"There was the MS of the Stratagems, as I've told you. About forty pages, closely written. Not a good hand and no signature, except the signature that was written all over it – the lost Rabelais book. But in another little bundle in the back of the leather portfolio, in a sort of pocket, were the scripts of three letters."
"From Rabelais?"
"Yes, from Rabelais. They were drafts of three letters written to Paracelsus. His rough copies. But not so rough he hadn't signed them. Perhaps he enjoyed writing his name: lots of people do. It jumped at me off the page – that big ornate signature, not really the Chancery Hand, but a Mannerist style of his own –"
"Yes, Urky always insists that Rabelais was a Mannerist author."
"Urky be damned; he picked that up from me. He wouldn't know Mannerism in any art; he has no eye. But Rabelais is a Mannerist poet who happened to write in prose; he achieves in prose what Giuseppe Arcimboldo achieves in painting – fruitiness, nuttiness, leanness, dunginess, and the wildest kind of grotesque invention. But there were the letters, and there was the unmistakable, great signature. I had to take hold of myself not to fall on my knees. Think of it! Just think of it!"
"Very nice."
"Nice, you call it! Nice! Stupendous! I had a peep – the merest peep – and they contained passages in Greek (quotations, obviously) and here and there a few words in Hebrew, and half a dozen revealing symbols."
"Wholly revealing what?"
"Revealing that Rabelais was in correspondence with the greatest natural scientist of his day, which nobody knew before. Revealing that Rabelais, who was suspected of being a Protestant, was something at least equally reprehensible for a man of the Church – even a nusiance and a renegade – he was, if not a Cabbalist at least a student of Cabbala, and if not an alchemist at least a student of alchemy! And that is bloody well my field, and it could be the making of any scholar who got hold of it, and I'll be damned if I want that bogus sniggering son of a whore McVarish to get his hands on it!"
"Spoken like a true scholar!"
"And I think he has got his hands on it! I think that bugger has pinched it!"
"My dear man, calm down! If it did turn up it would have to go to the University Library, you know. I couldn't simply hand it over to you."
"You know how those things are done; a word to the Chief Librarian would be all that is necessary, and I wouldn't ask you to do it. I could do it myself. First crack at that MS – that's what I want!"
"Yes, yes, I understand. But I've got bad news for you. In one of Cornish's notebooks there's an entry that says "Lend McV. Rab. MS April 16". What do you suppose that tells us?"
"Lend. Lend – does that mean he meant to lend it or that he did lend it?"
"How do I know? But I'm afraid you're grasping at a straw. I suspect Urky has it."
"Pinched it! I knew it! The thief!"
"No, wait a minute – we can't jump to conclusions."
"I'm not jumping to anything. I know McVarish. You know McVarish. He winkled it out of Cornish and now he has it! The sodding crook!"
"Please, don't assume anything. It's simple; I have that entry, and I show it to McVarish and ask him for the MS back."
"Do you think you'll get it? He'll deny everything. I've got to have that MS, Darcourt. I might as well tell you, I've promised it to someone."
"Wasn't that premature?"
"Special circumstances."
"Now look here, Clem, I'm not being stuffy, I hope, but the books and manuscripts in Cornish's collection are my charge, and the circumstances have to be very special for you to talk about anything in that collection to anybody else until all the legal business has been completed and the stuff is safely lodged in the Library. What are these special circumstances?"
"Rather not say."
"I'm sure you'd rather not. But I think you should." Hollier squirmed in his chair. There is no other word for his uneasy twisting, as if he thought that a change of posture would help his inner unease. To my astonishment he was blushing. I didn't like it at all. His embarrassment was embarrassing me. When he spoke his manner was hangdog. The great Hollier, whom the President had described not long ago – to impress the government who were nagging about cutting our grants – as one of the ornaments of the University, was blushing before me. I'm not one of the ornaments myself (just a useful table-leg) and I am too loyal to the University to like watching an ornament squirm.
"A particularly able student – it would be the foundation of an academic career – I would supervise, of course –"
I have a measure of the intuition which common belief regards, quite unfairly, as being an attribute of women. I was ahead of him.
"Miss Theotoky, do you mean?"
"How on earth did you know?"
"Your research assistant, a student of mine, working at least in part on Rabelais, a girl of uncommon promise – it's not really second sight, you know."
"Well – you're right."
"What have you said?"
"Spoke of it once, in general terms. Later, when she asked me, I said a little more. But not much, you understand."
"Then it's easy. You explain to her that there will be a delay. It could take a year to get the MS from McVarish, and wind up the Cornish business, and have the MS properly vetted and catalogued by the Library."
"If you can get it away from McVarish."
"I'll get it."
"But then he may want it for himself, or for some pet of his."
"That's not my affair. You want it for a pet of yours."
"Precisely what do you imply by pet?
"Nothing much. A favoured pupil. Why?"
"I don't have pets."
"Then you're a teacher in a thousand. We all have pets. How can we avoid it? Some students are better and more appealing than others."
"Appealing?"
"Clem, you're very hot under the collar. Have another drink."
To my astonishment he seized the whisky bottle and poured himself three fingers and gulped it off in two swallows.
"Clem, what's chewing you? You'd better tell me."
"I suppose it's part of your job to hear confessions?"
"I haven't done much of that since I left parish work. Never did much there, in fact. But I know how it's done. And I know it's not good practice to hear confessions from people you know socially. But if you want to tell me something informally, go ahead. And mum's the word, of course."
"I was afraid of this when I came here."
"I'm not forcing you. Do as you please. But if I'm not your confessor I am your fellow-executor and I have a right to know what's been going on with things I'm responsible for."
"I have something to make up to Miss Theotoky. I've wronged her, gravely."
"How?"
"Took advantage of her."
"Pinched some of her good work? That sounds more like McVarish than you, Clem."
"No, no; something even more personal. I – I've had carnal knowledge of her."
"Oh, for God's sake! You sound like the Old Testament. You mean you've screwed her?"
"That is a distasteful expression."
"I know, but how many tasteful expressions are there? I can't say you've lain with her; maybe you didn't. I can't say you've had her, because she is still clearly in full possession of herself. 'Had intercourse with her' sounds like the police-court – or do they still say that 'intimacy occurred'? What really happened?"
"It was last April –"
"A month crammed with incident, apparently."
"Shut up and don't be facetious. Simon, can't you see how serious this is for me? I've behaved very wrongly. The relationship between master and pupil is a special one, a responsible one – you could say, a sacred one."