then he quickened his own steps. They looked at each other curiously.

  “And so,” Richardson said at last, “you think that the common things will return?”

  “I’m quite certain of it,” Anthony said. “Won’t He have mercy on all that He’s made?”

  The other shook his head, and then suddenly smiled. “Well, if you and they like it that way, there’s no more to be said,” he answered. “Myself, I think you’re only wasting time on the images.”

  “Well, who made the images?” Anthony asked. “You sound like a medieval monk commenting on marriage. Don’t be so stuck-up over your old way, whatever it is. What actually is it?”

  Richardson pointed to the sky. “Do you see the light of that fire?” he asked. “Yes, there. Berringer’s house has been burning all day.”

  “I know, I saw it.”

  “I’m going out there,” Richardson said and stopped.

  “But—I’m not saying you’re wrong—but why?” Anthony asked. “Isn’t fire an image too?”

  “That perhaps,” the other answered. “But all this——” he touched his clothes and himself, and his eyes grew dark with a sudden passion of desire—“has to go somehow; and if the fire that will destroy the world is here already, it isn’t I that will keep from it.”

  Anthony looked at him a little ruefully. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d hoped we might have talked more. And—you know best—but you’re quite sure you’re right? I can’t see but what the images have their place. Ex umbris perhaps, but the noon has to drive the shadows away naturally, hasn’t it?”

  The other shrugged. “O I know,” he said. “It’s all been argued a hundred times, Jensenist and Jesuit, the monk and the married man, mystic and sacramentalist. But all I know is that I must make for the End when and as soon as I see it. Perhaps that’s why I am alone. But since that’s so—I’d like you, if you will, and if restoration comes, to give this book back to Berringer if he’s alive, and to keep it if he isn’t. What,” he added, “what you call alive.”

  Anthony took the little parcel. “I will do it,” he said. “But I only call it alive because the images must communicate, and communication is such a jolly thing. However, I’m keeping you and I mustn’t do that … as we sacramentalists say.”

  They shook hands. Then Anthony broke out again. “I do wish you weren’t—No; no, I don’t. Go with God.”

  “Go with God,” the other’s more sombre voice answered. They stood for a moment, then they stepped apart, their hands went up in mutual courteous farewell, and they went their separate ways.

  No-one saw the young bookseller’s assistant again; no-one thought of him, except his employer and his landlady, and each of them, grumbling first, afterwards filled his place and forgot him. Alone and unnoticed he went along the country road to his secret end. Only Anthony, as he went swiftly to Damaris, commended the other’s soul to the Maker and Destroyer of images.

  Damaris herself opened the door to him when he came. She was about to speak when he prevented her by saying happily: “So you found him?” “He’s asleep upstairs now,” she answered. “And you?” He pulled her closer to him. “Why, that I’ll tell you presently,” he said. “Tell me first. How beautifully you seem to do your job!”

  “The doctor’s here,” she said. “I managed to get him round earlier in the day, and he said he’d come again before night. Come and see him.”

  “Is it Rockbotham?” Anthony asked, moving with her up the stairs. “He’s a good creature.”

  “I used to think he was rather a dull sort of fool,” Damaris said. “But to-day he was quite strong and wise. O Anthony”—she checked at the door of the bedroom—“don’t hate me, will you?”

  “When I hate you,” he answered, “the place of the angels will be desolate and our necessity will forget itself.”

  “What is our necessity?” she asked, looking up at him as they passed.

  “It’s just to be, I suppose,” Anthony answered slowly. “I mean, the simpler one is the nearer one is to loving. If the pattern’s arranged in me, what can I do but let myself be the pattern? I can see to it that I don’t hate, but after that Love must do his own business. But let’s go on now, may we? And talk of this another day.”

  “Tell me just one thing first,” Damaris said. “Do you think—I’ve been wondering this afternoon—do you think it’s wrong of me to work at Abelard?”

  “Darling, how can intelligence be wrong?” he answered. “I should think you knew more about him than anyone else in the world, and it’s a perfectly sound idea to make a beautiful thing of what you know. So long as you don’t neglect me in order to do it.”

  “And is that being impersonal?” she mocked him.

  “Why, yes,” he said, “for that’s your job too. And all your job is impersonal and one. Or personal and one—it doesn’t matter which you say. They’re only debating words really. Come on, let’s go in.”

  As Anthony looked at Dr. Rockbotham he felt that Damaris was right. The first glance had been for his friend, but Quentin seemed to be sleeping quietly, and the doctor was on the point of coming towards the door. He had never been a particularly notable figure until now, but now indeed, in the hackneyed but convincing phrase, Anthony saw him for the first time. The lines of his face were unaltered, but it was moulded in a great strength and confidence; the eyes were deep and wise; the mouth closed firmly as if on the oath of Hippocrates—the seal of silence and the knowledge of discretion. “Aesculapius,” Anthony thought to himself, and remembered the snake that was the symbol of Aesculapius. “We sneer at medicine,” he thought, “but after all we do know more—not much, but a little. We sneer at progress, but we do, in a way, progress; the gods haven’t abandoned man.” For a moment he dreamed of a white-robed bearded figure, with a great serpent coiled by him, where in some remote temple of Epidaurus or Pergamus the child of Phoebus Apollo laboured to heal men by the art that he had learned from the two-formed Cheiron, the master of herbs. Zeus had destroyed him by lightning at last, since by his wisdom the dead were recalled to life, and the sacred o
rder of the world was in danger of being broken. But the serpent-wreathed rod was still outstretched and still the servants of the art were sent out by their father on missions of health. He shook hands gravely, as if in ritual.

  “I think he’ll do very well,” the doctor was saying, and the vowels of the simple words came to Anthony’s ears heavy with the harmonies of Greek. “Exhaustion—absolute exhaustion: he must have been struck by a kind of panic. But sleep, and quiet, and food, will put him right. The proper kind of food.”

  “Ah that!” Anthony exclaimed.

  “But whether you can manage him here for a day or two,” the doctor went on to Damaris, “in the circumstances. He could of course be moved——”

  “I don’t think there’s any need,” she answered, and then in answer to Anthony’s eyebrows, “My father died this afternoon.”

  Anthony nodded; it was no more than he had expected.

  “There isn’t any need to sit up with him,” the doctor went on, “and twenty-four hours’ entire rest would make a great difference. Still, it’s perhaps rather hard on you, Miss Tighe——”

  Damaris put out her hand. “Ah, no!” she said. “Certainly he must be here. He is Anthony’s friend and mine. I am very, very glad he is here,” and her other hand caught Anthony’s and with an intense pressure told him all that that sentence meant of restoration and joy.