Free The Light and the Dark by C. P. Snow Page A

end of dinner Roy was promising to visit the school, and I knew he would.
    The feast ended, and slowly the hall cleared as men rose and went by twos and threes into the combination room. At my table we were still sitting. Roy smiled at me. His eyes were brilliant, he was gay with wine, he looked at his happiest.
    “It’s a pity we need to move, old boy,” he said.
    On our way out, we passed the high table on the dais, where a small group was sitting over cigars and a last glass of port. Roy was whispering to me, when Chrystal called out: “Eliot! I want you to meet our guest.”
    He noticed Roy, and added: “You too, Calvert! I want you all to meet our guest.”
    Chrystal, the Dean, was a bald, beaky, commanding man, and “our guest” had been brought here specially that evening. He was an eminent surgeon to whom the university was giving an honorary degree in two days’ time. He sat by Chrystal’s side, red-complexioned, opulent, self-assured, with protruding eyes that glanced round whenever he spoke to make sure that all were listening. He nodded imperially to Roy and me, and went on talking.
    “As I was saying, Dean,” he remarked loudly, “I feel strongly that a man owes certain duties to himself.”
    Roy was just sitting down, after throwing his gown over the back of a chair. I caught a glint in his eyes. That remark, the whole atmosphere of Anstruther-Barratt, was a temptation to him.
    “And those are?” said Chrystal respectfully, who worshipped success in any form.
    “I believe strongly,” said Anstruther-Barratt, “that one ought to accept all the recognition that comes to one. One owes it to oneself.”
    He surveyed us all.
    “And yet, you wouldn’t believe it,” he said resonantly, “but I am quite nervous about Friday’s performance. I don’t feel I know all there is to be known about your academic things.”
    “Oh, I think I should believe it,” said Roy in a clear voice. His expression was dangerously demure.
    “Should you?” Anstruther-Barratt looked at him in a puzzled fashion.
    “Certainly,” said Roy. “I expect this is the first time you’ve tried it–”
    Roy had a grave, friendly look, and spoke as though Anstruther-Barratt was taking an elementary examination.
    It was just possible that he did not know that Anstruther-Barratt was receiving an honorary degree. Chrystal must have thought it possible, for, looking on in consternation, he tried to break in.
    “Calvert, I suppose you know–”
    “Is it the first time?” Roy fixed the bold protruding eyes with a gaze brilliant, steady, acute, from which they seemed unable to escape.
    “Of course it is. One doesn’t–”
    “Just so. It’s natural for you to be nervous,” said Roy. “Everyone’s nervous when they’re trying something for the first time. But you know, you’re lucky, being a medical – I hope I’m right in thinking you are a medical?”
    “Yes.”
    “It doesn’t matter so much, does it? There’s nothing so fatal about it.”
    Anstruther-Barratt looked badgered and bewildered. This young man appeared to think that he was a medical student up for an examination. He burst out: “Don’t you think I look a bit old to be–”
    “Oh no,” said Roy. “It makes you much more nervous. You need to look after yourself more than you would have done twenty years ago. You oughtn’t to do any work between now and Friday, you know. It’s never worth while, looking at books at the last minute.”
    “I wish you’d understand that I haven’t looked at books for years, young man.”
    “Calvert,” Chrystal began again.
    “You’ve done much more than you think,” said Roy soothingly. “Everyone feels as you do when it comes to the last day.”
    “Nonsense. I tell you–”
    “You must believe me. It’s not nonsense. We’ve all been through it.” Roy gave him a gentle, serious smile. “You ought to spend the day on the river tomorrow. And don’t worry too much. Then go in and win on Friday.