In his lodgings in Oxford Adam finished his breakfast quickly and hurried out to work. He was not at all sure what that work was to be, but he thought he would start by going to Balliol to call on his old tutor.
In the lodge the porter remembered him. This pleased Adam and made him feel more cheerful. This mood did not last, however, for when he enquired for his tutor he was told that he had died the previous month.
‘But he wasn’t an old man,’ said Adam, half to himself.
‘Well, no, sir, but he wasn’t young. He was in his fifties.’
‘I shall be in my forties quite soon,’ said Adam despondently and he turned and walked out of the lodge and along Broad Street to the Bodleian feeling very depressed. It was ridiculous to be plunged into gloom by the death of his tutor, a man he hardly ever thought of, but this and the fact of Cassandra’s absence induced in him a mood of melancholy, so that by the time he was walking up the steps of the Bodleian he had almost resigned himself to never seeing Cassandra again.
He walked into the Picture Gallery and then through into the English Reading Room. He set out his things on a desk and began walking vaguely round, looking at the books on the open shelves. Eventually he took down de Selincourt’s edition of ‘The Prelude’, thinking of Cassandra’s impatience with Wordsworth. After trying to read for a few minutes, Adam began to feel impatience too.
He shut up the book with a bang and looked around at his neighbours. One was busily writing an essay, another was engrossed in Emerson’s Middle English Reader. Adam saw that he was writing down all the unfamiliar words in a notebook.
Outside, the clocks began to strike eleven. At once the Reading Room was full of movement. It seemed as if everybody had an eleven o’clock lecture. Then he suddenly remembered that it wasn’t that at all; it was the coffee hour. This depressed him still further. It made him feel old to see all the young people going off to Elliston’s to drink coffee, eat chocolate biscuits and criticize the people around them. He saw them putting PLEASE LEAVE notices on their piles of books and going out together. He decided that he was at least ten years too old for this place. He got up quickly and walked out. It had been just the same in Mr Gay’s drawing room, but there it had been old people. There was nothing for him here either.
After lunch, Adam found himself walking round the Botanical Gardens. Here it was very pleasant and he began to feel a little less gloomy. The sun was out, the rock-garden and borders were ablaze with flowers and there were some orchids in the tropical houses. How Cassandra would have loved it!
Adam felt so much better after tea that he decided to give the Bodleian another chance. He would go and work in Duke Humphrey. There, enshrouded in history, he would find peace and contentment. As he walked up the stairs, he met a crowd of minions clattering down to their tea. The library was quiet and deserted. Adam walked up to the Selden End, looking into the little alcoves as he passed. Eventually he chose a seat by an old man who had his back to him. He seemed to be a clergyman and he wore a suit that looked quite green with age. The top of his head was bald and fringed with greenish-grey hair. He took no notice of Adam but went on reading in a large calf-bound volume.
Adam began to write odd lines of his epic poem and then wandered about looking at various books and reading the Dictionary of National Biography to see if he could detect any mistakes in it. Then he went up to the Catalogue to look up several books he might want to read. He also looked up his own novels and poems and, for some reason, made a note of them. After that he leaned on a radiator and read several volumes of the University Calendar. Finally he went back to his seat and began a letter to Cassandra, but he found it difficult to write, as he really did not know what to say. He was glad when the bell tinkled, for this meant that all readers must leave the library, which closed at seven.
Adam got up and put his things together. He had had quite a successful evening’s work, he thought, and decided to visit the library again in the morning. The clergyman beside him turned round and without any preamble addressed him.
‘I wonder, when you are working here, have you ever given a thought to all those who have died in Bodley’s Library, or as a result of working there?’
Adam was forced to admit that he had not.
‘You should, you know. It is quite an education.’
‘It would surely do one more good to concentrate on one’s work,’ said Adam austerely.
‘That is my work,’ said the clergyman simply. ‘I am preparing a thesis on that subject for the degree of Bachelor of Letters.’
Adam said nothing, but looked at him in some surprise.
‘Since my wife died,’ said the clergyman, ‘I have thought much of death. And your wife?’ He looked suddenly at Adam. ‘You have a wife?’
‘She is not with me here,’ said Adam, hypnotized by the old man.
‘No, she is not with you here, but,’ his voice rose, ‘you must believe that you will meet again, that she will be waiting for you, in that other life, perhaps?’
‘She is in Budapest,’ said Adam shortly.
‘Oh, well, that’s another pair of shoes, isn’t it?’ said the clergyman surprisingly.
‘Is it? I don’t know,’ said Adam, in sudden fear.
They crossed over into Market Street. Why had he let this depressing old man get hold of him, Adam wondered. And supposing he was right? Supposing Cassandra was waiting for him, not in Budapest, but in Heaven? All the misery of the day without her suddenly weighed heavily upon him. The clergyman droned on.
‘We may be taken at any time. Do you read Anthony à Wood? I have often thought that he and I would have been friends. Only this evening I came across a passage that I often remember when I am eating. “In the beginning of this month I was told that Harry Marten died last summer, suddenly with meat in his mouth, at Chepstow in Monmouthshire.” Well, here we are. I shall go into Lyons for supper. I can get a delicious meal for one shilling – fried egg, sausage, chips and baked beans, with bread too and a cup of tea. Excellent! Where are you going?’
‘Budapest,’ said Adam, and bidding the clergyman a hasty farewell, he was off down the Cornmarket.