The Time of the Angels Read Free Page B

was not deficient in self-knowledge and he was not ignorant of the more sophisticated hypotheses of modern psychology. Tolerant of himself, he was well aware of the subtle and important part which is played in the make-up of the successful teacher by a certain natural sadism. Marcus had taken his own measure as a sadist, he understood the machinery, and he had perfect confidence in his expertise. He was a good teacher and a good headmaster. But a sadism which in the ordinary hurly-burly of human relations remains within rational limits may surprise its proprietor as soon as the perfect partner appears on the scene.
     
    Leo was the perfect partner. His particular brand of cunningly defiant masochism fitted but too well the peculiarities of Marcus’s temperament. Marcus punished him and he came back for more. Marcus appealed to his better feelings and attempted to treat him as an adult. Too much emotion was generated between them. Marcus was confiding and affectionate, Leo was rude, Marcus was blindingly angry. Leo stayed out his time, a troublemaker of genius. Marcus had destined him for the university, to read French and Russian. At the last moment, and with the connivance of the mathematics master whom Marcus, exasperated with himself, fell to treating as a rival, Leo went to a technical college in Leicestershire to study engineering. He was rumoured not to be doing well.
     
    “It’s all part of the breakdown of Christianity,” Norah was concluding. “Not that I mind its disappearing from the scene. But it hasn’t turned out as we thought when I was young. This sort of twilight-of-the-gods atmosphere will drive enough people mad before we get all that stuff out of our system.”
     
    “I wonder. Do we really want to get it all out of our system?” said Marcus, banishing the image of the disastrous boy. He found Norah’s brisk sensibleness of an old Fabian radical a bit bleak at times. The cleancut rational world for which she had campaigned had not materialized, and she had never come to terms with the more bewildering world that really existed. Marcus, who shared many of her judgements, could not help being a little fascinated by what she had called the twilight of the gods. Could it be that the great curtain of huge and misty shapes would be rolled away at last, and if it were so what would be revealed behind? Marcus was not a religious believer, but he was, as he sometimes wryly put it, an amateur of Christianity. His favourite reading was theology. And when he was younger he had felt a dark slightly guilty joy in having a priest for a brother.
     
    “Yes we do,” said Norah. “The trouble with you is that you’re just a Christian fellow-traveller. It’s better not to tinker with a dying mythology. All those stories are simply false, and the oftener that is said in plain terms the better.”
     
    They had differed about this before. Indolent, unwilling now to argue, Marcus realized sadly that his tea was over. He turned a little toward the fire, wiping his fingers on a stiff linen napkin.
     
    He murmured, “Well, I shall go and see Carel tomorrow and I shall insist on seeing Elizabeth.”
     
    “That’s right, and don’t take no for an answer. After all, you’ve called three times now. I might even come with you. I haven’t seen Muriel for some time and I’d like to have a straight talk with her. If there’s any trouble about Elizabeth I really think you should consider taking legal advice. I don’t say that your brother should be unfrocked or certified. But he must be made to behave a little more like a rational being. I think I’ll have a word with the Bishop about it, we often meet on the housing committee.”
     
    Norah had risen and was gathering up the plates, now furred with golden cake-crumbs and greengage jam. Marcus was warming his hands and wrists at the fire. It was colder in the room.
     
    “I wonder if you heard that odious rumour about Carel,” said Norah, “that he was having a