Part 12 (1/2)
Martin turned to survey the room. On the walls were some extraordinary banners or ribbons, on two of which were the words:
Ahwamkee University.
There were some photographs, plainly American, and a large engraving called 'Love's Pathway.' On the wide expanse of shelves there stood six lonely books--five large volumes on Law and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. At the beginning of each was written: 'E libris Theo. K.
Snutch.' Martin was tempted to amend the inscription to 'E libris s.e.x Theo. K. Snutch.' On the mantelpiece were some athletic trophies. Mr Snutch's residence at Oxford, at three hundred a year, was not altogether unjustified: he could terrifically throw the hammer.
Next, Martin found a penny paper called _The University_ and eagerly glanced through it to discover the quality of Oxford journalism. There were jokes about Socialists with red ties and there was an open letter to the varsity heavy-weight boxer. It began, 'Dear Chuckles,' and ended with best wishes for 'the dear little girl who will some day take the ring with you.' The reader was not even spared the allusion to the possible appearance of 'Chucklets.'
”My G.o.d!” said Martin. He began to wonder whether he hadn't made a mistake in refusing to go to Cambridge.
The room was depressing, so he put on his overcoat and walked out into the rain: he went down St Olde's to the river. In those days horse-drawn trams still rattled slowly through the streets, making a feeble pretence of antiquity. It angered Martin that in this town, with its new yellow banks and new college buildings, such hypocrisy should go on and that people should confuse the relics of medieval squalor with the works of medieval beauty. He came from a clean town of the hills, and the clinging dirt and the sordid grime and meanness of St Ebbs seemed haunting and insistent. Before Tom Tower and the s.p.a.cious splendour of Christ Church there was a common slum; he had never pictured Oxford a place of slums. The Thames, too, had been in flood for two or three weeks, and in the playing-fields across the river goal-posts stood up amid acres of water, gauntly desolate. As he pa.s.sed out along the Abingdon Road he found meadows where the floods had receded and left the gra.s.s rotten and stinking. The straggling squalor of Oxford's edge only served to increase his despair: he had expected to find a city with dreaming spires, and so far he had found merely a slum, with yellow gasworks. Only now and then did he catch a glimpse which charmed him. As he turned back and climbed the hill to Carfax he began to loathe the place. But it must be remembered that he had had an inadequate lunch and was under the shadow of an exam.
On returning to Snutch's rooms he found that the fire had almost gone out. With the aid of _The University_ he managed to create a fitful gleam, but it gave no heat. Someone was moving about in the rooms opposite, another scholars.h.i.+p candidate presumably, a rival--d.a.m.n him!
Martin began to think about tea: he did not know what to do and his scout was not coming till six. Ultimately he went out to the Cadena Cafe: it was full of young women from North Oxford who sat in mackintoshes, feeding with desperate gaiety.
After he came back to Snutch's rooms and read a s.h.i.+lling novel which he had found in the bedder. Soon after six the scout appeared and told Martin that he could dine in the hall at seven: he was a large, grimy man and sniffed prodigiously. Dinner in hall was very trying.
Half-a-dozen dons sat at the high table trying to pretend by forced conversation that they were not thoroughly sick of one another: about thirty schoolboys sat shyly on the long benches, apprehensive, miserable. Here and there would be two from the same school, chatting with animation and appearing to be very much in the know about Life and the varsity: elsewhere strangers were huddled together, some silent, others making fitful conversation. Financial distinctions were not forgotten, and the candidates from Public Schools had gravitated to one table, those from Grammar Schools to another. Martin found himself by the side of a red-faced, ingenuous boy, who asked for the water and then said:
”The Harlequins are better than ever this year.”
Martin a.s.sented, and added: ”What's your school?”
”Rugby. What's yours?”
”I'm from Elfrey. Have you anyone else in here?”
”No. We had four up for Balliol this year.”
”That's a lot. Are the results out?”
”Yes, this afternoon. We got a schol. and an exhibition.”
”That was jolly good.”
The dialogue became more and more technical and immensely dull.
The Rugbeian was plainly a bore and after dinner Martin fled from the college: he found a new cinema in Broad Street and went in. Presently some undergraduates who were stopping up for a few days at the end of term came cheerily in and shouted vaguely.
An obsequious manager pleaded with them and they wandered down the gangway looking for company: it did not seem very hard to find. Martin watched their progress with interest and began to wonder whether the girl next him wanted to talk. She had dropped her wrist-bag once and he had picked it up: during the course of the proceedings his eye had been caught by the glitter of a light grey stocking. She wasn't, he had to admit, beautiful. But she was alone, and so was he. Did she, on the other hand, want him to talk? The dropping of the bag might have been an accident. Besides, what did one say? Martin cursed his inexperience and racked his brains for a conversational lead. He could hardly make some remark about the films: that would be obvious and heavy. Something light was wanted: but what? Why on earth couldn't she drop the bag again? He would take the hint this time. His mind became a blank and he felt acutely miserable. At the end of the film he rose and walked away in despair. He stopped at the back of the hall and noticed one of the varsity men glance round and then move quickly into his place before the lights were again turned out. Martin returned to college, read some more of Snutch's novel, and went to bed.
Till Friday night Martin was kept hard at work doing papers in the college hall. On Tuesday morning he had to write an essay on the relations of the artist and the State, an obvious subject, perhaps, but pleasing. It was the only paper which he enjoyed. Afterwards he was kept hard at work with Unseens and Compositions. Never in his life had he felt more irritable or more intellectually impotent. The yellow blanket of mist hung over Oxford continually: the hall smelled abominably of stale gravy and recent meals, and, worst of all, the pens supplied to such as did not bring their own were quills; consequently the stuffy room was never free from a maddening scratch and squeak. A youth with a sloping brow and waving, faultless hair who sat next Martin made great play with his quill: he was a 'dog' whose doggishness took the form of a graceful abandon in his dress; he wore soft collars and long woolly waistcoats and dilapidated pumps. He held his quill between his first and second fingers, and he wrote splas.h.i.+ly with brave flourishes and a spasmodic squeak; also he had a habit of marching out majestically half-an-hour before the time for a paper was finished.
Martin wondered whether this implied that he was immensely bad or immensely good: he feared the latter. Altogether he was a fascinating and disconcerting neighbour, and one morning Martin, struggling with verses that would not 'come,' wanted to kill him.
Another cause of depression was the presence of boys
from Grammar Schools. Martin was no sn.o.b, but he could not keep himself unspotted from Public School tradition, and he felt that these smug-looking youths were rivals in a way that the dull Rugbeian never could be. He was certain that they were far better scholars than he was, that they had worked like slaves and could translate anything ever written in Greek or Latin: he might have escaped much mental suffering had he known that, even if they had been so brilliant (and in reality they were amazingly dull), the dons are, with a few exceptions, well rooted in cla.s.s tradition and are not going to sacrifice the Public Schools on the altar of modern honesty. But Martin did not know these things, and when he saw the Grammar School candidates parading the town with little crested caps on the backs of their heads and greasy curls sticking bravely up in front, the natural dislike of the rival was fused with the Public School man's loathing of inferior form. There was one unforgettable person who came every day to King's wearing a black overcoat and black kid gloves: his cap had a little silver b.u.t.ton gleaming over the inevitable curl. He looked both wise and good.
On the Thursday evening Martin glanced through the rough copy of his Latin verse. There he found--
”via strata patebat Hostibus; ardentes surgunt ducemque sequuntur.”