Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“You like the idea, don’t you?” Francis cried.

“They are remarkable people.”

“Good God.” Francis’ face was flushed with passion. “You like authority wherever it rears its head.”

“That may be so. I haven’t been very clever at finding it, have I?”

Roy had spoken with the lightness that deceived, and Francis did not realise that he had struck much deeper than he knew. Neither Arthur Brown nor I could take our eyes from Roy’s face.

“I don’t know what you’ve found,” said Francis impatiently. “I should have thought you might be content among your fascist friends.”

“If so,” said Roy, “I might have stayed there.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“No,” said Roy, “you wouldn’t see why not.”

“You’d be less dangerous there than you are here,” shouted Francis, stung to bitter anger.

“I dare say. I’m not so concerned about that as you are.”

“Then you’ve got to be,” Francis said, and the quarrel became fiercer. Arthur Brown tried to steady them, offered to present another bottle of port, but they were too far gone. Brown listened with a frown of puzzlement and concern. He admired Francis Getliffe, but his whole outlook, even his idioms, were foreign to Brown. Francis took it for granted, in the way in which he and I and many of our generation had been brought up, that there were just two sides in the world, and that the battle between them was joined, and that no decent man could hesitate an instant. “My Manichaeans had the same idea,” said Roy, which made Francis more angry.

To Francis, to all men like him and many less incisive, it all seemed starkly plain in black-and-white. Issues have to seem so at the fighting-points of history. It was only later, looking back, that one saw the assumptions we had made, the ignorant hopes we had indulged, the acts of faith that looked strange in the light of what was actually to come. At that moment, Francis was saying, everything must be sacrificed to win: this was the great crisis, and until it was over we could not afford free art, disinterested speculation, the pleasures of detachment, the vagaries of the lonely human soul. They were luxuries. This was no time for luxuries. Our society was dying, and we could not rest until we had the new one safe.

Roy replied, sometimes with his light grave clarity, sometimes with the kind of frivolous gibes that infuriated Francis most. “Do you believe everything that’s written in Cyrillic letters?” asked Roy. “I must learn Russian. I’m sure you’d be upset if I translated Pravda to you every night.” He told Francis that communism (or Francis’ approach to it, for Francis was not a member of the party) was a “romantic” creed, for all its dryness. “It’s realistic about the past. Entirely so. But it’s wildly romantic about the future. Why, it believes it’s quite easy to make men good. It’s far more optimistic than Christianity. You need to read Saint Augustine, you know. Or Pascal. Or Hügel. But then they knew something of life.”

Once or twice Brown chuckled, but he was uneasy. He was deeply fond of Roy; much of what Roy said came far nearer to him than anything of Francis’.

But Brown was cautious and realistic. He believed Roy was completely reckless — and every word he said on Germany filled Brown with alarm. Brown was ready to anticipate that his protégés would get into trouble. Roy’s folly might be the most painful of all.

As for me, I was watching for the terrible elation. His wretchedness had weighed him down for weeks; it was melancholy at its deepest, and it was beginning to break into the lightning flashes.

I was expecting an outburst, and this time I was terrified where it would end.

It was that sign I was listening for, not anything else in their quarrel. But Roy’s last words that night were quite calm.

“You think I’m dangerous, don’t you?” he said. “Believe this: you and your friends are much more so. You know you’re right, don’t you? It has never crossed your mind that you might be wrong. And that doesn’t seem to you — dreadful.”

For a few days nothing seemed to change. Roy did not often dine in hall, but I listened in dread for each rumour about him: when I saw Arthur Brown walking towards me in the court, intending to carry me off for a confidential talk, I wanted to shy away — but it was only to consider whether the time had come to “ventilate” the question of a new fellow. Wars might be near us, but Arthur Brown took it for granted that the college government must be carried on. I asked Bidwell each morning how Mr Calvert was. “He’s not getting his sleep, sir,” said Bidwell. “No, he’s not getting his sleep. As I see it, sir — I know it’s not my place to say it — but it’s all on account of his old books. He’s overtaxed his brain. That’s how I see it, sir.”

Then, as a complete surprise, I received a note from Lady Muriel. She was staying at the University Arms: would I excuse the short notice, and go to the hotel for tea? I knew that she had arrived, I knew that Roy had given her dinner the night before: but I was astonished to be summoned. I had never been exactly a favourite of hers. I felt a vague malaise: I was becoming morbidly anxious.

Lady Muriel had taken a private sitting-room, looking out upon Parker’s Piece. She greeted me as she used to in the Lodge; she seemed almost to fancy that she was still there.

“Good afternoon, Mr Eliot. I am glad that you were able to come.” Her neck was stiff, her back erect as ever; but it took more effort than it used. Trouble was telling, even on her. “I will ring at once for tea.”

She asked about my work, my pupils and — inexorably — my wife. It all sounded like the rubric of days past. She poured out my cup of Indian tea; it was like her, I thought, to remember that I disliked China, to disapprove of my taste and attribute it firmly to my lowly upbringing, and yet still to feel that a hostess was obliged to provide for it. She put her cup down, and regarded me with her bold innocent eyes.

“Mr Eliot, I wish to ask you a personal question.”

“Lady Muriel?”

“I do not wish to pry. But I must ask this question. Have you noticed anything wrong with Roy?”

I was taken aback.

“He’s desperately overstrained,” I said.

“I considered that you might have noticed something,” said Lady Muriel. “But I believe it is worse. I believe he has some worry on his mind.”

She stared at me.

“Do you know what this worry is, Mr Eliot?”

“He’s very sad,” I began. “But—”

“Mr Eliot,” Lady Muriel announced, “I am a great believer in woman’s intuition. Men are more gifted than we are intellectually. I should never have presumed to disagree with the Master on a purely intellectual matter. But it takes a woman to see that a man is hiding some private worry. Roy has always been so wonderfully carefree. I saw the difference at once.”

She sighed.

“Is it because of some woman?” she said suddenly.

“No.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

“We must put our finger on it,” said Lady Muriel. She was baffled, distressed, unhappy; her voice was firm and decided, but only by habit; her whole heart went out to him. “Surely he knows we want to help him. Does he know that I would do anything to help him?”

“I am quite sure he does.”

“I am very glad to hear you say that. I should like to have told him. But there are things one always finds it impossible to say.”

She turned her head away from me. She was looking out of the window, when she said: “I tried to get him to confide this worry last night.”

“What did you do?”

“I used a little finesse. Then I asked him straight out.”