Oscar Wilde is a bit played out by now."
"He's no fool," said Rendell. "I had a long conversation with him
about Pointillism. He knows some of the Camden Town school."
"Post-Impressionism is less rot than most art," Lawrence growled, "so
have him in."
Thus the Push was formed.
Chard was the son of a political K.C. and patently marked out for the
acquisition of similar honours in the shortest possible space of time:
for he believed firmly in the Liberal Party and himself, a quite
irresistible combination in these democratic days. He held no opinion
on religion or art, because they were not concerned with his career
except in so far as an open declaration of atheism was unwise.
Davenant looked sublimely down on politics. Art was his sphere.
Having been appropriately named Aubrey, he had undertaken from an early
age to know all about Beauty. He had learned the names of all the
unknown painters and could make great play with them: how much taste or
feeling he really possessed no one ever discovered, for he was one of
those disconcerting people who mingle acute with ridiculous judgments.
At times he affected a vague interest in the Catholic faith and had
been known to attend Mass. Concerning the love of women he was at once
mysterious and supercilious. He laid claim to a vast knowledge of the
sex, and by reason of a Continental year spent since leaving school his
boast of Experience demanded some respect. In England, however, he
never spoke to women. One night Lawrence, being tolerably drunk, told
him he was afraid of women. Whereupon Davenant said he hated rosebuds
and liked his flowers faded. Lawrence called him 'an unnachral beas','
and made a long speech about purity, in the middle of which he upset
his beer and swore most filthily.
Davenant's evening cloak, wrought of a dark but flashing blue, caused
its owner more trouble than joy. Lawrence stole it one Saturday night
and, clad in it, went roaming through the town, to the great joy of the
Oxford maidens who like that kind of joke. He made great play with it
in the cinema and ultimately left it in The Grapes. When Davenant
called for it on the next day it had vanished, and he was not sorry.
The cloak had been an embarrassment, nor had he even really cared for
it.
But they didn't mind his posing so long as he avowedly posed. He was,
after all, amusing, and at bottom he had a great fund of human
kindness. Martin firmly believed that if he had to ask a friend for
help or advice he would rather have appealed to Davenant, the
apparently supercilious, than to Rendell, the faithful feministic
Fabian.
It must not be supposed that the Push became a Push in a day. They
only worked up to friendship by rather heavy conversations. They would
begin on politics or literature, talking at first with reticence and
slight suspicion, but soon their relative isolation brought them closer
together and made way for clearer statements and more liberal
confessions about sex and religion. It was astonishing how soon after
the final breaking of ice they established complete intimacy.
Davenant, who had aesthetic friends in other colleges, was least merged
in the joint personality of the Push. But all wise men need an
audience, and Davenant was not going to desert them while there were
still points on which he could gain a hearing.
On several matters they were in complete agreement. They were all
'damned if they were going to row.' The secretary of the Boat Club
turned out to be the Rhodes scholar, Theo. K. Snutch, whose rooms
Martin had occupied during the scholarship exam. He pointed out gently
that the tradition of the 'cahlege' laid down that all freshers should
be tubbed. Davenant managed to persuade Snutch that he had a weak
heart and Snutch, taking stock of Davenant, prudently forbore to demand
a doctor's certificate. Chard magnificently refused to go near the
river and was henceforward ignored by the college athletes: but he did
not mind, for none of them had votes at the Union.
"The thing for us," suggested Lawrence to Martin and Rendell, "is that
what-you-may-call-'em strike. Greve perle or something or other. Stay
in and rot the show. Catch a crab every other minute."
"How does one catch a crab?" asked Rendell, but no one could tell him.
Like most of Lawrence's intentions (he was rich in schemes), the idea
was never put into practice. What eventually occurred was the
appearance of the rugger secretary demanding the assistance of Lawrence
'just to stiffen up his pack' and the speedy release of Martin and
Rendell owing to their dismal inefficiency. Snutch was entirely
charming and Martin, who had feared a terrific, blustering coach, was
agreeably surprised at the experience.
Another point of agreement with the Push was the essential loathliness
of Hearties. King's had rather more than its fair share of Hearties
and the freshers seemed likely to keep up the supply. All Hearties
were religious, but all the religious were not Hearties. The Hearties
always shouted at one another in the quad, and banged each other on the
back. They always called each other Tom and Bill, and when they were
not back-banging, they were making arrangements for mission work. They
did much solid work for the college athletics, took seconds and thirds
in history, and afterwards became schoolmasters and parsons and went to
Switzerland in the winter.
Rendell, who had a passion for classification, insisted on
distinguishing between neo-cardiacs and palaeo-cardiacs.
"Neo-cardiacs," he said, "are more spiritual and more dangerous. They
don't shout like the whole-hoggers, but their eyes glitter more and
they're keener about the new type of bishop. Look at Steel-Brockley.
He's a scholar and a 'mind' and can't swallow all the rot of the old
school, but he's more sinister really."
"I suppose that Hodges is the ideal palaeo-cardiac," said Martin.
"Yes, Hodges, the great ass."
"Of course he's out to set up a kingdom of heaven upon earth," said
Lawrence. "And can't you imagine his idea of it? It'll be stiff with
people like himself, all blustering round and organising things.
Football, Rich _v._ Poor. Of course there will still be rich and poor,
for our Hodges is a Tory, but there'll be a spirit of fellowship oozing
everywhere."
"'Running things' is all these chaps really care about," said Davenant,
intervening. "I don't believe they care a straw about their summer
camps and boys' brigades as far as the boys go. They like to be in
charge of clubs and canteens and order kids about and tell them what a
good thing discipline is and how wicked Trades Unions are."
"Those are the neos," added Rendell quickly. "The old ones like to rag
about, and there's something to be said for that. Hodges likes
ragging. Of course he is an ass, but he's not a dangerous ass. On the
whole, we may call him a dear old thing and let him go on shouting.
But the bad men are Steel-Brockley's gang. They all suffer from
bossing fever and can't live unless they're running something. And
they're desperately fair-minded and don't believe in party, which
simply means that they are Tory agents, and tell the boys what a sin it
is to be discontented with five or six bob for a seventy-hour week."
"And they're dragging in the freshers," said Lawrence. "Ought to be
strangled."
So in private they settled the business of the Hearties. But in
public, partly because they were freshers and partly because they had
not the courage of their convictions, they found themselves being quite
polite to these good young men.
Religion had an ever-living appeal for the Push, because it is one of
the few subjects about which argument is as fascinating as it is
futile. Chard, it is true, couldn't be bothered with metaphysics: he
was a history scholar, and his line was a first in history and then the
Bar. But the discussions were never metaphysical in the technical
sense and it amused him to listen and sum up with an epigram. Davenant
used to murmur that he thought Christ rather a beautiful figure and
that the Church had saved Art in the Middle Ages, but he did not
receive much attention. It became more and more the custom to regard
Davenant as a picturesque background to conversations, except when
artistic matters were under discussion. Then he held the floor, or
rather he stood gracefully before the fire and spoke slowly between
puffs of smoke.
They met most often in Lawrence's rooms, which were large and
conveniently situated on the ground floor. He had added to the
dilapidated furniture some new cushions and a really good arm-chair,
and, having no money, he started a colossal bill at Blackwell's, so
that his shelves were soon piled with books which he rarely read. But
he was not the man to care deeply for his rooms, as did Davenant, who
believed in Gordon Craig and used to mess about in the afternoons,
putting the light in remote corners or hanging up curtains of a new
colour. It was well that Lawrence cared little for his rooms, as he
became invariably drunk on Saturday nights, and when drunk he was
violent. He would lie on the floor kicking and declaiming Limericks
until someone put him to bed: even then he was known to rise again and
break things.
Lawrence swilling beer in his rooms was a great spectacle. Usually
blasphemous and always obscene, he did everything on such a generous
scale and with such a childish innocence and honesty that he was always
attractive and rarely repelled even one so fastidious as Davenant.
It was on Sunday nights that the Push talked about religion. Lawrence
would pull out the sofa and build up a roaring fire: then with the aid
of pipes and much swallowing of beer they would set about it. Every
Sunday Rendell was pilloried, but the victim never objected and always
returned to the combat. The great point about religious discussion is
that you can never be beaten. They treated either with the truth of
Christianity or the value of its practical results. In the latter case
Lawrence would boom about bishops with fifteen thousand a year, and
Martin would demonstrate with irrefutable logic that religion had
always resisted freedom and education and had made the world the hole
it is. As they both talked interminably Rendell had little opportunity
of answering.
One night Lawrence rushed into his rooms shortly after dinner and found
the Push assembled.
"My god!" he said, plunging into the sofa.
"I thought you hadn't one," said Chard.
"Don't be obvious. I'm angry, my god, I'm angry."
He was asked to explain.
"Steel-Brockley asked me to go to coffee in his rooms and when I got
there I found he had provided a lecturer gassing about the value of
faith for us."
"Well," said Davenant, "that was very considerate of our Brockley."
"Exactly. But he might have warned me. It didn't matter. I couldn't
stick it long."
"I should think not. It's barely a half-an-hour since dinner now."
"What happened?" asked Martin.
"It was like this," began Lawrence. "Brockley produced a battered chap
from the colonies, all pockmarks and freckles, you know the type. Of
course he began, as they always do, by saying that he had seen men die
in all parts of the world and they all died the better for their faith.
None of them seemed to live, or else he had a morbid mind and likes
death. I don't know. Anyhow he had the cheek to say that King's
spiritual life wasn't as strong as it had been. He was deeply
concerned about us. He whined about us. He thought we were all going
to the devil because the scholars have taken to cutting chapel. Just
imagine a little tick like that coming here to tell us, whom he doesn't
know, that we're not so soulful as the clean young men out West. Thank
god we're not. I gave him about ten minutes and cleared out."
There was a murmur of delight.
"I suppose no one heard you leave the room," said Martin, but Lawrence
never rose to jests about his bulk and gait.
"And there were all Brockley's gang," he went on, "sitting with all the
light of grace in their eyes. And when the pock-marked chap got busy
in the impressive line you could fairly hear them thinking, 'God's in
His Heaven, all's right with the world.'"
"And a very good thought," said Rendell.
Lawrence would always rise to the religious bait.
"Just the kind of thought that you would expect from a well-fed Liberal
poet."
Lawrence opened violently a bottle of Munich beer and drained the
contents. Then he gave a vast sigh of relief, pulled out his pipe and
stood expansively before the fire, exposing, unconsciously, a large gap
of shirt between his waistcoat and the grey flannel trousers whose sole
support lay in their tightness.
"It isn't God that matters," he declared. "It's the Godites. They're
worse than ever."
"They've at least begun to move with the times."
"Exactly," said Martin, coming in as usual to assist Lawrence. "They
swallow everything new and say they meant it all the time. I don't
mind good old burn-the-devil bigots, but this up-to-date Interpreting
and Restatement and Revaluation and Earnest Wash, it makes me sick.
Why can't they give up their tribal deity and do something sensible?"
"You're so beastly crude," answered Rendell. "Oxford isn't exactly a
brainless place, and it's full of religion."
"It's full of a washed-out, watery, emasculate ghost of a faith," said
Martin. "They daren't say what they really do mean for fear of giving
the show away. So they talk about Evolution and the Unknowable and
'may be something in it.'"
"The religion of the Oxford don," said Chard magnificently from his
corner, "is the sickly bastard of nervousness and inertia."
"I'll give you a quid to say that at the Union," said Martin. But
Chard valued his career at more than a sovereign.
"Aren't you men a little out of date?" interrupted Davenant.
"Chivvying priests and kings was about 1870, wasn't it?"
"Exactly," Rendell cried in triumph. "You've done for priests and
kings. Nobody believes in them any more. They've collapsed, and by
collapsing become infinitely stronger. Bradlaugh's brigade never
foresaw that, when you take away nominal power, you begin to create
real power. The weakest side always wins in the end."
"Don't talk Chestertonian drivel," growled Lawrence. "Nobody believes
it."
"It's quite true. Religion is stronger than ever just because it's
weaker."
"The last flicker," said Martin.
Then the conversation, having reached an impasse, turned of necessity
and they were off once more upon matters episcopal.
"I don't see why a bishop should get thousands a year while the curates
are half starved," said Lawrence.
"They don't spend it on themselves," retorted Rendell.
"Only on palaces and motors and flummery. No, my boy, it's all bunkum.
Look at the fortunes they leave." Lawrence had collected a list of
episcopal fortunes which he read with glee upon every possible
occasion. It was an excellent array of figures, starting well up in
the hundred thousands.
"Oh, chuck it," said Rendell. "We've heard all this before."
But Lawrence read irrepressibly on.
"What about your needle's eye now?" he roared.
"Oh, don't be a child," said Rendell.
"That's all you ever say. Childish! You with your Athanasian Creed
and incense and swindling priests. Ever been to Notre Dame and seen
the advertisements? Forty days' purgatory remitted in return for so
many prayers! And you call me childish!" Lawrence had a fine flow of
metaphors and expletives. He had been known to continue one sentence
for ten minutes, his oratorical method being to substitute copulas for
full stops. He began jerkily, it is true. But once the lumbering
coach was set moving nothing could withstand its impetus.
Rendell yielded and began to discuss with Davenant the personality of
Christ. Lawrence continued roaring at no one in particular. At last
he sat heavily down in his arm-chair, so heavily that one of its legs
gave way. He tore off the broken member and brandished it wildly, as a
symbol of his attitude to all things episcopal.
As usual it was Chard who closed the discussion.
"Davenant's faith," he said, "makes me think of a mendicant professor
of aesthetics and Rendell's of the first secretary of the Amalgamated
Society of Carpenters and Joiners (Nazareth branch). I move the
question be put."
His advice was taken.
"Beer," said Lawrence. "My god, more beer."
And so the evenings would begin.
III
Incredibly the Push were blind to their amazing superficiality. Even
had they suffered from an inclination to be serious, life came so
easily and so rapidly that it would have been impossible to do anything
but play with it. So they trifled with wisdom and trifled rightly.
For when a man is only nineteen and has enough to eat and drink, and
more than enough to read and say, it were a crime to stop in thought
and laboriously dam the pleasant shallows of an easy-going stream.
Alike in the winter nights by Lawrence's fire or by the lingering
twilights of early summer when they threaded a maze of back-waters or
lay in the cool fastness of the college garden listening to the wind in
the great elms or the tinkle of a distant piano, they built great
castles of argument, flimsy and fantastic piles untouched by reality
and doomed to fade away at the coming of Experience. They talked of
great things and small, of God and Woman and sometimes of Man, of
futures and careers, of the dons, of the college, of the varsity teams,
of books and plays and poets, of the coldness of the pretty girl in
this shop and of the wantonness of the plain girl in that.
They lived with an excellent method. In the mornings they lay in bed,
thought about breakfast, ate breakfast, and read the papers. In the
junior common-room there were all the dailies and on Wednesdays there
were _Punch_, _The Tatler_, _The Sketch_, and _The Bystander_, on
Saturdays the weekly reviews. They were catholic in the reading, but,
if the supply happened to give out, they could always consider what to
do in the afternoon. By that time it was one o'clock and they lunched
frugally and together. In the afternoon they took their various
amusements. Perhaps Lawrence and Martin played rugger, while Chard and
Davenant strolled round Addison Walk. Rendell insisted on playing
hockey, insisted in the face of opposition.
"You can't play hockey," said Martin. "It's no game for a gentleman."
"It's quite a good game," Rendell apologised.
"It may be all right for internationals who dart about and toss the
ball in the air and catch it on the end of their sticks, but it's no
game for incapables like you."
"I'm in the team anyhow. And you, by the way, are winning renown as
the worst wing three-quarter in Oxford."
"That is probably true," Martin admitted. "But it doesn't destroy my
contention that hockey is a scrappy, uncomfortable business and only
good enough for men who can't get into any other teams."
"You're a stark old reactionary," retorted Rendell. "Hockey is the
game of the future. There'll be a 'full Blue' for it in a year or two.
And don't make the obvious remark."
Martin didn't. But he continued to jeer when Rendell went off in the
rain and came back with bruised shins and perhaps a black eye. This
only encouraged Rendell to take the game very seriously, to turn out
always, and to run like a hare down his wing, whereas Martin and
Lawrence treated this rugger team with disdain and only played when it
pleased them. The secretary, being hard up for players, could not drop
them altogether, for even Martin was better than his substitute. In
the summer Rendell played cricket as seriously as he had played his
hockey, so that he just gained a place in the college eleven. Martin
played sometimes for the tennis six and the other three fled, when it
was warm enough and at first when it was not--for such is the way of
freshers--to navigate the Cherwell in the communal punt.
In the evenings they dined out as often as their college would let them
and went to meetings of clubs or, on the rare occasions when there was
a play worth seeing, to the theatre. Work they neglected, thoroughly
and with a good heart. Chard and Davenant, who were to take modern
history, both failed in Pass Mods in March, but passed in the summer
after a fortnight's reading. The other three had resolved that Honour
Mods could easily be squared in a long vac and two terms: they did not
realise that a year of idleness (or nearly two years, for none of them
had worked since gaining their scholarships) creates a habit of mind
which cannot easily be shaken off. Two stiff terms are easier to
contemplate than to achieve. Martin, indeed, had his uncle's blessing,
for John Berrisford had told him that the first year was meant to
broaden one's point of view: it struck him as a joyous process, this
broadening of one's point of view.
His tutor, Reggie Petworth, he did not like. Petworth turned out to be
a "neo-cardiac" of the first water: even then he hadn't the decency to
be whole-hearted in his heartiness and wavered between complete
allegiance with Hodges and the college 'right' and a feeble attempt to
conciliate the 'left' as represented by Lawrence and Martin. Petworth
had come from Balliol with the Hertford, the Ireland, and a Philosophy
of Fun. It was Fun to write jolly compositions and Fun to set proses
out of George Meredith which bore no relation to classical thought or
idiom and couldn't conceivably be translated into reasonable Latin or
Greek. It was Fun to be a High Churchman, Fun to talk about priests
and masses, Fun to date your letters by feasts of the Church, Fun to be
a Liberal and believe in the people. Fun to have bad cigarettes sent
from a remote Oriental town because its monarch was a Balliol man, Fun
to collect things without sense or purpose, Fun, in fact, to pretend to
be a child.
"One doesn't mind Davenant pretending to be decadent now and then,"
said Martin to Lawrence, "because decadence always depends on posing
for its real point. A man isn't a decadent unless he knows he's a
decadent and plays up to it. But childhood is rather different, and I
don't see why blighters like Reggie should try and ape it."
"Just the Balliol touch," said Lawrence.
Martin was supposed to show up two compositions a week to Reggie
Petworth and to do occasional translation papers. He attended with
some regularity to make up for his complete absence from lectures.
Petworth exhorted him mildly to make more strenuous efforts and told
him what Fun Demosthenes could be if one read the private speeches,
about mining rights and water-courses and assaults. Whereupon Martin
was coldly polite and retired to renew his conversations about the
world at large, while Petworth would find a 'jolly' man and walk out to
eat lunch at Beckley, saying 'What Fun!' if he saw a pig with pleasant
markings.