by C. P. Snow
‘I must have got hold of the wrong impression,’ said Brown.
‘Many of us,’ Jago flared out, ‘have got hold of wrong impressions. It would have been extraordinary if we hadn’t. I’ve seen some remarkable behaviour from time to time–’
Chrystal raised his head and faced Jago with a bold assertive gaze. What had passed between him and Brown I did not know; but I felt that he had said little, he had not tried to explain himself, he had stood there in silence.
‘I’m not taking those strictures from you, Jago,’ he said.
‘At last I can say what I think,’ said Jago.
‘We can all say what we think,’ said Chrystal.
‘This isn’t very profitable,’ said Brown.
At the sound of that steady, monitory voice, Jago frowned. Then quite suddenly he began to talk to Chrystal in an urgent, reasonable seeming, almost friendly manner.
‘I think we’ve always understood each other,’ Jago said to Chrystal. ‘You’ve never made any pretence that you wanted me as Master on my own merits, such as they are. You were presented with two distinctly unpleasing candidates, and you decided that I was slightly the less unpleasing of the two. You mustn’t think it was a specially grateful position for me to be placed in – but at any rate there was no pretence about it. We both knew where we stood and made the best of it. Isn’t that true?’
‘There’s something in it,’ said Chrystal. ‘But–’
‘There’s everything in it,’ cried Jago. ‘We’ve had a working understanding that wasn’t very flattering to me. We both of us knew that we had very little in common. But we managed to adjust ourselves to this practical arrangement. You disliked the idea of my opponent more than you did me – and we took that as our common ground. It’s lasted us all these months until tonight. And it seems to me sheer abject folly that it shouldn’t last us a few hours longer.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This will all be over tomorrow morning. Why have you suddenly let your patience get the better of you? I know only too clearly that you’re not very pleased at the idea of me as Master. We’ve both known that all along. Chrystal, I know we don’t get on at heart. I’m not going to pretend: I know we never shall. But we’ve made shift for long enough now. It’s too serious for us to indulge our likes and dislikes at the last minute. I’m ready now to talk over all the practical arrangements that we can conceivably make for the future. I’m asking you to think again.’
‘There’s no point in that.’
‘I’m asking you to think again,’ said Jago, with feverish energy. ‘We can make a working plan. I’m prepared to leave certain things in the college to you. It won’t remove the misunderstanding between us – but it will save us from the things we want most of all to avoid.’
‘What do I want most of all to avoid?’ asked Chrystal.
‘Having my opponent inflicted on you.’
‘You’re wrong, Jago.’ Chrystal shook his head.
‘How am I wrong?’
‘I don’t mind Crawford being Master. I did once. It was my mistake. He’ll make a good Master.’
Jago heard but seemed not to understand. His expression remained strained to the limit of the nerves, angry and yet lit by his nervous hope. It remained so, just as when one reads a letter and the words spell out bad news, one’s smile takes some time to go. Jago had not yet realized in his heart what Chrystal had said.
‘You know as well as I do,’ said Jago, ‘that seeing him elected is the last thing any of us want.’
‘I take you up on that.’
‘Do you seriously deny it?’
‘I do,’ said Chrystal.
‘I’m very much afraid that you’re–’
‘I’m sorry, Jago,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’d better make it clear. Crawford will be a good Master. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects. I’ve always said that, and I stick to it.’
He paused. He kept his gaze on Jago: it was firm, satisfied, and curiously kindly.
‘That’s not the whole story,’ he went on. ‘I don’t like saying this, Jago, but I’ve got to. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects – but by and large he will make a better Master than you would have done.’
Jago gasped. It seemed that that was the moment when he began to know and suffer.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ said Chrystal, with his curt, genuine, almost physical concern. ‘It isn’t everyone who’s suitable to be a Master. It isn’t always the best–’
‘Now you want to patronize me,’ said Jago, very quietly.
A faint flush tinged the thick-skinned pallor of Chrystal’s cheeks.
It was only then, when Jago was defeated, beginning to feel the first empty pang, knowing that the shame and suffering would grow, that he succeeded in touching Chrystal.
‘You never give anyone credit for decent intentions,’ snapped Chrystal. ‘If you had done, you might have more support.’
‘I regard it as useless,’ Brown intervened, ‘for either of you to say more.’
The two confronted each other. For an instant it felt as though they would clash with accusations of all they found alien in each other. They were on the point of denouncing what they hated because they could not share.
But those words were not spoken. Perhaps Brown had just managed to stop them. They confronted each other: Chrystal’s face was fierce and sullen, Jago’s ravaged by the encroaching pain: it was Chrystal who turned away.
‘I’m going into hall,’ he said
‘I rather think they’re expecting me at home,’ said Brown.
‘I shall see you in chapel then. Tomorrow morning,’ said Chrystal.
Brown inclined his head. Chrystal gave a short goodnight, and went out.
Jago threw himself, as though both restless and exhausted, on to the sofa.
‘So this is the end,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid it is, Paul,’ said Brown steadily. ‘Unless something very unexpected turns up to help us – and I couldn’t let you hope anything from that.’
‘I’ve got no hope left,’ said Jago.
‘I’m afraid we must resign ourselves,’ said Brown. ‘I don’t need to tell you what your friends are feeling.’
‘It’s bitter,’ I said.
‘Thank you both,’ said Jago, but his tone was far away. Suddenly he cried, as from a new depth of pain: ‘How can I inflict this on my wife? How can I face seeing her being so much hurt?’
Neither Brown nor I replied. Jago twisted on the sofa, drew up his knees and turned again. The bell began to ring for hall.
‘I can’t dine with them,’ said Jago. ‘It would be intolerable to let them see me.’
‘I know,’ said Brown.
‘I do not see,’ said Jago quietly, ‘how I am going to stay here. I shall be reminded of this for the rest of my life.’
‘It sounds trite,’ said Brown, ‘but these wounds heal in time.’
‘I’ve got no money,’ said Jago. ‘I am too old to move. Every time they see me, I shall be ashamed.’
He added: ‘I shall have to watch another man in the place I should have filled. I shall have to call him Master.’
It was not a conversation. For minutes together he lay silent: then came a broken outburst. It was painful to hear the spurs of defeat wound him in one place, then another. Will the other side know tonight? Are they celebrating in hall at this very moment? When will the news go round the university? Has it got outside the college yet? Who would be the first of his enemies to laugh? Why had he allowed himself to be a candidate?
His grief became so wild that he rounded on Brown.
‘Why did you expose me to this danger? No one has ever done me so much harm before.’
‘I misjudged the situation,’ said Brown. ‘I regard myself as very much to blame for lack of judgement.’
‘You oughtn’t to take risks with your friends’ happiness.’
‘I shall always be sorry, Paul,’ said Brown with affectiona
te remorse, showing no sign that he resented being blamed.
After an interval of quiet Jago suddenly sat up and faced us.
‘I want to ask you something. Is it quite certain that this man will get a majority tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid it is. So far as it’s given to us to be certain.’
‘Is it?’ cried Jago. ‘Why should I vote for him? Why should I make up his majority? I was coerced into it by Chrystal. Why should I do it now?’
‘I think you’re bound by your promise,’ said Brown. ‘I never liked it, but I think you’re bound.’
‘That is for me to say,’ said Jago.
‘Yes, it is for you to say,’ said Brown in the same even tone. ‘But there is another reason why I hope you won’t break your promise. If you do, people will say that Crawford would never have done so in similar circumstances. And that this was the best proof that they had been right all the time.’
‘Do you think now that they have been right all the time?’
‘I am as sure they are wrong as I’ve ever been.’
‘Even though I’ve shown you that I’m prepared to break my promise?’
‘I know,’ said Brown, ‘that you feel temptations that I’m lucky enough to escape. But I also know that you don’t give way to them.’
‘You’re a good friend, Arthur,’ said Jago. It was his first familiar touch that night.
He stared at us with his eyes distraught, and said: ‘So I’m asked to sign my own rejection tomorrow morning. That’s something else I have to thank Chrystal for – I know he’s been your friend, Arthur. But he’s more detestable than any of the others.’
‘It’s natural for you to say so,’ said Brown. ‘But it isn’t true.’
‘Are you going to trust him again?’
Brown gave a sad, ironic, firm-hearted smile: I thought it meant that he would trust Chrystal as much or as little as he had trusted him before. For Brown loved his friends, and knew they were only men. Since they were only men, they could be treacherous – and then next time loyal beyond belief. One took them as they were. That gave Brown his unfailing strength, and also a tinge, deep under the comfortable flesh, of ironic sadness.
‘How are you going to live in this college?’ said Jago.
‘Paul,’ said Arthur Brown, ‘I’ve failed in the thing I’ve most wanted to bring off here. You’re right to blame me, but perhaps you will remember that it isn’t going to be pleasant even for me yet awhile. I don’t welcome having this difference with Chrystal. And I abominate the thought of Crawford as Master more than anyone in the college. After you, I believe I’m more affected than any of our friends.’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I said.
‘Still,’ said Brown, ‘I’m not prepared to become a hermit because we’ve lost. We’ve shown some bad management and we’ve had some bad luck, and I don’t forgive myself for what it’s going to mean to you. But it has happened, and we’ve got to make the best of it. We’re not children, and we must go on living decently in this place.’
‘For myself,’ he added, ‘I propose to try and make the college as friendly as possible. We ought to be able to heal some of these rifts. I admit that it will take time. It will be a few years before we stop being more divided than I should like.’
Jago looked at the most devoted of his supporters. Each of them took calamity according to his nature. To Jago, those last words were meaningless, were nothing but a noise that sounded outside his distress. He felt inescapably alone.
Brown saw Jago look more than ever harrowed, and yet could not begin to console him again. He had done all he could. He said to me: ‘I always insisted that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. I expect you remember me giving you occasional warnings. I’m afraid they’ve turned out more than justified.’
He was moved for Jago to the bottom of his heart; he was defeated on his own account; and yet, I was all but sure, there came a spark of comfort as he thought how far-sighted he had been.
The telephone rang. It was Brown’s wife, asking why he was half an hour late for dinner. Brown said that he did not like to leave us, but I offered to take Jago into my rooms and find him food.
44: Deeper Than Shame
Jago sat down by my fire. The flames, flaring and falling, illumined his face, left it in shadow, at times smoothed out the lines of pain. He gazed into the fire, taking no notice of me. I smoked a cigarette, and then another. At last I went quietly, as though he were asleep, to see what I could give him to eat.
There was not much in my gyproom. Bidwell had seen to that. But there was a loaf of bread, cheese, and butter, and, very surprisingly, a little jar of caviar (a present from a pupil), which Bidwell happened not to like. I put them on the little table between us, in front of the fire. I went out again to fetch some whisky and glasses. When I returned, Jago had already begun to eat.
He ate with extreme hunger, with the same concentration that a man shows when he has been starved for days. He did not talk, except to thank me when I filled his glass or passed a knife. He finished half the loaf and a great wedge of cheese. At the end he gave a smile, a youthful and innocent smile.
‘I was glad of that,’ he said.
He smiled again.
‘Until tonight,’ he said, ‘I intended to give a celebration for my friends. Of course it would have been necessary to keep it secret from the rest. They mustn’t – it would have been fatal to let them feel there were still two parties in the college. But we should have had a celebration to ourselves.’
He spoke very simply and freshly, as though he had put the suffering on one side and was able to rest. I was certain that he was still hoping. In his heart, this celebration was still going to take place. I knew well enough how slow the heart is to catch up with the brute facts. One looks forward to a joy: it is snatched away at the last minute: and, hours later, there are darts of illusory delight when one still feels that it is to come. Such moments cheat one and pass sickeningly away. So, a little later, the innocence ebbed from Jago’s face. ‘There will be no celebration for my friends,’ he said. ‘I shall not even know how to meet them. I don’t know who they are.’
It was worse for him than for a humbler man, I thought. A humbler man could have cursed and moaned among his friends and thrown himself without thinking upon their love. Jago could not lower himself, could not give himself away, could not take pity and affection such as soften fate for more pedestrian men. It was the fault of his pride, of course – and yet, one can be held back by one’s nature and at the same time long passionately for what one cannot take. Jago could bring sympathy to young Luke or me or Joan Royce or twenty others; but he could not accept it himself. With him, intimacy could only flow one way. When he revealed himself, it was in the theatre of this world, not by the fireside to a friend and equal. He was so made that he could not bear the equality of the heart. People blamed him for it; I wondered if they thought it enviable to be born with such pride?
‘Do you think for a moment,’ I said, ‘that it will make a difference to any of us?’
‘Thank you for saying that,’ said Jago, but none of us was close enough. We were allies, young men to be helped, protégés whom it was a pleasure to struggle for: we could not come closer. That was true of us all. Brown had a strong, protective affection for Jago – but I had just seen how Jago could not receive it. To him, Brown was another ally, the most useful and dependable of all. He was never easy with Brown. So far as he found ease with men at all, it was with his protégés.
‘Do you think,’ I persisted, ‘we value men according to their office? Do you think it matters a damn to Roy Calvert or me whether you’re called Master or not?’
‘I wanted to hear it,’ said Jago nakedly. His imagination turned a knife in his bowels. He could not keep it from running after all the humiliations to come. They passed before his eyes with the sharpness of a film. He could not shut away the shames of his disgrace. He was drawn towards them by a morbid attraction. He had to imagine Crawfo
rd in his place.
His place: he had counted on it with such defenceless hope. He had heard himself being called Master: now he would hear us all call Crawford so. Among the wounds, that rankled and returned. He saw – as clearly as though it were before his eyes – Crawford presiding in hall, taking the chair at a college meeting. He could not stand it. He could not go to dinner, with that reproach before him in the flesh.
He thought of meeting his acquaintances in the streets. The news would rush round Cambridge in a week: people would say to him, with kindness, with a cruel twinkle ‘I was surprised. I’d always hoped you’d be elected yourself’. Others would see the announcement in The Times. Had he kept his hope strictly to himself? He had dropped words here and there. The stories would go round; and they would gain colour as time passed, they would not be accurate, but they would keep the frailty and the bite of human life. Crawford’s election – that was the time when Jago thought he had it in his pocket, he had actually ordered the furniture for the Lodge – Chrystal changed his mind on the way to the chapel, and said it was the wisest decision he ever made in his life.
They were the ways in which Jago would be remembered. Perhaps the only ways, for there would be nothing that did not die with the flesh; he would never get high place now, there was no memorial in words, there was no child.
The evening went on, as Jago sat by my fire: the chimes clanged out, quarter by quarter, hour by hour: the shames bit into him. They pierced him like the shames of youth, before one’s skin has thickened. Jago’s skin had never thickened, and he was at their mercy.
Shames are more acute than sorrows, I thought as I sat by him, unable even to soften that intolerable night. The wounds of self-consciousness touch one’s nerves more poignantly than the deepest agonies of the heart. But it is the deep agonies that cut at the roots of one’s nature. It is there that one suffers, when vanity and self-consciousness have gone. And Jago suffered there.
