He began by asking her to make a precis of the leading article in The Times, which, together with some books, he had brought with him. This she did creditably, saying that they often did précis at school. He then inquired whether she knew any foreign languages, and when she admitted to German asked if she could speak it at all, at which she uttered a fluent outburst of remarks which he could not altogether follow. Hastily leaving German, he inquired about her Italian. Yes, Miss Meynell knew some Italian. Father Bernard, leaving Clergy House in a hurry, had picked up his copy of Dante, and now turned, with new-found caution, to a passage which he knew well in the third Canto of the Inferno. ‘Per me si va nella città dolente, per me si va nell’eterno dolore, per me si va tra la perduta gente.. .’ It was only when he had the book open that he realized with a curious pang, even with a sort of fright, that the passage he had chosen contained the terrible words which John Robert had uttered in condemnation of George McCaffrey: a condemnation now seen to be of such resonance and such finality, and against which, as Father Bernard had known at the time, and knew now with an added poignancy, he ought instantly to have protested. He asked Hattie to read the first fifty lines of the canto in Italian, which she did readily and with an expression which declared her understanding. She then proceeded to an occasionally hesitant but accurate translation. Dante and Virgil have passed the gate to hell but have not yet crossed Acheron. In this no man’s land, rejected both by heaven and hell, Dante gets his first glimpse of tormented people, and is duly horrified. (He was to see worse. Did he get used to it?) ‘Who are these people so overcome by pain?’ Virgil replies that ‘this is the miserable condition of wretched souls who lived without disgrace and without praise. Mixed with them are the vile angels who are neither rebels nor loyal to God, but were for themselves.’ ‘Master, what makes them cry out so terribly?’ ‘They have no hope of death, and their blind life is so abject that they envy every other lot. Mercy and justice alike despise them. Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa. Do not let us speak of them; just look and pass by.’ How terrible, Father Bernard thought, that this ferocious judgement and those words should have come spontaneously into John Robert’s mind when Father Bernard wanted to talk about George; and the priest felt a sudden rage, almost a hatred, rising in him against the philosopher, and mingling with the lurid and exalted emotions aroused by the fierce words of the great poet.
‘Do you believe in hell, Miss Meynell?’
‘Please call me Hattie. I’m Harriet - but that’s what they call me - Hattie.’
‘Do you believe in hell, Hattie?’
‘No. I don’t believe in God and the after life. I’m sorry.’
Father Bernard did not think it consistent with his tutelary role to say that he did not either. He said, ‘We are subject to time. We cannot conceive of eternity. All we can know of hell is what happens to us in the present. If there is hell it is now.’
‘You mean people live now in hell? You mean like - hungry people?’
‘I mean like evil people.’
‘But the people here weren’t evil, were they?’
‘No, but then they weren’t quite in hell, were they?’
‘It seemed awful enough,’ said Hattie. She added, ‘I feel so sorry for poor Virgil being drawn into that terrible world.’
‘You mean the Christian world?’
‘Well-yes— ’
Father Bernard laughed and patted her hand as he took the book from her. They left the theological discussion at that point and proceeded to the French language, and it was here that Father Bernard found himself in really deep water. He had brought a few books of French poetry with him including Mallarmé, whom he now picked up and opened more or less at random. He had intended to choose a less difficult poem, but the book had opened automatically at one of his favourites, and he had laid it on the table between them. Looking at it now, he realized that although he could sort of understand the poem, and liked it very much, he could not construe it.
Neither, of course, could Hattie, who had never seen the poem before.
Hattie’s attempt at a literal translation began: ‘A sort of solitude without a, or the, swan or quay reflects its disuse in the look which I abdicated, or removed, from the glorious - no, the vanity - so high it can’t be touched, with which many skies streak themselves with the golds of sunset, but languidly wanders like white linen taken off a sort of fugitive bird if it plunges — ’ By the time Hattie had broken down here they were both laughing.
‘It’s impossible!’
‘You read it aloud as if you understood!’
‘Well it’s beautiful - but whatever does it mean?’
‘What do you think it’s about, what sort of scene is the poet evoking?’
Hattie looked silently at the text, while Father Bernard admired her smooth boyish neck over which tendrils of pale-fair hair from the complex bun were distractedly straying.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Since he says there is no swan and no quay, I suppose it might be a river?’
‘Good deduction. After all it’s a poem!’
‘And there’s a wave at the end.’
‘And - nue?’
‘Someone naked, perhaps someone swimming naked.’
‘Yes. It’s like a puzzle picture, isn’t it.’
‘He’s turning away from the gloriole that means sort of false showy something, doesn’t it, which is too high to touch compared with - no, well - and the bird can’t be the subject because then longe wouldn’t be right - I think - so I suppose regard is the subject - but— ’
‘Oh never mind about the subject — ’
‘But I do mind! The solitude, the uninteresting solitude, reflects its swanless desolation in the look which he had turned away from the false glory, too high to touch, with which many skies dapple themselves in sunset golds - perhaps he thinks sunsets are vulgar - then, or but why but? - something or other, either his look on a fugitive bird, no I see, his gaze coasts languidly, no, languorously, along like white linen taken off - that can’t be right - has longe got an object, could it be the bird? - perhaps the bird is like the linen, maybe it’s a white bird that plunges - like the - the clothes which - no, no, surely the jubilation plunges - and the languorous gaze coasts along the jubilation - I mean - then “but” would have sense - it’s all rather dull until my gaze languorously - no - if a (but why if?), if a bird plunges like white linen taken off, my gaze languorously follows, exulting beside me, or it, in the wave that you have become, your naked jubilation - oh dear! that can’t be right — ’
Hattie had become quite excited. With one hand she absently pulled the hairpins out of her hair, gathered the mass of silky silver-yellow stuff together, and pushed it all down the back of her dress.
Father Bernard was excited too, but not by the grammatical quest. He had never, he now realized, subjected the poem to the sort of scrutiny which even Hattie’s jumbled commentary comprised. What was the subject of what? Who cared? The general sense of the poem was perfectly clear to him, or rather he had made his own sense and hallowed it long ago.