That was common form. So was much of what he said about Roy’s life in college — “very quiet in all his good actions, never seeking power or fame or worldly pleasures, never entertaining an unkind thought, never saying an unkind word”.
He had said almost exactly the same of Vernon Royce: I remembered catching a flash in Roy’s eye as he heard that last astonishing encomium.
Then Despard-Smith put in something new.
“Our dear colleague was young. Perhaps he had not yet come to his full wisdom. If he had a fault, perhaps it was to be impatient of the experience that the years bring to us. Perhaps he had not yet learned all that the years must tell us of the tears of things. Lachrymae rerum. The tears of things. But how fortunate he was, our dear colleague, to pass over in the glory of his youth, before he tasted the tears of things. There is no sorrow in such a death. To have known only the glory and happiness of youth, and then to cast away life for one’s country. ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’.”
The old man realised he had departed from his brief. He was a man who stuck to his contract; he adjusted his spectacles, fumbled with his notes, and began to read Arthur Brown’s version. It was clear and simple. Despard-Smith read it monotonously, without much meaning or inflection until the end. Brown had put down Roy’s great successes. And he had written: “He could have stayed in safety. But he chose otherwise. The heart knows its own bitterness.” Brown meant it as a comment on Roy’s whole experience, but Despard-Smith read it as mechanically as the rest.
The service ended. The fellows filed out first. Arthur Brown pressed my hand without a word. I wanted to escape before the others came into the court. I went across quickly to my rooms in the bright sunlight. The cold wind was getting up.
I had a few last things to do. Our belongings in college had been mixed up together. I happened to have a safe in my room, and there he had stored some of his manuscripts. I unlocked it, took out one or two of his papers, read through them, considered how they should be disposed of. Then I went down to the college cellar, under the kitchen. For years we had shared a section of the cellar together; we did not buy much wine, but there were a few dozen bottles of mine on the top racks, a rather less number of his below. His racks were labelled in his own hand.
Inexplicably, that sight wounded me more than anything at the service. I had been prepared for much: but to this I had no defence. I could not bear to stay there. Without any plan or intention, I went up into the court, began walking through the streets.
It was dark in the sunshine, and difficult to see.
The may on the trees was odorous on the cold wind. I felt beside me, closer than anything I saw and yet not close enough to take away the acute and yearning sadness, the face of a young man, mischievous and mocking, the sleeves of his sweater tied round his neck, as when we walked away from cricket in the evening light.