The Light and the Dark

by C. P. Snow

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 ough
t 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 distin
ction.

  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.