by C. P. Snow
The Senior Tutor congratulated Brown on the performance of one pupil. He exuded enthusiasm over another. Then he looked at his list and paused. He said: “I think there’s nothing else to report,” and hurried on to the next subject.
It had been meant as sympathy, I believed. How Winslow felt it, no one could know. He sat silent, eyes fixed on the table, as though he had not heard.
We had not quite finished the business by one o’clock, but broke off for lunch. Lunch was laid in an inner room; it was cold, but on the same profuse scale as the tea before the usual meetings. There were piles of sandwiches, pâtés, jellies, meringues, pastries, savouries, jugs of beer, decanters of hock, claret, burgundy: the sight of the meal drew approving cries from some of the old men.
Most of the society ate their lunch with zest. Winslow stood apart, staring out of the window, taking one single sandwich. Roy watched him; he looked at no one but Winslow, he said nothing, his eyes sharpened. I noticed him push the wine away, and I was temporarily relieved. Someone spoke to him, and received a sharp uncivil answer, unlike Roy even at his darkest.
There were only a few speeches after lunch, and then the meeting closed. Men filed out, and I waited for Roy. Then I noticed Winslow still sitting at the table, the bursarial documents, order-book and files in front of him: he stayed in his place, too lost and dejected to move. Roy’s eyes were on him. The three of us were left alone in the room. Without glancing at me or speaking, Roy sat down by Winslow’s side.
“I am dreadfully sorry about Dick,” he said.
“That’s nice of you.”
“And I am dreadfully sorry you’ve had to sit here today. When one’s unhappy, it’s intolerable to have people talking about one. It’s intolerable to be watched.”
He was speaking with extreme and morbid fervour, and Winslow looked up from the table.
“You don’t care what they say,” Roy cried, his eyes alight, “but you want them to leave you alone. But none of us are capable of that much decency. I haven’t much use for human beings. Have you, Winslow, have you? You know what people are feeling now, don’t you? They’re feeling that you’ve been taken down a peg or two. They’re thinking of the times you’ve snubbed them. They’re saying complacently how arrogant and rude you’ve been. But they don’t matter. None of us matter.”
His tone was not loud but very clear, throbbing with an anguished and passionate elation.
Winslow stared at him, his eyes startled, bewildered, wretched.
“There is something in what they say, young man,” he said with resignation.
“Of course there is. There’s something in most things they say about anyone.” Roy laughed. It was a terrible, heart-rending sound. “They say I’m a waster and seduce women. There’s something in that too.”
I moved round the table, and put a hand on his shoulder. Frantically he shook it off.
“Would you like to know how much there is in it?” he cried. “We’re both miserable. It may relieve you just a bit. Would you like to know how many loving invitations I’ve coaxed for myself – out of women connected with this college?” Winslow was roused out of his wretchedness.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Calvert. It’s no concern of mine.”
“That’s why I shall do it.” Roy took a sheet of blank paper, began to write fast in his fluent scholar’s hand. I seized his arm, and his pen made a line across the paper.
He swore with frenzied glee. “Go away, Lewis,” he said. His face was wild with a pure, unmixed, uncontrollable elation. At that moment the elation had reached its height. “Go away. You’re no use. This is only for Winslow and me. I need to finish it now.”
He wrote a few more words, dashed off his signature, gave the sheet to Winslow. “This has been a frightful day for you,” Roy cried. “Keep this to remind you that people don’t matter. None of us matter.”
He smiled, said good afternoon, went with quick strides out of the room.
There was a silence.
“This is distressing,” said Winslow.
“He’ll calm down soon.” I was alert, ready to explain, ready to guard secrets once more.
“I never had any idea that Calvert was capable of making an exhibition of himself. Is this the first time it has happened?”
I evaded and lied. I had never seen Roy lose control until this afternoon, I said. It was a shock to me, as it was to Winslow. Of course, Roy was sensitive, highly-strung, easily affected by the sorrows of his friends. He was profoundly upset over the Master, and it was wearing his nerves to see so much suffering. I tried to keep as near the truth as I safely could. In addition, I said, taking a risk, Roy was very fond of Winslow’s son.
Winslow was recalled to his own wretchedness. He looked away from me, absently, and it was some time before he asked, in a flat tone: “I’m very ignorant of these matters. Should you say that Calvert was seriously unstable?”
I did not tell Winslow any of the truth. He was a very clever man, but devoid of insight; and I gave him the sort of explanation which most people find more palatable than the strokes of fate. I said that Roy was physically not at his best. His blood pressure was low, which helped to make him despondent. I explained how he had been overworking for years, how his long solitary researches had affected his health and depressed his spirits.
“He’s a considerable scholar, from all they say,” said Winslow indifferently. “I had my doubts about him once, but I’ve found him an engaging young man.”
“There’s nothing whatever to worry about.”
“You know him well,” said Winslow. “I expect you’re right. I think you should persuade him to take a good long holiday.”
Winslow looked down at the sheet of paper. It was some time before he spoke. Then he said: “So there is something in the stories that have been going round?”
“I don’t know what he has written there,” I said. “I’ve no doubt that the stories are more highly painted than the facts. Remember they’ve been told you by people who envy him.”
“Maybe,” said Winslow. “Maybe. If those people have this communication,” he tapped the paper, “I don’t see how Master Calvert is going to continue in this college. The place will be too hot to hold him.”
“Do you want to see that happen?” I was keyed up to throw my resolve against his. Winslow was thinking of his enemies in the college, how a scandal about Roy would confute them, how he could use it in the present struggle. He stared at me, and told me so without any adornment.
“You can’t do it,” I said, with all the power I could call on.
“Why not?”
“You can’t do it. You know some of the reasons that brought Calvert to the state he was in this afternoon. They’re enough to stop you absolutely, by themselves.”
“If you’d bring it to a point–”
“I’ll bring it to a point. We both know that Calvert lost control of himself. He got into a state pretty near despair. And he wouldn’t have got into that state unless he’d seen that you were unhappy and others were pleased at your expense. Who else had any feeling for you?”
“It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” said Winslow.
Then I asked: “Who else had any feeling for your son Dick? You know that Calvert was upset about him. Who else had any feeling for your son?”
Winslow looked lost, bewildered, utterly without arrogance or strength. He looked sadly away from me. He did not speak for some moments. At last, in a tired, dejected, completely uninterested tone, he said, the words coming out slowly: “What shall I do with this?” He pointed to the sheet of paper.
“I don’t mind,” I said, knowing that it was safe.
“Perhaps you’d better have it.”
Winslow pushed it towards me, but did not give another glance as I walked to the fireplace, and put a match to it over the empty grate.
19: The Cost of Knowledge
I went up to Roy’s room. He was lying on his sofa, stretched out and relaxed. He jumped up
and greeted me with a smile contrite and remorseful.
“Have I dished everything?” he said.
He was quite equable now, affectionate, and happy because the shadow had passed over.
“Have I dished everything?” he said.
“I think I’ve settled it,” I said, in tiredness and strain. I could let myself go at last. I felt overwhelmed by responsibility, I knew that I was ageing before my time. “But you’ll do something one day that I can’t settle.”
“I’m frightened of that too,” said Roy.
“I shan’t always be there to pick up the pieces,” I said.
“You look pretty worn. I need to order you some strawberries for tea,” he said with tender, mocking concern. He went into his bedroom to telephone, and talked to the kitchens in the voice of the senior fellow, ludicrously like the life. I could not help but smile, despite fatigue and worry and unreasonable anger. He came back and stood looking down at me.
“It’s very hard on you, dear old boy,” he said, suddenly but very quietly. “Having me to look after as well as poor Sheila. There’s nothing I can say, is there? You know as much about it as I do. Or at least, if you don’t now, you never will, you know.”
“Never mind,” I said.
“Of course,” said Roy, with a joyous smile, “just at this minute I feel that I shall never be depressed again.”
In the next few days he spent much of his time with me. He was inventive and entertaining, as though to show me that I need not worry. He was quite composed and even-spirited, but not as carefree as after the first outburst. The innocence, the rapture, the hope, did not flood him and uplift him. He put on his fireworks for my benefit, but underneath he was working something out. What it was I could not guess. I caught him looking at me several times with a strange expression – protective, concerned, uneasy. There was something left unsaid.
On a night early in July, he invited me out to dinner in the town. It was strange for us to dine together in a restaurant in Cambridge: we had not done so since he became a fellow. It was stranger still for Roy to be forcing the conversation, to be unspontaneous, anxious to make a confidence and yet held back. He was specially anxious to look after me; he had brought a bottle of my favourite wine, and had chosen the dinner in advance out of dishes that I liked. He told me some gleeful anecdotes of people round us. But we came to the end of the meal and left the restaurant: he had still not managed to speak.
It was a fine and glowing evening, and I suggested that we should walk through one of the colleges down to the river. Roy shook his head.
“We’re bound to meet someone if we do,” he said. “They’ll catch us. Some devils will catch us.” He was smiling, mocking himself. “I don’t want to be caught. I need to say something to you. It’s not easy.”
So we walked to Garret Hostel Bridge. There was no one standing there, though some young men and girls on bicycles came riding over. Roy looked down into the water. It was burnished in the bright evening light, and the willows and bridges seemed to be painted beneath the surface, leaf by leaf and line by line: it was the time, just as the sun was dying, when all colours gained a moment of enhancement, and the reflections of the trees were brilliant.
“Well?” I said.
“I suppose I need to talk,” said Roy.
In a moment he said: “I know what you think. About my nature. About the way I’m made.”
“Then you know more than I do,” I said, trying to distract him, but he turned on me in a flash with a sad, teasing, acute smile.
“That’s what you say when you want someone to think you’re nice and kind and a bit of an old buffer. I’ve heard you do it too often. It’s quite untrue. You mustn’t do it now.”
He looked into the water again.
“I know enough to be going on with,” he said. “I know you reasonably well, old boy. I have seen what you believe about me.”
I did not answer. It was no use pretending.
“You believe I’ve got my sentence, don’t you? I may get time off for good conduct – but you don’t believe that I can get out altogether. A bit of luck can make a difference on the surface. And I need to struggle, because that can make a little difference too. But really, whatever happens to me, I can never change. I’m always sentenced to be myself. Isn’t that what you believe? Please tell me.”
I did not reply for a moment. Then I said: “I can’t alter what you say – enough to matter.”
“Just so,” he said.
He cried: “It’s too stark for me. I can’t believe it.”
He said quietly: “I can’t believe as you do, Lewis. It would make life pointless. My life isn’t all that important, but I know it better than anyone else’s. And I know that I’ve been through misery that I wouldn’t inflict on a living soul. No one could deserve it. I couldn’t deserve it, whatever I’ve done or whatever I shall do. You know that–”
“Yes, I know that,” I said, with anguished pity.
“If you’re right, I’ve gone through that quite pointlessly. And I shall again. I can’t leave it behind. If you’re right, it could happen to others. There must be others who go through the same. Without reason, according to you. Just as a pointless joke.”
“It must happen to a few,” I said. “To a few unusual men.”
“I can’t accept a joke like that,” he said. “It would be like living in a prison governed by an imbecile.”
He was speaking with passion and with a resentment I had never heard. Now I could feel what the terrible nights had done to him. Yet they had not left him broken, limp, or resigned. He was still choosing the active way. His whole body, as he leaned over the bridge, was vigorous with determination and purpose.
Neither of us spoke for some time. I too looked down. The brilliant colours had left the sky and water, and the reflections of the willows were dark by now.
“There’s something else,” said Roy. His tone was sad and gentle.
He added, after a pause: “I don’t know how I’m going to say it. I’ve needed to say it all night. I don’t know how I can.”
He was still gazing down into the water.
“Dear old boy,” he said, “you believe something that I’m not strong enough to believe. There might come a time – there might come a time when I was held back – because of what you believe.”
I muttered.
“I’ve got a chance,” he said. “But it will be a near thing. I need to have nothing hold me back. You can see that, can’t you?”
“I can see that,” I said.
“You believe in predestination, Lewis,” he said. “It doesn’t prevent you battling on. It would prevent me, you know. You’re much more robust than I am. If I believed as you believe, I couldn’t go on.”
He went on: “I think you’re wrong. I need to act as though you’re wrong. It may weaken me if I know what you’re thinking. There may be times when I shall not want to be understood. I can’t risk being weakened, Lewis. Sooner than be weakened, I should have to lose everything else. Even you.”
A punt passed under the bridge and broke the reflections. The water had ceased swirling before he spoke again.
“I shan’t lose you,” he said. “I don’t think I could. You won’t get rid of me. I’ve never felt what intimacy means, except with you. And you–”
“It is the same with me.”
“Just so,” said Roy.
He added very quietly: “I wouldn’t alter anything if I could help it. But there may come a time when I get out of your sight. There may come a time when I need to keep things from you.”
“Has that time come?” I asked.
He did not speak for a long time.
“Yes,” he said.
He was relieved to have it over. As soon as it was done, he wanted to assure me that nearly everything would be unchanged. On the way back to the college, he arranged to see me in London with an anxiety, a punctiliousness, that he never used to show. Our meetings had always been casual, accidental, com
radely: now he was telling me that they would go on unchanged, our comradeship would not be touched; the only difference was that some of his inner life might be concealed.
It was the only rift that had come between us. During the time we had known each other, his life had been wild and mine disordered, but our relation had been profoundly smooth, beyond anything in my experience. We had never had a quarrel, scarcely an irritable word.
It made his rejection of intimacy hard for me to bear. I was hurt, sharply, sickly and bitterly hurt. I had the same sense of deprivation as if I had been much younger. Perhaps the sense of deprivation was stronger now; for, while as a younger man my vanity would have been wounded, on the other hand I should still have looked forward to intimacies more transfiguring even than this of ours; now I had seen enough to know that such an intimacy was rare, and that it was unlikely I should ever take part in one again.
Yet he could do no other than draw apart from me. If he were to keep his remnant of hope, he could do nothing else. For I could not hope on his terms: he had seen into me, and that was all.
It had been bitter to watch him suffer and know I could not help. That was a bitterness we all taste, one of the first facts we learn of the human condition. It was far more bitter to know that my own presence might keep him from peace of mind. It was the harshest of ironies: for he was he, and I was I, as Montaigne said, and so we knew each other: just because of that mutual knowledge, I stood in his way.
I had thought I was a realistic man – and yet I took it with dismay and cursed that we are as we are. But I tried not to make the change harder for him. As I told Joan in the spring, I had learned more from Roy than he from me. I had watched the absolute self-forgetfulness with which he spent himself on another, the self-forgetfulness he had so often given to me. I was not capable of his acts of selflessness, I was not made like him. But I could try to mutate him in practice. There was no question what I must do. I had to preserve our comradeship in the shape he wished, without loss of spirits and without demur. I had to be there, without trouble or pride, if he should want me.