The Philosopher's Pupil

by Iris Murdoch

  George McCaffrey was deeply affected by his teacher. He ‘fell in love’ with Rozanov, with philosophy, with Rozanov’s philosophy. However, his soul was so shaken that (and this too was no doubt due to Rozanov’s influence) he never told his love; and although he spoke admiringly of Rozanov when he went home he never revealed how absolutely this man had taken possession of his soul. Whether George was ever a ‘favourite pupil’ is open to question. What is certain is that Rozanov advised George to give up philosophy and George took the advice. A brief word is necessary here about Rozanov’s philosophical views. (I should mention that I am not a philosopher and cannot offer any commentary or detail.) As a ‘brilliant’ young man, John Robert was a sceptic, a reductionist, a linguistic analyst, what is (incorrectly I am told in this context) popularly called a ‘logical positivist’, of the most austerely anti-metaphysical school. His Methodist upbringing had it seemed slipped from him painlessly or been with a certain naturalness transformed into a methodical sort of atheism. He was and remained deeply puritanical. In America he became interested in philosophy of science (he had a considerable knowledge of mathematics) and spent a lot of time arguing with physicists and attempting to clear up their philosophical mistakes. He had already published his two youthful books; one, Logic and Consciousness, a demolition of the views of Husserl, the other about Kant’s view of time. He now added a long book called Kant and the Kantians which established his reputation as something considerably more than a ‘clever boy’. His well-known studies of Descartes and Leibniz followed, then Against the Theory of Games, and the seminal work, Nostalgia for the Particular. He then became, by way of Kant, interested for the first time in moral philosophy, which he had dismissed when young; became for a while an obsessive student of Plato and wrote a book called Being and Beyond, considered marvellous but eccentric, about Plato’s Theory of Ideas. (He also wrote a short book, difficult to find now, on Plato’s Mathematical Objects.)

  It was at this rather chaotic and eclectic stage of his development that George encountered him, when he was (as William Eastcote later put it) ‘letting off fireworks in all directions’. The next news about John Robert was that declaring (as he did from time to time) that philosophy was ‘impossible’, ‘too hard for human beings’, and that his own mind had ‘gone to pot’, he had decided to become a historian. He had been interested in Greek history since his Oxford days, and during a sabbatical year he composed and published a study of the causes of the Peloponnesian War. He also wrote a short book, considered a classic, about Greek ships and sea warfare. (There was arguably an engineer as well as a mathematician hidden inside John Robert.) He then further amazed everyone by writing a book about Luther. After that he went back to philosophy. There is some dispute about this later phase. Some said that he had become a neo-Platonist. He certainly published some fragmentary stuff about Plotinus. Others said he had ‘taken up religion’. There was said to be a ‘secret doctrine’ and a ‘great book’.

  Some pupil-teacher relationships last a lifetime. George maintained his side of the relationship, though it is doubtful whether Rozanov animated his. George later regretted having taken his master’s advice and given up philosophy. As a graduate student he still haunted John Robert’s lectures and classes. He tried to ‘keep up’ and ‘keep in touch’. He even submitted to a semi-learned journal an article which purported to ‘explain’ John Robert’s philosophical position. The editor informed the philosopher, who sent George a curt note, and the article was promptly withdrawn. George made no further attempt to ‘popularize’ Rozanov’s work, but he continued to regard him as his teacher and on one occasion followed him to America.

  George had kept the tally against fate. He knew what he was owed: something great, little less than salvation. Why was John Robert coming back to Ennistone? Was it for him, the lost sheep, the one just man, the justified sinner? He had always believed in magic, and he knew that John Robert Rozanov was a magician.

  ‘What’s on telly, Di? Roll on the San Francisco earthquake. That’s what I want to see pictures of.’

  ‘I left my evening bag behind at the Blacketts’,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You’re always doing that!’ said Brian.

  Jeremy Blackett was a master at the Comprehensive School. He and his wife Sylvia were dedicated bridge players. Gabriel did not play bridge, but Jeremy’s sister Sarah and his brother Andrew made up the foursome when Brian and Gabriel went to the Blacketts’. (Gabriel always took a novel.) It was to the powerful widowed mother of these Blacketts, May Blackett, that Alex had so disgracefully sold Maryville, the seaside house.

  ‘Jeremy will be here,’ said Gabriel, ‘or Sylvia or Sarah.’

  ‘Why can’t you bloody remember your stuff?’

  ‘Sorry — ’

  It was Saturday morning. Everybody went to the Baths on Saturday. (I was there myself on that particular Saturday.) It was a frosty morning and the Outdoor Bath was covered by a thick blanket of steam. The life guard upon his ladder could only glimpse a swimmer here and there as the white cloud rolled about in the brisk easterly breeze.

  Brian and Gabriel and Adam were in the Promenade, looking out through the window. They had just arrived. The window was misted, but they had rubbed three round holes at different levels through which they looked at the steamy scene outside. Behind them a few people were sitting at the tables drinking coffee.

  Gabriel never failed to feel a curious visceral excitement when she came to the Institute, even though she did so nearly every day. ‘It’s like a Time Machine,’ she said to Brian, and then could not explain what she meant. From behind the studded bronze door which concealed the spring there was often the sound of a beating pulse, and the whole building seemed to tremble. Gabriel had learnt to swim in these waters. Yet it was as if some kind of not unpleasant guilty or expectant emotion attached to them. There was a delicious faint thrilling feeling as one slipped into these warm pools, especially in winter time when the hot spring seemed such a miracle and bathing in it such an exotic rite.

  ‘When are you fetching Stella?’ said Gabriel.

  ‘About five.’

  Stella, detained in hospital, was today coming to stay with Brian and Gabriel. Gabriel had suggested. Stella had agreed. It was significant that Stella was not going back to her own house. This significance, on which no one had yet commented, frightened Gabriel. George had still not been to see his wife. Although she wanted Stella to come, Gabriel felt afraid with a tremor which vibrated in harmony with the guilty thrill inspired by the steaming water. She wanted now to swim, quickly, quickly, quickly.

  ‘There’s Sylvia Blacken,’ said Brian.

  ‘Oh yes — ’ Gabriel waved her little wave to Adam, waggling her fingers. Adam did not like this wave and frowned. Gabriel went out through the door and turned along the edge of the pool toward the changing-rooms.

  ‘Twelve o’clock,’ said Brian to Adam, meaning they should meet in the Promenade at twelve. The McCaffreys went their separate ways at the Baths. That was part of the pleasure of the place, as if each one’s enjoyment was especially private. It was an aspect of what Gabriel felt as its ‘dangerousness’.

  Adam inclined his head. He walked a little way away and stopped, to signify that he had withdrawn from society and was now alone.

  Brian followed Gabriel out of the door.

  Adam was small and compact, a dark McCaffrey, round-headed, round-faced, with dark straight short hair, resembling Alan, indeed slightly resembling George. He had none of his father’s wolfish Viking look. He had brown intent eyes and rarely smiled. He went to a private preparatory day school, Leafy Ridge School, in a suburb of that name, not the Comprehensive where Jeremy Blackett taught. His father was uneasy about this, but he wanted Adam to learn at least two foreign languages, and the Comprehensive was not very successful in teaching one. Gabriel wanted him to be protected from rough boys. (In fact there were rough boys at the prep school too, but Adam did not tell his mother this.) She also liked the uniform, b
rown knee breeches and long sky-blue socks. Adam did not like boys. He did not like girls either, though he rather wanted to be one. The awkwardness which separated him from his parents made him solitary at school, where he was also conspicuously small for his age. His mysterious refusal to grow seemed to signal a quiet hostility to any public role. Of course he loved his parents, and sympathized silently with their attempts to communicate with him. Sometimes they seemed to him almost grotesque in their efforts to behave naturally. He often looked at his mother and when she looked at him he would smile and go quickly away. He rarely looked at his father, but he sometimes touched him encouragingly.

  He stood now a while staring at nothing. He was wondering what Zed was doing with himself at home. He often wondered this. Occasionally he had managed to spy on Zed, to see the little animal playing all by himself in the most imaginative way. But Adam was never sure that Zed did not somehow know that he was being watched and had put on a show for his master’s benefit. Wittgenstein says that a dog cannot be a hypocrite or sincere either. Adam, who had not yet read Wittgenstein, considered Zed to be quite capable of hypocrisy.

  He did not follow his parents through the outside door. Unlike his mother he was in no hurry to swim. He enjoyed the special before-swim tension which made everything look vivid and strange and somehow slow. He went back across the Promenade vaguely aware that there were one or two people whom he knew (or rather who knew him, Mrs Osmore for instance) sitting at the tables, but he did not look that way. He dreaded conversation, even the catching of an eye. He passed through a communicating door into the area of the Indoor Bath. Adam very much wished to bring Zed to the Baths, only dogs were not allowed, except in the Promenade. He kept imagining how it would be, just Zed in the Indoor Bath, breaking the smooth silky surface of the water with his quiet confident rat-like motion. Zed swam well. Adam had often swum him in the river, only now this was not allowed either because of something the doctor said.

  The Indoor Bath was a peaceful scene on weekdays, since a notion persisted among the older Ennistonians that it was a rather ‘sissy’ place, even unhealthy. However it had recently been ‘taken over’ by the ‘jeunesse dorée’ of Ennistone, who used it, at weekends, as a rendezvous. This jeunesse, it should be said, tended to be women, at present most notably Valerie Cossom, the Eurocommunist, and Nesta Wiggins, one of the Women’s Libbers who had tried to befriend Diane, Olivia Newbold, one of the Glove Factory Newbolds, and Anthea Eastcote, great-niece of William Eastcote. Gavin Oare, editor of the Ennistone Gazette, who liked to hang around these ladies, was treated with a certain disdain. On the other hand, Michael Seanu, a cub reporter, a little scamp just out of school, was a current pet, and Maisie Chalmers (daughter of the Institute Director) who did the Women’s Page on the Gazette, was a valued recent recruit to right ideas. At the moment of Adam’s entrance there was a great deal of splashing in the pool which he felt ought to be so quiet and water-ratty, as Valerie was racing lengths with Peter Blackett. Peter was Jeremy Blackett’s son, not very much older than Adam, but as tall as Jeremy. Valerie’s father, Howard Cossom, was a dentist who lived in Leafy Ridge and was famous for being unable to swim. Valerie and Nesta were studying sociology at the Ennistone Polytechnic. On the steps, their feet in the surging water, sat and stood a group of young women in very scanty swim-wear, their long wet hair streaked in darkened tresses over their necks and shoulders. Their slim soft bodies were faintly tanned by a winter of daily outdoor swimming. They were as tall and lithe and pleased with themselves as young Spartans. Above them upon the slippery wet marble, his shoes splashed, his glasses misted, stood Hector Gaines. They were discussing The Triumph of Aphrodite which was to be played, with Hector’s shocking new material, at the Ennistone Midsummer Festival. Hector and Anthea were to direct it. Valerie Cossom was to be Aphrodite. The set and costumes were to be designed by Cora Clun who was studying dress design at the Poly. Hector was confused and excited, partly because he was in love with Anthea, and partly because, among so many delightful naked figures, he still had all his clothes on. This dejeuner sur l’herbe effect positively made his head swim. The central part of the Indoor Bath, the pool itself and its surround and the double row of Corinthian columns, were made of white black-webbed marble, but the outer area, covered with potted plants, was merely tiled. The place had its own peculiar smell, thrilling to devotees, compounded of warmth and water and chemicals and healthy wet green foliage. Adam loved this smell. He did not approach the pool but went in among the plants. He touched their strong shiny powerful leaves. The girls noticed him, and Anthea and Nesta waved. Adam waved back. He did not mind the jeunesse dorée as he knew that, with the tact or indifference of youth, they would not want to talk to him. He stood a while, smelling the plants and looking with satisfaction at the wet marble and hugging the private thrill of his own soon-to-be-swimming sensations. Then he turned slightly and looked across the pool and saw George McCaffrey, who had just entered on the other side.

  George gazed at the pool and the scene. He was not especially interested in the almost-naked young women, the sight of whom did not produce in him the mechanical excitement which it would have aroused in his brother Brian. It was the place and the smell which he liked. He paused and sniffed. Anthea Eastcote, who had known George all her life, called out ‘Hello!’ Valerie Cossom, who was secretly in love with him, stopped swimming and rose silently in the shallow end, revealing her beautiful body.

  George smiled vaguely, not looking at Anthea, turning his head and narrowing his eyes, and was about to pass on in the direction of the Promenade when he saw Adam. As soon as their eyes met, Adam sat down. He did not hide, but sat down among the plants, holding his knees, his head emerging from among the leaves. With intent unsmiling eyes, he stared at George. George (who was fully clothed) stared back. Once, some time ago in Adam’s short life, when he had been looking thus at his uncle (it was in the garden at Belmont), George, turning towards him, had suddenly, silently, winked. This episode had made, for the boy at least, a curious bond, intimate yet menacing. The ambiguous signal was never repeated, and yet, Adam sometimes felt, it still flashed, magically, frightfully, in any exchange of looks between them.

  George stopped in his tracks at the sight of Adam as abruptly as a Japanese might be stopped by a badger. He did not want to pass his nephew, nor did he want to impede his progress should Adam want to proceed to the changing-rooms by the interior route. George receded into the corridor and turned off it into the clinical chamber of the Infants’ Pool. This room, which seemed small by contrast with the Indoor Bath, was by other standards quite large. It was a remnant of the Institute arrangements which predated the Ennistone Rooms. The Infants’ Room, as it was also called, was early Victorian hospital style, unadorned, with plain tiles and dark linoleum. Its only charm was the pool itself, white-tiled, round and breast-deep, sunk into the floor and filling most of the room. It had been intended for the genteel dipping of rheumatic patients or of persons recovering from injured limbs, sufferers who were later accommodated in the Rooms. Now the famous waters, tinted blue, contained, as George entered, a number of cooing smiling mothers and as many swimming, splashing or floating infants. The aquatic infants were indeed an amazing sight. Tiny children, some less than six months old, who on land crawled with awkward sprawling arms and legs, took to the water in the most uncanny way, like funny little animals of some quite other species. Ivor Sefton was extremely interested in the whole phenomenon and had published an article about it in The Lancet. This practice, pioneered in Ennistone, and now occasionally to be met with elsewhere, has had to make its way against prejudice and misunderstanding. Adam longed to ‘swim’ Zed and was joyful to see a walking running dog become a swimming dog. (Adam and Rufus had both swum in the Infants’ Pool when scarcely larger than Zed.) Most dog-owners share this instinctive urge, which is discussed in Sefton’s article. But the Ennistone mothers had not felt any instinctive desire to swim their infants, and had to be taught, and to see many succes
sful demonstrations, before they believed it desirable or even possible. Many outsiders still regard this aspect of ‘growing up in Ennistone’ as dangerous or slightly scandalous. (Special attention must be paid to the chemicals in the water.) It was originally proposed that the Infants’ Room should be ‘Mothers only’, but the reasonable wishes of fathers had to be met too, and the Room was eventually opened to all. An attendant controls the numbers of spectators, and only women are allowed in the water.

  Standing in the middle of the pool, offering quite unnecessary help and encouragement, amid the tiny naked swimming forms and wet protective arms, was Nesta Wiggins. She was drawn to the place because it was a rendezvous of women. The sound of excited exclamatory voices, rebounding from the domed tiled roof, made a shrill cacophony, pleasant as bird-song to Nesta’s ears. Nesta hoped to indoctrinate some of the cooing mammas. But, in spite of her disapproval of matrimony and child-bearing, she could not help being delighted with the scene, to which she often returned.