by Iris Murdoch
Sometimes it was the very vagueness of the situation which tortured George most. If he had committed some definite crime for which he had been punished by exile, this period might intelligibly be expected to come to an end. If he had offended he might be forgiven. Yet what was his crime, was there one, in Rozanov’s eyes? In Rozanov’s eyes, where his reality subsisted. He had been, very often, a damn nuisance, and once, very rude. But had Rozanov really noticed? He could not even put it to himself that he had failed John Robert, let him down, disappointed some cherished expectation. There had been no such expectation. One day I’ll commit a real crime, George thought, since I’m being tortured for nonexistent ones. Why should I be made invisible in this way? And yet, how could he not hope, in spite of everything, that John Robert would undertake his salvation after all? Was it not significant that the philosopher had returned to Ennistone? Why had he returned? There were meanings in the world. He had seen his own double in the Botanic Gardens. Perhaps it was just someone very like him, but that had meaning too. Twice now he had seen this double, capable of anything, walking about and at large. Once, talking to someone in his office, he had seen through the window a man fall from a high scaffolding. He had immediately apprehended that man as himself. He said nothing about this at the time or later. There were meanings in the world. He had seen the number forty-four chalked on a wall.
That morning he had woken early with the clear conviction that today was the day. He could wait no longer. Had he expected a summons, a letter, had he even hoped for one? In his mind he had composed letters himself, suppliant letters, proud letters, asking for a meeting, but he had not written them. Receiving no reply would be too terrible an experience, and he must cherish himself. He must simply go and knock on John Robert’s door. The resolution filled him with a strange fierce exciting emotion, as he got up from the crumpled sofa and wandered with energetic restlessness from the dining-room to the sitting-room to the kitchen and back. He felt anxious to do something, as if there were something to be done in the house, some task which he had left unfulfilled; and he found himself again in the kitchen, opening a drawer and taking out a hammer. He looked at the hammer, swinging it, weighing it in his hands; then he ran quickly up the stairs and into Stella’s bedroom.
Stella had, some time ago, moved into her own room the little collection of Japanese netsuke, gifts from her father, which had once stood upon the sitting-room mantelpiece. She had ranged them upon the white window-sill facing the end of her bed. George burst in with this hammer, eagerly anticipating the work of destruction. But the window-sill was bare. He looked about the room, opened the drawers: gone. The little gaggle of ivory men and animals had disappeared. Stella must have come, foreseeing his rage, and taken them away. She treasured them as tokens of her father’s love. George felt a pang of jealous misery and frustration. He went to the dressing-table and swept off it on to the floor the few oddments, some little silver boxes, make-up, a hand mirror, which had lain there untouched since the evening when he and Stella had set off to see Alex, a hundred years ago. He kicked the delicate legs of the dressing-table, cracking one. Then it suddenly seemed to him strange and rather amusing that Stella should actually have come to the house, secretly, fearfully turning her key in the door, and put the little netsuke into her pocket. Or perhaps she had sent someone else to fetch them. George did not proceed to wonder where his wife was now. Wherever she was, she would be being well looked after. She was all right. He went downstairs and put on his overcoat. It was a cold dull windy day. He had not breakfasted, of course; breakfast was out of the question.
George and Stella lived in a modest pretty house, an old cottage long modernized and painted blue, which backed on to the Common. There was a view of the monoliths, the Ennistone Ring, from the upper windows. The area was called Druidsdale in homage to the legendary creators of the Ring; it was not very far from Victoria Park and counted marginally as one of the ‘nicer parts’ of the town. The quickest way from Druidsdale to Burkestown was by taking the path along the edge of the Common as far as the level crossing. However, George avoided the Common since a contentious encounter with a white-heather-selling gipsy. (There is, and has long been, a gipsy camp, persistently persecuted by Ennistonians, on the far side of the Common.) Passing through the town, it would be possible to cross the River Enn by the Roman bridge and go past the Glove Factory, or else to cross by the New Bridge and go past the Ennistone Royal Hotel (whose sumptuous grounds coted the river). For Hare Lane, the way by the hotel was slightly shorter, but George wanted to avoid the vicinity of Travancore Avenue. Bill the Lizard, from whom he had learnt of Rozanov’s whereabouts, had also told George of Tom’s advent. Eastcote cared about George and thought about him a lot. It was by now general knowledge at the Baths that Tom McCaffrey was in town and living in Greg and Ju Osmore’s house with a mysterious male friend. (Tom himself had not yet turned up to swim because he could not persuade Emma to come with him.)
As George was crossing the Roman bridge he became aware, in the cloudy daze in which he was walking, of an awkwardness. He had put the hammer into the pocket of his coat and it was knocking regularly against his knee. He took it out and went onward holding it in his hand, passing a row of little modern houses called Blanch Cottages, built after a bomb had devastated this piece of Ennistone during the war. Some of the front gardens had bushy evergreen shrubs which leaned out over the pavement. George dropped the hammer over a low fence into the branches of a yellow privet bush. He was beginning to wish that the walk could last forever. He knew the house in Hare Lane since he had been long ago, in his very earliest Rozanov days, invited to tea there when John Robert, teaching in London, had come to Ennistone to visit his mother. Mrs Rozanov, a sturdy bonny Ennistonian Methodist, not at all in awe of her famous son, had been kind to George. George did not want to remember that occasion. He must have been very happy.
Now at last, sick with apprehension and horrible frightened joy, he had reached the door and rang the bell.
Opinions differed about whether John Robert Rozanov was ‘in his own way’ rather handsome, or whether he was one of the ugliest creatures ever seen. He was tall, he had always been burly and was now stout. He had an extremely large flat-topped head and a low brow, with hair which had always been very short and grizzled, curly, almost frizzy, and was now grey with no sign of balding. His eyes, large and with an odd fierce rectangular appearance, were an unnerving shade of light yellowish-brown and gleamed brightly. His face was broad and high-cheek-boned, and when one knew about his Russian ancestry could look Slavonic. He had a big strong aquiline nose and a big wet sensuous flabby mouth which pouted out above his chin. He dressed carelessly and was voted by women, some of whom found him attractive, some repulsive, to look a ‘perfect wreck’.
The door opened and Rozanov confronted his pupil. There was no pretence on either side that this was a social call, supposed to be a surprise or uncertain in its purpose. George said nothing. Rozanov said, ‘Come in,’ and George followed him into the little dark parlour at the back of the house. Rozanov turned on the lamp.
Apart from the shock glimpse at the Baths, it was some years since George had seen his old teacher and (as he later observed, at first he was too stunned) Rozanov had changed a good deal. He had become fatter, slower in his movements and stiffened by arthritis. The shabbiness and shagginess was now clearly that of old age. A little saliva foamed at the corners of his protruding lips as he talked. His once-smooth brow had grown soft pitted flesh, humped between deep lines of wrinkles. Coarse hairs were growing from his nose and ears. Grey braces, visible under his gaping jacket, supported his uncertain trousers half-way up his paunch. He had always looked rather dirty and now looked dirtier. He filled the little room with his bear-like presence and his smell. He stared gloomily at George.
George did not attempt to conceal his emotion. He found a sweet aggressive little pleasure in giving in to it. He leaned back against the wall and put a hand to his throat. He rubbed his han
d across his eyes, and said, ‘Well, hello.’ His voice shook.
Rozanov said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ He had a curious stilted voice which mingled English academic with American and traces of his mother’s Ennistonian.
George said, ‘God.’
Rozanov, scratching and poking his large fleshy ear, moved across to the window and looked out at the scrap of back garden with the Cox’s Orange Pippin tree which his father had planted. Other thoughts, momentarily dispelled, pressed obsessively back into his mind.
George took hold of his wits and shook himself like a dog. He advanced a little. There was not far to move. The room was very small and there was a desk and a sideboard and two armchairs in it. He said, ‘I’m glad to see you.’
John Robert said, ‘Oh yes,’ still looking out of the window.
‘We hope you’re going to stay in Ennistone.’
‘Yes — ’
‘You are going to stay with us?’
John Robert turned round from the window and stood awkwardly with his back to it. He said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Anyway we can have some talks,’ said George. As the philosopher did not reply he added, ‘That’s good.’
There was a silence. He could hear the philosopher’s noisy breathing and the little tearing sound as he began to pick at the top of one of the chairs.
‘Are you writing your great book, I mean the final one?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I don’t mean the final one, you’re not all that old, I suppose. I hope you’re writing philosophy?’
‘No.’
‘What a pity! Why not, are you tired of it at last? I often wondered if you’d ever get tired of it and give it up.’
‘No.’
‘Look, there’s an awful lot I’d like to talk to you about, an awful lot I’d like to ask. You know I always felt there was something behind everything that you said.’
‘I don’t think there was,’ said John Robert. He was now regarding George with his pale fierce eyes.
‘I mean a sort of secret doctrine, something you only revealed to the initiated.’
‘No.’
‘Well, I hope you won’t mind if I ask you lots of questions, about philosophy I mean, not personal ones of course, and not today, I just came today to say hello, to look at you sort of, we can fix times later, I expect you’ll be glad of someone to talk philosophy to, I’ve been reading philosophy, you know, I’ve kept it up. I’ll tell you what I’ve been reading, not now, I don’t want to bother you now. I expect lots of people will want to see you and bother you, I expect the Ennistone Gazette has been after you.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’
‘Maybe they’re afraid of you, people seem to be, I was I remember, yes, I was you know. Perhaps you’ve mellowed, as they say! I wonder if you’re writing your memoirs?’
‘No.’
‘You ought to write your memoirs, you’ve had an interesting life, after all. I wonder what you think about your philosophy now, what it amounts to? How would you classify it?’
‘How would I what?’ said John Robert.
‘Sorry, that’s a silly word, I wondered what you felt your contribution had been, along what line? I used to think it was my destiny to explain your philosophy to the world. That was stupid of me, I daresay. But I’d still like to! There’s so much for us to talk about, so much you could explain. We’d need time. You used to say, in philosophy, if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all!’
‘I’m afraid I won’t have time,’ said John Robert.
‘We could just talk a bit every week, I’d value it so much, there aren’t any other philosophers in Ennistone so far as I know.’
‘I won’t have time,’ John Robert repeated. He looked at his watch. ‘I’m expecting someone, I hope you don’t mind — ’
‘When are they coming?’
‘Eleven,’ said John Robert who was incapable of inventing a social fib or telling a direct lie.
‘Then we’ve a bit of time yet, perhaps I’m talking stupidly, it’s shyness, I’m shy and nervous — ’
‘If you’ve got anything definite to say — ’ said John Robert.
‘I suppose you’ve heard that I lost my job?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve got a pension, so it’s all right. You’ll never guess how I lost it.’
‘Perfectly true.’
‘I broke all the Roman glass in the Museum.’
‘All the Roman glass?’ This idea roused a faint interest in John Robert.
‘Yes, on purpose, I hurled it on the floor and it smashed in pieces, all of it.’
‘Have they glued it together again?’ the sage asked.
‘I’ve no idea. They started picking it up very carefully. One of the girls was crying. Then I left.’
There was a silence.
‘Do you want to know why I —?’
John Robert said abruptly, ‘How’s your wife?’
George, who had been blushing and wearing, he now realized, a perfectly ridiculous expression, hardened his face. He moved out from behind one of the armchairs. He said, ‘I tried to kill her.’
John Robert raised his eyebrows.
‘I drove our car into the canal, on purpose of course like the glass, I jumped out and she went in with the car. Only she got out somehow. Too bad. Better luck next time.’
John Robert said, ‘You haven’t changed much.’
The remark pleased George. He relaxed a little. He said, ‘I wonder if I did really intend to kill her? I’ve asked myself that. It’s something I’d like to discuss with you, it’s like things we used to talk about. What is consciousness, after all, what is it, does it exist?’
‘What else is there?’ said John Robert gloomily.
‘What are motives, is one responsible? You said once we all have contemptible motives. But some thinkers say that crime is a form of grace. Sometimes I’ve felt a crime is like a duty. Isn’t that a kind of transcendental proof? If crime is a duty then evil be thou my good has sense. You once said it hadn’t.’
‘Did I?’
‘You denied it had any content, I think it has. I wonder why you put me off philosophy? Well, you haven’t, I’ve continued on my own. I’d like to tell you what I’ve been thinking. I’m very interested in things you said about time. Sometimes I feel I lose the present moment, like losing the centre of one’s field of vision, my sense of my individuality goes, I can’t feel my present being — ’
‘I suggest you see a doctor.’
‘I’m making a philosophical point! Why did you stop me from doing philosophy?’
‘I thought you weren’t good enough,’ said John Robert looking at his watch again. ‘Vous pensiez trop pour voire intelligence, c’est tout.’
‘Christ, can’t you even tutoie me after all these years? You said “always attempt what is too hard for you”. Didn’t you? That’s just what you prevented me from doing. I was a coward anyway. But now perhaps if you’ll help me — ’
‘I don’t think — ’
‘You ruined my life, you know. Do you know? If you hadn’t discouraged me just at that crucial moment I might have made something of my life. I never recovered from your high standards. So you owe me something!’
‘I owe you nothing,’ said John Robert, but he said it without animosity, indeed without animation.
‘Kant cared about his pupils. Not like Schlick. Kant looked after his pupils years later — ’
‘You know nothing about Schlick.’
‘You destroyed my belief in good and evil, you were Mephistopheles to my Faust.’
‘You flatter yourself.’
‘You think I don’t have Faustian temptations? You have stolen me from myself. You used to say philosophy was like the Grand National, or else it’s nothing. Maybe I’ve broken my neck. If I’ve broken my neck, I wish to God you’d shoot me.’
‘Your head seems to be full of things I used to say. Please don’t get so excited.’
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‘I’ve read a lot of things about you, I read an article saying you believed Plato’s Form of the Good was a large marble ball preserved somewhere on top of a column. Did you read that?’
‘No.’
‘It wasn’t very polite. So you’ve given up philosophy?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you said you had.’
‘No.’
‘You look much older. How old are you? You’ve got false teeth, you didn’t have when I saw you in California. I hope I’m dead when I’m your age. I suppose you’re waiting for me to apologize?’
‘What for?’
‘Being bloody rude to you in California.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does. I do apologize. And for being rude today. I prostrate myself. Caliban must be saved too.’
‘What?’
‘Caliban must be saved too. You said that in a lecture. Have you forgotten?’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t. I knew you were talking about me. God, how much more real I feel now that I’m with you at last, more bloody real than I’ve felt for years, for years. I’ve craved for your presence. John Robert, you must help me. You stole my reality, you stole my consciousness, you’re the only person who can give them back to me. Salvation is by magic, you said that once. I beg you, I beseech you. It’s a matter of salvation, it’s a matter of living or dying. Christ, can’t you even look at me, can’t you concentrate on me for a moment? Please let me see you, let me be with you, it doesn’t matter what we talk about.’
