Chapter Two: A Life — What It Was Spent On
The clock on the wall
A round clock above the board, its second hand moving with a click you can hear. In the first minutes nobody looks at it; there is so much time then that it is almost dull. In the last quarter of an hour it becomes the only thing in the hall: every head lifts to it, every hand hurries, and handwriting that was neat at the top of the paper turns into running at the bottom.
And there is no clock on the wall there, because the time was being counted while you were not looking. And when it is said, the time is up, you find that what you took for the beginning of the sitting was the end of it, and that the last quarter went by you while you thought you were still at the start of the lesson.
Its form in the hall you see: a line printed at the head of the answer book: time allowed, two hours; no candidate may leave before half the time has passed. It is read in a second, and it is not really understood until the last ten minutes.
And its form in the greater hall: about your life — what did you spend it on? The question is not, how long did you live? That is a number on a card. It is, what did you do with the hours that were in your hand? The difference between the two forms is the difference between a balance and a spending. A balance is stated and not asked about; it is the spending that is asked about.
There is nothing in this hall of what candidates call extra time. In the smaller hall a candidate may plead with the invigilator, who looks away for a minute, and in that minute he catches a line that was missing. In the greater hall the time ends at its limit, neither early nor late; and the hardest thing in the matter is that the candidate does not hear the bell coming. He thinks he has some left, and he is on the last line.
In the smaller hall some men leave before the time is up, glad that they have finished, and some leave because they have given up. From a distance it is one scene: an answer book handed in, a door opened, footsteps going away down the corridor. The two of them part only at the marking, when the two papers are read.
And its evidence: the first item of the hadith of al-Tirmidhi already quoted. And on the man who reckons with what comes after the bell, and the man who leaves his paper to wishful thinking: “The shrewd person is the one who calls himself to account and works for what comes after death; and the helpless one is he who lets his own cravings lead him and then counts on God for the rest.” (meaning; Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2459 — Shaddad ibn Aws, good (hasan) — al-Tirmidhi)
And whoever wants to know how to sit in the hall without settling into it, this is how to sit: “Be in this world as though you were a stranger, or someone passing through on a journey.” (meaning; Sahih al-Bukhari 6416 — Abd Allah ibn Umar, sound (sahih) — al-Bukhari)