Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`Absolutely,' said Duncan. 'He was terribly intense and solemn at Oxford. He and Levquist got onfamously, Levquist had no sense of' humour either. I think hegot completely soaked in Greek mythology and never recovered. He lived all the time inside some Greek myth and saw himself as a hero.'

`Perhaps the Greeks had no sense ot'humour.'

`Precious little. Aristophanes isn't really funny, there's nothing in Greek literature which is funny in the way Shakespeare is. Somehow the light that shone on them was too clear and their sense of destiny was too strong. `They were too pleased with themselves.'

`Yes. And too frightened of the gods.'

`Did they really believe in those gods?'

`They certainly believed in supernatural beings. In a dignified way they were fearfully superstitious.'

`That sounds like Crimond. He was dignified and superstitious.'

`The first thing he published was on mythology.'

They were silent for a moment. When they talked of Crimond they never mentioned the book.

`When Joel comes over, let's go to Greece,' said Jean.

Joel Kowitz had discreetly, in his travels, and he loved travelling, avoided London during Jean's second 'Crimond period'. It was not that Joel held any theory about the permanence or impermanence of Jean's new situation. He knew when he was wanted and when he was not; he studied Jean's letters (for she wrote to him regularly during that time) waiting for a summons which would be sent the moment, the second, she really desired to see him again. Jean's letters made, to his loving eye, terrible reading. They were, almost, dutiful, saying she was well, Crimond was well, he was working, the weather was awful, she sent her love. They were, he thought, like letters from prison, like censored letters. He replied, tactfully, describing his doings inhis usual witty style (he was a good letter writer), asking no questions. In fact he wanted very much indeed to visit, not only Jean, but Crimond, whom he regarded as a remarkable and extraordinary being, far more worthy and interesting than Jean's husband. There came a significant gap in communication. Then a quite different letter arrived. Jean was with Duncan again, they were going to live in France, she hoped he would come over soon. Joel, who thought and worried about his daughter all the time, gave a brief sigh for Crimond (if only she'd got together with that fellow at Cambridge), and rejoiced at the signs of life, of hope, of direct speech, in the new style.

`We must be sure the workmen know exactly what to do when we go away.'

`I still haven't chosen the tiles for the kitchen,' said Jean. `Joel mustn't come here, I don't want him to see the house till it's finished. We could meet in Athens, just for a week or so, and go on to Delphi.'

`It would be lovely to be in Athens again.' Duncan was not so sure about going to Delphi. That dangerous god might still be around there. Duncan had his own Scottish streak of superstition. He did not want any more strange influences bearing on their life, he did not want Jean to be disturbed by anything. He felt for her health as for that of someone recovering from a fit of insanity.

`You put Rose off, I imagine?' said Duncan.

`Yes.' Jean and Duncan had stayed briefly in Paris with some old friends from diplomatic days, and from there Jean had, on a sudden impulse, written an affectionate letter to Rose. It had been a very brief untalkative letter, serving simply as a signal, a symbol or secret emblem, a ring or talisman or password, signifying the absolute continuation of their love and friendship. Rose replied at once of course, asking whether she might drop over. Jean and Duncan had left by then and Rose's letter, equally brief, equally significant, followed them to the south. ,Jean replied saying not to come. Of' course their friendship was eternal. But she was not sure when and where she would want to see Rose again. They had survived Ireland and presumably would survive this. But Jean felt no desire for straight loving looks and intimate conversation. Later, of course, later on when their lovely house was ready, people would come. Rose and Gerard, their old friends – how few – their new friends, if any, their clever and amusing acquaintances.

Can we, with our souls so harrowed, find peace now, she wondered, is it all real, our house, Duncan sitting there so calm and beautiful, so like a lion, just as he used to be. Thank God he's drinking less, French food suits him. When the summer comes we shall swim every day. Will it be so? Have I really stopped loving Crimond? She asked herself this question often, not really in any doubt, but rather to insist upon the reality of her escape. It was sad, too, so sadJenkin's death had broken some link, killed some last illusion – or one of the last illusions. Of course Crimond didn't murder him. But he caused his death. Jean did not allow herself to brood upon that utterly impenetrably mysterious scene, something which, although she believed Crimond's account of the accident, remained a mystery. It was as if Crimond had killed himself. So in a sense Jenkin achieved something by dying, he died for me, she thought. Of course it's mad to say this, but all Crimond's surroundings are mad. And somehow too I killed him, not just by the telephone call, but because I failed to kill Crimond on the Roman Road. How strange to think how nearly I am not here. What did he intend? Would he have swerved at the last moment, did he think I would? Did he want to test himself by an ordeal he would be liberated by surviving? Was it just a symbolic suicide pact because he knew she would funk it and so bring their relationship to an end by the failure of her love, a way to be rid of her mercifully, a symbolic killing? If I pass the test I die, if I fail it he leaves me. Yet he might have died, perhaps he wanted to die, he offered himself to me as a victim, and I did not take him. He was really gambling, for him a gamble was a religious rite, an exorcism, he wanted to end our love, or end our lives, and left it to the gods to decide how. He had said often enough that their love was impossible – yet he had loved her in and through that impossibility. Sometimes she dreamt about him and dreamt that they were reconciled – and in the moment of waking when she knew it was not true her eyes filled with tears. When in that field he had said, go, takeyour chance, I shall not see you again, his love had spoken, his fierce love that had been ready to will both their deaths. Could such a love end? Must it not simply be metamorphosed into something quiet and sleepy and dark, like some small quiescent life form which could lie in the earth and not be known whether it were alive or dead. It is over, she thought, banishing these sad images, it is finished. I have a new life now under the sign of happiness. I never stopped loving Duncan – and now there is our house and I shall see my father again. Oh let our souls, so harrowed, find peace now.

Duncan was thinking, we are so quiet together, so peaceful – but is that because we are both dead? Duncan could not make out whether he had survived it all better than would be expected, perhaps even, of all concerned, best of all, or whether he had simply been obliterated. He felt, often, as if he had been entirely broken, smashed, pulverised, like a large china vase whose pieces clearly, obviously, could never be put together again. More often he felt that a stump of himself had survived, a sturdy wicked ironical stump. What was left of'him was not going to suffer now! Callousness would be his good. He had suffered so much because of Jean, now he would opt for no more suffering. Perhaps the world had already ended, perhaps it had ended with Crimond in that basement room, or on the night in midsummer when he had seen Jean and Crimond dancing. Perhaps this was an after-life. Vast tracts of his soul no longer existed, his soul was devastated and laid waste, he was functioning with half a soul, with a fraction of a soul, like a man with one lung. What remained was darkened, shrivelled, shrunk to the size of a thumb. And yet he could still plan and ruthlessly propose to be happy, and, necessarily, to make Jean happy too. Perhaps there had always been inhim a wicked callous streak which had been soothed and laid to sleep by his love for Jean, his absolute love which had so seemed to change the world, and his success in marrying rich beautiful clever Jean Kowitz whom so many men desired. Perhaps it was this small parcel of' vanity in his great love that he was paying for now? Heloved jean, he'forgave' her, but his stricken vanity cried out to be consoled. Would he become, at the last, a demon set free? Oddly he sometimes felt Jean respond to it, this demonic freedom, unconsciously excited by it, as if taught by his new bad self.