The Bell - Iris Murdoch [65]
'And what are the marks of innocence? Candour - a beautiful word - truthfulness, simplicity, a quite involuntary bearing of witness. The image that occurs to me here is a topical one, the image of a bell. A bell is made to speak out. What would be the value of a bell which was never rung? It rings out clearly, it bears witness, it cannot speak without seeming like a call, a summons. A great bell is not to be silenced. Consider too its simplicity. There is no hidden mechanism. All that it is is plain and open; and if it is moved it must ring.
'If we think here naturally of our own bell, the great bell of Imber which is so soon to make its triumphal entry into the Abbey, our thoughts will turn to one of our number who is also shortly to cross the lake and enter by that gateway: one in whom, and although she blushes I know she will forgive me, we so resplendently see the merits of which I have been speaking, the worth of innocence which is retained until it becomes knowledge and wisdom. She will doubtless chide me by saying that I speak of the beginning as if it were the end: and indeed the contemplative life is a way so endlessly transforming that it can scarcely be spoken of by an outsider: and he who asks for the contemplative life does not know what he is asking. But we who are merely, if I may put it so, camp-followers or fellow-travellers of holiness, must be excused our moments of enthusiasm. At such times as this one may well feel that the purposes of God are visible in this world. One may even feel that the age of miracles is not over. Certainly it will be, for this community, a most vital and perhaps decisive inspiration to know that someone who has so completely belonged to us, who has been one of ourselves, has taken that other path; and although we may rarely see her again, we shall know that she is near us and that we shall have her prayers. I had not meant to make this personal digression, but, as I say, I know dear Catherine will pardon me. And I think it no harm to say what, in this matter, we have all been thinking. And now, my friends, I must bring my remarks, which I fear have been awfully rambling and lengthy, to an end.'
James stumbled from the dais, looking rather shy and awkward now that the flow of his eloquence had ceased. Father Bob Joyce exhorted the company to pray, arid with much pushing and scraping of chairs everyone knelt down. James hid his face at once in his large hands and drooped his head very low. Catherine knelt with her eyes closed and her hands folded, her face revealed and contracted with an emotion which Dora could not read. Michael had laid one hand, fingers spread out, lightly upon his brow, his eyes screwed up, frowning a little as he bent his head. Then Dora divined that Paul was watching her, and closed her eyes too. The prayer ended, the service was over, and the little congregation began to shamble out.
As they came out into the sunlit hall Mrs Mark detained Paul with some question. Catherine, who walked out just ahead of Dora, was smiling at James who was chaffing her in a rather ponderous way which was no doubt supposed to be a sort of apology. Dora felt he had laid