Nuns and Soldiers

by Iris Murdoch

  He thought, I have been betrayed. He had been insulted, lied to, grossly and horribly mocked and rejected. His worst fearful dreams of what it would be like now to fail, to face Gertrude’s anger and dismissal, had never included anything as frightful as this. Was it conceivable that it had been arranged on purpose? Had it all been planned by Mrs Mount? Had someone from the village alerted Gertrude? She had finally cast him into outer darkness, sealing his departure with a doom of jealous hate. Oh how well off he had been before when he was alone and hated nobody! Now he hated Gertrude, he hated the Count, and all the loathsome irresistible machinery of jealousy had been installed within him. How could they have been so cruel. Oh why had he come on this vile fatal journey! Had he not known it was a terrible mistake; had he not known that he risked his very sanity in coming? He had parted from Gertrude in some kind of dreadful moral muddle, but he had managed to accept the parting as final and even to try to put his life in order. He had left Daisy, he had sacrificed Daisy, who loved him, and had been with him forever. Why? It now seemed to him that he had given up this love, this last remaining comfort, simply to placate Gertrude! To appease, without gain to himself, her accusing lingering shadow. He had got rid of his guilt by leaving Daisy. Or rather he had tried to, he could never get rid of his guilt, it was a disease. And now, as a complication of this self-same disease, had come this horrible fever of jealousy and hate. Gertrude and the Count were black devils in his mind, and he could foresee a long long future time during which those devils would perform their appointed task of tormenting him. Oh, they would draw his blood! And where were they at this moment, what were they doing, just those two, together? He felt as if he would vomit, spewing out a black stream of loathing and hatred and shame.

  These thoughts, after a while, were slightly checked by the realization that he had lost his way. He had, he supposed, been returning to the village. He had been clambering for some time and ought by now to have reached the place where the rocks came gently down to a slope of grass which led to the level place where the beehives were. But there was no sign of the easy descent to the grass. Instead he was constantly forced to climb higher to avoid little thickets of red-leaved wind-scorched box into a region which he could not recognize where the rocks rose in a series of curious mounds to an unfamiliar skyline. Moreover it had now suddenly grown much darker. When Tim stopped and lifted his head he realized that there was still a lot of brightness in the sky, but saw at the same time how indistinguishably hazy the dangerous rocks had become underfoot. Behind him a huge almost full moon had come into view, but still a cheesy yellow and giving little light. One or two stars were visible. The rock mounds, rising in lines above, seemed like forms in some Oriental temple, vast heads of gods perhaps. He felt that he was now higher up among the rocks than he had ever been before, and that he had quite lost his sense of direction. He cursed miserably, hating himself, hating everything. Now this wretched stupidity of being lost.

  He began to go back the way he had come, moving more slowly, often testing his steps with a cautious prodding foot. The rocks looked quite different, larger, set in greater more monumental masses, their innumerable edges and wrinkles blurred and erased. At the same time there was more debris, little slippery piles of broken rock which by daylight he would instinctively have avoided. Once he slipped upon one of these short screes and came down heavily on his side. He sat rubbing his ankle and decided he had better wait until the moon had risen further and gained light. It would be a suitable crazy finale to break a limb in this wilderness, where no one would ever find him, and die slowly shrieking with pain. He sat there and contemplated, fixed and clear in his mind as a brilliant icon, the image of Gertrude and the Count holding hands across the table.

  After a while the chipped moon did what Tim expected of it, it rose higher and became smaller, more silvery and very very bright. It hung like a brilliant heavy stone in the sky. More stars appeared and sparkled. The rocks gradually emerged again, their details revealed in a new way by the odd creepy brown light. They exuded now, a positive tense stillness. They were piled round about him, great leaning monumental shafts, wherein the moonlight suggested little steps and ledges and even, close at hand, their spotty crinkly texture. The rocks rose up in tense quietness, like a symphony of frozen inaudible sound. Tim got up, feeling stiff. He felt awkward and cold and noticed that his trousers were still damp from crossing the stream. He was frightened of the rocks and even more horrified to think that he had still not got away from that accursed proximity. As it was he would have to spend the night in the village. He began to walk, as he guessed, back in the direction of the house, hoping at every few steps to see down into open country on his left, to see the white tops of the beehives, or perhaps the meandering dark course of the streamlet. The stream, he knew, led to the village, passing at several points close to the road. He scrambled cautiously, using his hands, and sometimes sitting down to place his feet carefully on a lower level. There was very little vegetation now, except for dark dry patches of what his fingers told him was moss. Sometimes as he clawed them, little cubes of rock came away neatly in his hand, as if the hillside were giving him a mocking present. Occasionally there were level ways that looked like paths, but they always ceased after a few paces. He hoped to find himself steadily descending, but little cliffs and shafts of rock continually barred his way, and when he had contrived to discover and crawl through gaps between them, he often seemed to be upon yet higher ground. In fact the light made it difficult to determine whether on the whole he was going up or down. He was tired and hungry and beginning to feel cold again in spite of his exertions. He cursed with anger and misery and a baffled frenzied desire to escape from the rocks which seemed with perverse intent to be keeping him in the one place where he had least wish to be. Scrambling through a defile he scraped his hand painfully on a rocky projection, and pausing to look at his knuckles found them covered with a brown shade which when he touched it felt wet. Then he could feel the warm blood running through onto his palm. He moaned aloud and raised his eyes and saw before him, now brightly illuminated by the moon, the rising series of rocky mounds, the heads of gods, which he had left behind just after darkness fell.

  Panic overcame Tim now and he turned and began to try to run away across the rocks. It was in fact impossible to run, but it was possible in a nightmarish way to try to. With frenzied exertion he moved slowly, aware of the moonlight, aware of what was behind him, and somehow able to avoid a serious fall. He slithered recklessly into a steeply descending cleft which turned out to be full of little stone cubes like the ones with which he had been presented earlier on. He sat down and descended, half-sliding, and became aware of moisture; the cleft was the abode of a spring. The stones were now wet and cold and very slippery. Trying to get his footing he began to tilt forward and lose his balance, about to trip and fall headfirst downward. He stumbled and slipped sideways, but not onto rock. He was lying on grass.

  Scraped and bruised he got up and looked around, wildly hoping that he had at last got out of the rocks. He had not. They rose up, blocking the sky on every side, now concealing the moon. But at least he stood on grass, and the grass was not a solitary isolated patch but led away like a rivulet in both directions. There was something familiar about the profile of the rock wall, sharp and black against the lighted sky. He had no idea which way it was best to go, but instinct told him to go to the left. Moreover the path that way led downhill. The grass was precious, firm, friendly underfoot. He walked a little, following the grassway round in a curve, and came suddenly to a space between two rocks where there was a step and the moonlit effect of a door. He set his foot upon the step and pulled himself through between the smooth pillar-like rocks, and saw directly before him and above him the moon shining upon the high round moist surface of the Great Face.

  Tim went forward and tripped over something which tangled round his foot. It was a long strand of the hanging creeper which grew upon the high place above, which perhaps the win
d had torn off. He stepped over the creeper and then paused looking up. He did not want to come too close. He did not want to see the moon reflected in the pool. From where he stood he could see the rocky rim of the pool, but not the water. He looked up at the pale pitted surface high above him. It gleamed in the moonlight, luminous, phosphorescent, as if glowing from within. It might have been a huge alabaster window of some lighted hall. The creepers hung down from above, motionless, shadowing the thing a little. Above it the rocks receded into a blurred shade which merged into the moonlit sky. The moisture gleamed and crept upon the pallid glowing surface.

  For a moment Tim forgot everything except the marvel that was before him. Then he recalled, with added pain, not his long traverse of the rocks, but the scene at the house and the miserable end of his stupid fruitless journey. He thought he would go and he turned away towards the rock door. But suddenly utter exhaustion gripped him, and he had to sit down on the grass. His legs were useless now. He could go no further. The grassy place within the rocky shell was sheltered here, seemed gentler, warmer. He thought he would rest a while. Then he put his head down onto the grass and instantly fell into a deep sleep.

  When Tim woke up there was a dawn light. He saw, first of all, as if it were a separate thing, the light, very grey, very cold. Then he saw the grass, and the nearest rock, and the rock was grey and as hard as the light. Close at hand it looked like pitted cement. Just raising his head he meditated for a while on the light and the grass and the rock, not yet conscious of himself. Then, appalled, he sat up. The Great Face was still there, but extinguished, chill. He had never, in all the time he had spent looking at it, seen it so austere. The moisture upon it was invisible. It looked now like a round grey grille with a very fine mesh. Tim only then remembered Gertrude, and with this came consciousness of his body, aching and stiff and cold. He got up slowly and moved towards the middle of the glade.

  A cloud of mist or steam hung over the pool. The grooved rock above the face looked brown and furred, perhaps because the moss fronds had withered. The grey light of the unrisen sun revealed a terrible immobility, the creepers looked like stalactites, even the mist was motionless. Walking stiffly, Tim approached the pool. He noticed that his right hand was covered with dried blood and he had an impulse to wash it, but then realized that this was out of the question.

  The crystal circle of the water surface was totally visible beneath the level of the mist which hung like a halo a foot or two above it. Tim noticed that, although the surface was completely smooth, glossy, almost hard as if it were a sheet of transparent polished steel, the pool was more agitated than it had been when he last saw it. Perhaps it had been stirred by the mistral, from which some impulse still remained. The faint quivering pulses or rays which seemed to be passing through it, though without ruffling its surface, were more marked and had a different more urgent rhythm. It was unclear to Tim exactly how these pulses made themselves visible, and as he stared he half-thought that he imagined them. Perhaps there was only an illusion of movement. Or, perhaps, the scarcely perceptible lines of force in the water were represented by bubbles which were so tiny that the eye could not grasp them. The water was not in any way obscured by these impulsions, it was very clear and seemed to have gathered light into itself. Tim could see the wide gently curving bed of pearly and white pebbles gleaming below, at some distance which he could not estimate, each pebble clearly discernible. Rounded, of uniform size, arranged as if on display, the crystalline stones looked so precious, so desirable, that Tim felt a sudden urge to seize a handful of them: only they were undoubtedly out of reach and he could not bring himself to break the surface. At that moment he became conscious that he was extremely thirsty. Hunger was with him, he knew, but hunger could wait. Thirst could not. Again he leaned towards the water as if actually to touch the shining surface with his lips. But again it was impossible, and he thought no, I won’t drink this water, not this water, no, no.

  He turned round quickly. It was as if there were a presence in the glade. He decided he had better go. Without looking back he hurried to the stone gate and climbed out onto the grass path outside. Here everything was immediately familiar, his sense of direction was with him again, and he knew exactly how to find his way. To the left the path led down, towards the valley and the house, and adjoined the rockway towards the beehives. To the right the path went upward and stopped near to the crest beyond which lay the descent toward the canal. The sun had still not risen and there was no point in hurrying to the village. Tim did not want to return in the direction of the house. His thirst was agonizing, increased by the sight of the forbidden water. He decided to turn to the right and go to the canal.

  As he went along the path he soon came to the steep slope of little cubical stones down which he had slithered in the dark. The lower part was overhung by gorse bushes and in his previous wanderings he had never noticed it. It was indeed a watercourse, the stones were damp and gleaming, though no water could be seen to flow. Already a cloud of wasps had assembled there to drink. Peering upward here Tim could even see, far above, one of the humpy stone ‘domes’ which had so much frightened him in the night. This region must be just above the Great Face. In fact the area he had covered during the night, when he had so totally lost his way, was probably quite small and he had simply wandered to and fro within it.

  He followed the path until, a little further on, it came to an end where massive rocky ‘steps’ led up to the skyline. As he reached the top the sun was rising. He could now see the plain, squared out by lines of poplars into different greens with here and there the gleaming polythene arches of the tomato pavilions; and beyond the plain were the shapely blue mountains. The rocks close to him, extending on his right, were a very light creamy blue in the sunshine, merging into an almost colourless yet bright sky which seemed so like the grey which it had seemed before that one could have believed oneself mistaken in calling it grey then, when it was so patently blue now. Below, the rocks were scooped out into little thickety valleys, and dotted with young pines, radiantly green, upon which green cones were perched at awkward angles like ornaments upon Christmas trees. Then there was the yellow grassy slope to the canal, the darting line of water flashing with its motionless speed. Tim stood a moment looking. A single bird was singing sweetly, sounding almost like an English blackbird. He began to descend quickly, avoiding the bramble gulley which had delayed him on the first occasion, and soon he was running across the grass towards the water. When he got there he nearly tumbled in his impatience. He hurled himself down on the bank, levering himself down headfirst through the steep thick grass of the verge until, holding on with one hand, he was able to scoop up some of the icy cold water and hurl it towards his mouth. Long did he lie there, imbibing the water slowly and with exquisite relief. When at last he wanted to get back onto the top of the bank he found it quite difficult to do so. His head was so low, his feet were so high, he seemed able to do no more than to hold onto the grass to prevent himself from slipping forward. However, by snake-like writhings, he managed slowly to edge himself backward until the greater part of his weight was at the top of the bank, and he was able to twist back into a sitting position. He was exhausted, and now that the urgency of the thirst was gone, he felt hungry and aching and totally miserable.

  He now became aware of the nearby weir, and also of the different softer noise of the stream as it passed him by. He sat looking at the racing jumbled olive-grey water whose little tossed-up crests were flashing in the sun. The sun-baked meadow behind him was prickly, covered with small mauve and yellow thistles and sharp pale wisps of dried-up grass. But the long lush green grasses beside the water were full of flowers, blue vetch and scabious and starry flowers like big golden pimpernels. Tim thought about Gertrude and the Count and how inevitable that conjunction was, how fated that vision of them which, as in a crystal ball, he had been vouchsafed. He felt no hatred now. How could he hate either of them? They were the blessed ones, the happy ones, the people of th
e other race. But he felt awful cancerous jealousy and envy and a dull anger with himself for having always muddled and messed up his chances of happiness. Would the village people tell Gertrude that le peintre had been here, and what would she make of it? Did the village people know that he was her husband? He would never know and it did not matter. He wondered what would happen to him now and whether he would ever now live a simple life and be cheerful about innocent things. He felt that he had betrayed the purity of his aloneness. As he miserably worked it out, what he had gained from losing Daisy, he had now totally lost by this disastrous expedition. No doubt he would have learnt later on of Gertrude’s relation with the Count. Had he not himself predicted it, even feigned to imagine that it was in some way appropriate and right? But the impetuous foolish journey, carefully timed to culminate in actually seeing them together: that was real ingenuity on the part of the malicious imp that ran his life. Now it was so clear that he ought never to have come. He ought to have stayed quietly with his little bit of safety, his little bit of peace. It was all gone, smashed, his little achievement; and as he looked into the torment ahead he thought that he would like to die.

  He turned and looked up at the etched folded rocks. Against the bluer sky they looked like Egyptian silver. Why do I suddenly think that, he wondered. It must be some sudden memory of his mother who had had a bracelet made of Egyptian silver, as she must have told him. He had not thought of that since he was a child. He was so unkind to his mother. He got up and began to walk along the edge of the canal. He passed the grove of pines and gazed, without any pleasure, at the clean edges of the hard cut stone which now enclosed the canal as it curved to the right. The sparkling raging water rushed faster now, darkening the walls as far as the wavelets reached. At the outside of the curve the water rose into a white foaming tidal wave and then where the bed of the canal evidently descended towards the weir, humped itself into tossed swooping billows. The noise increased as it surged towards the check of the waterfall, over which it leapt to glide down the slope into the whirlpool below; after which the whole canal vanished, stooping to enter the tunnel, filling it to the brim.