“Actually, I did pick up that book once,” said Tom. “To be honest, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”
Lewis nodded ruefully. “Yes, poor Charles. He’s a friend of mine. He’s always been plagued by the problem of obscurity.” Lewis looked like he was about to launch into an extended explication, but then he had a better thought. “Say, you’re in luck—or ‘holy luck,’ as Charles would call it. He’s right here in Oxford lecturing this term. You should go hear him speak and ask him yourself what he means by his books.”
“Is he a colleague of yours at Magdalen?” asked Tom.
Lewis leaned back slightly. “Here in Oxford, we pronounce it ‘Maudlin,’” he explained. “And, no, he’s not at any of the colleges. He’s an editor at Oxford University Press. Their London office relocated here when the war started last September. He’s a brilliant man, an autodidact—writes poetry, plays, novels, biographies, histories, even theology.” Lewis paused, then added a surprisingly soulful note: “He’s a great man. I’m proud to call him my friend.”
“I will most certainly make a point to read his books and attend his lectures while I’m in Oxford,” said Tom. “If for nothing else, to find out the secret of Logres.”
Lewis grinned and asked, “And how long to you plan to be here?”
“I’m not sure. A few months, I expect. I’ll be using Oxford as my home base, making forays out to some Arthurian sites.”
“Say, I have another idea,” said Lewis. “Williams, Tolkien and I have a little band of brothers that meets here in Oxford, Tuesday mornings at the Eagle and Child, just for talk. Would you like me to ask the others if you might join us?”
“I’m honored that you would ask,” said Tom. “I had hoped to meet Professor Tolkien while I was here.” But then he added, rather diffidently, “But I’m not sure. I’m just an untutored colonial. I wonder how well I would fit in with a clique of Oxford dons, sipping sherry and discussing ‘The Meaning of Meaning.’”
Lewis burst out laughing, in a deep, hearty guffaw. “Now I know you ought to come!” he said. “It’s not like that at all. We gather in the back parlor of the ‘Bird and Baby,’ as we call it, for some frothy ale and frothier talk. It’s quite a lively group, lots of laughter. People in the front room think we must be talking ribaldry, when we’re really arguing theology! And we love to skewer those linguistic birds who write books like The Meaning of Meaning!”
Tom smiled and agreed that he would like to come, if the others consented. They continued to talk for more than an hour, more like old friends than two men who had only met that day. Throughout the conversation, Tom had an odd sensation: instead of feeling smaller in the presence of this brilliant man, he somehow felt himself more intellectually keen than usual. It was odd how Lewis’s enthusiasm and learned repartee didn’t make Tom feel overshadowed. Rather he felt he shined all the brighter himself.
As the time came for them to leave, the two men stood and walked toward the door of the tavern. At their parting, Tom began feeling more formal again. “Well, Professor Lewis, may I say what a privilege it has been talking to you. I don’t know if I got my questions answered, but I’m sure this lunch will be one of the highlights of my trip to England.”
“You don’t need to call me professor,” said Lewis. As they shook hands, he added, “And don’t worry too much about those unanswered questions. Perhaps our lunch of fish and chips today was part of that other kind of history I was talking about before.”
As Lewis smiled and turned to leave, Tom pondered that last remark. He realized he’d just acquired one more question.
Tom’s pulse quickened as he turned down Catte Street, heading for what C. S. Lewis had called “the most beautiful room in all England.” It was the first of May, and Tom was going to hear Lewis’s friend Charles Williams speak on “The Meaning of the Grail” at the Bodleian Library. Tom decided to arrive early for the mid-afternoon lecture, to get a good look at the Divinity School room, and to get a good seat for the lecture.
Walking down the narrow street under a lowering sky, Tom arrived at the east entrance to the Bodleian and turned in at the gate. His first response to the Schools Quadrangle, the courtyard east of the main building, was disappointment. Having seen so many velvet lawns and spectacular flower gardens in the college quads, he was surprised to find a large enclosure with nothing but slippery flagstones. The eastern façade of the Bodleian made no better impression, a soot-stained slab with little ornamentation except for long vertical lines, almost like jail bars. How odd, Tom thought, that one of the most famous and venerated libraries in the world should look like an old prison.
Tom crossed the quad, following others through a large wooden door and into a narrow passageway that led to the Divinity School. Emerging from the dark corridor into the lecture hall, Tom instantly changed his mind about the Bodleian. Entering the Divinity School room was like moving from darkness to light, from confinement to liberation, from all that weighs down the spirit to all that makes it soar. The whole room was suffused with an amber glow, the afternoon sun warming the cream-colored walls, which seemed to radiate a light all their own.
The whole interior commanded Tom to look up. The floor was unadorned flagstone covered with rows of wooden chairs. But the lofty arched windows with delicate tracery carried his eyes upward toward the ceiling, where he saw rows of ornately carved pendants, hanging like lanterns, each one radiating fan-shaped curves, like shafts of light chiseled in stone. The plain stone floor and the portable chairs, crouching humbly under that magnificent vaulted ceiling, seemed to suggest that all the richness and gladness of life comes not from the plane on which we live and walk, but from higher planes of intellect, imagination, learning, and faith.
The chairs in the lecture hall began filling quickly, even as Tom was admiring the room. He had wondered what sort of audience a publisher’s editor would attract, and he soon had his answer. He found a seat near the center, about five rows back, before every seat was taken as the clock neared three. There were a few men who looked like dons scattered around the room, but most of the listeners were about Tom’s age, with more women in the crowd than he had seen in any one place since arriving at Oxford.
Precisely at three o’clock, Mr. Charles Williams stepped briskly stepped to the lectern. He was a tall man in his fifties with wavy hair, wearing a black gown and gold-rimmed spectacles. Tom was not accustomed to lecturers wearing academic gowns, so his first sight of Williams made him think of a priest or wizard. Williams briefly surveyed his listeners and smiled. The furrows on his cheeks ran all the way down to his jaw, giving the impression that someone had placed his mouth in parentheses. Tom heard someone in the row behind him whisper the word “ugly,” but that was not quite accurate. There was a look of energetic intelligence in Williams’s face, the owlish eyes and simian jaw giving a sense of endearing homeliness, not mere coarseness.
Williams set down his notes and hardly glanced at them again for the next hour. “Did any of you buy a newspaper this morning?” he began. There was a hint of Cockney in his voice, an accent that certainly wouldn’t impress the person who had whispered the word “ugly.” Abandoning the lectern, Williams paced back and forth in front of the room, looking into individual faces for the answer to his question. Several nodded that they had, and Williams smiled to see his hypothesis confirmed. “You offered a coin and received a newspaper in return. A mutually satisfactory transaction. That is the life of the city. Exchange.” Williams paced briskly back toward the lectern and continued: “And thus you took one step closer to the Holy Grail.” Pausing to let this comment have its effect, Williams came out toward his listeners