The Time of the Angels

by Iris Murdoch

  “I don’t understand you. People may disagree about morals, but we can all use our reason—”

  “The disappearance of God does not simply leave a void into which human reason can move. The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible.”

  “The angels—?”

  “There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity and their power. God was at least the name of something which we thought was good. Now even the name has gone and the spiritual world is scattered. There is nothing any more to prevent the magnetism of many spirits.”

  “But, but,” said Marcus, and his voice seemed to be turning into a raucous gabble, “but there is goodness, whatever you say, there is morality, it’s just there, it makes a difference, our concern for others—”

  Carel laughed softly. “Are there others? Only in the infliction of pain is the effect so contained in the cause as to convince of the existence of others. All altruism feeds the fat ego. This is one of those things which should have been obvious. Only the great delusion kept it from our eyes. No, no, we are creatures of accident, operated by forces we do not understand. What is the most important fact about you and me, Marcus? That we were conceived by accident. That we could walk into the street and be run over by a car. Our subjection to chance even more than our morality makes us potentially spiritual. Yet it is this too which makes spirit inaccessible to us. We are clay, Marcus, and nothing is real for us except the uncanny womb of Being into which we shall return.”

  “All right, there have been illusions—but now at least we know the truth and we can start from there—”

  “We do not know the truth because as I told you it is something that cannot be endured. People will endlessly conceal from themselves that good is only good if one is good for nothing. The whole history of philosophy, the whole of theology, is this act of concealment. The old delusion ends, but there will be others of a different kind, angelic delusions which we cannot now imagine. One must be good for nothing, without sense or reward, in the world of Jehovah and Leviathan, and that is why goodness is impossible for us human beings. It is not only impossible, it is not even imaginable, we cannot really name it, in our realm it is non-existent. The concept is empty. This has been said of the concept of God. It is even more true of the concept of Good. It would be a consolation, it would be a beatitude, to think that with the death of God the era of the true spirit begins, while all that went before was a fake. But this too would be a lie, indeed it is the lie of modern theology. With or without the illusion of God, goodness is impossible to us. We have been made too low in the order of things. God made it impossible that there should be true saints. But now he is gone we are not set free for sanctity. We are the prey of the angels.”

  The house vibrated quietly with soft deep train noise. Marcus looked down at something which he was holding in his hand. It was the paper dart which he had crushed into a ball. He realized that his mouth was open wide for crying like a banished Adam. He stared up at Carel who was motionless now, staring at the bookshelves. Carel’s eyes were half closed and his face wore a sleepy dreamy expression which was almost voluptuous. I must answer him, thought Marcus, I must answer him. He felt as if some ghastly threatening structure had been materializing in front of him. He said, almost shouting it out, “But you are wrong, there are facts, real things, people love each other, it just is so—”

  “One can only love an angel. And that dreadful thing is not love. Those with whom the angels communicate are lost.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Marcus. “I think you’re insane.”

  “Go, then, go, my innocent brother. Back to your milk-and-water theology. Where wast thou, Marcus, when I laid the foundations of the earth, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

  Marcus rose. “So you are going to go on being a priest,” he said. “You are going to go on with that farce, with all those things inside you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. When I celebrate mass I am God. Nil inultum remanebit. Although there is no judge I shall be punished quite automatically out of the great power of the universe. That will be its last mercy. Meanwhile I endure in the place in which I am. I endure, my Marcus, I wait for it all to finish.”

  His name, thus spoken as Carel used to speak it in childhood, affected Marcus with a sudden different emotion, warm and weak, a pity more for himself than for his brother. He looked at Carel’s face for signs of trouble, signs of despair, but the face was abstracted, faintly smiling, turned away.

  Marcus felt that he had been dismissed, perhaps already forgotten. But he could not bear to go like that. He wanted to attract Carel’s attention to himself, even if it were in anger. He said, “I brought these flowers for Elizabeth.”

  Carel turned slowly towards him, looked at him still vaguely, and moved to the desk. He fingered the mop-headed chrysanthemums. “What’s in the parcel? Is that for Elizabeth?”

  Marcus recalled the icon, and for a moment could not remember why he had it. He said confusedly, “It’s that icon, well I suppose you wouldn’t know about it, it belongs to Eugene Peshkov—”

  “Oh, the Pole.”

  “He’s Russian, actually.”

  “Can I look?”

  Already Carel was pulling off the paper. Under the direct light of the lamp, beside the insipid pallor of the flowers, the solid wooden rectangle glowed golden and blue. The three bronzed angels, weary with humility and failure, sat in their conclave holding their slender rods of office, graceful and remote, bowing their small heads to each other under their huge creamy haloes, floating upon their thrones in an empyrean of milky brightness.

  Carel slowly laid it down. He murmured something.

  “What?” said Marcus.

  “I said ‘tall’.”

  “Tall?”

  “They would be so tall.”

  Marcus looked at Carel. He was still intent on the icon, smiling again, a relaxed happy smile.

  Marcus coughed. “It represents the Trinity, of course,” he said.

  “How can those three be one? As I told you. Please go now, Marcus.”

  Marcus hesitated. He could think of nothing more to say. The warm weak feeling returned to him and he almost wanted to weep. He said, “I’ll see you again.”

  Carel, looking at the icon, did not reply.

  “I’ll see you again, Carel.”

  “Go.”

  Marcus moved a step or two towards the door. He was incapable of taking the icon out of Carel’s hand. He felt again the agony, the impossibility of leaving him so bleakly. He could not leave Carel alone with those thoughts. It must all be unsaid. The spell must be repeated backwards and all must be made as it had been before. He needed suddenly to touch his brother. He came back and, bending a little, closed his hand upon the black skirt of the soutane.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Carel moved quickly, jerking the material out of Marcus’s grasp. As Marcus straightened up Carel stepped forward again and for a moment Marcus thought that his brother was about to embrace him. Instead, deliberately, almost carefully, Carel struck him hard across the mouth.

  Marcus gasped, his hand going to his face. He felt the flesh hot with shame and hurt. He saw very clearly Carel’s metallic features and his china blue eyes fixed upon him with a gaze of thoughtful intensity.

  Carel murmured, “You exist, Marcus, just for a moment you exist. Now get out.”

  The blue eyes closed. Marcus stumbled out of the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “FUNNY THING,” SAID Elizabeth, “I’ve stopped hearing the trains. I never believed I’d get used to them. Have you stopped hearing them too?”

  “Yes,” said Muriel.

  “Jigsaw’s nearly finished.”

  “You’ve done a lot.”

  “One does get obsessed near the end. So lazy of me. That
fits, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, that fits.”

  “Whatever shall we do when we’ve finished it?”

  They were sitting on the floor in Elizabeth’s room with the lamps alight and the curtains drawn. The fire flickered, casting jagged golden reflections into the brownish recesses of the French mirror. Elizabeth’s half-smoked cigar glowed in the ash-tray. She sat lazily, one long black-trousered leg tucked under her, her back against the chaise-longue and her face to the fire. The points of her strewn hair fell forward on to her shoulders. The front of her striped shirt lolled carelessly open as she fingered a piece of the puzzle. “Only dull old bits of sea left now.”

  “You’ve done a lot.” Did I say that just now, thought Muriel.

  “Mm. Foggy again, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can smell it in here, even with the fire. Has it snowed any more?”

  “No.”

  “Is the snow still there?”

  “Lot of it is. It’s not so nice now.”

  Muriel had entered Elizabeth’s room with every expectation of an event. Sick with anticipation and fear, she had scarcely been able to get herself as far as the door. She had expected something which, if not exactly an explanation or a judgement, would partake of these and somehow shift a state of mind so terrible that any change must be a relief. What was from moment to moment unendurable was not so much what she had seen. That composite image remained in her consciousness, unassimilated and dreadful, like a mortal illness waiting its hour. What most immediately tormented her was her uncertainty about them, the inconclusiveness of her impression that they must know that she had seen, that they must think that she had deliberately spied. The burden was like guilt. Here she needed Elizabeth’s help, needed an utterance which, however obscure, might bring what had occurred back into an inhabited world and make it, however appalling, a human task to deal with. Indeed almost any movement which Elizabeth made could have constituted such a help. Only Elizabeth made no movement.

  When Muriel had appeared, speechless and capable only of kneeling on the floor and drooping her head, Elizabeth had seemed to notice nothing, and had simply behaved as usual, talking trivialities, complaining a little, shifting peevishly about, and fiddling with the jigsaw puzzle. Muriel had gradually lifted her head and with an effort which almost made her pant and grit her teeth had entered into the business of replying with an equal casualness and appearance of calm. She did not know what to think. Elizabeth must have heard that desperate cry of “Carel! Carel!” must have understood the meaning of Muriel’s presence in the next room. If she had not understood she would surely have asked, have exclaimed. Her very silence implied her understanding. Yet with so odd a girl could one be sure? Perhaps Elizabeth had not understood and had already dismissed the matter. Elizabeth seemed to live on so many different levels, in so many different dimensions. Perhaps some crack or fault in the structure of her mind had simply, and maybe mercifully, shut off from consciousness all memory of an incident which should surely have seemed frightening and appalling. But what, given that which Muriel had certainly and indubitably seen, could the inside of her cousin’s mind be like?

  About Carel Muriel could not think clearly at all. There had always been an area of darkness in her relationship with her father, something which prevented her from seeing him properly and prevented her utterly from judging him. He had never quite, for her, belonged to the ordinary human scene, and although he was a stranger to her and the strangest thing that she knew, he was so intimately a part of her own consciousness that she was almost surprised that he was visible to other people. She could not now reflect upon or attribute willed action to him, she could not think of him as a person with a policy, as someone who had made decisions and taken risks. He was too large to be included in her thoughts. He bulked beside them, impenetrable and ineluctably present. It was not exactly that Muriel thought about him all the time. She wore him, she carried him, she endured him all the time.

  No new communication came to lessen or make bearable the shock which she had received. She remained shocked, like someone who holds a live electric wire and cannot let go. What did become, with the passage of hours, of a day, more positive was her own sense of guilt. She was guilty of seeing, of knowing. She had committed the crime of looking. Something had been destroyed, smashed, and she herself was the destroyer, the blasphemer, the defiler. She struggled for her reason. Then with the idea of guilt came the idea of absolution and with the idea of absolution came the image of Eugene. It was a surprise as well as a relief to Muriel to find that she was still capable of thinking of Eugene at all. Because he was harmless and kind he remained available and free, outside the mess of her misery. But in some more definite way he had become a necessary presence, an essential counterweight to Carel, the white figure against the black one. She thought again of going to him and telling him everything, and in fact in several imaginary conversations she did this and received much comfort. And she thought about the Russian box and the good tears he had shed for her. She would go to Eugene, but not just yet. Eugene was always there. Meanwhile she would wait a little longer watching Elizabeth for a sign.

  “Is it still the afternoon?”

  “I suppose so. It’s hard to tell afternoon from evening in this weather.”

  “Or morning! I wish the fog would go away. I’ve only been able to look out of the window two days since we came.”

  “It’ll go soon. It’ll have to.”

  “I don’t see why. The weather may have suddenly changed. Perhaps it’s something to do with the Bomb.”

  “It’ll go soon.”

  “Do you think the bomb tests might really have affected the weather?”

  “I suppose they might, but not that much.”

  “What’s for supper?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t shopped yet.”

  “I suppose there’s always eggs.”

  “You must be getting fed up with eggs.”

  “I don’t mind. There’s another piece that fits. Do you know, I think I’m getting better at it.”

  “I suppose it’s a skill like another. You’d be likely to get better.”

  “Shall we buy a new puzzle when we’ve finished this one, or shall we jumble this one up and start again?”

  “I don’t think I could bear to do the same one again.”

  “No, I suppose not. Even though one knew the picture beforehand one does feel one’s discovering it. We’ll get another one. May we?”

  “Of course if you like we’ll get another one.”

  Muriel closed her eyes and her fingers clawed quietly upon the taut surface of the carpet. Not tears but something like a scream hovered inside her head, moved in there like a bird. Can I stand this degree of pain, Muriel asked herself so specifically that it almost seemed she had said the words aloud.

  She opened her eyes and saw a rather strange look upon Elizabeth’s face. Elizabeth was not looking at the puzzle but was gazing a little beyond it upon the floor with a tense conscious expression which almost immediately became smooth and vacant. A movement in the air made Muriel stiffen. Then she half turned and sprang to her feet. Carel was standing in the doorway.

  He ignored Elizabeth, who did not look up and said in a low voice to Muriel, “Could I talk to you for a moment?”

  Muriel had no memory of getting to Carel’s study. She was now conscious of the room which was brightly lit for once, with three lamps on and a centre light. The glare made the room look small and mean, inadequately and provisionally furnished. She noticed how threadbare the carpet was. She heard her father closing the door and was conscious of herself with a kind of surprise standing, not fainting, not screaming.

  “Sit down, will you, Muriel.”

  She sat beside the desk. Carel went to the other side of it and sat facing her. She felt him looking at her. She could not look at him.

  “I was wondering, Muriel, if you had obtained that appointment yet.”

  “Wha
t appointment?” said Muriel in a thick voice, looking at the floor.

  “I mean have you taken any employment, secretarial work.”

  “Oh. No, I haven’t.”

  Carel’s voice was so ordinary, his questions sounded so simple and so familiar, Muriel wondered for a moment whether she had not perhaps made some astonishing mistake. Was it possible that her father too had just not heard her cry out his name or had somehow strangely forgotten it? Or had she ever really cried out at all? Perhaps she had imagined it? Perhaps she had imagined what she thought she saw.

  “Wouldn’t it be a good thing to find work? It shouldn’t prove difficult. And some time has passed now.”

  She tried to look at Carel and got as far as looking at his hands which were laid upon the desk before him, one neatly crossed over the other. Then she saw something else upon the desk beside Carel’s hands. It was Eugene’s icon of the Trinity represented as angels, the picture foreshortened in her view of it into a golden-blue slit. There was something miraculous and also terrible in the appearance of the icon on Carel’s desk. Was there nothing he could not do? Muriel stared at it.