The Philosopher's Pupil

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘There’s drink,’ said Tom.

  ‘Come on downstairs, I feel so over-excited, I must have something.’

  They went down to the sitting-room and Greg found whisky and glasses while Judy pranced restlessly about, touching things, touching Tom, laughing.

  ‘Oh it’s so marvellous, we’ve had such a time, we went to New Orleans, the South is fantastic, have we got southern accents, I quite feel I have.’

  Tom saw on the sofa the plastic bag containing Judy’s dress which he had evidently brought back from Belmont without noticing it. He said, ‘Oh Ju, I’m so sorry, someone spilt wine on your dress, look, but Gabriel fixed it.’

  ‘Who was wearing it?’ said Greg.

  ‘Oh well - a friend of mine - I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Judy.

  ‘Gabriel dyed it with tea.’

  ‘With tea?’

  ‘Was Gabriel wearing it?’

  ‘No, Greg, a girl, a - I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite its old self,’ said Judy, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Tom dear, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter, we’re so glad to see you! Aren’t we, darling?’

  ‘What else have you done?’ said Greg, looking round.

  ‘Oh nothing else - the place is fine - if I’d known you were coming I’d have cleaned up, changed the sheets.’

  ‘And how is Ennistone, and how is everybody? Isn’t it funny to think that you’ve all been leading your quiet little lives here while we’ve been having the most amazing time, we must tell you all about it.’

  ‘William Eastcote died,’ said Tom.

  ‘Oh - I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Greg putting down his glass. ‘I am sorry - such a dear good man - an old friend of my father’s. When?’

  ‘Oh recently,’ said Tom. He felt he could not give details, count days, describe the funeral.

  ‘How sad, a dear man,’ said Judy.

  ‘I’m going to telephone the Running Dog,’ said Greg. He left the room.

  ‘We haven’t slept for ages, we couldn’t sleep on the plane,’ said Judy, ‘we were travelling first class, there was a staircase and a bar, it was super, I enjoyed every second, even the silly film, and - oh Tom, it’s so good to see your old familiar face, only you look so pale! See how brown we are! We got quite tired of the sun. Look.’ She rolled up the sleeves of her dress and displayed a sunburnt arm.

  ‘I must go,’ said Tom.

  ‘Of course not - you must stay tonight - mustn’t he, Greg - Tom says he’s going — ’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Greg from the hall. ‘A table for two if we come at once?’

  ‘For three,’ called Judy.

  ‘I must go,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve got to catch the train to London, I was just packing up when you came.’

  ‘Nonsense, you were fast asleep when we came. Anyway you’ve missed the ten forty-five.’

  ‘We can have dinner if we go now,’ said Greg.

  ‘I must go,’ said Tom.

  ‘Certainly not, don’t go!’

  ‘Let him go if he wants to,’ said Greg. ‘God, I feel terrible.’

  ‘I’ll just pack my bag,’ said Tom. He ran upstairs into his bedroom and closed the door. He saw the room, so bleak now, with his stuff strewn around, his suitcase which he had so cheerfully unpacked, the room with the view over the town which he had chosen when he had moved in such a long time ago, in a previous era, when he had been young and happy and innocent and free. He pushed his things roughly into the case and then he couldn’t close it. He wanted to wail with vexation. He thrust the case, with its lid almost closed, into a corner, and began to tidy up the messy unmade bed. He began to pull the sheets off, then left them as they were. He went downstairs.

  ‘Judy, do you mind if I leave my suitcase here? I’ve tidied my stuff away. I’ll come and fetch it later - I’ll ring up - I must just get off to London. Thank you so much for letting me have the house, I’ve loved it here.’

  ‘Thank you for looking after it,’ said Gregory, who felt he had been churlish. ‘You must come and stay,’ said Judy, ‘any time you like — ’

  ‘I must run — ’

  ‘And we’ll tell you all about it.’

  When Tom got as far as the Institute he hurried along the front of the building making for the entrance to the Ennistone Rooms where there was always a porter on duty. However, when he got as far as the big main door, which was usually closed at this time, he saw that it was very slightly ajar and there was a light inside. He went to the door, pushed it cautiously, and peered in. A light was on at the far end of the Promenade. There was no one about.

  It occurred to Tom that if he were able to get through to the Rooms by the back way through the Baptistry he could find out what he wanted to know (whether Rozanov was still in Ennistone) by looking to see if his name was on the board in the corridor. If he went by the Lodge he would have to speak to the porter, and while a porter who knew him would no doubt be chattily informative, a porter who did not might ask him who he was and what he wanted; and in his present guilty frightened state Tom felt that any unsympathetic questioning might simply elicit a flood of tears. Tom could also picture Rozanov suddenly appearing, seeing him in the brightly lit Lodge, and cornering him, glaring at him through the glass partition, his huge face distorted by rage and hate. Tom was in the state of restless obsessive nervous energy which drives people to meddle when they are too stupid to think clearly and too frightened to act decisively. What he needed was some sort of symbolic or magical act which concerned or touched his situation without running any danger of changing it. He wanted, as it were, to light a candle or recite a formula, he needed to busy himself about his state of mind.

  The Promenade was empty, silent, half dark. The tables had been pushed to one side and the chairs stacked. The counter was covered with white cloths. Tom took a few careful noiseless steps, conscious of his shadow behind him. A flood of excited physical fear took possession of the lower part of his body, a painful vertiginous thrilling urgent pressuring feeling, like sexual desire. Then Tom thought, it’s not like sexual desire, it is sexual desire. He moved quickly now, his mouth open, his eyes wide. He padded on his toes toward the source of light, which was the partly open door of the Baptistry, which housed the descent to the source, and led also to the long downstairs corridor of the Rooms. Tom paused, listening, then slipped through the door.

  He had for a moment been aware of a warm steamy smell and a kind of vapour in the air. Now he stood still, amazed. The Baptistry was full of steam. The big bronze nail-studded doors under their stone pediment stood wide open. There was a low throbbing humming sound. Tom moved toward the opening. He touched one of the open doors and quickly withdrew his hand. The door was scalding hot. He stepped through the doorway, blinking, his eyelashes already wet with steam.

  Before him and below him a great many extremely bright lights were on. He stood on a sort of railed- In shelf or gallery from which metal stairways led steeply down to left and right. A great mass of gleaming pipes, some very small, some enormous, filled the space below. The pipes were a light silver gilt in colour, a very very pale gold, and covered with tiny droplets of moisture which glittered here and there like diamonds. The design made by the pipes, obscured by areas of steam, seemed geometric yet made an unintelligible jumbled impression. They went on down and down for a long way without any floor or bottom being visible. Tom was aware of a warm breeze blowing and could see, looking down, that the steam which seemed to pervade the chasm was in irregular motion. There were evidently hidden fans, air currents which were intended to keep the space clear of steam, perhaps now unable to do so.

  Tom did not like high places. He felt a genuine vertigo, like to, perhaps continuing, the sexual thrill he had experienced in the Promenade. He had never seen the ‘workings’ of the Institute since the source had never been open to the public in his lifetime. He had vaguely imagined a deep
cleft or grotto and a steamy surging spring, not all these terrible glittering pipes. But, he thought, there must be a spring, there must be rocks, right down at the bottom water must be flowing out, rising up. If I go down a bit I shall see. Passing a red notice saying Danger he stepped on to the nearest stairway. It swayed slightly. Tom stopped, sick, then holding on to the smooth round banister, ran on down toward a steadier-looking platform below. The stairways, of which he could now see more, were made of some kind of light faintly flexible metal, presumably steel, but some kind of exquisite steel, Tom thought, since they were so elegant and spidery, almost insubstantial, with their narrow treads and eye-defeating lines of thin vertical rails supporting slanting banisters, more like suspended trapezes than stairs. They were silvery grey in colour, contrasting with the maze of pipes among which they hung, and were wet with steam and rather slippery. Tom’s hair and face were already wet, his clothes damp, his shoes covered with beads of water. The temperature was high, and as he descended, higher. The humming throbbing sound was louder. The platform on which he stood swayed too. He went down another flight of spidery steps. He could still see nothing below except yet more pipes beyond the ones he had seen at first. He had noticed no sidewalls and could see none now as the steam was a little thicker. The whole contraption, with him upon it, seemed to be hanging in space.

  Tom thought, the place is open because the engineers have been trying to control the spring, something has happened to it. All that boiling water came shooting up at Lud’s Rill. It could run through the whole place, it could run through all the pipes, it could burst out everywhere in a flood. They must be very alarmed, otherwise they would have remembered to close the door. Then he thought, but where are they? There seems to be no one here but me. And they - are they dead, all those engineers, all lying down there at the bottom, drowned in scalding water or suffocated by steam, was there no one to give the alarm? Can steam suffocate? It surely could. Tom’s mouth was open as he inhaled, almost eating the thick hot steamy air which was beginning to feel devoid of oxygen. He realized he was still wearing his mackintosh. He took it off and dropped it on the little landing where he stood, then took his jacket off too. The same frightful thrilling nervous anxiety was making him go on, go down rather than up. He thought, I must see the source, I must see it, it’s my only chance, then I’ll run up again. There hasn’t been any awful accident, there’s just no one here. He went down another longer flight of trembling stairs which seemed to be suspended on nothing in the middle of the space, passing through a thick cloud of steam.

  A piece of concrete wall, wet and grey, appeared on his left. At least it seemed a wall, then turned out to be a vast pillar, beyond which the view was closed by two huge vertical pipes from whose bolted joints, level now with Tom’s head, steam was escaping with a hissing noise. This hissing, joined with the humming noise which was louder and more vibrant, became suddenly urgent and menacing. The presence of so much compressed steam, so much sheer awful force, seemed to animate the sweating pipes as if they were all quivering with life. Might not the whole thing be about to explode, and was not this imminent danger the reason why the place was empty? Everyone had run away except him. The pipes seemed to pant, and in the steamy air to be shuddering and bending. Tom retreated a few steps. The air, almost too hot to breathe, was oppressing his lungs. Then as the long section of stairway swayed, he ran on down to a large substantial platform. He looked below him: more pipes overlaying each other, mixed now with monstrous horizontal tubes, another glimpse of wet concrete. The thrilling hum seemed to have entered his body, making him vibrate with an ecstatic urgent anguish.

  Tom thought, why am I here? There must be a reason. I have got to do something, I have an aim, a task, I must go on down, I’ve come so far I can’t give up now. Several stairways now led downward, less steeply. He took one at random, running down, leaping down it, sliding his hand along the warm highly polished rail. He thought, I must get to the end, I must find the source, I must get there, it’s dangerous, yes, at any moment I may hear something terrible, some loud roar as of some huge thing breaking, it’s all out of control. But I can get there first and get back, I’ve got to find the place, I’ve got to see it, the real source, there’s rocks and water and earth down there and a cleft in the ground, somewhere down below, I must get there and … and touch it …

  The steam was becoming thicker, the air hotter and harder to breathe, Tom was panting. He thought, in a minute I’ll faint, I must keep my mind alert, I must keep my consciousness. He swung round at a landing, bounded down another few steps, and came violently up against a concrete wall with a door in it. Automatically he tried the door, which was locked, then ran up back to the landing. He could see another stairway, just visible in the steam, below him, but could not see its connection with where he was. He grasped the rail, put one leg over, raised the other leg, began to slip, then, unable to balance or keep a hold on the damp smooth metal, fell rather than jumped on to the lower level where he collapsed on to his knees. He limped down some more treads and jolted abruptly on to a level concrete floor.

  Tom looked about him, ran forward, then back. He was on a wide level space where immense silver golden pipes like pillars entered smoothly, sleekly, into the perfectly fitting concrete. The pipes gave out an immense heat and he avoided touching them. He ran about, expecting to find some gallery, something like a bridge or an arch, where he could look down, perhaps climb down, on to the rocks, see water rising and glistening in the gloom below. He went one way as far as a sheer concrete wall, then returned the other way to be confronted by another wall like a cliff. A half-circle of concrete in front of him showed no way onward, no way down, no magic door promising further mysteries, and behind him a row of pipes soared up like a huge organ, with no gap between them into which could be inserted as much as a match-stick. There was nowhere below. He was at the bottom.

  It took Tom some time to establish this with certainty. The steam and the heat confused him and he found it difficult to see and understand the space he was in, how large it was and what shape it was. He noticed now with a kind of surprise, as his motions became less rapid, how exceedingly bright the scene was, how brilliantly the lights, which seemed to be concealed, were shining upon the silver-gold organ pipes and upon the glittering web of hanging stairways, now suspended above him. As soon as he was sure that there was no dark archway, no steamy grotto with a scalding fount, and no way out except by the stairway down which he had come, he started to mount the steps; then he came back, stood a minute as if in prayer, and touched the wet concrete floor like a child touching ‘base’. He said aloud, ‘I did my best,’ then hurried back to the stairs.

  He was, very soon, checked. He went up, passing the place on to which he had jumped or fallen, crossed a landing and found that the stairway ended at another locked door (he tried the handle). When he retreated he realized that the set of stairs on which he now stood did not connect with those which he could see above him, by which he had descended. He had in fact chosen to make his leap at the point where the two systems came closest. To jump down had been easy. To climb back, balancing himself on a slippery rounded banister and clinging with outstretched arms to wet and rather hot vertical rails and steel treads above him, and then hauling himself up - was impossible; and would in any case have been an unattractive enterprise with a drop of twenty-five feet on to the concrete below in case of a slip. Tom stood there panting. He felt he had been inside this weird humming brilliantly lighted shaft for a long time. The damp tropical heat now, as he breathed, came to him in waves of burning hot air, which his seared lungs rejected, and he gasped. Feeling a weak helpless lassitude, he forced himself to breathe slowly. He thought to himself, of course the engineers must wear heat-proof protective clothing and masks when they come down here … He walked slowly back up the stairway to the door and tried it again, and leaned against it and kicked it. It was firm, made of metal, and, like everything else about him, extremely hot to touch. He could now feel
the hot stairs beginning to vex his feet. Up till now he had felt like a secret tiptoeing intruder. Now he felt suddenly like a prisoner. He banged on the door and called out several times, ‘Hello, there.’ His voice echoed thinly in the clammy steaming air of the whole huge cylinder which was starting to hiss and tremble like a rocket about to go off. He looked downward half-expecting to see that something had changed, but all was as before in the intolerably bright light. Was he imagining it, or was the temperature rising?

  He looked up at the nearest part of the level above, a joint in the stairs, a tiny twist or landing balanced in mid-air. It was not directly over him but hanging, at about two feet of distance, about five feet higher than his head. What he needed was an intermediate foothold, but there was none except the knob of the door which was lower than the banister rail of the level place where he stood. Even to get one foot firmly on to the banister seemed scarcely possible. Tom thought, if only I had something with me, anything to stand on; though really there’s no point. I could never balance and stand upright on that rail so as to catch hold of the stairs above, and even if I did I couldn’t draw myself up, I’d just swing and fall into the gap between. But if I don’t get out of here soon I shall suffocate. And I think something’s going to explode. He shouted again but his voice seemed soundless. He began automatically to search his pockets and his hand gripped a knife, the strong long two-bladed Swiss knife which Emma had given him for Christmas. He drew it forth and opened the longest blade and looked at the door. It occurred to him that if he could drive the blade into the slit at the top of the door, the protruding handle might not only assist him to rise, with the help of the door knob, up on to the banister and balance there long enough to get a good grip on the vertical rails of the stair above, but might also provide him with an intermediate step on which to climb upward, provided he did not rest his weight on it for too long.

  Tom slid the knife into the top of the door. It fitted snugly. leaving three inches of handle sticking out. He put one hand on to the round banister rail. It was wet and hot and terrifyingly slippery, and as he looked at it he could see the drop below. He felt in his pocket and brought out a large and, amid all the dampness, amazingly dry handkerchief. With this he mopped the metal rail. Then quickly, without waiting to inspect the elements of the scene any further, he reached up his right hand and took hold of the knife, lifted his right leg and placed his foot on the door knob, pressed his left hand springily down on the banister and took off, rising to a standing position on the dried portion of the rail, and as he did so stretching his left hand upward to take hold of a tread of the upper stairway, then quickly moving both hands to the vertical bars just above. From here, if he could for a moment rest his right foot on the knife, he would be enabled to rise again so as to insert his left knee between the bars and on to one of the treads of the higher stair.