The Bell

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘And as to this I had no other answer in Showing of our Lord God but this: That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well. Thus I was taught, by the grace of God, that I should steadfastly hold me in the Faith as I had aforehand understood, and therewith that I should firmly believe that all things shall be well, as our Lord showed in the same time.’

  Toby, who had soon finished with his meal, sat crumbling his bread and pushing the crumbs into cracks in the old oak table. He did not dare to turn his head in case he caught Michael’s eye. He felt tired and listless after a bad night. His morning’s work had been irksome. He was not listening to the reading.

  Toby had received, though not yet digested, one of the earliest lessons of adult life: that one is never secure. At any moment one can be removed from a state of guileless serenity and plunged into its opposite, without any intermediate condition, so high about us do the waters rise of our own and other people’s imperfection. Toby had passed, it seemed to him in an instant, from a joy that had seemed impregnable into an agitation which he scarcely understood. He could not, during the long night and when he awoke from intermittent sleep in the morning, quite make out whether anything very important had happened or not; at least, at the surface of his mind he debated this. Deeper down he knew that something extraordinary had occurred though he did not yet know what it was.

  As he walked back with Nick to the Lodge, after Michael’s abrupt departure, he had felt extreme confusion, but had managed all the same to speak calmly to Nick and answer with cheerful casualness his questions about their journey. He wondered if Nick could possibly have seen the incident, but decided that he had not. Toby and Michael had been well behind the headlights, and Nick, even if he had emerged from the gates in time, would have been dazzled by the strong beam. He might have guessed from Michael’s odd manner that something was up; but there was no reason why he should guess it to be something as remarkable as that. Nick was possibly curious: and showed, Toby observed, during their conversation that followed, a sharpened interest in him and a desire to keep him talking. But Toby maintained his composure, and cut their talk short, though not too short, and hurried up to bed. He wanted passionately to be by himself.

  When he was alone he sat down on his bed and covered his face. His first emotion was sheer amazement. He could hardly think of anything he would have expected less. Toby’s knowledge of homosexuality was slight. His day school had yielded him no experience of this sort, nor even the remotest approach to such experience. The matter had been the subject of certain simple jokes among his school-fellows, but their ignorance was as great as his and little information could be obtained from this source. As his education had included Latin but no Greek his acquaintance with the excesses of the ancients was fragmentary; but in any case it was all different for them. What he did know came mainly from the more popular newspapers, and from remarks he had heard his father make about ‘pansies’. In so far as he had up to now reflected on this propensity at all he had regarded it as a strange sickness or perversion, with mysterious and disgusting refinements, from which a small number of unfortunate persons suffered. He also knew, and differed here from his father, that it was more proper to regard these persons as subjects for the doctor than as subjects for the police. And there his knowledge ended.

  Like all inexperienced people, Toby tended to make all-or-nothing judgements. Whereas previously he had regarded Michael as a paragon of virtue and had not dreamt of speculating about whether his life could contain blemishes or failures, he now attributed to him homosexuality tout court with all that it involved of the unnatural and the nameless. At least this was his first reaction. He found that his thoughts moved fast and in the direction of greater complexity. His immediate emotion had been surprise. It was soon succeeded by disgust and an alarming sort of fear. He felt a definite physical repugnance at having been touched in that way. He felt himself menaced. Perhaps he ought to tell someone. Did the others know about it? Obviously not. Oughtn’t they to be told? Yet it was certainly not for him to speak. Besides, it was a matter also of protecting himself. He was thoroughly alarmed to find that he was the sort of person who attracted attention of that sort. He wondered if that showed that there was something wrong with him, an unconscious tendency that way which another person so afflicted would divine?

  It was at this point that he began to accuse himself of exaggeration. Surely the thing wasn’t as important as all that; and was he not, by becoming so idiotically upset, just displaying his naïvety and lack of sophistication? Toby had a horror of being thought naïve. He began to undress and resolved to think no more about it till the next morning. He turned the light out. But sleep did not come. And as he lay there in the darkness Toby found that after all what had happened had its interesting side. It certainly constituted an adventure, though a somewhat rebarbative one. And what he then experienced, though he did not at the time recognize it as such, was a feeling of pleasure at being suddenly in a position of power vis-à-vis someone whom he had so unquestioningly accepted as his spiritual superior.

  This thought led him back toward considerations which were more humane: and it was here that the complexities began in earnest. He began really to envisage Michael. What was it like to be Michael? What was Michael thinking now? Was he lying awake, miserable, wishing that that hadn’t happened? What would he do tomorrow? Would he speak to Toby about it? Or would he ignore it completely and behave as if it hadn’t been? Toby felt he couldn’t bear that. The sense of something needing to be completed began already to be strong in him. He was feeling, for the first time, intensely interested in Michael. He felt too, as he conjured up the image of that obviously rather complicated person, a new emotion about him. He found himself feeling, towards Michael, curiously protective. And with this thought at last he fell asleep.

  The next morning he just felt wretched. His disgust had returned, but now it was directed for some obscure reason against himself. He felt as if he had taken part, on the previous night, in some exhausting orgy. Yet although he recalled with undiminished repugnance the incident in question, it seemed that what had constituted the orgy was chiefly his own thoughts. Yet he was far from wanting to turn his mind to other things. Whereas before he had wholeheartedly enjoyed his work in the garden, it seemed today burdensome and time-wasting in that it distracted him from thinking about Michael. He would have liked to spend the morning walking in the woods. Instead he had to sustain a conversation with James, and then with Patchway, and then with Mrs Mark, with whom he was detailed to spend the last part of the morning packing vegetables into nets and boxes. Michael avoided him.

  It seemed possible that Michael might take an opportunity at lunch-time to call him aside. But the meal passed off without their having even looked at each other. Toby was anxious not to appear to invite a tête-à-tête, and he vanished during the short interval after lunch to a remote corner of the fruit garden where there was a job of attaching wires to the wall which he had been asked to do when a spare moment came. But when he got there he could not bring himself to do the job. He sat on the path, turning the little stones over with his fingers, until it was time to start work officially again.

  In the afternoon he was employed once more on the perennial hoeing. At least here he was alone. The weather had continued very hot and his vigorous efforts soon made him perspire freely. He worked on doggedly with his head down. From farther away he could hear the purr of the mechanical cultivator, which had gone into action immediately under the control of Patchway, who had experienced in its respect a lightning conversion. As the afternoon wore on Toby began to feel totally miserable, and the confusion of his thoughts was resolved into one intense need: to talk to Michael.

  He went through high tea in a daze, and after sitting about for some time conspicuously in the common-room, forced himself to return to the fruit garden to do the wiring. It was here that Mrs Mark found him round about eight o’clock
with the message that Michael would like to see him at once.

  When Michael reached his bedroom he immediately lay down on the floor, and for a while it was as if, in a sheer desire to be hidden, all sense of his own personality left him. The shock of what had occurred and the intensity of his regret for it left him quite stunned. To have thought it, to have dreamed it, yes - but to have done it! And as Michael contemplated that tiny distance between the thought and the act it was like a most narrow crack which even as he watched it was opening into an abyss. Covering his face he tried to pray: but he soon realized that he was still thoroughly drunk. His present prostration was fruitless and ignoble. He was not even in a condition properly to recognize his own wretchedness. He uttered some words all the same, conventional and familiar words, put together for such purposes by other men. He could not find any words or thoughts of his own. He got up from the floor.

  He went to the washstand and sponged his face over with a wet flannel. His skin was burning. He must pull himself together and do some decent thinking: but as he stood there with the dripping flannel in his hand what came back to him with a pain more searching still was the desire that Nick might not have seen, and the fear that he might. When he wondered why this seemed now to matter so desperately the answer was a strange one. He did not want Nick to feel himself betrayed or abandoned by Michael’s preference for a younger man. But this was, he knew, a perfectly crazy emotion, since it assumed that time had stood still. That he should not want Nick to think him corrupt or wicked was proper enough, and that for Nick’s sake as well as his own. But what seemed to distress him so profoundly was the notion that Nick might think him unfaithful.

  Michael found this thought so surprising that he did not know what to do with it. He threw down the flannel. The cold water was trickling across his neck and down his back. He was conscious again of his headache and unpleasant sensations in the stomach. He sat on the bed making a violent effort to be calm. When he had to some extent succeeded he recognized it as appalling that his first concern had not been for Toby. His prior instinct had been that of a sort of self-preservation: a fear for himself, which he had not yet dared fully to examine, together with this insane reaction about Nick. Whereas what he ought to be considering was the damage done to the boy.

  Thinking about Toby was at first less painful, since it was possible here to see the thing as a problem and to attempt at least to circumscribe it. Michael began soberly to estimate Toby’s state of mind. He was certain from what he knew of the boy and his background that Toby would have no experience and very little knowledge of homosexuality and probably regarded ‘queers’ as contemptible, mysterious, and disgusting. The effect of Michael’s embrace would probably be considerable; and even if Michael himself were to decide it wisest to pass the incident off as something best not discussed, Toby would hardly be able to cooperate. He would want an explanation. He would require a sequel. To say no more about it would be to leave the boy in a state of unrelieved anxiety and tension. Something would have to be done.

  As Michael now seriously considered Toby he began for the first time, and noted wryly how late this came, to recognize that he had damaged somebody other than himself. He pictured Toby’s reactions: the shock, the disgust, the disillusionment, the sense of something irretrievably spoilt. Toby had come to Imber as to a religious house, as to a retreat. He had looked for an inspiration and an example. That Michael’s own halo had abruptly vanished mattered less: but the whole experience of Imber would now be ruined for Toby. Bitterly and relentlessly Michael explored the implications of what he had done. That something so momentary and so trivial could have so much meaning, could achieve so much destruction! In a sense, Michael knew what had happened: he had drunk too much and yielded to an isolated and harmless impulse of affection. In another sense, he did not yet know what had happened. Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.

  With an effort Michael composed himself for sleep. For a while he prayed, endeavouring to direct his intent towards Toby. There would be time enough for self-examination later on. He was aware, seeing them as it were with the corner of his eye, that there were demons within himself which his action had set loose. The insane tormenting thought about Nick was still present to his mind. As he crawled into bed and began at last to lose consciousness his final reflection was that though he had done something bad to Toby he had done something worse to himself. What that thing was remained to be seen.

  The next day he addressed himself to deciding what to do. It was then that he noticed another feature of the situation. He found himself intensely anxious to see Toby again and to speak to him about what had occurred. At breakfast-time they both sat with downcast eyes and Michael escaped immediately afterwards to his office. He was frantic to talk to Toby. He remembered how yesterday, during the journey home, he had felt his heart heel over in tenderness for the boy, and had been sure that such a spring of feeling could not be wholly evil. Today, with more cynicism, he wondered if he had not better play what was safest for himself, regardless of Toby’s puzzlement and anxiety, and just let the matter drop completely. An emotional talk, anything resembling an apology, would only prolong the incident. Michael also found himself wanting to be reassured about Nick; while at the same time the thought of questioning Toby about Nick agitated him extremely. If he did speak to Toby he must be very cold and reserved; but would he be capable of it?

  During the morning he found time to go over to the visitor’s chapel and sat there for a while in the darkness and the silence. It was not difficult in that place to be persuaded of the nearness of God. The purer striving of so many others had carved, as it were, a path, a chasm. Here at last the fever of his mind was calmed and he felt with his whole being the desire to do only what was pleasing to God, and the confidence that this was something which he could both know and do. At the same time, in this recollected state he was more able to judge the poverty of the thoughts which had afflicted him last night and this morning. How quick he had been to take fright, how far from any sort of true repentance, how unready to seek for that real goodwill towards Toby which should be his guide. He prayed now for that most remote and difficult of insights, the sober realization that one has sinned; and as he looked through the grille towards the altar he felt calmed, helped, and supported. There was work for him to do and God would not ultimately let him suffer shipwreck. He decided that Toby must be spoken to.

  His desire to see the boy was still extremely keen. As he left the chapel he decided he would postpone the interview till the following day. This small abstinence would cool him yet further, and in any case he hoped to be generally much calmer on the morrow. At lunch-time, still avoiding Toby’s eye, he listened attentively to the reading, touched by Catherine’s obvious devotion to her author, and remembering how she had once told him that Dame Julian had had an influence in her decision to become a nun. How many souls indeed had not this gentle mystic consoled and cheered, with her simple understanding of the reality of God’s love. Michael took the reading to himself, reflecting that his innumerable hesitations, his inability to act simply and naturally, were marks of lack of faith.

  In the afternoon he went to a remote part of the garden and occupied himself with hard physical work. The delights of the mechanical digger he surrendered to Patchway. His pleasure in that gaily coloured toy was in any case quite spoilt. Turning over the earth, he found himself a prey to many thoughts. At tea-time he was nervous and listless and without appetite. After tea he tried to settle down in his office and make a draft of the appeal for financial help. But his mind was blunted. The earlier complexity of his thoughts began to collapse. It began to seem to him absurd and gratuitously mystifying to Toby, to postpone the interview. He felt dully and violently, with a mixture of pain and pleasure which was not itself unpleasurable, the desire to get it over. He needed above anything to rid himself of a craving which made all other activity impossible.


  Michael decided not to interview Toby in his office or bedroom. Reflective, now that he had decided to wait no longer, he wanted the interview to be business-like, not intimate. He found himself planning it and deciding what he was going to say, even with a sort of satisfaction. He recalled his promise to show Toby where the nightjars haunted, and he thought that to speak to the boy while fulfilling that promise would strike the right note of ordinariness. He would thereby make clear to Toby that nothing much had changed and there was no fearful discontinuity between the time before and the time after that unfortunate moment last night. He discovered from Margaret Strafford that Toby was in the fruit garden; and as she was going there herself she bore him the message.

  Michael waited for him on the other side of the ferry. He wanted to shorten the part of the journey they would make together. He also wanted to make sure that Nick was not in the vicinity. Fortunately there seemed to be no sign of him in the field or in the wood. As Michael walked back to the lake side he saw Toby running down the grassy slope from the house. He jumped into the boat, almost sinking it, propelled it across as fast as its sluggish weight would allow, and arrived breathless on the wooden landing-stage where Michael was now standing.

  ‘Hello, Toby,’ said Michael coolly, turning at once to lead him along the path to the wood. ‘I’m going to show you the nightjars. You remember I said I would. It’s not very far from here. Do you know anything about nightjars?’

  Toby, who was looking resolutely at the ground while he walked, shook his head.

  ‘The nightjar’, said Michael, ‘is a migrant. It should be leaving us any time now, and it always sings with particular vigour just before it goes. It’s a most unusual bird, as you’ll see. Its Latin name is caprimulgus, goat-sucker, as it was once thought to feed on the milk of goats. Its main call, which I hope you’ll hear, is a sort of bubbling sound on two notes. It only flies about in the twilight and it has a very odd flight, exceedingly fast, yet rather irregular and bat-like. It has another peculiarity too, which is that when it’s sitting on a branch it often claps its wings together over its back.’