Iris Murdoch - The Bell

The path followed the lake side, divided from the water by an irregular hedge of greenery, finding its way through a tunnel dappled by circles of sunshine and shifting watery reflections. Deeper in the wood the dog was running parallel to the boy and could be heard blundering through the undergrowth and scuffing the dead leaves. Toby slowed down at last, and walked along panting, looking to see where he was. Through the bushes at the water’s edge he could see the other shore of the lake, the part where the Abbey enclosure was unwalled. He paused and looked across. There was a wood over there, very like this wood. And yet, he thought, how very different everything must be over there. He wondered if, in that wood, there were neat well-kept paths, along which the nuns walked in meditation, their habits dragging on the grassy verge. As he was watching, suddenly on the other side two nuns came into view. Toby froze, wondering if he was well hidden. The nuns took what must be a clear path fairly near the water. They were a little screened by bushes and tall reeds, but every now and then they emerged into full sunlight and he could see that their skirts were hitched up a little to reveal stout black shoes, as they walked at a brisk pace along beside the lake. They turned to each other and seemed to be talking. Then the next moment, as clear as a bell, he heard one of them laugh. They turned away from him and back into the darkness of the wood.

That laugh moved Toby strangely. Of course there was no reason why nuns shouldn’t laugh, though he never normally imagined them laughing. But such a laugh, he thought, must be a very very good thing: one of the best things in the world. To be good and gay was surely the highest of human destinies. With these thoughts he recalled James’s talk of this morning. What James had said about innocence was surely in a way meant for him. Naturally he could not claim, as Catherine could, to have kept and guarded his innocence. How well old James had struck off just that thing that one felt about Catherine, what made her so exceptional: a sense of something retained. He himself had not been tried yet; how true what James had said about the keeping of innocence being enough of a task! Yet, Toby reflected, would it really be so difficult if one were fully aware ? The trouble with so many young people nowadays was that they were not aware . They seemed to go through their youth in a daze, in a dream. Toby was certain of being awake. He was amazed, when people said that youth was wonderful, only one didn’t realize it at the time. Toby did realize it at the time, was realizing it now as he paced along close to the water, his shirt wet with perspiration, feeling already the cool emanations from the lake. He was glad he had come to Imber, glad he had surrounded himself with all these good people. He was full of thanksgiving to God and a sense of the renewal of his faith. A conviction overpowered him of the almost impersonal power within him of his own pure intent. This was perhaps what was meant by grace. Not I, but Christ in me. He felt, remembering the sudden gaiety of the nun’s laughter over the water, a sense of joy which seemed both physical and spiritual at the same time and almost lifted him off the ground. When one was so favoured it was not difficult to be good.

As he reflected he had been walking slowly on, and looking ahead now he realized that he had reached his destination. He saw at once with interest that what he had taken to be a gravelly beach was in fact a wide stone ramp which led gently down into the water. His lofty thoughts forgotten, he examined the scene. A few rotting stumps in the lake beyond the ramp suggested that there had once been a wooden landing-stage; and the woodland for a little distance around had been cleared, though now weeds and grass had plentifully covered the area. There were traces of stone and gravel, and in the midst a wide pathway led back into the wood. Toby threw down his swimming things and started along the path. He saw in a moment or two that there was a building of some sort ahead of him. He was confronted by what seemed to be a very old tumbled-down barn. The roof, which had once been stone-tiled, was partly fallen in, and the roof timbers, made of fir wood, with bark and ragged branch ends still showing on them, could be seen at one end, pointing upwards in gaunt empty arches. The walls were of thick roughly hewn stone, piled together in mortarless intricacy. Toby decided it must be a medieval barn. He approached the gaping entrance with caution and looked in. A huge door opened on the other side towards the pasture, but the place was twilit within. It was quite empty except for some old rotting sacks and boxés. It echoed a little. The mud floor was as hard as cement, though cracked here and there under the broken part of the roof by grass and thistles. Looking up Toby saw the great cross beams, immensely thick, each one made long ago from the stem of a huge oak. Enormous cobwebs entangled the beams and made a textile net under the peak of the roof. Up there something, perhaps a bat, was stirring in the lofty darkness. Toby hurried through and out the other side.

He could now see through the trees the wider light of the pastureland. He walked on. By the edge of the pasture a concrete path, used perhaps for the transit of logs, ran along beside the wood in the direction of the Court. Once perhaps the barn had stood on the verge of the grass, but now the wood had captured it and it was derelict and useless. Excited by his discovery Toby bounded back toward the shore of the lake and the cheerful open sunshine which he could see ahead of him along the path. He found Murphy sitting on the ramp, guarding his things, his long tongue drooping in the heat, with the patient smiling face of a panting dog.

It had been chilly in the barn. The sun warmed Toby now with a luxurious zeal. He looked at the water and desired intensely to be in it. Glancing across the lake he saw that the land opposite was just outside the enclosure wall. He had been told never to swim opposite the enclosure. He decided that, although he would still be visible from within the wall, he would follow the letter of the law and swim from the ramp. He liked the place and did not want to go any farther. Indeed, looking on along the lake shore it seemed that the banks were increasingly muddy and weedy, and the lake ended in a sort of rébarbative bog. Toby undressed quickly and went to sun himself on the sloping stones before going in. The sun warmed his flesh deeply.

First he tried lying flat on his face with his feet down the slope. But the human body is not so constructed that when in that position the neck and chin can rest comfortably upon the ground. Our awkward frames deny us the relaxed pose of the recumbent dog. Convinced of this truth, Toby turned over and reclined on one elbow. In this more inviting position he was accosted by Murphy who came and laid his head against his shoulder. In a kind of physical rapture Toby sat up and took the furry beast in his arms and cuddled him as he had sometimes seen Nick do. The sensation of the hot soft living fur against his skin was strange and exciting. He sat there motionless for a while, holding the dog and looking down into the lake. It was deep there by the landing-stage; and suddenly his eyes made out a large fish basking motionless where the sun penetrated the greenish water. From its narrow length and its fierce jaws he knew it to be a pike. His head nodding a little over Murphy’s back he watched the quiet pike. Then his eyes began to close and only the hot sparkling of the lake pierced through the fringe of his eyelids. He felt so happy he could almost die of it, invited by that sleep of youth when physical well-being and joy and absence of care lull the mind into a sweet coma which is the more inviting since its awakening is charmed no less, and the spirit faints briefly, almost sated with delight.