Charles Snow - The Affair

“My dear chap?”

“I think you know that, like Lewis, I don’t see quite eye to eye with you over this. On this one single occasion, I do very sincerely think you’re wrong.”

“I appreciate that,” said Brown.

“It’s the only time since I’ve been here that, when it’s come to a decision, I haven’t felt you were incomparably righter than anyone else.”

“You’re much too kind to me.”

Brown was watching Tom with care. He knew — it didn’t take a wary man to know — that Tom was up to something. For what purpose Tom was trying to get round him, he couldn’t foresee. I was thinking that Tom, quite apart from his hidden violence, was a subtle character. He was fluid, quick-moving, full of manoeuvre, happy to play on other men. But, like other subtle characters, he was under the illusion that his manoeuvres were invisible. In fact, they were seen through, not only by people like Brown and me, but by the simplest. And that was true of most subtle men. As they went round, flattering, cajoling, misleading and promising, the only persons who found their disguise totally convincing were themselves.

“So I was wondering if you’d let me ask one question. Don’t you think it might be a mistake to be too intransigent over this? I respect your attitude. I respect your opinion on the justness of the affair, though quite sincerely I can’t agree with it. But don’t you think it might be a mistake — well, one might call it a mistake in tactics, if you don’t misunderstand me, to be too intransigent? Because there are several people like me who would follow your lead over anything else, who simply can’t do it over this. And I do suggest it might be a mistake to put them off too much.”

Brown replied, “I think I can speak for the other Seniors. Naturally we realised that the decision couldn’t be a popular one.”

“I really wasn’t thinking of the other Seniors. If I may say so, Arthur, I was thinking of you.”

“No,” said Brown. “Again I’m not betraying a confidence, I think, when I say there is no difference between us on the Court.”

“There is one very important difference, if you’ll allow me to say so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that none of the other Seniors is a candidate for the mastership this autumn, and you most certainly are.”

Brown’s face was heavy: “I don’t see where this is leading us.”

“There’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Perhaps I oughtn’t to. I don’t think you’ll like it. It isn’t my place to say it anyway.”

“I’d rather you did.”

Tom was put off by Brown’s tone, formal and stern.

Would Tom realise, even at the last second, I was worrying, that he had misjudged his man?

He hesitated; then, once more acting the innocent, making his spontaneity into a technique, he cried: “Yes, damn it, I will say it! Arthur, you know I want to see you get the mastership. I want it more than anything in the college, I mean that most sincerely. And you know that some of us are working for you as hard as we can. Well, we’ve been a little anxious, or at least I have, about the effect your part of this affair is going to have. You see, it can’t be helped, but everyone takes it for granted that you’re the toughest obstacle to doing anything for Howard. If you hadn’t been there, everyone assumes that something might have been patched up. That may or may not be fair, but it’s what a lot of people are thinking. And, don’t you see, it’s bound to have a bad effect on some of those who ought to be your supporters. There’s Taylor and one or two others. I’ve been counting on their votes, and now I can see us losing them unless we’re careful. There’s Martin Eliot. He’s not committed to anyone. But I can’t see that it would even be possible for him to vote for you if this affair goes much further. Arthur, I’m not asking you to change your mind. Of course, I know you can’t. You believe what you believe, just as much as we do. But I am asking you to slip into the background and let people think you’re being as fair-minded as they always expected you to be. I’m asking you to slip into the background, and let the others do the fighting.”

Brown had heard him out, but his own reply was prompt and hard. “I should like to believe that you don’t intend it.”

“I do, very sincerely.”

“You’re asking me to alter my behaviour in a position of trust. I oughtn’t to have to tell you that I can’t consider it.”

Brown was plucking his gown round him, ready to get up from his chair. “And it oughtn’t to be necessary for me to tell you, which I will do now, since I don’t wish the subject to be raised again, that during the whole course of this unfortunate business, I have not given a second’s thought to any possible reactions on the mastership election or on my chances in it.”

Brown stood up.

“I’m sorry to leave you a little earlier than I expected, Lewis,” he said. With steady steps he walked out of the room.

The interesting thing was, all Brown said was true. He had been manipulating the college for a generation. He was cunning, he knew all the ropes, he did not invent dilemmas of conscience for himself. He wanted the mastership, and he would do anything within the rules to get it. But it had to be within the rules: and that was why men trusted him. Those rules were set, not by conscience, but by a code of behaviour — a code of behaviour tempered by robustness and sense, but also surprisingly rigid, surprising, that is, to those who did not know men who were at the same time unidealistic, political, and upright. “Decent behaviour”, for Brown, meant, among other things, not letting anyone interfere with one’s integrity in a judicial process. On the Court of Seniors, he felt in the position of a judge, and so, automatically, without any examination of conscience, he fell into behaving as he thought a judge should behave. At the same time he was following, move by move, the campaign of G S Clark to get him votes for the autumn: but when he said that he had not so much as considered how many he would lose or gain by his judge-like stand, it sounded unrealistic for such a realistic man, but it was true.

That was a temptation which did not exist for him. It existed much less for him than for a more high-principled man like Francis Getliffe, who had wavered about Howard when he knew his duty was clear. Brown was under no such temptation; he believed that he had to condemn Howard, and guided by his code, he was not tempted to examine either his own motives or any price he might have to pay.

That was why men trusted him. His cunning, his personal skills, his behaviour, his mixture of good-nature and unbendingness, were all of a piece. As a young man, I believed, he had known unhappiness. He had known what it was like not to be loved; he always had sympathy, which came from a root deeper than good-nature, for those who had got lost in their sexual lives. But all that was long over. As an ageing man, he was utterly, sometimes maddeningly, unshakably, at one.

Tom watched as the door closed behind Brown, utterly astonished. He could not conceive what he had done. What he had said, seemed to him quite innocuous. He was just giving legitimate political advice. It was unimaginable to him that it hit Brown as something like blackmail.

I was thinking — uncomfortably, for I had an affection for Tom and was getting concerned for him — that subtle men like him would be wiser not to play at politics.

SITTING in my room the following afternoon, I found myself with nothing to do. The bargain with the university was made, except for a formality which I could knock off next day: Luke had returned to London: I could stretch myself out on the sofa like an undergraduate, and read a book. I had the luxurious feeling that all time was spread out ahead. Did one feel that as a young man, and if so, did one chafe against it? Was it luxurious now just because it was the contradiction of the official life?