Read Online The New Men by C. P. Snow - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: C. P. Snow
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work, walking round the laboratories, especially hard work if you weren’t a scientist and didn’t understand much. She smiled, heavily, without comment. She had nothing to say to him.
It did not seem to depress her. She had him in her house, the grandson of the last Lord Boscastle but one (his being in the Cabinet had its own virtue, but did not give her the same collector’s joy). To her this visit was a prize which she would hoard.
She kept him to herself, standing together on the rug. It was not until she was forced to greet a new arrival that her eyes were distracted, and the Minister could slip away towards the window. He beckoned to us, so that we could make a circle round him; Luke, me, a couple of young scientists whom I did not know by name, Mary Pearson. He caught sight of Mary Pearson’s husband, and beckoned also to him.
I had had business talks with Pearson before, for he was one of the top men at Barford and was said to be their best electrical engineer. In those talks I had found him too pleased with himself to give more than a minimum reply. He was a man in the early thirties with a cowlick over his forehead and a wide lazy-looking mouth.
As Bevill crooked his finger, Pearson gave a relaxed smile and came unconcernedly into the ring.
‘Now, my friends, we can talk seriously, can’t we?’ said the Minister.
He basked in the company of the young, and felt quite natural with them. But, as often when he was natural, he was also mildly eccentric; with the intellectual young, he felt most completely at ease, and satisfied with himself, in discussing what he called ‘philosophy’. He took it for granted that this was their conception of serious conversation, too; and so the old man, so shrewd and cunning in practice, dug out his relics of idealist speculation, garbled from the philosophers of his youth, F H Bradley and McTaggart, and talked proudly on, forcing the young men to attend – while all they wanted, that night of all nights, was to cut the cackle and hear his intentions about Barford and Luke’s scheme.
‘I don’t know about you chaps’ – the Minister, who had been ambling on for some time, looked out of the window towards the west – ‘but whenever I see a beautiful sunset, I wonder whether there isn’t an Ideal Sunset outside Space and Time.’
His audience were getting impatient. But he thought they were taking a point.
‘Perhaps you’ll say, the Phenomenon is enough. Is the Phenomenon enough? I know it sometimes seems so, to all of us doesn’t it? – when you see a beloved woman and see from her smile that she loves you back. I know it seems enough,’ said Bevill earnestly and cheerfully.
All of a sudden, only half listening, for I had heard the Minister showing off his philosophy before, I saw the flush on Mary Pearson’s face, I saw the smile on Pearson’s as he glanced at her. I had not often seen a man so changed. When I met him, he had filled me with antipathy; it came as a shock to see his face radiant. Somewhere Bevill’s bumbling words had touched the trigger. The conceit had vanished the indifference about whether he pleased: it was just a face lit up by a mutual love. And so was hers. Her skin was flushed down to the neck of her dress, behind her spectacles her eyes were moist with joy.
Anyone watching as I was would have had no doubt: those two must be sharing erotic bliss. You can share erotic bliss with someone and still not be suffused by love as those two were, but the converse does not hold, and no husband and wife could be so melted by each other’s smile without the memory of bliss, and the certainty that it would soon be theirs again. I guessed that their physical happiness was out of the common run. It had been worth listening to the Minister’s philosophizing to see it shine.
I was not the only one who saw it shine, for, a few minutes afterwards, as the Minister was saying his goodbyes before we left for the railway station, Luke and I
It did not seem to depress her. She had him in her house, the grandson of the last Lord Boscastle but one (his being in the Cabinet had its own virtue, but did not give her the same collector’s joy). To her this visit was a prize which she would hoard.
She kept him to herself, standing together on the rug. It was not until she was forced to greet a new arrival that her eyes were distracted, and the Minister could slip away towards the window. He beckoned to us, so that we could make a circle round him; Luke, me, a couple of young scientists whom I did not know by name, Mary Pearson. He caught sight of Mary Pearson’s husband, and beckoned also to him.
I had had business talks with Pearson before, for he was one of the top men at Barford and was said to be their best electrical engineer. In those talks I had found him too pleased with himself to give more than a minimum reply. He was a man in the early thirties with a cowlick over his forehead and a wide lazy-looking mouth.
As Bevill crooked his finger, Pearson gave a relaxed smile and came unconcernedly into the ring.
‘Now, my friends, we can talk seriously, can’t we?’ said the Minister.
He basked in the company of the young, and felt quite natural with them. But, as often when he was natural, he was also mildly eccentric; with the intellectual young, he felt most completely at ease, and satisfied with himself, in discussing what he called ‘philosophy’. He took it for granted that this was their conception of serious conversation, too; and so the old man, so shrewd and cunning in practice, dug out his relics of idealist speculation, garbled from the philosophers of his youth, F H Bradley and McTaggart, and talked proudly on, forcing the young men to attend – while all they wanted, that night of all nights, was to cut the cackle and hear his intentions about Barford and Luke’s scheme.
‘I don’t know about you chaps’ – the Minister, who had been ambling on for some time, looked out of the window towards the west – ‘but whenever I see a beautiful sunset, I wonder whether there isn’t an Ideal Sunset outside Space and Time.’
His audience were getting impatient. But he thought they were taking a point.
‘Perhaps you’ll say, the Phenomenon is enough. Is the Phenomenon enough? I know it sometimes seems so, to all of us doesn’t it? – when you see a beloved woman and see from her smile that she loves you back. I know it seems enough,’ said Bevill earnestly and cheerfully.
All of a sudden, only half listening, for I had heard the Minister showing off his philosophy before, I saw the flush on Mary Pearson’s face, I saw the smile on Pearson’s as he glanced at her. I had not often seen a man so changed. When I met him, he had filled me with antipathy; it came as a shock to see his face radiant. Somewhere Bevill’s bumbling words had touched the trigger. The conceit had vanished the indifference about whether he pleased: it was just a face lit up by a mutual love. And so was hers. Her skin was flushed down to the neck of her dress, behind her spectacles her eyes were moist with joy.
Anyone watching as I was would have had no doubt: those two must be sharing erotic bliss. You can share erotic bliss with someone and still not be suffused by love as those two were, but the converse does not hold, and no husband and wife could be so melted by each other’s smile without the memory of bliss, and the certainty that it would soon be theirs again. I guessed that their physical happiness was out of the common run. It had been worth listening to the Minister’s philosophizing to see it shine.
I was not the only one who saw it shine, for, a few minutes afterwards, as the Minister was saying his goodbyes before we left for the railway station, Luke and I
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