She answered:

“But surely you don’t object to different people seeing the Truth in different ways?”

“You don’t understand. I do object. Because it isn’t the Truth. I don’t just tolerate Religion; I loathe it. All Religion is vile. And religious people are all either hypocrites or idiots.”

There! He’d said it, at last. But she only answered with chilly dignity:

“If you feel like that, I can’t imagine why you come to church with me on Sundays.”

“I come to keep you company,” he said. “In future I won’t—if you’d rather not.”

“I’d much rather you stayed at home.”

That was the end of that interview. Later in the evening he’d come in and found her in tears. They had had a reconciliation. He begged forgiveness for his rudeness. They kissed each other. In bed that night, and during the next day, Eric thought over what he had said. And although he was full of compunction for his treatment of her, and the thought of that quarrel was almost intolerable to him, he couldn’t, nevertheless, take back, in his own mind, anything he’d said about Religion. It seemed to him that he had only expressed what had been his conviction for a long time. When next Sunday came round he was prepared, all the same, to go with his mother to church if she asked him to do so. He was sufficiently eager for a complete reconciliation. But Lily didn’t ask him. She never asked him again.

*   *   *

Eric turned away from the window, deeply sighed. He was weary—weary to the bone. He was weary of the Hall, of Cambridge, of London, of himself, of everything and everybody. He was too tired to feel unhappy, except by starts. And now he’d got to work. He was always working. He was getting very round-shouldered and his head continually ached. He needed stronger glasses. He knew it and did nothing. There was a certain satisfaction in doing injury to his health and a certain pride in his obstinate, stupid powers of resistance. Other people had nervous breakdowns. He despised them. He knew that, tired out as he was, he’d get through the Trip. He’d get a first. Other people were brilliant and erratic. He just slogged on. He couldn’t help it. If he’d gone into the examination-room with the deliberate intention of failing, he couldn’t have brought himself to it—his nature would have revolted. His Tutor had no need to urge him anxiously, as he sometimes did: “Don’t overstrain. Don’t get stale.” He wasn’t a neurotic heavyweight boxer. He wouldn’t disappoint his backers.

In his first year, Eric had been something of a social success. To be a senior scholar was, after all, a distinction. And for a time he’d lent himself to the atmosphere, gone in for politics, written articles in one of the less frivolous University magazines, occasionally even spoken at the Union, where his measured sentences, carefully avoiding the stammer, had produced an impression. He’d joined a running club and gone for long gruelling runs. Now all that seemed mere waste of time. He’d dropped completely out of College life, become a recluse, the subject of mild jokes.