Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“I knew,” I said.

“It’s no good,” he said, as though off-handedly. “One can’t make oneself believe. One can’t believe to order.”

“That must be so,” I said.

“Either it comes or it doesn’t. For me it doesn’t. For some — it is as easy as breathing. How lucky they are,” he said softly. “Think of the Master. He’s not a very good scholar, you know, but he’s an extremely clever man. But he believes exactly as he did when he was a child. After reading about all the religions in the world. He’s very lucky.”

He was still looking over the fields.

“Then there’s Ralph Udal.” Suddenly he gave me a glance acute and piercing. “By the way, why do you dislike him so much?”

“I don’t dislike him—”

“Come off it.” Roy smiled. “I’ve not seen you do it with anyone else — but when you meet him you bristle like a cat.”

I had not wanted to recognise it, but it was true. I could not explain it.

“Anyway,” said Roy, “he’s not an empty man. You’d give him that, wouldn’t you? And he believes without a moment’s trouble.”

Slowly we began to walk back along the path. Roy was still thinking of those who did not need to struggle in order to believe in God. He spoke of old Martineau, whose story had caught his imagination. Martineau was a solicitor who had kept open house for me and my friends when I was a very young man. He was cultivated, lively, given to all kinds of interests, and in those days only mildly eccentric. Suddenly, at the age of fifty, he had given away his practice and all his possessions; he joined several quaint religious settlements in turn, and then became a tramp preacher; at that moment he was a pavement artist on the streets of Leeds, drawing pictures with a religious message. I had seen him fairly recently: he was very happy, and surprisingly unchanged.

“He must have been certain of God,” said Roy.

“I’m not at all sure,” I said. “He was never able to explain what he really believed. That was always the hardest thing to understand.”

“Well, I hope he’s certain now,” said Roy. “If anyone deserves to be, he does.”

Then he spoke with intense feeling: “I can’t think what it’s like to be certain. I’m afraid that it’s impossible for me. There isn’t a place for me.”

His voice was tense, excited, full of passion. As he went on, it became louder, louder than the voice I was used to, but still very clear: “Listen, Lewis. I could believe in all the rest. I could believe in the catholic church. I could believe in miracles. I could believe in the inquisition. I could believe in eternal damnation. If only I could believe in God.”

“And yet you can’t,” I said, with his cry still in my ears.

“I can’t begin to,” he said, his tone quiet once more. “I can’t get as far as ‘help Thou mine unbelief’.”

We left the ridge of the Roman road, and began to cross the shining fields.

“The nearest I’ve got is this,” he said. “It has happened twice. It’s completely clear — and terrible. Each time has been on a night when I couldn’t sleep. I’ve had the absolute conviction — it’s much more real than anything one can see or touch — that God and His world exist. And everyone can enter and find their rest. Except me. I’m infinitely far away for ever. I am alone and apart and infinitesimally small — and I can’t come near.”

I looked at his face in the moonlight. It was pale, but less haunted, and seemed to be relaxed into a kind of exhausted peace. Soon he began to sing, very quietly, in a light, true, reedy voice. Quiet though it was, it became the only sound under the sky. There was a slight ironic smile on his face; for he was singing a child’s prayer to be guarded while asleep.

For once in his life, Arthur Brown considered that he had been guilty of “premature action”. After the visit of Lyall and Foulkes, he had considered Roy as good as elected, although as a matter of form he warned me against excessive optimism. Getliffe had told him, in his honest fashion, that he had been deeply impressed by the expert evidence. Even Winslow had remarked that, though the case for Calvert rested mainly on nepotism, there did appear to be a trace of merit there. Brown went steadily ahead, persuaded the college to create a vacancy and to perform the statutory rites so that there could be an election on the first Monday in November.

So far, so good. But it happened that young Luke, a scientist two years Roy’s junior, finished a research sooner than anyone expected. Francis Getliffe came in with the news one night. The work was completely sound and definite, he said, though some loose ends needed tying up; it was an important advance in nuclear physics. Getliffe had been intending to bring Luke’s name up the following year, but now he wanted him discussed at the fellowship meeting.

“That puts everything back in the melting pot,” said Arthur Brown. “I don’t wish Luke any harm, but it’s a pity his confounded apparatus didn’t blow up a fortnight ago. Just to give us time to squeeze our young friend in. I daresay Luke is pretty good, I know Getliffe has always thought the world of him. But there’s plenty of time to give him a run next year. Well, Eliot, it’s a great lesson to me never to count my chickens before they’re hatched. I shan’t take anything for granted next time I’m backing someone until I actually see him admitted in the Chapel. I don’t mind telling you that I shall be relieved if we ever see Calvert there. Well, we’ve got to make as good a showing as we can. I’m rather inclined to think this is the time to dig in our heels.”

Brown’s reflection did not prevent him from letting Francis Getliffe know that his “present intention” would be to support Luke next year. I did the same. Francis Getliffe was not the man who would “do a deal”, but he was practical and sensible. He would get Luke in anyway, if he waited a few months: we made sure he knew it, before he went to extravagant lengths to fight an election now.

That was all we could do. Roy was still depressed, though not so acutely as on the night of our walk. About his election, I was far more anxious than he.

The day of the election was damp and dark, with low clouds, and a drizzle of rain. In the courts, red and copper leaves of creepers slithered underfoot; umbrellas glistened in the streets as they passed the lighted shops. The meeting was called for the traditional hour of half-past four, with tea beforehand; to quieten my nerves, I spent the middle of the afternoon walking in the town, looking at bookshops, greeting acquaintances; the streets were busy, the window lights shone under the dark sky. There was the wistful smell of the Cambridge autumn, and in the tailors’ shops gleamed the little handbills, blue letters on white with the names of the week’s university teams.

At four o’clock I entered the college by the great gate. The bell was tolling for the meeting, the curtains of the combination room were already drawn. Through the curtains, the lights of the room glowed orange and drew my eyes from the dark court; like any lighted room on a dusky evening, it tempted me with domestic comfort, even though I was wishing that the meeting were all over or that I need not go.

As soon as I got inside, I knew so much of it by heart — the burnished table reflecting, not wineglasses and decanters, but inkpots and neat piles of paper in front of each of our chairs — old Gay, the senior fellow, aged seventy-nine, tucking with shameless greed and gusto into an enormous tea, and congratulating everyone on its excellence — the great silver teapots, the muffin covers, the solid fruit cakes, the pastries — the little groups of two or three colloguing in corners, with sometimes a word, louder than the rest of their conversation, causing others to frown and wonder.