“Palpably untrue” was all he said

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 139.  On going up to Oxford.

There was, of course, a modicum of supervision; and my first priority on the day after my arrival was to call on my Moral Tutor—whose responsibility proved fortunately to be not at all what his title suggested. Morals had nothing to do with it. His job was simply to keep an eye on how I was getting on, to give advice when sought, and generally to be a friend when I needed one; and I had been delighted to learn that he was to be the great Isaiah Berlin himself. By now Isaiah already enjoyed a formidable reputation on both sides of the Atlantic; his name was normally spoken only in the most reverential of whispers. I, on the other hand, had seen quite a lot of him in Embassy days and knew just how unfrightening he really was. No one could possibly doubt the power of his intellect or deny the coruscation of his talk, but he was also a wonderful listener, with the enviable ability to bring out the best in whomever he was with. He could dazzle a dinner table with his brilliance, and two minutes later—since he was a superb raconteur—make his hearers laugh till they cried. He also happened to be a very nice man.

All this I knew from experience; but although Isaiah was, when you knew him, the least intimidating of men, many people were daunted by the prospect of meeting him for the first time. Among them was another moral pupil of his, my old Eton chum Anthony Blond. Never in the sixty-odd years that I knew him did Anthony strike me as a shrinking violet; but on our first evening at New College he confessed to me that he too had to call on the great man the following morning, and was terrified. I of course assured him that he had nothing whatever to worry about; in any case, I suggested, since our appointments were at 9 am and 9:15 am respectively, why should we not go together so that I could introduce him? He jumped at the idea, and promptly at nine the next morning we knocked on Isaiah’s door. No answer. We knocked again, once again without result; then we very gingerly opened the door into his study. It was empty, but there was another door on the far side of the room, from beyond which I thought I heard a noise, so I knocked on this as well. The answer this time was a loud grunt, followed by that unmistakable clipped bass voice calling “Come in.” In we went, and found to our horror Isaiah tucked tightly up in bed, face to the wall. “What is it?” he mumbled. I explained that we had appointments to see him, and that we had decided to come together. “My time was actually nine fifteen,” said Anthony: “I’m Blond.”

He turned and faced us for the first time, his eye lighting on Anthony’s jet black hair and swarthy complexion. “Palpably untrue” was all he said; then he turned back to the wall and went to sleep again. Our two interviews were over.