Looking for the King. David C. Downing
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“Co-inherence,” said Williams again, repeating a word Tom had certainly never heard before. “Christians believe it is built into the very fabric of the universe, a reflection of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one being, eternally expressing their natures in relation to the others. At the very foundation of being is a fellowship.”
Tom wasn’t sure he followed, and he looked around the room to see if others looked as puzzled as he was. But those around him seem almost mesmerized by what they heard, so Tom turned to listen again. “Co-inherence leads to substitution,” Williams was explaining, “Christ’s dying for all humanity in order that they might be lifted up. The redeemed of the Lord co-inhere in their Maker, living in the Spirit, as he lives in them, joining in the Company of Co-inherence.”
Tom was beginning to feel that he had indeed wandered into church and was listening to a priest, albeit an obscure one. He was wondering how all this fit into the Grail stories. As if hearing Tom’s thoughts, Williams continued: “At the same time all the great Grail stories were being written, there was a great stirring in the Western Church, a quest for clarity about the great sacrament of co-inherence—the Eucharist, ‘the great Thanksgiving,’ Holy Communion, ‘The With-oneness.’ In that sacrament lay all the mysteries and miracles of Co-inherence—the Arch-natural in the Natural, a symbol that is more than a symbol, Christ giving himself to the Church as the Church gives itself to Christ. As St. Augustine explained the sacrament, ‘If you have received well, you are that which you have received.’”
Williams went on with his lecture, the audience rapt with attention, interweaving two terms, Logos and Logres. Logos was the Word made flesh. Logres was Arthur’s kingdom, the attempt by humans to embody the City of God in the city of men. Williams did not see the Grail as any kind of physical object or person. Rather it is symbol of the soul’s progress toward God. A carnal seeker like Lancelot was “the old self in the old way,” never progressing too far beyond worldly quests for bliss, such as the bed of Guinevere. Percival did a little better, “the old self in the new way,” someone who sought after the “Limitless Light,” but who only attempted self-improvement, not self-transformation. Only Galahad found the object of his quest, “the new self in the new way,” one whose quest had changed the very nature of who he was.
Williams concluded that the Grail romancers were not unusually devout men. They were simply good story-tellers who recognized the imaginative power of the theological questions of their day, the miracle of the loaf and the wine as the Bread of Life and the Cup of Heaven. Williams concluded that all attempts, in literature and in life, to fully embody the ideals we most deeply believe, are ultimately doomed to failure.
As he neared the end of his lecture, Williams returned to the podium and leaned on it heavily. He asked the audience to indulge him for quoting a few lines from his own book of poems, Taliessen through Logres. Then closing his eyes and lowering his head, as in both weariness and prayer, he quoted from a scene in which Merlin the wizard looks on at Arthur’s coronation, seeing in the glorious founding of Camelot “the glory of Logres, patterns of Logos in the depth of the sun.” Williams ended by noting that, even at that glad moment, Merlin knew in advance that it would all end in chaos and ruin:
“At the door of the gloom sparks die and revive;
the spark of Logres fades, glows, fades.”
Williams’s voice sounded husky as he ended his lecture, perhaps because he had been speaking continuously for nearly an hour. But Tom sensed in those last few words not only Williams’s sadness at the fall of Camelot, but some greater sorrow, perhaps some unspoken grief of his own. Perhaps there was something too in that broken voice about this new war, perhaps the whole “turbid ebb and flow of human misery.”
When Williams had finished speaking, no one moved for several seconds. The man up front in golden spectacles almost seemed unaware that there was anyone else in the room. He seemed to gaze above and behind the sea of faces, as if the very stone walls of the Divinity School were a transparent screen through which he could see something else. Gradually, though, people began stirring and gathering up their things. Most filed quietly toward the exits, but at least a dozen listeners made their way to the front to meet Mr. Williams and ask questions. Tom himself had some questions to ask, so he too walked toward the lectern. He stood a few paces back from those who pressed close to Williams, noticing that most of them were young women. Several were carrying notebooks, with pencils out to scribble a few more notes. But Tom couldn’t help but think of a Broadway star walking out a stage door to be greeted by a mob of autograph seekers.
Tom waited patiently, as individuals asked questions, nodding their heads or taking notes, then leaving one by one. One young woman in a fuzzy sweater and a feathered hat wanted to know why Williams dismissed the “Celtic school” so lightly. Williams answered simply that there was no evidence that the Continental writers knew any Welsh folktales, but he was certain they knew about the debates raging in the Church on the meaning of the Eucharist. He also found the idea of noble knights leaving all behind, risking life itself, in quest of a self-refilling stewpot simply foolish. As the group of questioners thinned out, Tom noticed that Laura Hartman was among those waiting to get a word with Mr. Williams. She was wearing her hair curled in front, long in back, so that it cascaded over the fur collar of her beige coat. Tom surprised himself, as he didn’t remember names too well and he didn’t usually pay much attention to what people wore. But in this case, he didn’t seem quite his usual self.
Williams looked at Laura, as if awaiting her question, but she said, “My question is a little more involved. I can wait for the others.” Tom felt the same way, so he too hung back from the knot of inquirers. Finally, when there only Tom, Laura, and two others still gathered around the lectern, Williams said, “The Kings Arms is just up the street. I wonder if we should seek some refreshment as we continue this discussion?” The other two listeners both declined the invitation. One was a middle-aged man who wanted to challenge Williams on a question of pronunciation. The other a young woman who simply wanted Williams’s signature on a copy of his new book, Descent of the Dove. But Tom was glad for a chance to join Mr. Williams at the Kings Arms and glad too that Laura wanted to come along.
It was drizzling outside when Tom, Laura, and Mr. Williams left the Bodleian and walked up the street toward the King’s Arms. Williams had removed his academic gown, and was wearing a navy blue suit, gray silk tie, and flawlessly polished shoes. He and Laura brought out their umbrellas, but Tom just pulled up the collar on his jacket and followed closely behind. When they reached the Kings Arms on Holywell Street, they went inside, found a cozy table near the fireplace, and ordered drinks. Taking off his misty spectacles and wiping them with a handkerchief, Williams looked at the two young people across the table from him as if he were just seeing them for the first time.
“So, you are both Americans, yes?”
“That’s right,” answered Tom. “But I’m from the left margin of the continent, California, and she’s from the right margin, Pennsylvania.”
“And did you come over together?” Williams asked.
“No, we did not,” said Laura quickly. “We just met tonight after your lecture.” Tom thought her answer was more emphatic than it needed to be, and he wondered if Laura didn’t remember him as the one she had talked to in Blackwells the previous week. But he decided to let it pass.
“We’re getting ready to send evacuees to North America, in case the war takes a bad turn,” said Williams. “I wonder what brings you two expatriates in the other direction?” Even in asking this simple question, Williams’s