The Rebel Angels

"I won't go unless you let me pay," said Maria. "If you want a reason, let's say it's because I'm happier than either of you that he's gone. Gone forever."

So we agreed, and Maria, paid, and lunch stretched out until after three, and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely at what we called Parlabane's Wake. Driving to the University, where none of us had been earlier in the day, we noticed that the flag on the main campus was at half-staff. We did not bother to wonder why; a big university is always regretting the death of one of its worthies.

Second Paradise VI

February: Unquestionably crisis month in the University, and probably everywhere else in our Canadian winter. Crisis was raging all about me in Mamusia's sitting-room where, for at least an hour, Hollier had been circling his obsession with Urquhart McVarish and the Gryphius MS without ever coming to grips with the realities of the matter. The room seemed darker even than five o'clock in February could explain. I kept my head low and watched, and watched, and feared, and feared.

"Why don't you say what you want, Hollier? Why don't you speak what is in your mind? Do you think you can fool me? You talk and talk, but what you want shouts louder than what you say. Look here – you want to buy a curse from me. That's what you want. No?"

"It is difficult to explain, Madame Laoutaro."

"But not hard to understand. You want these letters, this book, whatever it is. This other fellow has it and he teases you because you can't get it. You hate him. You want him out of your way. You want that book. You want him punished."

"There are considerations of scholarship -"

"You've told me that. You think you can do whatever can be done with this book better than he can. But most of all, you want to be first with whatever that is. No?"

"Very bluntly put, I suppose that's it."

"Why not bluntly? Look: you come and you flatter me and tell me I'm a phuri dai, and you tell me this long story about this enemy who is making your life a hell, and you think I don't know what you want? You talk about me becoming your colleague in a fascinating experiment. You mean you want me to be your cohani, who casts the evil spell. You talk about the Dark World and the – what's the word – Chthonic Powers and all this professor-talk, but what you mean is Magic, isn't it? Because you're in a situation that can't be dealt with in nice, fancy professor terms and you think maybe the black old stuff might serve you. But you're scared to come right out and ask. Am I right?"

"I'm not a fool, Madame. I have spent twenty years circling round and round the sort of thing we are talking about now. I've examined it in the best and most objective way the scholarly world makes possible. But I haven't swallowed it wholesale. My present problem turns my mind to it, of course, and you are right – I do want to invoke some special means of getting what I want, and if that brings harm to my professional rival, I suppose that is inevitable. But don't talk to me of magic in simple terms. I know what it is: that's to say, I know what I think it is. Magic – I hate the word because of what it has come to mean, but anyway – magic in the big sense can only happen where there is very strong feeling. You can't set it going with a sceptical mind – with your fingers crossed, so to speak. You must desire, and you must believe. Have you any idea how hard that is for a man of my time and a man of my training and temperament? At the deepest level of your being you are living in the Middle Ages, and magic comes easily – I won't say logically – to you. But for me it is a subject of a study, a psychological fact but not necessarily an objective fact. A thing some people have always believed but nobody has quite been able to prove. I have never had a chance to experiment with it personally because I have never had what is necessary – the desire and the belief.

"But now, for the first time in my life – for the very first time – I want something desperately. I want that manuscript. I want it enough to go to great lengths to get it. I've wanted things before, things like distinctions in my professional work, but never like this."

"Never wanted a woman?"

"Not as I want that manuscript. Not very much, I suppose, at all. That kind of thing has meant very little to me."

"So the first great passion in your life has its roots in hatred and envy? Think, Hollier."

"You simplify the whole thing in order to belittle me."

"No. To make you face yourself. All right; you have the desire. But you can't quite force yourself to admit you have the belief."

"You don't understand. My whole training is to suspend belief, to examine, to experiment, to try things out, to test them."

"So, just for an experiment, you want a curse on your enemy."

"I never spoke of a curse."