Nuns and Soldiers Read Free Page A

freedom and its own peace.
    The novel closes with Anne ‘homeless and free ... facing the void which she had chosen’. But it is not a depressing conclusion. Iris Murdoch was an important novelist because she reminded us of truths which the dearth of religion in our society has obscured. But she is able to merge this mythological vision with the comedy of manners. We are not simply suffering, yearning creatures. We are also absurd, and, in her kindly, dispassionate way, Murdoch points this out. There are moments of vintage Murdochian comedy in this novel. There is the robust, bracing humour of Daisy; the poignant vanity of Mrs Mount, who habitually rearranges her face before looking in the mirror, so that she always sees a radiant, serene and fulfilled image of herself; and the ludicrous egotism of Tim and Gertrude, as they fall back from their grand vision into the self-regarding complacency of marriage. Like all good comedy, Murdoch’s humour is rooted in sorrow and pain, but it also cuts us down to size, and reminds us that however great our aspiration, however much we suffer, and however arduous our quest, we remain little creatures, who should not take ourselves too seriously.
     
    Karen Armstrong
2001

CHAPTER ONE
    ‘WITTGENSTEIN -’
    ‘Yes?’ said the Count.
    The dying man shifted on the bed, rolling his head rhythmically to and fro in a way that had become habitual only in the last few days. Pain?
    The Count was standing at the window. He never sat down now in Guy’s presence. He had been more familiar once, though Guy had always been a sort of king in his life: his model, his teacher, his best friend, his standard, his judge; but most especially something royal. Now another and a greater king was present in the room.
    ‘He was a sort of amateur, really.’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Count. He was puzzled by Guy’s sudden desire to belittle a thinker whom he had formerly admired. Perhaps he needed to feel that Wittgenstein too would not survive.
    ‘A naïve and touching belief in the power of pure thought. And that man imagined we would never reach the moon.’
    ‘Yes.’ The Count had often talked of abstract matters with Guy, but in the past they had talked of so much else, they had even gossiped. Now there were few topics left. Their conversation had become refined and chilled until nothing personal remained between them. Love? There could be no expression of it now, any gesture of affection would be a gross error of taste. It was a matter of behaving correctly until the end. The awful egoism of the dying. The Count knew how little now Guy needed or wanted his affection, or even Gertrude’s; and he knew too, in his grief, that he himself was withdrawing, stifling his compassion, coming to see it as fruitless suffering. We do not want to care too much for what we are losing. Surreptitiously we remove our sympathy, and prepare the dying one for death, diminish him, strip him of his last attractions. We abandon the dying like a sick beast left under the hedge. Death is supposed to show us truth, but is its own place of illusion. It defeats love. Perhaps shows us that after all there is none. I am thinking Guy’s thoughts now, the Count said to himself. I do not think this. But then I am not dying.
    He pulled back the curtain a little and looked out into the November evening. Snow had begun to fall again in Ebury Street, large slow flakes moving densely, steadily, with visible silence, in the light of the street lamps, and crowding dimly above in the windless dark. A few cars hissed by, their sound muted and softened. The Count was about to say, ‘It’s snowing,’ but checked himself. When someone is dying there is no point in telling him about the snow. There was no more weather for Guy.
    ‘It was the oracular voice. We felt it had to be true.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘A philosopher’s thought suits you or it doesn’t. It’s only deep in that sense. Like a novel.’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Count. He added,