by Iris Murdoch
Emma and Pearl have also ‘done well’, although they failed to complete the romantic symmetry of our midsummer idyll by getting married. There has been, by mutual agreement between that estimable pair, no romance. They could not but be brought together again, after Rozanov’s death, by their concern and affection for Tom and Hattie. But it was soon clear to both that mutual sexual relations are not for them. They have instead become (and I predict will steadily remain) fast friends, bringing a lot of affection, happiness and wisdom into each other’s lives. Contrary to Emma’s expectations, Pearl gets on very well with his mother, especially on the basis of endlessly discussing him. Pearl (here I claim some credit) has been encouraged to think it is not too late to chase after some education, and does not lack advice about how to set about it. Fortunately too her considerable ‘watchdog’ savings can buy her time, which she spends passionately studying for exams in a flat in north London, where Emma, Tom and Hattie are frequent visitors. Meanwhile, one of Emma’s problems was solved by the sudden disappearance of Mr Hanway, who ran off to Italy with one of his pupils. Emma received his apologetic letter with relief. (It appeared from the letter that Mr Hanway imagined that Emma was deeply and inconsolably dependent on him; such are the misunderstandings which can exist between people who look into each other’s eyes.) With Mr Hanway gone, it seemed to Emma that perhaps he could just go on singing, without having to give it up because he could not dedicate his whole life to it. (He still worries about this question, however.) Emma gained the brilliant ‘first’ predicted for him and is now a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. On the whole he is happy, when he is not thinking about Ireland. And to return, a little further on in time, to our hero and heroine, Tom got himself a sound second-class degree and hopes to find a teaching job, while Hattie has taught herself Russian and is going to the School of Slavonic Studies. Tom continues to work on his poetry (he lately had a poem printed in The Times Literary Supplement) and has started a novel. Even though his university career failed of the hoped-for brilliance, the town remains convinced that he will turn out to be a great writer.
I shall now draw towards an end by inserting as a final document a letter which I received from Greece from Father Bernard.
My dear N,
Thank you for yours which I picked up at the Poste Restante on one of my rare visits to Athens. I was interested in all the news, though I must confess that Ennistone and all its folk seem very far away now and not a little (may I say it) provincial! So Diane has become a lady at last, or sort of! I wish her well. Her disappearance from my life was providential. Her presence would have given rise to misunderstandings and would have seriously impaired my single-mindedness. The essence of my news is ineffable, but I can list a few facts. Things went badly at Mount Athos (no one’s fault, the holy men are simply not very intelligent). After that there occurred an event at Delphi about which I will try to tell you if we ever meet again. I know you are open-minded about what you call paranormal phenomena and I call religious experience. About the latter I have indeed learnt something since I came to this numinous country. I have also been led at last to a clear understanding of my true vocation. I, and others (how many are we, I wonder?), are chosen to strive for the continuance of religion on this planet. Nothing else but true religion can save mankind from a lightless and irredeemable materialism, from a technocratic nightmare where determinism becomes true for all except an unimaginably depraved few, who are themselves the mystified slaves of a conspiracy of machines. The challenge has gone forth and in the deep catacombs the spirit has stirred to a new life. But can we be in time, can religion survive and not, with us, utterly perish? This has been revealed to me as the essential and only question of our age. What is necessary is the absolute denial of God. Even the word, the name, must go. What then remains? Everything, and Christ too, but entirely changed and broken down into the most final and absolutely naked simplicity, into atoms, into electrons, into protons. The inner is the outer, the outer is the inner: an old story, but who really understands it? It is vitally important that I live now in a cave. Well, it is a tiny abandoned chapel, a slit made in a rock. Do not ask me how I found it. I live in a solitary place beside the sea surrounded by white stones and brilliant green pine trees. I have made a wooden cross. Fireflies are my lamp at night. I lie at the bottom of the world, and I cannot express to you how brilliantly it shines upon me, the light of an untainted Good. My bread is as pure as the stones, I drink from a nearby spring. The Anglican Church has amazingly granted me a tiny pension, but I do not need it since some nearby villagers have adopted me (they think I am mad) and every day bring gifts of loaves and fishes. I have no doubt that when cold weather comes someone will bring me a brazier. So I live. I preach to my flock in New Testament Greek and by a miracle they understand me. (I am also learning their patois.) When no one comes I preach to the sea birds. What do I preach? That there is no God, that even the beauty of Christ is a snare and a lie. ‘Nothing exists except God and the soul’: and when one has understood that, one knows that there is no God. For what is real and true look at these stones, this bread, this spring of water, these sea waves, this horizon with its pure untroubled line. Only perceive purely and the spiritual and the material world vibrate as one. (This was revealed to me at Delphi.) The power that saves is infinitely simple and infinitely close at hand.
I cannot go on. It is sacrilege to utter words which are bound to be misunderstood. My simple peasants understand my Greek better than you will understand my English. When how and whether I shall be called to a larger ministry I know not. Perhaps I shall have to journey afar, perhaps in the end the world will come to me here, or perhaps I shall die obscurely and soon. Meanwhile I cast about me as I may the seeds of truth. May the clean wind of the spirit bear them to fruitful beds.
Now about what you had to say in your letter about John Robert: I believe that you are wrong. You are too interested, it is for you a spectacle. I have thought about him and prayed over him too, as I pray now. I was his last pupil and I failed the test. If I had known what I know now I could have saved both him and George. John Robert asked me not to speak of George and I agreed because I was afraid of him and because I was flattered by his attention. When I spoke of pastoral duty he said, ‘You don’t believe it’, and I bowed my head, and the cock crew thrice. So it is that I have witnessed three murders, two by George and one by that philosopher (perhaps there is a teaching in this). John Robert died because he saw at last, with horrified wide-open eyes, the futility of philosophy. Metaphysics and the human sciences are made impossible by the penetration of morality into the moment to moment conduct of ordinary life: the understanding of this fact is religion. This is what Rozanov distantly glimpsed when he was picking away at questions of good and evil, and he knew that it made nonsense of all his sophisms.
There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present. This too I tell my flock, demolishing their dreams of a supernatural elsewhere. So you see, I have abandoned every kind of magic and preach a charmless holiness. This and only this can be the religion of the future, this and only this can save the planet.
But I write in water. I shall give this letter to one of my people. I know not if it will ever be posted. Goodbye, my dear N, I raise my hand to bless you.
Yours, Bernard Jacoby
The local priest has just visited me. He seems displeased! Perhaps I am destined for martyrdom after all!
I read part of this letter (not all of it of course) to Brian and Gabriel. Gabriel stopped a tear. Brian said, ‘Everybody seems to be going batty these days.’
I should say that Brian and Gabriel are for the present, perhaps permanently, living at Belmont and looking after Alex, and Ruby has come back there too. While Alex was in hospital, Ruby fled to the gipsy camp where she seemed to assume that she would now spend the rest of her days. Mike Seanu brought her back to Brian and Gabriel at Como. Later (when Brian declared the house too small for him and R
uby) she went to stay with Pearl in London. It has appeared however that Ruby cannot exist outside Ennistone, and when Brian and Gabriel moved to Belmont, Gabriel insisted that she should come back. She has got her pension from Alex after all, arranged by Robin Osmore, and is rumoured to have considerable savings since she never spent any of her salary. I have forgotten to speak of Alex. She never fully recovered from that fall down the stairs. As Stella said, Alex’s fall prefigured George’s, and had a similar effect. Alex is a shadow of her old self, all that bossy curiosity, that bright restless power, has quite gone. She is (or seems) perfectly rational, but has become very quiet. She spends long times sitting at the big bow window in the drawing-room and looking out. (And what does she see when she does so? Foxes. Our worthy municipal officers, with what our citizens call their ‘usual efficiency’, certainly pumped in the lethal gas, but took a long time doing so and failed to block all the exits of the earth, so that the foxes were able to decamp in safety. The ‘fox menace’ has now, since the recent council elections, passed out of the public gaze.) Alex rarely goes visiting, but her old friends come to see her, and even her new acquaintances, whom Gabriel calls ‘tourists’, including Father Bernard’s successor, an elderly youth with a guitar. She likes to be given little presents, anything pleases her, flowers, chocolates, or model animals of which she is making a collection. She does not read much, or watch television, but listens constantly to the radio, including classical music programmes which never interested her before. When visited she initiates no conversation, but will talk readily about the topics proposed. Naturally, her visitors choose these with care. She and Ruby are back on their old silent terms except that of course Alex is less peremptory and (so at least Gabriel is pleased to think) Ruby is gentler and more affectionate. The only time Alex shows any emotion is when George comes to see her, as he sometimes does, accompanied always by Stella, who never leaves his side. At these meetings, one of which I witnessed, George makes a visible touching effort to make the conversation a success. He shows an unwonted animation and tries to make his mother respond, and sometimes it seems that some glimmer of the old Alex is about to appear. However, confusion ensues, the danger of tears, and Stella sees to it that these visits are suitably short. Dr Roach is pessimistic, but I am not. As I said, it is remarkable how ably old brain cells can learn new tricks, I have seen this happen many times. I shall certainly watch both these cases with the utmost interest.
Whenever I see Gabriel she always turns the conversation on to George, displaying an almost spiteful obsession with his disabilities. Of course she is jealous of Stella’s absolute possession of George, and the determined way in which she keeps Brian and Gabriel at a distance. The other day (we met at the Baths where the colder weather has again covered the water with a pall of steam) she described George as ‘spiritless, characterless and good’. And of Stella: ‘She always wanted him maimed, she’s his nurse now, she imagines her love-cure has saved him, but it’s just that he’s broken.’
Brian, coming up, added, ‘It’s just as well he’s broken. He was too bloody dangerous when he was in working order.’ And Gabriel, ‘It’s sad in a way. Both our monsters are quite tame now.’ She said it soberly but with a kind of natural satisfaction.
However, lest I should now seem to be spiteful, let me say that Gabriel is very kind and tirelessly attentive to Alex, and seems to be in general more reconciled to being a wife and mother. Perhaps, after witnessing the troubles of others, she feels how lucky she is to have a loyal decent husband, even if he is bad-tempered, and a fine tall growing-up son. She may at times be heard to murmur, ‘Of course, George would have been perfectly ordinary if only Rufus had lived.’ I doubt if she is right.
I find it difficult myself to leave the subject of George, whom I confess I enjoy discussing regularly with Stella. Stella says she thinks George has started to write poetry, though he always hides it when she comes in, and she takes this as a hopeful sign. She believes that although George had been daydreaming for some time about murdering his old teacher, he really decided to kill him after he received the philosopher’s final savage letter, only at first he concealed this decision from himself by imagining a final liberation from the relationship. ‘I felt I had really finished with him,’ George told Stella, ‘only he … provoked me so …’ This accords with what Tom has since told me of the extraordinary ‘radiance’ (he used this word), a sort of unnatural visionary calm which surrounded George when they met at Diane’s flat just after, it appears, George had received the letter. George’s reflections on his mental state, which he imparted to Stella during the period of his blindness, reveal indeed a considerable capacity for self-knowledge. He even tried to explain to her what it was like to feel that a murder is a duty. What it was that ‘moved’ George from liberated euphoria to effective murderous hate must however remain a missing link. To say that the radiant euphoria ‘was really’ the scarcely conscious foreknowledge of the final determination to act is merely a way of stating the problem. The motivation of terrible deeds tends to be extremely complex, full of apparent contradictions, and often in fact bottomlessly mysterious, although for legal, scientific and moral reasons we ‘have to’ theorize about it. I have never ventured to suggest to Stella that the peculiar shock of her return, with its reminder of an old jealousy, might have had some decisive effect upon her husband. I do not know whether she ever reflects upon this distressing idea. It would be a sad irony if her inopportune mention of the philosopher’s name should have prompted the violence which ended this tale as well as that which began it. Was the final ‘provocation’ hers after all, and not John Robert’s? Such are the chance ‘triggers’ which may determine our most fateful actions and yet remain opaque particulars with which science can do little.
Since his early outpourings George has not talked much about the past. It is hard to say how far his present mien is instinctive and how far it is a deliberate façade (the distinction can often be unclear). He seems like a much older man, his hair is turning grey and he treats people with a slow kindly dignified condescension. As I said earlier, and I based it on something Stella told me, George was fascinated by Nazi war criminals and identified himself in fantasy with these condemned and defeated monsters. Perhaps now he is enacting the part of one who after many years in prison emerges not exactly repentant but full of stoical wisdom, facing the truth, quiet and proud, acknowledging his acts as his own. George seems to have perceived his own ‘double-think’ about his false ‘liberation’ from John Robert. I wonder if he has also understood the part played in his mental stratagems by his old fantasy, derived so he thought from John Robert himself, of being ‘beyond good and evil’? More often than the ‘experts’ imagine, purely intellectual ideas and images can play ‘deep’ parts in human psychology. I do not despair of discussing these questions one day with George, indeed with Stella’s help this may now come about in the not too distant future. Some of the dedicated George-watchers in the town are of the opinion that George has ‘found Jesus’. Of course this is a nonsense, most vociferously denied by Stella. However, she reported something rather touching which George said lately. ‘Well, he said that Caliban must be saved too.’ About him Stella and I often talk. Steve Glatz has been questioning Stella about John Robert, and Stella tells me how prudently she has replied. Steve is writing a memoir about Rozanov, to be expanded later into a definitive ‘life’. He showed me a little of this piece, in which the philosopher has been metamorphosed into some kind of saint! He is also busy reconstituting the drowned notebook of the ‘great work’ from his own lecture notes. Meanwhile between ourselves Stella and I have been agreeing that perhaps John Robert was not really quite such a great man as we all imagined.
Steve Glatz is very much upon the Ennistone scene at present. Anthea Eastcote has broken off her engagement with Joey Tanner, thus satisfying those who held that ‘he was only after her money’. Anthea is now said to be ‘involved’ with Steve, and Tom and Hattie have lent them the little house at
Malibu. Mr and Mrs Tom McCaffrey still live at the Slipper House, where Pearl and Emma often come to stay, putting up with Tom’s heavy humour at their expense. Tom and Emma maintain a steady amitié amoureuse, although neither of them would dream of using that expression, or indeed alluding to the matter in any way. Hattie and Pearl love each other with the deep love of childhood friends, tempered by the love of those who have been shipwrecked together. They often talk of John Robert, but not of the shipwreck. With an instinctive delicacy which is natural to both, Pearl never speaks of her secret love for the philosopher, nor has Hattie discussed with her those last terrible days at Hare Lane. I wonder (for of course I would never ask her this) whether she ever meditates upon the strange fact that it was John Robert and not Tom who first awakened her sexually. It is certainly fascinating to consider how successfully (and indeed how literally), in the end, the philosopher carried out his plan of thrusting her into Tom McCaffrey’s arms.
