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 Ruby) 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.