by Iris Murdoch
‘She was very isolated,’ said Calvin. ‘She was peculiarly isolated, and very near to despair in any case.’ He was leaning close to her as he spoke the words, and uttering them carefully and clearly. ‘Someone ought to have explained things to her, someone who knew her situation through and through. As it was, she was just an incidental casualty — ’
‘Stop!’ said Rosa. ‘You’ve made your point!’ She got up, and stepped out of the doors on to the terrace. The warmth of the morning sun took her in a golden embrace. Its touch was hateful to her, like the taste of food after a death. She stood still for a moment, and Calvin came and stood behind her shoulder. She shivered to feel Calvin so near, and began to move away from him.
‘I cannot think,’ she said, ‘why Mischa has not killed you years ago.’
‘Mischa did kill me years ago,’ said Calvin in a soft voice.
Rosa’s movement brought her near to the parapet and she saw with astonishment that the great pale shining sea was still there; only a little blue had leaked into it now out of the morning sky. She gazed down at the beach.
‘Do you see him?’ said Calvin softly.
Rosa looked. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Look through these,’ said Calvin. He whipped out a pair of binoculars. He trained them like a gun upon the scene below. Then he handed them to Rosa. ‘There!’ he said, pointing. ‘He’s quite still, so he’s hard to notice.’
Rosa looked through the glasses. A section of beach sprang into view, very close and quite deserted. She could see the crystalline lights on the sand and the very small ripples at the edge of the sea. She moved the glasses slowly along. Then suddenly there was Mischa. He was sitting on the sand, barefoot, with his trousers rolled up to the knee, and the soles of his feet touching each other like a pair of praying hands. He was looking towards the horizon. The shock of seeing him was so great that Rosa lowered the glasses at once. When she lifted them and found him again he had got up and was standing with his feet in the sea. He stooped down and picked up something which seemed to be a starfish, and after looking at it, threw it far out into the water. Then he turned about and looked straight into Rosa’s eyes. She flinched and handed the glasses back to Calvin. She could not believe that Mischa could not see her face and soul. For an instant, but only for an instant, she believed that he knew and intended all.
‘He’s seen us!’ said Calvin. ‘He’s waving!’ Calvin began to wave vigorously. ‘Wave!’ he said to Rosa, ‘or he’ll think something’s the matter.’
Rosa waved. She could now see a tiny figure far below agitating its hands. She turned to look at Calvin. He was looking down with a tender predatory expression.
‘You know how to protect your own,’ said Rosa. She turned away and crossed the terrace, stumbling as she went.
‘Where are you going?’ said Calvin.
‘To pack my suit-case,’ said Rosa.
‘I’ll tell Lucio to get the car,’ said Calvin.
When Rosa came back a moment later with her things the car was already waiting in the front courtyard. Maria’s son Lucio was at the wheel.
‘He will take you to the station,’ said Calvin. ‘There’s a train for Naples in less than half an hour.’ He opened the door of the car.
As Rosa was about to get in, he captured her hand. She did not try to free it but looked at him. ‘It’s odd,’ she said, ‘in the past I always felt that whether I went towards him or away from him I was only doing his will. But it was all an illusion.’
‘Who knows,’ said Calvin, ‘perhaps it is only now that it would be an illusion. I am sorry.’
‘What will you do?’ said Rosa.
‘It is rather what will he do,’ said Calvin. He made as if to kiss Rosa’s hand, but she pulled it away from him and got into the car.
A great cloud of dust arose as the car went down the track that led to the road. By the time it had quite cleared, the car had vanished, and even the sound of the engine had died away into the motionless landscape that leaned over towards the sea. Calvin Blick stood quite still until the sound had gone. Then he turned about and ran through the house and across the terrace and began in desperate haste to descend the steps.
Twenty-Nine
THE Orient Express was flying southwards through Europe. In a first-class compartment Sir Andrew Cockeyne was kissing his wife passionately. Annette had lingered in the dining-car, and for the moment they had the compartment to themselves. Andrew loved his wife; but he was never sure whether in marrying him she had got what she wanted. He had soon learnt, he had learnt it on his honeymoon, not to question her about her feelings. But he still hoped, although he knew that this displeased her scarcely less, that he might read his answers in her eyes. Somewhere deep within, a light shone which could reassure him for ever. But this reassurance was something which, deliberately or not, Marcia had always withheld from him. She would not permit him to look into her eyes. She was never still, and when they embraced she would hide her face. So she escaped him, always evading the point of rest and contemplation towards which he always wished to draw her; and when at times he caught her head, violent almost with hunger for her gaze, she would move restlessly, tossing her hair, twisting her body, and turning away her eyes like an animal. Andrew sighed, and tried now to draw her down on to his shoulder — but with a quick movement she freed herself.
‘Attention, voir l’enfant!’ said Marcia.
Annette entered the compartment and beamed benevolently upon her parents. She took the corner seat and settled herself, yawning and drawing up her legs. Her cheeks glowed like peaches, her arms were already becoming tawny with sunshine, and the parting of her hair shone like precious metal. She arranged her skirt about her in a great fan. Andrew looked upon her with astonishment. Then he looked at his wife. Marcia was bending upon Annette a look of intent understanding which seemed to make her face grow rounder and her eyes larger. Marcia was quite still now. Andrew looked from one to the other. He did not know which was the more mysterious.
Annette was stroking her slim legs. ‘Look, Marcia,’ she said, ‘that ankle is quite well again now. You couldn’t even tell which one it was.’ With a flash of coloured petticoats she lifted one leg right up until it pointed at the roof.
‘Annette!’ said Andrew.
Marcia laughed. Annette laughed too, and settled herself again, posing her right hand ostentatiously upon her thigh. On the third finger, set in a gold ring, was the great white sapphire. As the train swung round a bend, the sun blazed suddenly in at the window and set the sapphire alight.
‘Pull the blinds down, Annette,’ said Andrew.
‘Well, only a little way,’ said Annette, ‘because I want to look out.’ She adjusted the blind and curled herself up, crouching on the seat and leaning her cheek against the lower half of the window. As Andrew saw in profile her fresh untroubled face he felt for a moment a sense of puzzlement, perhaps of awe, almost of resentment, at her vitality.
Annette was absorbed in watching the landscape. A house, a dog, a man on a bicycle, a woman in a field, a distant mountain. She looked upon them all enchanted, lips parted and eyes wide. It was like being at the pictures.
‘Look! Look!’ she kept saying to Marcia. ‘Look at those cows, how very red they are! Look, there are crows sitting on their backs, like in the — Oh, look at the little dog, it’s barking at the train! Why, there’s a house just like our house at Vevey! Do look, Marcia! What a lovely avenue of trees! Oh dear, it’s gone.’
And while Annette looked at the world, Marcia looked at Annette, and Andrew looked at Marcia. Then the train stopped at a tiny station and there was a sudden silence. Annette ceased her chatter. She opened the window. In the sunny quietness she could smell the dust and hear the sound of the cicadas. She knew that she was in the south.
The train began to move again very slowly. The little station disappeared and a row of pine trees were drawn away to reveal a deep valley. In the valley there was a sparkling river, and beyond the river there was a
great row of arches.
‘Oh, look, Andrew!’ said Annette. ‘What’s that, over there?’
‘It’s a Roman aqueduct,’ said Andrew.
‘Where did it go to?’ said Annette.
Andrew began to explain. But already she was no longer listening. Soon, soon, soon she would see Nicholas. She would have a lot to tell him.
Thirty
IT was raining. Peter Saward was standing at the window watching the rain as it fell into the little dark garden, finding its way through the great leafy tree that took up most of the space between the walls, running along the leaves and the branches, and falling into enormous pools on the bare earth. The large wet surfaces of the leaves, weighty with moisture, drooped and swayed in the sharp wind that was blowing. As he watched the falling water, Peter whistled softly to himself, imitating a bird. Then he turned away from the window into the darkness of the room. The silence of the room was profound and familiar, as if all the books were breathing quietly. He stood quite still for a long time, looking into the obscurity with unfocused eyes.
There was a strange flurry outside the door. Peter Saward started. Then the door was flung wide open and in the sudden light from the hallway he saw Rosa, her clothes all darkened with the rain, standing before him. She stumbled in, and the room became dark again. After the first moment Rosa did not look at him. She murmured. ‘Thank God!’ half under her breath, and then began shaking herself like a dog.
‘Don’t do that, Rosa,’ said Peter, ‘you’re throwing water all over the books.’
‘Damn the books!’ said Rosa. She slipped out of her coat and dropped it on the floor. Peter picked it up and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. Rosa sat down at the desk and began to undo her hair, which was extremely wet. Heavy with rain, the dark tresses fell down over both shoulders.
‘Poor thing, you’re soaked!’ said Peter. ‘I’ll open the stove.’ He pulled apart the two iron doors and a bright glow lit up the room, reflected in the polished side of the desk and revealing the colours of many thousand books.
‘Come near,’ said Peter. But Rosa did not move, and kept mechanically combing out her hair with her fingers, while the water still dripped on to the floor from the hem of her skirt.
Peter stood over her awkwardly. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘I was just watching the rain. It was looking so beautiful,’ he added, in case this should sound like a complaint.
‘Funny thing,’ said Rosa, ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Why ever did you think that?’ said Peter. ‘I’m not, as you see!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rosa, ‘but in the train I suddenly felt quite certain that you were dead. I saw it all, like in a vision. I saw myself arriving here. The front door was locked and I had to ring, and Miss Glashan came and told me very gently that her lodger had passed away. And then she let me come into this room and I saw that it had all become a senseless jumble of objects that someone would have to come and sort out and cart off.’
‘Well, it ain’t so,’ said Peter. ‘Here, have a cigarette.’ He always kept cigarettes in his desk for Rosa.
‘No,’ said Rosa, ‘those ones have been there for months.’ She moved closer to the fire.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Peter.
‘I went to Italy,’ said Rosa, ‘to see Mischa. But it was no use.’ Her tone forbade further questions.
‘Have you — been to Campden Hill Square?’ asked Peter.
‘No,’ said Rosa, ‘I came straight here from the station. You don’t happen to know how Hunter is, do you?’ She wrung the water out of the ends of her hair and began to dry her cheeks with a handkerchief. Her wet face glowed red in the firelight.
‘Here, how stupid of me!’ said Peter Saward, and he fetched her a towel. ‘Hunter is completely better,’ he said. ‘He’s up and about again, so Miss Foy told me.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Rosa. She shook her head slowly to and fro and sighed.
‘Did you know,’ said Peter Saward, ‘that Mrs Wingfield has died?’
‘Oh — ’ said Rosa. She threw the towel to the floor. Her forehead was still glistening with rain. ‘Oh — ’ she said, ‘I am sorry. Poor lady! How strange. My dear mother loved her, I remember.’ She drew her hand across her brow and her eyes.
‘Miss Foy was looking for you,’ said Peter Saward, ‘to tell you about the will.’
‘Oh, the will!’ said Rosa. She picked up the towel again and bundled into it the mass of damp hair that fell into her lap and began to rub it vigorously. ‘What got what, pray?’
‘Mrs Wingfield left you all the shares of the Artemis,’ said Peter Saward, ‘and an annuity of five hundred pounds so long as the journal continues in publication with you as its editor.’
Rosa laughed shortly. ‘Five hundred pounds!’ she said.
‘Do you think she was mean?’ asked Peter.
‘No!’ said Rosa. ‘Intelligent! What got the rest?’
‘She left the rest to Miss Foy,’ said Peter Saward.
‘Oh, good,’ said Rosa. ‘I am so glad! Was there plenty?’
‘Plenty,’ said Peter Saward.
‘Whatever will Miss Foy do with it, I wonder,’ said Rosa.
‘Give it to you, if you aren’t careful,’ said Peter Saward.
‘I don’t want it,’ said Rosa. ‘You and Hunter can have it Poor Mrs Wingfield — ’
‘Rosa,’ said Peter Saward, ‘did you hear about Nina?’
‘Yes’ said Rosa. ‘For God’s sake, Peter, sit down somewhere. You make me tired standing around like that.’
He sat down in an armchair near to the stove and Rosa left her chair and sat down at his feet. She leaned lightly against his knee while with both hands she spread out her hair like a great net to dry. For a moment they rested so, she melancholy and thoughtful, he observing her, suddenly immobile with contentment. Outside the window it was night-time.
‘This room looks different,’ said Rosa. ‘It looks emptier. What have you done? I know what it is — the sheets of hieroglyphs aren’t there. You’ve put them away.’
‘Yes,’ said Peter, ‘that’s all over.’
‘What do you mean, all over?’
‘Well, they’ve found a bilingual near Tarsus, a big thing — it tells everything.’
‘It tells everything?’ said Rosa. She knelt upright before him. ‘You mean all your research is wasted?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ said Peter. ‘I was off the track anyway. I was quite wrong in thinking that the language was Indo-European. It turns out to be a sort of Mongolian tongue. The bilingual gives quite enough vocabulary to decipher most of what we have.’
‘What was that stuff you were always poring over, what did it mean?’
‘It’s too soon to say in detail,’ said Peter, ‘but it seems to be mainly accounts of battles — quite interesting — they establish — ’
‘Never mind what they establish!’ said Rosa. ‘So all your work was for nothing, for nothing!’ She spoke half angrily, half in grief.
‘Well, what can one do?’ said Peter. ‘One reads the signs as best one can, and one may be totally misled. But it’s never certain that the evidence will turn up that makes everything plain. It was worth trying. Now I can go back to my other work in peace. There’s nothing to be sad about, Rosa.’
She knelt before him and her black hair fell about her almost to the ground. She put a hand on his arm.
‘Peter,’ she said, ‘what would you think of the idea of marrying me?’
He looked at her calmly and a little sadly. ‘You can imagine, my darling,’ he said, ‘how much it moves me to hear you say this. But you don’t really want it. Some god or demon makes you say it, but you don’t really want it. Ah, if only you did! But you don’t.’ He put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him fiercely.
‘Some god or demon!’ said Rosa. ‘No, no! Won’t you believe me?’
‘No,’ said Peter. He moved his
hand up the side of her cheek and took a strand of warm hair which he drew across on to his knee.
‘No,’ said Rosa, and her voice was breaking. ‘You won’t believe me, you will never believe me now. Peter, I’m going to cry. Find something quick to distract me, show me something.’
Still holding her hair, he reached out with the other hand for the green book of photographs which lay on the desk near by. As he opened it before her and began to turn the pages, she saw the pictures through a gathering haze of tears.
‘See,’ he said, ‘here is the old market square and here is the famous bronze fountain, and here is the medieval bridge across the river….’ He turned the pages. ‘And here is the cathedral…’
A Biography of Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was one of the most influential British writers of the twentieth century. She wrote twenty-six novels over forty years, as well as plays, poetry, and works of philosophy. Heavily influenced by existentialist and moral philosophy, Murdoch’s novels were also notable for their rich characters, intellectual depth, and handling of controversial topics such as adultery and incest.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Murdoch moved to London with her parents as a child. She attended Somerville College in Oxford where she studied classics, ancient history, and philosophy. While at Oxford, she was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (which she later left, disillusioned) and, in the 1940s, worked in Austrian and Belgian relief camps for the United Nations. After completing her postgraduate degree at Newnham College in Cambridge, she became a Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford, where she lectured in philosophy for fifteen years.
In 1954, she published her first novel, Under the Net, about a struggling young writer in London, which the American Modern Library would later select as one of the one hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century and Time magazine would list as among the twenty-five best novels since 1923. Two years after completing Under the Net, Murdoch married John Bayley, an English scholar at the University of Oxford and an author. In a 1994 interview, Murdoch described her relationship with Bayley as “the most important thing in my life.” Bayley’s memoir about their relationship, Elegy for Iris, was made into the major motion picture Iris, starring Judi Dench and Kate Winslet, in 2001.
