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diff --git a/old/62967.txt b/old/62967.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 084e951..0000000 --- a/old/62967.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7582 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolving Lights, by Dorothy M. Richardson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Revolving Lights - Pilgrimage, Volume 7 - -Author: Dorothy M. Richardson - -Release Date: August 18, 2020 [EBook #62967] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLVING LIGHTS *** - - - - -Produced by Jens Sadowski and the online Distributed -Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net. -This file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive. - - - - - - - REVOLVING LIGHTS - - - - - THE WORK OF - DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON - - - "In the ordinary novel, the novelist stands on the banks of the - river of life chronicling how and when people arise, and how it - is that things happen to them. But Miriam (the central figure of - Dorothy Richardson's work) pulls us with her into the yielding - water."--_Nation._ - - "The style grows upon one with familiarity; it is continually - illumined by passages of brilliant insight, and its - half-subconscious revelation of personality is wonderfully - attractive."--_Daily Telegraph._ - - POINTED ROOFS - BACKWATER - HONEYCOMB - THE TUNNEL - - INTERIM - DEADLOCK - REVOLVING LIGHTS - - - DUCKWORTH & CO. - 3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C. - - - - - REVOLVING LIGHTS - - - BY - DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON - - - LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO. - 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN - - - First published in 1923. - All rights reserved. - - - _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_ - - - To - F. E. W. - - - - - REVOLVING LIGHTS - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -The building of the large hall had been brought about by people who gave -no thought to the wonder of moving from one space to another and up and -down stairs. Yet this wonder was more to them than all the things on -which their thoughts were fixed. If they would take time to realise it. -No one takes time. No one knows it.... But I know it.... These seconds -of knowing, of being told, afresh, by things speaking silently, make up -for the pain of failing to find out what I ought to be doing.... - -Away behind, in the flatly echoing hall, was the busy planning world of -socialism, intent on the poor. Far away in to-morrow, stood the -established, unchanging world of Wimpole Street, linked helpfully to the -lives of the prosperous classes. Just ahead, at the end of the walk -home, the small isolated Tansley Street world, full of secretive people -drifting about on the edge of catastrophe, that would leave, when it -engulfed them, no ripple on the surface of the tide of London life. In -the space between these surrounding worlds was the everlasting solitude; -ringing as she moved to cross the landing, with voices demanding an -explanation of her presence in any one of them. - -"Now _that_," she quoted, to counter the foremost attack, "is a man who -can be trusted to say what he thinks." - -That cloaked her before the clamorous silence. She was an observant -intelligent woman; approved. _He_ would never imagine that the hurriedly -borrowed words meant, to her, nothing but a shadow of doubt cast across -the earnest little socialist. But they carried her across the landing. -And here, at the head of the stairs, was the show case of cold Unitarian -literature. Yet another world. Bright, when she had first become aware -of it, with freedom from the problem of Christ, offering, until she had -met its inhabitants face to face, a congenial home. Sending her away, at -a run, from cold humorous intellectuality. She paused in front of the -case, avoiding the sight of the well-known, chilly titles of the books, -to read what had gathered in her mind during the evening. - -A group of people who had come out just behind her were going down the -stairs arguing in high-pitched, public platform voices from the surfaces -of their associated minds. Not saying what they thought. Not thinking. -Strong and controlled enough to keep within pattern of clever words. -Most of them had been born to it. Born on the stage of clever words, -which yet meant nothing to them. But to one or two people in the society -these words _did_ mean something.... - -Nothing came after they had passed but the refrain that had been the -mental accompaniment of her listening throughout the evening, stepping -forth now as part of a high-pitched argumentative to and fro. Her part, -if she could join in and shout them all down. Sounding irrelevant and -yet coming right down to earth, one small part of a picture puzzle set -in place ... a clue. - -"Any number of barristers," she vociferated in her mind, going on down -the shallow stair, "take up JOURNALISM. Get into Parliament. On the -_strength_ of being both educated and _articulate_. Weapons, giving an -unfair advantage. The easy touch of prominence. Only a good nervous -system wanted. They are psychologists. Up to a point. Enough to convince -nice busy people, rushing through life without time to bethink -themselves. Enough to alarm and threaten and cajole. They can raise -storms; in newspapers. And brandish about by _name_, at their centres, -like windmills, kept going by the wind of their psychological -cheap-jackery. Yes, sir. Psychological cheap-jackery.... Purple-faced -John Bull paterfamilias. Paterfamiliarity. Avenging his state by hitting -out.... With an eye for a pretty face.... - -The little man had no _axe_ to grind. That was the only test. An -Englishman, and a barrister, and yet awake to foreign art. His opaque -English temperament not weakened by it; but worn a little transparent. -He would be silent in an instant before a superior testimony. - -He did not count on anything. When Socialism came, he would be placed in -an administrative post, and would fill it quietly, working harder than -ever. - -He brought the future nearer because he already moved within it; by -being aware of things most men did not consider; aware of -_relationships_: possibly believing in God, certainly in the soul. - -Modern man, individually, is in many respects less capable than -primitive man. Evolution is related development. Progress towards social -efficiency. Benjamin Kidd. - -"These large speculations are most-fatiguing." - -"No. When you see truth in them they are refreshing. They are all there -is. All I live for now, is the arrival in my mind, of fresh -generalisations." - -"That is good. But remember also that these things cost life." - -"What does it matter what they cost? A shape of truth makes you at the -moment want to die, full of gratitude and happiness. It fills everything -with a music to which you _could_ die. The next piece of life comes as a -superfluity." - -"Le superflu; chose necessaire." - -At the foot of the stairs stood the yellow street-light, framed in the -oblong of the doorway. She went out into its shelter. The large grey -legal buildings that stood by day a solid, dignified pile against the -sky, a whole remaining region of the pride of London, showed only their -lower facades, near, gentle frontages of mellow golden light and soft -rectangular shadow, just above the brightly gilded surface of the -deserted roadway. For a moment she stood listening to the reflection of -the fostering light and breathing in the dry warm freshness of the -London night air. - -The illuminated future faded. The street lights of that coming time -might throw their rays more liberally, over more beautiful streets. But -something would be lost. In a world consciously arranged for the good of -everybody there would be something personal ... without foundation ... -like a nonconformist preacher's smile. The pavements of these streets -that had grown of themselves, flooded by the light of lamps rooted like -trees in the soil of London, were more surely pavements of gold than -those pavements of the future? - -They offered themselves freely; the unfailing magic that would give its -life to the swing of her long walk home, letting her leave without -regret the earlier hidden magic of the evening, the thoughts that had -gathered in her mind whilst she listened, and that had now slipped away -unpondered, leaving uppermost the outlines of the lecture to compete -with the homeward walk. The surrounding golden glow through which she -could always escape into the recovery of certainty, warned her not to -return upon the lecture. But she could not let all she had heard -disappear unnoted, and postponed her onward rush, apologising for the -moments about to be spent in conning over the store of ideas. In an -instant the glow had gone, miscarried like her private impressions of -the evening. The objects about her grew clear; full of current -associations; and she wondered as her mind moved back across the linked -statements of the lecture, whether these were her proper concern, or yet -another step upon a long pathway of transgression. She was grasping at -incompatible things, sacrificing the bliss of her own uninfluenced life -to the temptation of gathering things that had been offered by another -mind. Things to which she had no right? - -But all the things of the mind that had come her way had come unsought; -yet finding her prepared; so that they seemed not only her rightful -property, but also in some way, herself. The proof was that they had -passed her sisters by, finding no response; but herself they had drawn, -often reluctant, perpetually escaping and forgetting; out on to a path -that it sometimes seemed she must explore to the exclusion of everything -else in life, exhaustively, the long way round, the masculine way. It -was clearly not her fault that she had a masculine mind. If she must pay -the penalties, why should she not also reap the entertainments? - -Still, it was _strange_, she reflected, with a consulting glance at the -returning brilliance, that without any effort of her own, so very many -different kinds of people and thoughts should have come, one after the -other, as if in an ordered sequence, into the little backwater of her -life. What for? To what end was her life working by some sort of inner -arrangement? To turn, into a beautiful distance outspread behind her as -she moved on? What then? - -For instance, the sudden appearance of the revolutionaries just at this -moment, seemed so apt. She had always wanted to meet revolutionaries, -yet had never gone forth to seek them. Since her contact with -socialists, she had been more curious about them than ever. And here -they were, on their way to her, just as the meaning and some of the -limitations of socialism were growing distinct. Yet it was absurd to -suppose that their visit to England, in the midst of their exciting -career, should have been timed to meet her need. Nor would they convince -her. The light that shone about them was the anticipation of a momentary -intense interest that would leave her a step farther on the lonely -wandering that so distracted her from the day's work, and kept her -family and the old known life at such an immeasurable distance. It was -her ruling devil who had just handed her, punctually on the eve of their -arrival, material for conversation with revolutionaries. - -But it also seemed to be the mysterious friend, her star, the queer -strange _luck_ that dogged her path always reviving happiness, bringing -a sudden joy when there was nothing to account for it, plunging her into -some new unexpected thing at the very moment of perfect hopelessness. It -was like a game ... something was having a game of hide and seek with -her. She winked, smiling, at the returned surrounding glow, and turned -back to run up and down the steps of the neglected argument. - -It was clear in her mind. Freed from the fascinating distraction of the -little man's mannerisms, it spread fresh light, in all directions, -tempering the golden light of the street; showing, beyond the outer -darkness of the night, the white radiance of the distant future. Within -the radiance, troops of people marched ahead, with springing footsteps; -the sound of song in their ceaselessly talking voices; the forward march -of a unanimous, light-hearted humanity along a pathway of white morning -light.... The land of promise that she would never see; not through -being born too soon, but by being incapable of unanimity. All these -people had one mind. They approved of each other and were gay in unity. - -The spectacle of their escape from the shadows lessened the pain of -being left behind. Perhaps even a moment's contemplation of the future -helped to bring it about? Every thought vibrates through the universe. -Then there was absolution in thought, even from the anger of -everlastingly talking people, contemptuous of silence and aloofness. And -there was unity with the future. - -The surrounding light glowed with a richer intensity. Flooded through -her, thrilling her feet to swiftness. - -If the revolutionaries could be with her now, they would find in her -something of the state towards which they were violently straining? They -would pause and hover for a moment, with half envious indulgence. But -sooner or later they would say things about robust English health; its -unconsciousness of its surroundings. - -The _mystery_ of being English. Mocked at for stupidity and envied for -having something that concerned the mocking people of the two continents -and challenged them to discover its secret. - -But by to-morrow night she would have nothing but the little set of -remembered facts, dulled by the fatigue of her day's work. These would -save her, for the one evening, from appearing as the unintelligent -Englishwoman of foreigner's experience. But they would also keep out the -possibility of expressing anything. - -Even the bare outlines of socialism, presented suddenly to unprepared -English people, were unfailing as a contribution to social occasions. -They forced everyone to look at the things they had taken for granted in -a new light, and to remember, together with the startling picture, the -person who first drew it for them. But to appear before these Russians -talking English socialism was to be nothing more than a useful person in -uniform. - -What _was_ the immediate truth that shone, independent of speculation, -all about her in the English light; the only thing worth telling to -enquiring foreigners? - -It was there at once when she was alone, or watching other people as an -audience, or as an uncommitted guest, expressing in a great variety of -places different sets of opinions. It was there radiant, obliterating -her sense of existence, whenever she was in the midst of things kept -going by other people. It could be given her by a beggar, purposefully -crossing a street ... not 'pitiful,' as he was so carelessly called--but -something that shook her with gratitude to the roots of her being. But -the instant she was called upon there came the startled realisation of -being in the world, and the sense of nothingness, preceding and -accompanying every remark she might make. - -One opinion self-consciously stated made the light go down. Immediate -substitution of the contrary, produced a chill followed by darkness.... -_Men_ called out these contradictory statements, each one with his way -of having only one set of opinions. - -How powerful these Russians were, in advance, making her count herself -up. If she saw much of them she would fail and fade into nothing under -the Russian test. If there were only one short interview she might -escape unknown, and knowing all the things about Russian revolutionaries -that Michael Shatov had left incomplete. - -Their scornful revolutionary eyes watched her glance about amongst her -hoard of contradictory ideas. Statements about different ways of looking -at things were irrelevancies that perhaps with Russians might be -abandoned altogether. Yet to appear before them empty-handed, hidden in -her earlier uninfluenced personality, would be not to meet them at all. -Personal life to them was nothing, could be summed up in a few words, -the same for everybody. They lived for an idea. - -She offered them a comprehensive glimpse of the many pools of thought in -which she had plunged, rising from each in turn, to recover the bank and -repudiate; unless a channel could be driven, that would make all their -waters meet. They laughed when she cried out at the hopelessness of -uniting them. "All these things are nothing." - -But a revolutionary is a man who throws himself into space. In Russia -there is nowhere else to throw himself? That would do as an answer to -their criticisms of English socialism. She could say also that -conservatives are the best socialists; being liberal-_minded_. Most -socialists were narrow and illiberal, holding on to liberal ideas. The -aim of the Lycurgans, alone amongst the world's socialists, was to show -the English aristocracy and middle classes that they were, still, -socialists. - -There _were_ things in England. But they struggled at cross purposes, -refusing to get into a shape that would draw one, _whole_, along with -it. But there were things in England with truth shining behind them. -English people did not shine. But something shone behind them. Russians -shone. But there was nothing behind them. There were things in England. -She offered them the contents of books. They were as real as the pools -of experience. Yet they, too, were irreconcilable. - -A little blue-lit street; lamps with large round globes, shedding -moonlight; shadows, grey and black. She had somehow got into the -west-end--a little west-end street, giving out its character. She went -softly along the middle of the blue-lit glimmering roadway, narrow -between the narrow pavements skirting the high facades, flat and grey, -broken by shadowy pillared porticoes; permanent exits and entrances on -the stage of the London scene; solid lines and arches of pure grey -shaping the flow of the pageant, and emerging, when it ebbed away, to -stand in their own beauty, conjuring back the vivid tumult to flow in -silence, a continuous ghostly garland of moving shapes and colours, -haunting their self-sufficient calm. - -Within the stillness she heard the jingling of hansoms, swinging in -morning sunlight along the wide thoroughfares of the west-end; saw the -wide leisurely shop-fronts displaying in a restrained profusion, -comfortably within the experienced eye half turned to glance from a -passing vehicle, all the belongings of west-end life; on the pavements, -the trooping succession of masked life-moulded forms, their unobservant -eyes, aware of the resources all about them, at gaze upon their -continuous adventure, yesterday still with them as they came out, in -high morning light, into the adventure of to-day. Campaigners, sure of -their weapons in the gaily decked melee, and sure every day of the -blissful solitude of the interim times. - -For as long as she could remember she had known something of their -secret. During the years of her London life she had savoured between -whiles the quality of their world, divined its tests and passwords, -known what kept their eyes unseeing and their speech clipped to a -jargon. - -Best of all was the illumination that had come with her penetration of -the mystery of their attitude towards direct _questions_. There was -something here that had offered her again and again a solution of the -problem of social life, a safeguard of individuality. Here it was once -more, a still small voice urging that every moment of association would -be transformed if she would only remember the practice the technique -revealed by her contemplation of this one quality. Always to be solid -and resistent; unmoved. Having no opinions and only one enthusiasm--to -be unmoved. Momentary experiments had proved that the things that were -about her in solitude could be there all the time. But forgetfulness -always came. Because most people brought their worlds with them, their -opinions, and the set of things they believed in; forcing in the end -direct questions and disagreements. And most people were ready to answer -questions, showing by their angry defence of their opinions that they -were aware, and afraid, of other ways of looking at things. But these -society people did not seem to be aware of anything but their one world. -Perhaps that was why their social method was not able to hold her for -long together. - -"Is this the way to Chippenham?" But _everyone_ delights in telling the -way. It brings the teller out into adventure; with his best self and his -best moments all about him. The surroundings are suddenly new with life, -and beautiful like things seen in passing, on a journey. English people -delight because they are adventurous. They prolong the moment, beaming -and expanding, and go on their way refreshed. Foreigners, except perhaps -Germans, answer differently. Obsequiously; or with a studied politeness -that turns the occasion into an opportunity for the display of manners; -or indifferently, with a cynical suggestion that they know what you are -like, and that you will be the same when you reach your destination. -They are themselves, without any fulness or wonder. English people are -always waiting to be different, to be fully themselves. Strangers, to -them, are gods and angels. - -But it is another kind of question that is meant, the question that is a -direct attack on the unseeing gaze; a speech to the man at the wheel. -That is where, without knowing it, these people are philosophers. What -Socrates saw, answered all his questions; and his counterings of the -young men's questions were invitations to them to look for themselves. -The single world these people see is, to them, so unquestionable that -there is no room for question. Nothing can be communicated except the -latest news; and scandal; information about people who have gone outside -the shape. But, to each other, even their statements are put in the form -of questions. "Fine day, what?" So that everyone may be not questioned, -but questioner. It is also a sort of apology for falling into speech at -all. - -It was Michael Shatov's amused delight in her stories of their method -that had made her begin to cherish them as a possession. Gradually she -had learned that irritation with their apparent insolence was jealousy. -Within her early interested unenvious sallies of investigation amongst -the social elite of the Wimpole Street patients, or as a fellow guest -amongst the Orlys' society friends, there had been moments of longing to -sweep away the defences and discountenance the individual. But gradually -the conviction had dawned that with the genuine members of the clan this -could not be done. Their quality went right through, shedding its -central light, a brightness that could not be encircled, over the whole -of humanity. They disarmed attack, because in their singleness of nature -they were not aware of anything to defend. They had no contempts; not -being specially intellectual; and, crediting everyone with their own -condition, they reached to the sources of nobility in all with whom they -came in contact. It was refreshment and joy merely to be in the room -with them. But also it was an arduous exercise. They brought such a wide -picture and so long a history. They were England. The world-wide spread -of Christian England was in their minds; and to this they kindled, more -than to any personal thing. - -The existence of these scattered few, explained those who were only -conventional approximations.... - -To-night, immersed in the vision of a future that threatened their -world, she found them one and all bright figures of romance. She sped as -her footsteps measured off the length of the little street, into the -recesses, the fair and the evil, of aristocratic English life, and -affectionately followed the small bright freely moving troupe as it -spread in the past and was at this moment spreading, abroad over the -world, the unchangeable English quality and its attendant conventions. - -The books about these people are not satisfactory.... Those that show -them as a moral force, suggest that they are the fair flower of a -Christian civilisation. But a Christian civilisation would be abolishing -factories.... Lord Shaftesbury ... Arnold's barbarian idea made a -convincing picture, but it suggested in the end, behind his back, that -there was something lacking in the Greeks. Most of the modern books -seemed to ridicule the English conventions, and choose the worst types -of people for their characters. - -But in _all_ the books about these people, even in novelettes, the chief -thing they all left out, was there. They even described it, sometimes so -gloriously that it became _more_ than the people; making humanity look -like ants, crowding and perishing as a vast scene. Generally the -surroundings were described separately, the background on which -presently the characters began to fuss. But they were never sufficiently -shown as they were to the people when there was no fussing; what the -floods of sunshine and beauty indoors and out meant to these people as -single individuals, whether they were aware of it or not. The 'fine' -characters in the books, acting on principle, having thoughts, and -sometimes, the less likeable of them, even ideas, were not shown as -being made strong partly by endless floods of sunshine and beauty. The -feeble characters were too much condemned for clutching, to keep, at any -price within the charmed circle.... - -The antics of imitators, all down the social scale, were wrongly -condemned. - -But _here_, in this separate existence, _was_ a shape that could draw -her, whole, along with it ... and here suddenly, warmly about her in its -evening quiet, was the narrow winding lane of Bond Street.... Was this -bright shape, that drew her, the secret of her nature ... the clue she -had carried in her hand through the maze? - -It would explain my love for kingly old Hanover, the stately ancient -house in Waldstrasse; the way the charm of the old-fashioned well-born -Pernes held me so long in the misery of North London; the relief of -getting away to Newlands, my determination to remain from that time -forth, at any cost, amidst beautiful surroundings...? Though life has -drawn me away these things have stayed with me. They were with me -through the awful months.... If _she_ had been able to escape into the -beauty of outside things, it would not have happened. - -It was not the fear of being alone with the echoes of the tragedy that -made me ill in suburban lodgings, but the small ugliness and the empty -crude suburban air; the knowledge that if I stayed and forgot its -ugliness in happiness it would mould me unawares. My drifting to the -large old house in grey wide Bloomsbury was a movement of return. - -Then I am attached forever to the spacious gentle surroundings in which -I was born? Always watching and listening and feeling for them to -emerge? My social happiness dependent upon the presence of some -suggestion of its remembered features, my secret social ambition its -perfected form in circumstances beyond my reach?... - -No. There was something within her that could not tolerate either the -people or the thoughts existing within that exclusive world. In the -silences that flowed about its manifold unvarying expressions, she would -always find herself ranging off into lively consciousness of other ways -of living, whose smiling mystery defied its complacent patronage.... It -drew only her nature, the ease and beauty loving soul of her physical -being, and that only in critical contemplation. She would never desire -to bestir herself to achieve stateliness. - -So that the faraway moment of being driven forth seemed to bear two -meanings. It was life's stupid error, a cruel blind destruction of her -helpless youth. At this moment if it were possible she would reverse it -and return. During all these years she had been standing motionless, -fixed tearfully in the attitude of return. The joy she had found in her -invisible life amongst the servants was the joy of remaining girt and -ready for the flight of return, her original nature stored up and hidden -behind the adopted manner of her bondage. - -Or it was life's wisdom, the swift movement of her lucky star, -providence pouncing. And providence, having seized her indolent blissful -protesting form and flung it forth with a laugh, had continued to pamper -her with a sense of happiness that bubbled unexpectedly out in the midst -of her utmost attempts to achieve misery by a process of reason. - -It is my strange bungling in misery that makes everyone seem far off. A -perpetual oblivion not only of my own circumstances, but, at the wrong -moments, of those of other people, makes me disappoint and shock them, -suddenly disappearing before their eyes in the midst of a sympathy that -they had eagerly seemed to find satisfying and rare.... A light -frivolous elastic temperament? A helpless going to and fro between two -temperaments. A solid charwomanly commonplace kindliness, spread like a -doormat at the disposal of everybody, and an intermittent perfect -dilettantism that would disgust even the devil? - -That was _his_ temperament? The quality that had made him gravitate, -unaided, towards exclusive things, was also in her. But weaker, because -it was less narrow? He had thrown up everything for leisure to wander in -the fields of art and science and philosophy; shutting his eyes to the -fact of his diminishing resources. She, with no resources at all, had -dropped to easy irresponsible labour to avoid being shaped and branded, -to keep her untouched strength free for a wider contemplation than he -would have approved, a delight in everything in turn, a _plebeian_ -dilettantism, aware and defensive of the exclusive things, but unable to -restrict herself to them, unconsciously from the beginning resisting the -drawing of lines and setting up of oppositions? More and more -consciously ranged on all sides simultaneously. More _catholic_. That -was the other side of the family. But if with his temperament and his -sceptical intuitive mind, she had also the nature of the other side of -the family what a hopeless problem.... If she belonged to both, she was -the sport of opposing forces that would never allow her to alight and -settle. The movement of her life would be like a pendulum. No wonder -people found her unaccountable. But being her own solitary companion -would not go on forever. It would bring in the end, somewhere about -middle age, the state that people called madness.... Perhaps the lunatic -asylums were full of people who had refused to join up? There were happy -people in them? "Wandering" in their minds. But remembering and knowing -happiness all the time? In dropping to nothingness they escaped forever -into that state of amazed happiness that goes on all the time underneath -the strange forced quotations of deeds and words. - -Oxford Street opened ahead, right and left, a wide empty yellow-lit -corridor of large shuttered shop-fronts. It stared indifferently at her -outlined fate. - -Even at night it seemed to echo with the harsh sounds of its oblivious -conglomerate traffic. Since the high light-spangled front of the -Princess's Theatre had changed, there was nothing to obliterate the -permanent sense of the two monstrous streams flowing all day, fierce and -shattering, east and west. Oxford Street, unless she were sailing -through it perched in sunlight on the top of an omnibus lumbering -steadily towards the graven stone of the City, always wrought -destruction, pitting its helpless harshness against her alternating -states of talkative concentration and silent happy expansion. Going west -it _was_ destruction; forever approaching the west-end, reaching its -gates and passing them by. - -Stay here, suggested Bond Street. Walking here you can keep alive, out -in the world, until the end, an aged crone, still a citizen of my -kingdom, hobbling in the sun, along my sacred pavements. She turned -gladly, encompassing the gift of the whole length of the winding lane -with a plan of working round through Soho, to cross Oxford Street -painlessly where it blended with St. Giles's, and would let her through -northwards into the squares. The strange new thoughts were about her the -moment she turned back. They belonged to these old, central finely -etched streets where they had begun, a fresh proof of her love for them; -a new enrichment of their charm. - -Whatever might be the truth about heredity, it was immensely disturbing -to be pressed upon by two families, to discover, in their so different -qualities, the explanation of herself. The sense of existing merely as a -link, without individuality, was not at all compensated by the lifting, -and distribution backwards, of responsibility. To be set in a mould, -powerless to alter its shape ... to discover, too late for association -and enquiry, the people she helplessly belonged to. Yet the very fact -that young people fled their relatives, was an argument on the side of -individuality. But not all fled their relatives. Perhaps only those of -St. Paul's evil generation, "lacking in natural affection." - -She glanced narrowly, with a curiosity that embarrassment could no -longer hold back, at her father's side of the family, and while she -waited for them to fall upon her and wrathfully consume her, she met the -shock of a surprise that caught her breath. They did not _object_. -Boldly faced, in the light of her new interest, the vividly remembered -forms, paintings and photographs almost as vividly real, came forward -and grouped themselves about her as if mournfully glad at last of the -long-deferred opportunity. They offered, not themselves, but what they -saw and knew, holding themselves withdrawn, rigorously in place about -the centre of their preoccupation. Yet they _were_ personal. The -terrible gentleness with which they asked her why for so long she had -kept aloof from consultation with them, held a personal appeal that made -her glow. Deeply desiring it, she held herself away from the solicited -familiarity in a stillness of fascinated observation. - -They were _Puritans_.... More wonderful than she had known in thinking -of them as nonconformists, a disgrace her father had escaped together -with the trade he had abandoned in youth. They were the Puritans she had -read of; but not Cromwellian, certainly not Roundheads. Though they were -tall and gaunt with strongly moulded features, their thoughtless, -generous English ancestry showed in them, moulded by their sternness to -a startling ... _beauty_. They had well-shaped hands, alive and speaking -amongst their rich silks and fine old laces. They wore with a dignified -austerity, but still they wore, and must therefore have thought about, -silk and lace and broadcloth and fine frilled linen, as well as the sin -in themselves and in the world. But principally they were aware of sin, -gazing with stern meditative eyes, through the pages of their gloomily -bound books, into the abyss yawning at their feet. She held herself in -her place, growing bolder, longing now for parley with their silent -resistance, disguising nothing, offering them pell-mell, the least -suitable of her thoughts. But the eyes they turned on her, still -dreadfully begging her to remember now, in the days of her youth, were -kind, lit by a special smiling indulgence.... Their strong stern lives, -full of the knowledge of experience, that had led down to her, had made -them _kind_. However far she might stray, she was still their favourite, -their different stubby round-faced darling, never to be condemned to the -abyss. Listening as they called to their part in her, she shared the -salvation they had wrought ... salvage ... of hard fine lives, reared -narrowly, in beauty, above the gulf. - -Yet it was also from their incompleteness that they called to her; the -_darkness_ in them, visible in the air about them as they moved, that -she had always feared and run away from. The thought of the stern gaunt -chairs in which they sat and died of old age was horrible even at this -moment, and now that she no longer feared them, she knew, though she -felt a homesick longing for their stern righteousness, that it was -incomplete. The pressing darkness kept them firm, fighting the devil -every inch of the way.... - -But the devil was not dark, he was bright. Brightest and best of the -sons of the morning. What shocking profanity. Something has made me -drunk. I am always drunk in the west-end. Satan was proud. God revenged -himself. Revengeful, omnipotent, jealous, "the first of the autocrats." -... - -There was a glory hidden in that old darkness, but they did not know it; -though they followed it. Accepting them, plunging into their darkness -she would never be able to keep from finding the bright devil and -wandering wrapt in gloom, but forgetful, perpetually in the bright -spaces within the darkness. And perhaps it was God. Impossible to say. -Religious people shunned the bright places believing them haunted by the -devil. Other religious people believed they were the gift of God and -would presently be everywhere, for everybody, the kingdom of God upon -Earth. But even if factories were abolished and the unpleasant kinds of -work shared out so that they pressed upon nobody, how could the Kingdom -of Heaven come upon earth as long as there were childbirth and cancer? - -Light makes _shadows_. The devil is God's shadow? The Persians believed -that in the end the light would absorb the darkness. That was credible. -But it could never happen on earth. That was where the Puritans were -right with their vale of tears, and why they were more deeply attractive -than the other side of the family. Their roots in life were deeper and -harder and the light from the Heavenly City fell upon their foreheads -_because_ they struggled in the gloom. If only they knew what the gloom -was, the marvel of its being there. They were solemn and reproachful -because they could not get at their own gaiety.... - -The others were _too_ jolly, too much turned out towards life, -deliberately cheerful and roystering, not aware of the wonder and beauty -of gloom, yet more dreadfully haunted and afraid of it, showing its -uncomprehended presence by always deliberately driving it away. They -spread gloom about them, by their perpetual impatient cheerfulness, -afraid to listen and look. Their wild spirits were tragic, bright -tragedy, making their country life sound in the distance like one long -maddening unbroken noise, afraid to stop, rushing on, taking everything -for granted, and troubling about nothing. People who lived in the -country _were_ different. Fresh. All converted by their surroundings -into perpetual noise? The large spaces gave them large rich voices ... -rounded sturdy west country yeomen, blunt featured and jolly, with big -voices. Jesting with women. The women all dark and animated ... arch ... -minxes. Any amount of flirting. All the scandals of the family were on -that side. Girls, careering, with flying hair, round paddocks, on -unbroken bare-backed ponies. Huge families. Hunting. Great Christmas and -Harvest parties. Maypoles in the spring. They always saw the spring, -every year without fail. Perhaps that was their secret? Wherever they -were they saw nothing but dawn and spring, the light coming from the -darkness. They shouted against the darkness because they knew the light -was hidden in it. If you're waking, call me early, call me early ... - - So ear-ly in, the mor-ning, - My Belo-ved - _My_ Beloved. - -_Those_ women's voices pealed out into the wakening air of pure silver -dawns. The chill pure dawn and dark over the fields where L'Allegro -walked in her picture, the dewy dawn-lit grass under her white feet, her -hair blown softly back by the morning breeze flowing over her dawn-lit -face, shaping her garments to her happy limbs as she walked dancing, -towards the increasing light. Little pools and clumps of wet primroses -over the surface of the grey-green grass, flushed with rose, like her -glowing dancing face as she skimmed, her whole bright form pealing with -song towards the _increasing light_. Was that sort of life still going -on somewhere? - -Yet Il Penseroso _knew_ and L'Allegro did not. - -Long-featured Sarah was on the Puritan side, with a strain of the -artist, drawn from the other half, tormenting her. Eve, delicately and -unscrupulously adventurous, was the west country side altogether. - -Within me ... the _third_ child, the longed-for son, the two natures, -equally matched, mingle and fight? It is their struggle that keeps me -adrift, so variously interested and strongly attracted, now here, now -there? Which will win?... Feeling so identified with both, she could not -imagine either of them set aside. Then her life _would_ be the battle -field of her two natures. Which of them had been thrilled through and -through, so that she had seemed to enter, lightly waving her hand to all -that had gone before, for good, into a firelit glow, the door closing -behind her, and leaving her launched, without her belongings, but richly -accompanied, on a journey to the heart of an unquenchable joy? It was -not socialism that had drawn her, though the moment before, she had -been, spontaneously a socialist, for the first time. The glow that had -come with his words was still there, drawing her, an unfulfilled -promise. She was still waiting to be, consciously, in league and -everlasting company with others, a socialist. Yet the earlier lonely -moment had been so far her only experience of the state; everything that -had followed had been a slow gradual undoing of it. - -What was the secret of the immense relief, the sense of being and doing -in an unbounded immensity that had come with her dreamy sudden words? -One moment sitting on the hearth-rug living in the magic of the woven -text, feeling its message rise from the quiet firelit room, drive -through the sound of the winter sea and out and away over the world, to -everyone who had ears to hear; giving the power of hearing to those who -had not, until they equally possessed it. And then hearing her own -voice, like a whisper in the immensity, thrilled with the sense of a -presented truth, coming _given_, suddenly, from nowhere, the glad sense -of a shape whose denial would be death, and bringing as she dreamily -followed its prompting, a willingness to suffer in its service. - -"You ought to cut out the pathos in that passage." - -"_Which_ passage, Miriametta?" The effort of throwing off the many -distractions of the interested, mocking, critical voice. - -"You weaken the whole argument by coming forward in those three words to -tell your readers what they ought to feel. An _enormous_ amount of time -is lost, while attention is turned from the spectacle to yourself." - -"Yes. _Which_ passage?" - -"In the moment that the reader turns away, everything goes, and they -come back distracted and different, having been racing all over their -own world, perhaps _indifferent_." - -"Passage, passage----" - -"The _real_ truth is that you don't feel that pathos to yourself, or not -in that way and in those words ... there are one or two earlier passages -that stopped me, the same sort of thing." - -"Right. We'll have'm all out." - -"Without them the book will convince everybody." - -"No sane person can read it and keep out of socialism." - -"No." But how fearful that sounds said by the author. As if he knew -something else as well. - -"Y'know _you_ ought to be a Lycurgan, Miriam." And then had come the -sense of the door closing on all past loneliness, the rich sense of -being carried forward to some new accompanied moulding change; but -without any desire to go. Even with him, a moment of expression, -seeming, while it lasted, enough in itself; the whole of life, when it -happened not alone, but in an understanding presence; led to _results_, -the destructive demand for the pinning of it down to some small shape of -specialised action. Could he not see that the thing so surprising her -and coming to him also as a surprise, was enough in itself ... would -disappear if she rushed forward into activities, masquerading, with -empty hands, as one who had something to give. Yet _he_ was going -forward into activities.... She ought, having learned from him a clear -theory of the working of the whole of human life, to be willing to -follow, only too glad of the opportunity of any sort of share, even as -an onlooker in the making of the new world. - -But if she responded, she would be supporting his wrong estimate of her, -his way of endowing everyone with his own gifts, seeing people only as -capability, waiting for opportunities for action. She wanted only -further opportunities with him, of forgetfulness, and the strange -following moments of expression. - -"Everyone will be socialists soon; there's no need to join societies." - -"There's mountains, my dear Miriam, _mountains_ of work ahead, that only -an organised society can compass. And you'd like the Lycurgans. We'll -make you a Lycurgan." - -"What could I do?" - -"You can talk. You might write. Edit. You've got a deadly critical eye. -Yes, you are a Lycurgan. That's settled." - -"How _can_ you say I can talk?" - -"You've got a _tenacity_. I'd back you against anyone in argument, when -you're roused." - -"Argument is no good to anybody, world without end, amen." - -"Don't be frivolous, Miriam. Real argument's a fine clean weapon." - -"Cutting both ways; proving _anything_." - -"Quarrelsome Miriam." - -"And you know what you think about my writing. That I, or _anybody_ -could _learn_ to write, passably." - -"If you _have_ written anything, I've not seen it. You shall learn to -write, passably, in the interests of socialism." - -What an awful fate. To sit in a dusty corner, loyally doing odd jobs, -considered by him "quite a useful intelligent creature" among other much -more clever, and to him, more attractive creatures, all working -submissively in the interests of a theory that he understood so well -that he must already be believing in something else. But she was already -a useful fiercely loyal creature, that was how he described her, at -Wimpole Street----But that was for the sake of freedom. Working with him -there would be no freedom at all. Only a series of loyal posings. - -Standing upon the footstool to get out, back, away from the wrong -turning into the sense of essential expression. The return into the room -of the sound of the sea, empty and harsh, in a void. - -"That's admirable. You could carry off any number of inches, Miriam. You -only want the helmet and the trident. You're Britannia, you know. The -British Constitution. You're infinitely more British than I am." - -"Foreigners always tell me I am the only English person who understands -them." - -"_Flattery._ You've no _idea_ how British you are. A mass of British -prejudice and intelligent obstinacy. I shall put you in a book." - -"Then how can you want me to be a socialist. I am a Tory and an -anarchist by turns." - -"You're certainly an anarchist. You're an individualist you know, that's -what's wrong with you." - -"And what's wrong with _you_?" - -"And now you shall experiment in being a socialist." - -"Tories are the best socialists." - -"You shall be a Tory socialist. My dear Miriam, there will be socialists -in the House of _Lords_." - -The same group of days had contained the relief of the beginning of -generalisations; the end, on her part, of stories about people, told -with an eye upon his own way of observing and stating. These stories -had, during the earlier time, kept him so amused and, with his profane -comments and paraphrases, so perpetually entertaining, that a large part -of her private councils during the visits were spent in reviewing the -long procession of Tansley Street boarders, the patients at Wimpole -Street, and people ranged far away in her earlier lives, as material for -anecdote. But throughout the delight of his interest and his surprising -reiterated envy of the variety of her contacts, there had been a -haunting sense of misrepresentation, and even of treachery to him, in -contributing to his puzzling almost unvarying vision of people as -pitifully absurd, from the small store of experiences she had dropped -and forgotten, until he drew them forth and called them wealth. - -His refusal to believe in a Russian's individuality because no one had -heard of him had set a term to these communications, leaving an abrupt -pain. It was so strange that he should fail to recognise the distinction -of the Russian _being_, the quality of the Russian attitude towards -life. He had followed with interest, gentle and patient at first before -her overwhelming conviction, allowing her to add stroke after stroke to -her picture, seeming for a moment to see what she saw and then----What -has he _done_? Either it was that his pre-arranged picture of European -life had no place for these so different, inactive Russians, or her -attempts to represent people in themselves, without borrowed methods of -portrayal, were useless because they fell between the caricature which -was so uncongenial to her and the methods of description current in -everyday life, which equally refused to serve by reason of their tacit -reference to ideas she could not accept. - -But the beginnings of abstract discussion had brought a most joyful -relief, and a confirming intensification of the beauty of the interiors -and of the surrounding landscape, in which their talks were set. -Discussing people, save when he elaborated legend and profanity until -privately she called upon the hosts of heaven to share this brightest -terrestrial mirth, cast a spell of sadness all about her. With every -finished vignette there came a sense of ending. Sacrificed to its sharp -expressiveness were the real moments of these people's lives; and the -moments of the present, counting themselves off, ignored and -irrecoverable, offering, as their extension, time that was unendurably -narrow and confined, a narrow featureless darkness, its walls grinning -with the transfixed features of consciousness that had always been, and -must, if the pictures were accepted as true, forever be, a motionless -absurdity. - -Launched into wide opposition, no longer trying to see with his eyes, -while still hoarding, as a contrasting amplification of her own visions, -much that he had given her, she found people still there; rallying round -her in might, ranging forward through time, each one standing clear of -everything that offered material for ironic commentary, in a radiant -individuality. - -Wide generalisation was, she had immediately vowed, the way to -illuminating contemplation of humanity. Its exercise made the present -moment a life in itself, going on forever; the thought of the speakers -and the surroundings blended in an unforgettable whole; her past life -gleaming about her in a chain of moments; leaping glad acceptances or -ardent refusals, of large general views. - -The joy of making statements not drawn from things heard or read but -plumbed directly from the unconscious accumulations of her own -experience was fermented by the surprise of his interested attention, -and the pride of getting him occasionally to accept an idea or to modify -a point of view. It beamed compensation for what she was losing in -sacrificing, whenever expression was urgent in her, his unmatchable -monologue to her own shapeless outpourings. But she laboured, now and -then successfully, to hold this emotion in subjection to the urgency of -the things she longed to express. - -"_Women_, everybody knows nowadays, have made civilisation, the thing -civilisation is so proud of--social life. It's one of the things I -dislike in them. There you are, by the way, women were the first -socialists." Havelock Ellis; and Emerson quoting Firdusi's description -of his Persian Lilla ... but the impression, remaining more sharp and -deep than the event, became one's own by revealing an inborn sharing of -the view expressed. And waiting behind it now, was the proof, in life, -as she had seen it. - -"I don't mean that idea of public opinion 'the great moulding and -civilising force steered by women' that even the most pessimistic men -admit, in horror." - -"What _do_ you mean, Miriam?" Patient scepticism. - -"Something quite different. It's amazing, the blindness in men, even in -you, about women. There must be a reason for it. Because it's universal. -It's no good looking, with no matter _what_ eyes, if you look in the -wrong place. All that men have done, since the beginning of the world, -is to find out and give names to and do, the things that were in women -from the beginning, and that the best of them have been doing all the -time. Not me." - -"_You_, Miriam, are an incorrigible _loafer_. I've a sneaking sympathy -with _that_." - -"Well, the thing is, that whereas a few men here and there are creators, -originators ... _artists_, women are this all the time." - -"My dear Miriam, I don't know _what_ women are. I'm enormously -interested in sex; but I don't know _anything_ about it. Nobody does. -That's just where we are." - -"Because you're a man and have no personality." - -"Don't talk nonsense, Miriam." - -"How can a man have personality?" - -"All right. _Men_--have no personality." - -"You see women simply as a sex. That's one of the proofs." - -"Right. Women have no sex." - -"You are doubtful about 'emancipating' women, because you think it will -upset their sex-life." - -"I don't know _anything_, Miriam. No personality. No knowledge. But -there's Miss Waugh, with a thoroughly able career behind her; been -_everywhere_, done _everything_, my dear Miriam; come out of it all, -shouting you back into the nursery." - -"I don't know her. Perhaps she's jealous, like a man, of her freedom. -But the point is, there's no emancipation to be done. Women are -emancipated." - -"Prove it, Miriam." - -"I can. Through their pre-eminence in an art. The art of making -atmospheres. It's as big an art as any other. Most women can exercise -it, for reasons, by fits and starts. The best women work at it the whole -of the time. Not one man in a million is aware of it. It's like air -within the air. It may be deadly. Cramping and awful, or simply -destructive, so that no life is possible within it. So is the bad art of -men. At its best it is absolutely life-giving. And not soft. Very hard -and stern and austere in its beauty. And like mountain air. And you -can't get behind it, or in any way divide it up. Just as with 'Art.' Men -live in it and from it all their lives without knowing. Even recluses." - -"Don't drive it too far, Miriam." - -"Well; I'm so staggered by it. All women, of course, know about it, and -_there's_ the explanation of why women clash. Over what men call -'trifles.' Because the thing I mean goes through everything. A woman's -way of 'being' can be discovered in the way she pours out tea. _Men_ -can't get on together. If they're boxed up. Do you know there's hardly a -partnership in Wimpole Street that's not a permanent feud. Yes. Would -you believe it. And for scandal and gossip and jealousy there's -_nothing_ to beat the professors in a University Town. Several of them -don't speak. They communicate by letter.... But it's the women who are -not grouped who can see all this most clearly. By moving, amongst the -grouped women, from atmosphere to atmosphere. It's one of my principal -social entertainments. I feel the atmosphere created by the lady of the -house as soon as I get on to the door step." - -"Perceptive Miriam.... You _have_ a flair, Miriam. I grant you that. I -believe in your flair." - -"Well, it's _true_, what I'm trying to tell you. It's one of the answers -to the question about women and art. It's all there. It doesn't show, -like men's art. There's no drama or publicity. _There_; d'you see? It's -hard and exacting; needing 'the maximum of detachment and control.' And -people have to learn, or be taught, to see it." - -"Y...es. Is it conscious?" - -"Absolutely. And there you are again. Artists, well, and _literary_ -people, say they have to get away from everything at intervals. They -associate with queer people, and some of them are dissipated. They can -only rest, stop being artists, by getting _away_. That is why so many -women get nervy and break down. The only way they can rest, is by being -nothing to nobody, leaving off for a while giving out any atmosphere." - -"Stop breathing." - -"Yes. But if you laugh at that, you must laugh at artists, _and_ -literary people." - -"I will. I _do_." - -"Yes; but in general. You must see the identity of the two things for -good or for bad. If people reverence men's art and feel their sacrifices -are worth while, to _themselves_, as well as to other people, they must -not just _pity_ the art of women. It doesn't matter to women. But it's -so jolly bad for men, to go about feeling lonely and superior. Men, and -the women who imitate them, bleat about women 'finding their truest -fulfilment in _self-sacrifice_.' In speaking of male art it is called -_self-realisation_. That's men all over. They get an illuminating -theory--man must die, to live--and apply it only to themselves. If a -theory is true, you may be sure it applies in a most thorough-going way -to women. They don't stop dead at self-sacrifice. They reap ... freedom. -Self-realisation. Emancipation. Lots of women hold back. Just as men -do--from exacting careers. _I_ do. _I_ don't want to exercise the -feminine art." - -"It's true you don't compete or exploit yourself, Miriam." - -"Some women want to be men. And the contrary, men wanting to be women, -is almost unknown. This is supposed to be evidence of the superiority of -the masculine state. It isn't. Women only want to be men before they -begin their careers. It's a longing for exemptions. Young women envy -men, as young men, faced with the hard work of life, envy dogs." - -"Harsh Miriam." - -"It's true. At any rate it's deserved, after all men have said. And I -believe it's _true_." - -"Pugilistic Miriam.... Your atmospheric idea is quite illuminating. I -think there's some truth in it; and I'd be with you altogether but for -one ... damning ... yes, I think absolutely damning, _fact_." - -"Well?" - -"The men women will marry. The men quite fine, intelligent women marry; -and _idolise_, my dear Miriam." - -"Many artists have to use any material that comes to hand. The treatment -is the thing." - -"Treatment that mistakes putty for marble, my dear Miriam----" - -"And you don't see that you are proving my point. Women _see_ things -when they are not there. That's creativeness. What is meant by women -'making' men." - -"They don't. They'll make idols of nothing at all; and go on burning -incense--all their lives." - -"I don't believe women are _ever_ deceived about their husbands. But -they don't give up hope. And there's something in everybody. That's what -women see." - -"Nonsense, Miriam. Girls, with quite good brains and abilities will -marry anything; accept its views and quote them." - -"Yes; just as they will show off a child's tricks. Views and opinions -are masculine things. Women are indifferent to them, really. Any set -will do. I know the way a woman's opinions and interests change with her -different husbands, if she marries more than once, is supposed to prove -the vacuity of her mind. Half the satirists of women have made their -reputation on that idea. It isn't so. It is that women can hold all -opinions at once, or any, or none. It's because they see the relations -of things which don't change, more than things which are always -changing, and mostly the importance to men of the things men believe. -But behind it all their own lives are untouched." - -"Behind.... What _is_ there behind, Miriam?" - -"Life." - -"What do they do with it?" - -"Live." - -"Mysterious, Miriam.... The business of women; the career; that makes -you all rivals, is to find fathers. Your material is children." - -"Then look here, if you think _that_, there's a perfect instance. If -women's material is people, their famous 'curiosity' is the curiosity of -the artist. Men call it 'incurable' in women. Men's curiosity, about -things, science and so forth, is called divine. There you are. My -_word_." - -"_I_ don't, Miriam." - -"Shaw knows how wildly interested women are in psychology. That's -funny.... But about children. If only you could realise how incidental -all that is." - -"Incidental to what?" - -"To the _life_ of the individual." - -"Try it, Miriam. Marry your Jew. You know Jew and English makes a good -mix." - -"You see I never knew he was a Jew. It did not come up until a possible -future came in view. I _couldn't_ have Jewish children." - -"Incidents. Mere incidents." - -"No; the wrong material. I, being myself, couldn't do anything with it; -couldn't be anything in relationship to it." - -"You'd _be_, through seeing its possibilities and making an atmosphere." - -"I've told you I'm _not_ one of those stupendous women." - -"What _are_ you?" - -"Well, now here's something you will like. If I were to marry a Jew, I -should feel that all my male relatives would have the right to _beat_ -me." - -"That's strange.... And, I think, great nonsense, Miriam." - -"And I'm not anti-semite. I think Jews are better Christians than we -are. We have things to learn from them. But not by marrying them, until -they've learnt things from us. Women, particularly, can't marry Jews. -Men can marry Jewesses, if they like." - -"Marriage is a more important affair for women than for men. Just so." - -"I didn't say so." - -"You _did_, Miriam, and it's quite true." - -"It appears to be so because, as I've been trying to show you, men don't -know where they are." - -"Your man'll know, Miriam. You ought to marry and have children. You'd -have good children. Good shapes and good brains." - -"The mere sight of a child, moving unconsciously, its little shoulders -and busy intentions, makes me catch my breath." - -"Marry your Jew, Miriam. Well--perhaps no; don't marry your Jew." - -"The other day we were walking somewhere. I was dead-tired. He knew it -and kept on suggesting a hansom. Suddenly there was a woman, lugging a -heavy perambulator up some steps. He stood still, shouting to _me_ to -help her." - -"What did you do?" - -"I blazed his own words back at him. I daresay I stamped my foot. -Meanwhile the woman, who was very burly, had got the perambulator up. We -walked on and presently he said in a quiet intensely interested voice -'_Why_ did you not help this woman?'" - -"What did you say?" - -"I began to talk about something else." - -"Diplomatic Miriam." - -"Not at all. It's _useless_ to talk to _instincts_. I know; because I -have tried. Poor little man. I am afraid, now that I am not going to -marry him, of hurting and tiring him. I talked one night. We had been -agreeing about things, and I went on and on, it was in the drawing-room -in the dark, after a theatre, talking almost to myself, very interested, -forgetting that he was there. Presently a voice said, trembling with -fatigue, 'Believe me, Miriam, I am profoundly interested. Will you -perhaps put all this down for me on paper?' Yes. Wasn't it funny and -_appalling_. It was three o'clock. Since then I have been afraid. -Besides, he will marry a Jewess. If I were not sure of that I could not -contemplate his loneliness. It's heartbreaking. When I go to see friends -in the evening, he waits outside." - -"I _say_. Poor _chap_. That's quite touching. You'll marry him yet, -Miriam." - -"There are ways in which I like him and am in touch with him as I never -could be with an Englishman. Things he understands. And his absolute -sweetness. Absence of malice and enmity. It's so strange too, with all -his ideas about women, the things he will do. Little things like -cleaning my shoes. But look here; an important thing. Having children is -just shelving the problem, leaving it for the next generation to solve." - -That stood out as the end of the conversation; bringing a sudden bright -light. The idea that there was something essential, for everybody, that -could not be shelved. Something had interrupted. It could never be -repeated. But surely he must have agreed, if there had been time to -bring it home to him. Then it might have been possible to get him to -admit uniqueness ... individuality. He would. But would say it was -negligible. Then the big world he thinks of, since it consists of -individuals, is also negligible.... - -_Something_ had been at work in the conversation, making it all so easy -to recover. Vanity? The relief of tackling the big man? Not altogether. -Because there had been moments of thinking of death. Glad death if the -truth could _once_ be stated. Disinterested rejoicing in the fact that a -man who talked to so many people was hearing _something_ about the world -of women. And if anyone had been there to express it better, the relief -would have been there, just the same, without jealousy. But what an -unconscious compliment to men, to feel that it mattered whether or no -they understood anything about the world of women.... - -The remaining days of the visit had glowed with the sense of the -beginning of a new relationship with the Wilsons. The enchantment that -surrounded her each time she went to see them and always as the last -hours went by, grew oppressive with the reminder of its impermanence, -shone, at last, wide over the future. The end of a visit would never -again bring the certainty of being finally committed to an overwhelming -combination of poverties, cut off, by an all-round ineligibility, from -the sun-bathed seaward garden, the joyful brilliant seaside light -pouring through the various bright interiors of the perfect little -house; the inexpressible _charm_, always renewed, and remaining, however -deeply she felt at variance with the Wilson reading of life, the topmost -radiance of her social year; ignored and forgotten nearly all the time, -but shining out whenever she chanced to look round at the resources of -her outside life, a bright enduring pinnacle, whose removal would level -the landscape to a rolling plain, its modest hillocks, easy to climb, -robbed of their light, the bright reflection that came, she half-angrily -admitted, from this central height. - -But there had been a difference in the return to London after that -visit, that had filled her with misgiving. Usually upon the afterpain of -the wrench of departure, the touch of her own returning life had come -like a balm. That time, she had seemed, as the train steamed off, to be -going for the first time, not away from, but towards all she had left -behind. There had been a strange exciting sense of travelling, as -everyone seemed to travel, preoccupied, missing the adventure of the -journey, merely suffering it as an unavoidable time-consuming movement -from one place to another. She, like all these others, had a place and a -meaning in the outside world. She could have talked, if opportunity had -offered, effortlessly, from the surface of her mind, borrowing emphasis -and an appearance of availability and interest, from a secure unshared -possession. She had suddenly known that it was from this basis of -preoccupation with secure unshared possessions that the easy shapely -conversations of the world were made. But also that those who made them -were committed, by their preoccupations, to a surrounding deadness. -Liveliness of mind checked the expressiveness of surroundings. The -gritty interior of the carriage had remained intolerable throughout the -journey. The passing landscape had never come to life. - -But the menace of a future invested in unpredictable activities in a -cause that seemed, now that she understood it, to have been won -invisibly since the beginning of the world, was lost almost at once in -the currents of her London life. Things had happened that had sharply -restored her normal feeling of irreconcilableness; of being altogether -differently fated, and to return, if ever they should wish it, only at -the bidding of the inexpressible charm. There had been things moving all -about her with an utterly reassuring independent reality. Mr. Leyton's -engagement ... bringing to light as she lived it through chapter by -chapter, sitting at work in the busy highway of the Wimpole Street -house, a world she had forgotten, and that rose now before her in serene -difficult perfection; a full denial of Mr. Wilson's belief in the death -of family life. In the midst of her effort to launch herself into a -definite point of view, it had made her swerve away again towards the -beliefs of the old world. Meeting them afresh after years of oblivion, -she had found them unassailably new. The new lives inheriting them -brought in the fresh tones, the thoughts and movement of modern life, -and left the old symphony recreated and unchanged. - -The Tansley Street world had been full and bright all that summer with -the return of whole parties of Canadians as old friends. With their -untiring sociability, their easy inclusion of the abruptly appearing -unintroduced foreigners and provincials, they had made the world look -like one great family party. - -They had influenced even Michael ... steeping him in sunlit gaiety. By -breaking up the strain of unrelieved association they had made him seem -charming again. Their immense respect for him turned him, in their -presence, once more into a proud uncriticised possession. - -Rambles round the squares with him, snatched late at night, had been -easy to fill with hilarious discussions of the many incidents; serious -exhausting talk held in check by the near presence of unquestioning -people, and the promise of the lively morrow. Yet every evening, when -they had her set down and surrounded at the piano, there came the sense -of division. They cared only for music that interpreted their point of -view. - -Captain Gradoff ... large flat lonely face, pock-marked, eyes looking at -nothing, with an expression of fear. Improper, naked old grizzly head, -suggesting other displayed helpless heads, above his stout neat sociable -Russian skipper's jacket ... praying in his room at the top of his -voice, with howls and groans. Suddenly teaching us all to make a long -loud syren-shriek with half a Spanish nutshell. He had an invention for -the Admiralty ... lonely and frightened, in a ghostly world; with an -invention to save the lives of ships. - -Engstroem and Sigerson! - -Engstroem's huge frame and bulky hard red face, shining with simplicity -below his great serene intellectual brow and up-shooting hair. His first -evening at Mrs. Bailey's right hand, saying gravely out into the silence -of the crowded dinner table, "there is in Pareece very much automobiles, -and good wash. In London not. I send much manchettes, and all the bords -are cassed." Devout reproachfulness in his voice; and his brow pure, -motherly serenity. Sweden in the room amongst all the others. Teased, -like everyone else, with petty annoyances. But with immense strength to -throw everything off. Everyone waiting in the peaceful silence that -surrounded the immense gently booming voice; electing him president as -he sat burying his jests with downcast eyes that left the mask of his -bluntly carven face yielded up to friendship. Waves of strength and -kindliness coming from him, bringing exhilaration. Making even the -Canadians seem pale and small and powerless. At the mercy of life. And -then the harsh kind blaze of his brown eyes again. More unhesitating -phrases. He had brought strength and happiness into the house. A rough, -clump-worded Swedish song, rawly affronting the English air, words of -his separate country, the only words for his deepest meanings, making -barriers ... till he leapt, he was so _light_ in his strength, on to a -chair to bring out the top note, and the barriers fell.... He pealed his -notes in farcical agony towards the ceiling. In that moment he was -kneeling, bowed before the coldest, looking through to the hidden -sunlight in everybody.... Conducting an imaginary orchestra from behind -the piano. Sind the Trommels in Ordna? Everybody had understood, and -loved each word he spoke. - -"Wo ist the Veoleena Sigerson? I shall bring." Springing from his place -near the door, lightly in and out amongst the seated forms, leaping -obstacles all over the room on his way back to the open door, struggling -noiselessly with all his strength, strong legs sliding under him as he -pulled at the handle to open the open door. He and Sigerson had stayed -on after the spring visitors. Evenings, voyaging alone with the two of -them into strange new music. He had forgotten that he had said, -I play nor sing not payshionate musics in bystanding of -Miss--little--Hendershon. And the German theatre ... a shamed moving -forward into suspicion, even of Irving, in the way they all played, -working equally, together ... all taking care of the play ... play and -acting, rich with life. - -Sigerson was jealous. He wanted all the bright sunlight to himself and -tried to hold it with his cold scornful brains. Waspy Schopenhauerism. -They went to _Peckham_. The little weepy dabby assistant of the Peckham -landlady, her speech ready-made quotations in the worst London English. -Impure vowels, slobbery consonants. She reflected his sunlight like a -dead moon. There was a large old garden. His first English garden in -summer. He had loved it with all the power of the Swedish landscape in -him turned on to its romantic strangeness, and identified the dabby girl -with it. She fainted when he went away. A despair like death. He had -come faithfully back and married her. _What_ could she, forever Peckham, -seeing nothing, distorting everything by her speech, make of Stockholm? - -And all the time the Wimpole Street days had glowed more and more with -the forgotten story. Thanks to the scraps of detail in Mr. Leyton's -confidences she had lived in the family of girls, centred round their -widowed mother in the large old suburban house, garden girt, and -bordering on countrified open spaces. She imagined it always sunlit, and -knew that it rang all the morning with the echoes of work and laughter, -and the sharp-tongued ironic commentary of a family of Harrietts freed -from the shadows that had surrounded Harriett's young gaiety, by the -presence of an income, small but secure. The bustle of shared work, all -exquisitely done in the exacting, rewarding old-fashioned way, nothing -bought that could be home-made, filled each morning with an engrossing -life of its own, lit, by a surrounding endless glory, and left the house -a prepared gleaming orderliness, and the girls free to retreat to a -little room where a sewing machine was enthroned amidst a licensed -disorder of fashion papers, with coloured plates, and things in process -of making according to the newest mode, from oddments carefully selected -at the west-end sales. When they were there, during the times of busy -work following on consultations and decisions, gossip broke forth; and -thrilling the tones of their gossiping voices, and shining all about -them, obliterating the walls of the room and the sense of the day and -the hour, was a bright eternity of recurring occasions, when the sum of -their household labours blossomed unto fulfilment ... at-home days; -calls; winter dances; huge picnic parties in the summer, to which they -went, riding capably, in their clever home-made cycling costumes on -brilliantly gleaming bicycles. And all the year round, shed over each -revolving week, the glamour of Sunday ... the perpetual rising up, -amongst the varying seasons and days, of a single unvarying shape, -standing, in the morning quiet, chill and accusing between them and the -warm, far-off everyday life. The relief of the descent into the -distractions of dressing for church and bustling off in good time; the -momentary return of the challenging shape with the sight of the old grey -ivy-grown church; escape from it again into the refuge of the porch -amongst the instreaming neighbours, and the final fading of its outlines -into the colour and sound of the morning service, church shapes in stone -and wood and metal, secure round about their weakness, holding them -safe. The sermon, though they suffered it uncritically, could not, -preached by an intelligent or stupid man, but secure, soft-living and -married, revive the morning strength of the challenging shape, and as it -sounded on towards its end, the grey of another Sunday morning had -brought in sight the rest of the day, when, at the worst, if nobody -came, there was the evening service, the escape in its midst into a -state of bliss that stilled everything, and went on forever, making the -coming week, even if the most glorious things were going to happen, -wonderful only because it was so amazing to be alive at all ... That was -too much ... these girls did not consciously feel like that; perhaps -partly because they had a brother, were the kind of girls who would have -at least one brother, choking things back by obliviousness, but breezy -and useful in many ways. It's good to have brothers; but there is -something they kill, if they are in the majority, absolutely, so that -one girl with many brothers rarely becomes a woman, but can sometimes be -a nice understanding jolly sort of man. Brothers without sisters are -worse off than sisters without brothers; unless they are very gifted ... -in which case they are really, as people say of the poets, more than -three parts women. But Sundays, for all girls, were in a way the same. -And though these girls did not reason and were densely unconscious of -the challenge embodied in their religion, and enjoyed being snobbish -without knowing it, or knowing the meaning and good of snobbishness, -their unconsciousness was harmless, and the huge Sunday things they -lived in, held and steered their lives, making, in England, in them and -in all of their kind, a world that the clever people who laughed at them -had never been inside.... _They_ did not laugh, except the busy enviable -blissful laughter permitted by God, from the midst of their lives, about -nothing at all. They thought liberals vulgar--mostly chapel people; and -socialists mad. But in the midst of their conservatism was something -that could never die, and that these other people did not seem to -possess.... - -And the best, most Charlotte Yonge part of the story, was the arrival of -Mr. Leyton and his cousin, whilst these girls were still at home amongst -their Sundays; and the opening out, for two of them at once, of a -future; with the past behind it undivided. - -And they had suddenly asked her to their picnic. And she had been back, -for the whole of that summer's afternoon, in the world of women; and the -forgotten things, that had first driven her away from it, had emerged -again, no longer mysterious, and with more of meaning in them, so that -she had been able to achieve an appearance of conformity, and had felt -that they regarded her not with the adoration or half-pitying dislike -she had had from women in the past, but as a woman, though only as a -weird sort of female who needed teaching. They had no kind of fear of -her; not because they were massed there in strength. Any one of them, -singly, would, she had felt, have been equal to her in any sort of -circumstances; her superior; a rather impatient but absolutely loyal and -chivalrous guide in the lonely exclusive feminine life. - -Surprised by the unanticipated joy of a summer holiday in miniature, -their gift, wrested by their energies from the midst of the sweltering -London July, and with their world and its ways pulling at her memory, -and the door of their good fellowship wide open before her, for an hour -she had let go and gone in and joined them, holding herself teachable, -keeping in check, while she contemplated the transformation of Mr. -Leyton under the fire of their chaff, her impulse to break into the -ceaseless jesting with some shape of conversation. And she had felt that -they regarded her as a postulant, a soul to be snatched from outer -darkness, a candidate as ready to graduate as they were, to grant a -degree. And the breaking of the group had left her free to watch the -way, without any gap of silence or difficulty of transition, they had -set the men to work on the clearing up and stowing away of the -paraphernalia of the feast; training them all the while according to the -Englishwoman's pattern, an excellent pattern, she could not fail to see, -imagining these young males as they would be, undisciplined by this -influence, and comparing them with the many unshaped young men she had -observed on their passage through the Tansley Street house. - -But all the time she had been half aware that she was only watching a -picture, a charmed familiar scene, as significant and as unreal as the -set figure of a dance. Giving herself to its discipline she would reap -experience and knowledge, confirming truths; but only truths with which -she was already familiar, leading down to a lonely silence, where -everything still remained unanswered, and the dancers their unchanged -unexpressed selves. Individual converse with these young men on the -terms these women had trained them to accept, was impossible to -contemplate. Every word would be spoken in a dark void. - -Breaking in, as the little feast ended in a storm of flying buns and -eggshells, a little scene that she had forgotten completely at the -moment of its occurrence had risen sharply clear in her mind.... A -family party of quiet soberly dressed Scotch Canadian people from the -far-west, seated together at the end of the Tansley Street dinner-table, -coming out, on the eve of their departure, from the enclosure of their -small, subduedly conversing group, to respond, in level friendly tones, -to some bold person's enquiries as to the success of their visit. The -sudden belated intimacy, ripened in silence, had seemed very good, -compressed into a single occasion that would leave the impression of -these homely people single and strong, so well worth losing that their -loss would be a permanent acquisition. Suddenly from their midst, the -voice of the youngest daughter, a pale, bitter-faced girl with a long -thin pigtail of sandy hair, had rung out down the table. - -"London's _fine_. But the folks don't all match it. The girls don't. -They're just queer. I reckon there's two things they don't know. How to -wear their waists, and how to go around with the boys. When I hear an -English girl talking to boys, I just have to think she's funny in the -head. If Canadian girls were stiff like that, they'd have the dullest -time on earth." Her expressionless pale blue eyes had fixed no one, and -she had concluded her speech with a little fling that had settled her -back in her chair, unconcerned. - -And in the interval before the ride home, when the men had been driven -off, and she was alone with the sisters and saw them relax and yawn, -speak in easy casual tones and apostrophise small things, with great -gusto, in well-chosen forcible terms, while the men were no doubt also -enjoying the same blessed relief, she had felt that the Canadian girl -was more right than she knew. Between men and girls, throughout English -life there was no exchange, save in the ways of love. Except for those -moments when they stood, to each other, for all the world, they never -met. And the sense of these sacred moments embarrassed, even while it -shaped and beautified, every occasion. Women were its guardians and -hostesses. Their guardianship made them hostesses for life. Upon the -faces of these girls as they sat about unmasked and pathetically -individual, it shed its radiance and, already, its heavy shadows. - -Yet American girls with their easy regardlessness seemed lacking in -depth of feminine consciousness, too much turned towards the surfaces of -life, and the men with their awakened understanding and quick -serviceableness, by so much the less men. In any case there was not the -recognisable difference in personality that was so striking in England, -and that seemed in some way, even at one's moments of greatest -irritation with the women, to bring all the men under a reproach. Many -young American men had faces moulded on the lines of responsible -middle-aged German housewives; while some of the quite young girls -looked out at life with the sharp shrewd repudiation of cynical elderly -bachelors. If it were the building up of a civilisation that had brought -the sexes together, for generations, in relations that came in English -society only momentarily, at a house-warming or a picnic, would the -results remain? Or would there be, in America, later on, a beginning of -the English differences, the women moving, more and more heavily veiled -and burdened, towards the heart of life and the men getting further and -further away from the living centre. Ought men and women to modify each -other, each standing as it were, halfway between the centre and the -surface, each with a view across the other's territory? Or should they -accentuate their natural differences? _Were_ the differences natural? - -As they rode home through the twilit lanes, the insoluble problem, -sounding for her in every shouted remark, had been continually soothed -away by the dewy, sweet-scented, softly streaming air. The slurring of -their tyres in unison along the smooth roadway, the little chorus of -bells as they approached a turning, made them all one entered for good -into the heritage of the accomplished day. Nothing could touch the -vision that rose and the confessions that were made within its silence. -Within each one of the indistinguishable forms the sense of the day was -clearing with each moment; its incidents blending and shaping, an -irrevocable piece of decisive life; but behind and around and through it -all was summer, smiling. Before each pair of eyes, cleared of heat and -dust by the balm of the evening air, the picture of the English summer, -in blue and gold and green, stood clear within the outspread invisible -distances. _That_ was the harvest, the thing that drew people to the -labour of organising picnics, that remained afterwards forever; that -would remain for the lovers after their love was forgotten; that linked -all the members of the party in a fellowship stronger than their -differences. - -But when they reached the suburbs, the problem was there again in might, -incessant as the houses looming by on either side, driven tyrannously -home by the easy flight ahead, as Highgate sloped to London, of the two -whose machines were fitted with "free" wheels.... Only a mind turned -altogether towards outside things could invent.... - -And then _London_ came, opening suddenly before me as I rode out alone -from under a dark archway into the noise and glare of a gaslit Saturday -night. - -Trouble fell away like a cast garment as I swung forward, steering with -thoughtless ease, into the southernmost of the four converging streets. - -This was the true harvest of the summer's day; the transfiguration of -these northern streets. They were not London proper; but tonight the -spirit of London came to meet her on the verge. Nothing in life could be -sweeter than this welcoming--a cup held brimming to her lips, and -inexhaustible. What lover did she want? No one in the world could oust -this mighty lover, always receiving her back without words, engulfing -and leaving her untouched, liberated and expanding to the whole range of -her being. In the mile or so ahead, there was endless time. She would -travel further than the longest journey, swifter than the most rapid -flight, down and down into an oblivion deeper than sleep; and drop off -at the centre, on to the deserted grey pavements, with the high quiet -houses standing all about her in air sweetened by the evening breath of -the trees, stealing down the street from either end; the sound of her -footsteps awakening her again to the single fact of her incredible -presence within the vast surrounding presence. Then, for another -unforgettable night of return, she would break into the shuttered house -and gain her room and lie, till she suddenly slept, tingling to the -spread of London all about her, herself one with it, feeling her life -flow outwards, north, south, east and west, to all its margins. - -And it had been so. Nothing had intervened, but, for a moment, the -question, coming as the wild flowers fell from her unclasped belt, -bringing back the long-forgotten day--what of those others, lost, for -life, in perpetual association? - -The long lane of Bond Street had come to an end, bringing her out into -the grey-brown spaciousness of Piccadilly, lit sparsely by infrequent -globes of gold. The darkness cast by the massive brown buildings -thrilled heavily about the shrouded oblivion of west-end life. She -passed elderly men, black coated and mufflered over their evening dress, -wrapped in their world, stamped with its stamp, still circulating, like -the well preserved coins of a past reign--thinking their sets of -thoughts, going home to the small encirclement of clubs and chambers, a -little aware of the wide night and the time of year told on the air as -they had passed along where the Green Park slept on the far side of the -road. This was their moment, between today and tomorrow, of freedom to -move amongst the crowding presences gathered through so many years -within themselves; slowly, mannishly; old-mannishly, perpetually pulled -up, daunted, taking refuge in their sets of thoughts; not going far, -never returning to renew a sally, for the way home was short, and their -gait showed them going, almost marching, to the summons of their various -destinations. Some of their faces betrayed as they went by, unconscious -of observation, the preoccupation that closed in on all their solitude; -a look of counting, but with liberal evening hand, the days that -remained for them to go their rounds. One came prowling with slow, -gentlemanly stroll, half-halting to stare at her, dim-eyed, from his -mufflings. Here and there a woman, strayed away from the searching light -and the rivalry of the Circus, hovered in the shadows. Presently, across -the way, the Park moved by, brimming through its railings a midnight -freshness into the dry sophisticated air. Through this strange mingling, -hansoms from the theatres beyond the Circus, swinging, gold-lamped, one -by one, along the centre of the deserted roadway, drew bright threads of -younger west-end life, meshed and tangled, men and women from social -throngs, for whom no solitude waited. - -Piccadilly Circus was almost upon her, the need for thoughtless hurrying -across its open spaces; the awakening on the far side with the west-end -dropping away behind; and the tide of her own neighbourhood setting -towards her down Shaftesbury Avenue; bringing with it the present -movement of her London life.... Why hadn't she a club down here; a -neutral territory where she could finish her thoughts undisturbed? - -Defying the surrounding influences, she glanced back at the months -following the picnic ... the shifting of the love-story into the midst -of the Wimpole Street household, making her room like a little theatre -where at any moment the curtain might go up on a fresh scene ... knowing -them all so well, being behind the scenes as well as before them, she -had watched with a really cruel indifference, and let the light of the -new theories play on all she saw. For unconscious unquestioning people -were certainly ruled by _something_. The acting of the play had been all -carefully according to the love-stories of the sentimental books, would -always be, for good kind people brought up on the old traditions. And a -predictable future was there, another home life carrying the traditions -forward. All the old family sayings applied. Many of them were quoted -with a rueful recognition. But they were all proud of playing these -recognisable parts. All of their faces had confessed, as they had come, -one by one, betweenwhiles, to talk freely to her alone, their belief in -the story that had lain, hidden and forgotten, in the depths of her -heart; making her affection for them blaze up afresh from the roots of -her being. She had _seen_ the new theories disproved. Not that there was -not some faint large outline of truth in them, but that it was so large -and loose that it did not fit individuals. It did not correspond to any -individual experience because it was obliged to ignore the underlying -things of individuality.... Blair Leighton ... Marcus Stone ... Watts; -Mendelssohn, corresponded to an actual individual truth.... The new -people did not know it because they were odd, isolated people without -up-bringing and circumstances? They did not know because they were -without backgrounds? Quick and clever, like Jews without a country? They -would fasten in this story on the critical dismay of the parents, make -comedy or tragedy out of the lack of sympathy between the two families, -the persistence of unchanged character in each one, that would tell -later on. But comedy and tragedy equally left everything unstated. No -blind victimising force could account for the part of the story they -left untold, something that justified the sentimental books they all -jeered at; a light, that had come suddenly holding them all gentle and -hushed behind even their busiest talk; bringing wide thoughts and -sympathies; centring in the girl; breaking down barriers so completely -that for a while they all seemed to exchange personalities. Blind force -could not soften and illuminate.... There was something more than an -allurement of "nature," a veil of beauty disguising the "brutal physical -facts." Why brutal? Brutal is deliberate, a thing of the will. They -meant brutish. But what was wrong with the brutes, except an absence of -freewill? Their famous "brutal frankness" was brutish frankness, showing -them pitifully proud of their knowledge of facts that looked so large, -and ignorant of the tiny enormous undying fact of freewill. Perhaps -women have more freewill than men? - -It is because these men _write_ so well that it is a relief, from -looking and enduring the clamour of the way things state themselves from -several points of view simultaneously, to read their large superficial -statements. Light seems to come, a large comfortable stretching of the -mind, things falling into an orderly scheme, the flattering fascination -of grasping and elaborating the scheme. But the after reflection is -gloom ... a poisoning gloom over everything.... "Good writing" leaves -gloom. Dickens doesn't.... But people say he's not a good writer.... -_Youth_ ... and _Typhoon_.... Oh "_Stalked about gigantically in the -darkness_." ... Fancy forgetting that. And he is modern and a good -writer. New. They all raved quietly about him. But it was not like -reading a book at all.... Expecting good difficult "writing" some -mannish way of looking at things, and then ... complete forgetfulness of -the worst time of the day on the most grilling day of the year in a -crowded Lyons' at lunch-time and afterwards joyful strength to face the -disgrace of being an hour or more late for afternoon work.... They leave -life so small that it seems worthless. He leaves everything big; and all -he tells added to experience forever. It's dreadful to think of people -missing him; the forgetfulness and the new birth into life. Even God -would enjoy reading Typhoon.... Then _that_ is "great fiction?" -"Creation?" Why these falsifying words, making writers look cut-off and -mysterious? _Imagination._ What is imagination? It always seems -insulting, belittling, both to the writer and to life.... He looked and -listened with his whole self--perhaps he is a small pale invalid--and -then came 'stalked about gigantically' ... not made, nor created, nor -begotten, but _proceeding_ ... and working his salvation. That is what -matters to him.... In the day of Judgment, though he is a writer, he -will be absolved. Those he has redeemed will be there to shout for him. -But he will still have to go to Purgatory; or be born again as a woman. -_Why_ come forward suddenly, in the midst of a story to say they live -far from reality? A sudden smooth complacent male voice, making your -attention rock between the live text and the picture of a supercilious -lounging form, slippers, a pipe, other men sitting round, and then the -phrase so smooth and good that it almost compels belief. Why cannot men -exist without thinking themselves all there is? - -She was in the open roadway, passing into the deeps of the central -freedom of Piccadilly Circus, the crowded corner unknowingly left -behind. Just ahead was the island, the dark outline of the fountain, the -small surmounting figure almost invisible against the shadowy upper mass -of a bright-porched building over the way. The grey trottoir, empty of -the shawled flowerwomen and their great baskets, was a quiet haven. The -surrounding high brilliancies beneath which people moved along the -pavements from space to space of alternating harsh gold and shadowy -grey, met softly upon its emptiness, drawing a circle of light round the -shadow cast by the wide basin of the fountain. There was a solitary -man's figure standing near the curb, midway on her route across the -island to take to the roadway opposite Shaftesbury Avenue; standing -arrested; there was no traffic to prevent his crossing; a watchful -habitue; she would pass him in a moment, the last fragment of the -west-end ... good-bye, and her thoughts towards gaining the wide -homeward-going lane. A little stoutish dapper grey-suited ... _Tommy -Babington!_ Standing at ease, turned quite away from the direction that -would take him home; still and expressionless, unrecognisable save for -the tilt of his profile and the set of his pince-nez. She had never -before seen him in unconscious repose, never with this look of a -motionless unvoyaged soul encased in flesh; yet had always known even -when she had been most attracted, that thus he was. He had glanced. Had -he recognised her? It was too late to wheel round and save his solitude. -Going on, she must sweep right across his path. Fellow-feeling was -struggling against her longing to touch, through the medium of his -voice, the old home-life so suddenly embodied. He had seen her, and his -unawakened face told her that she would neither pause nor speak. Years -ago they would have greeted each other vociferously.... She was now so -shrouded that he was not sure she had recognised him. Through his -stupefaction smouldered a suspicion that she wished to avoid -recognition. He was obviously encumbered with the sense of having placed -her amidst the images of his preoccupation. She rushed on, passing him -with a swift salute, saw him raise his hat with mechanical promptitude -as she stepped from the curb and forward, pausing an instant for a -passing hansom, in the direction of home. It was done. It had always -been done from the very beginning. They had met equally at last. This -was the reality of their early association. Her spirits rose, clamorous. -It was epical she felt. One of those things arranged above one's head -and perfectly staged. Tommy of all people wakened thus out of his -absorption in the separated man's life that so decorated him with -mystery in the feminine suburbs; shocked into helpless inactivity; glum -with an irrevocable recognising hostility. It had been arranged. Silent -acceptance had been forced upon him, by a woman of his own class. She -almost danced to the opposite pavement in this keenest, witnessed moment -of her yearslong revel of escape. He would presently be returning to -that other enclosed life to which, being a man, and dependent on -comforts, he was fettered. Already in his mind was one of those formulas -that echoed about in the enclosed life ... "Oui, ma chere, little Mirry -_Henderson_, strolling, at midnight, across Piccadilly Circus." - -Suddenly it struck her that the life of men was pitiful. They hovered -about the doors of freedom, returning sooner or later to the hearth, -where even if they were autocrats they were not free; but passing -guests, never fully initiated into the house-life, where the real active -freedom of the women resided behind the noise and tumult of meetings. -Man's life was bandied to and fro ... from _word_ to _word_. Hemmed in -by women, fearing their silence, unable to enter its freedom--being -himself made of words--cursing the torrents of careless speech with -which its portals were defended. - -And all the time unselfconscious thoughtless little men, with neat or -shabby sets of unconsidered words for everything, busily bleating -through cornets, blaring through trombones and euphoniums, thrumming -undertones on double-basses. She summoned Harriett and shrieked with -laughter at the cheerful din. It was cheerful, even in a funeral march. -There would certainly be music in heaven; but not books. - -The shock of meeting Tommy had brought the grey of tomorrow morning into -the gold-lit streets. There was a fresh breeze setting down Shaftesbury -Avenue. Here, still on the Circus, was that little coffee-place. Tommy -was going home. _She_ was rescuing the last scrap of a London evening -here at the very centre and then going home, on foot, still well within -the charmed circle. - -The spell of the meeting with Tommy broke as she went down the little -flight of steps. Here was eternity, the backward vista indivisible, -attended by throngs of irreconcilable interpretations. Years ago, a -crisis of loneliness, this little doorway, a glimpse, from the top of -the steps, of a counter and a Lockhart urn, a swift descent, unseen -people about her, companions; misery left behind, another little -sanctuary added to her list. The next time, coming coldly with Michael -Shatov, in a unison of escape from everlasting conflict; people clearly -visible, indifferent and hard; the moment of catching, as they sat down, -the flicker of his mobile eyelid, the lively unveiled recognising glance -he had flung at the opposite table, describing its occupants before she -saw them; the rush of angry sympathy; a longing to _blind_ him; in some -way to screen them from the intelligent unseeing glance of all the men -in the world. - -"You don't _see_ them; they are not _there_ in what you see." - -"These types are generally quite rudimentary; there is no question of a -soul there." - -"If you could only have seen your look; the most horrible look I have -ever seen; _alive_ with interest." - -"There is always a certain interest." - -The strange agony of knowing that in that moment he had been alone and -utterly spontaneous; simple and whole; that it had been, for him, a -moment of release from the evening's misery; a sudden plunge into his -own eternity, his unthreatened and indivisible backward vista. The -horrible return, again and again, in her own counsels, to the fact that -she had seen, that night, for herself, more than he had ever told her; -that the pity he had appealed to was unneeded; his appeal a bold bid on -the strength of his borrowed conviction that women do not, in the end, -really care. How absolutely men are deceived by a little -cheerfulness.... - -And now she herself was interested; had attained unawares a sort of -connoisseurship, taking in, at a glance, nationality, type, status, the -difference between inclination and misfortune. Was it he who had aroused -her interest? Was this contamination or illumination? - -And Michael's past was a matter of indifference.... Only because it no -longer concerned her? Then it _had_ been jealousy? Her new calm interest -in these women was jealousy. Jealousy of the appeal to men of their -divine simplicity? - -"... which women don't understand. - -And them as sez they does is not the marryin' brand." - -Oh, the hopeless eternal inventions and ignorance of men; their utter -cleverness and ignorance. _Why_ had they been made so clever and yet so -fundamentally stupid? - -She ordered her coffee at the counter and stood facing upstairs towards -the oblong of street. The skirts of women, men's trousered legs, framed -for an instant in the doorway, passed by, moving slowly, with a lifeless -intentness.... Is the absence of personality original in men? Or only -the result of their occupations? Original. Otherwise environment is more -than the human soul. It is original. Belonging to maleness; to Adam with -his spade; lonely in a universe of _things_. It causes them to be -moulded by their occupations, taking shape, and status, from what they -do. A barrister, a waiter, recognisable. Men have no natural rank. A -woman can become a waitress and remain herself. Yet men pity women, and -think them hard because they do not pity each other. - -It is man, puzzled, astray, always playing with breakable toys, lonely -and terrified in his universe of chaotic forces who is pitiful. The -chaos that torments him is his own rootless self. The key, unsuspected, -at his side. - -In women like Eleanor Dear? Calm and unquestioning. Perfectly at home in -life. With a charm beyond the passing charm of a man. She was central. -All heaven and earth about her as she spoke. Illiterate, hampered, -feeling her way all the time. And yet with a perfect knowledge. -_Perfect_ comprehension in her smile. All the maddening moments spent -with her, the endless detail and fussing, all afterwards showing upon a -background of gold. - -Men weave golden things; thought, science, art, religion upon a black -background. They never _are_. They only make or do; unconscious of the -quality of life as it passes. So are many women. But there is a moment -in meeting a woman, any woman, the first moment, before speech, when -everything becomes new; the utter astonishment of life is there, speech -seems superfluous, even with women who have not consciously realised -that life is astonishing. It persists through all the quotations and -conformities, and is there again, the one underlying thing that women -have to express to each other, at parting. So that between women, all -the practical facts, the tragedies and comedies and events, are but -ripples on a stream. It is not possible to share this sense of life with -a man; least of all with those who are most alive to "the wonders of the -universe." Men have no present; except sensuously.... That would explain -their _ambition_ ... and their doubting speculations about the future. - -Yet it would be easier to make all this clear to a man than to a woman. -The very words expressing it have been made by men. - -It was just after coming back from the Wilsons, in the midst of the time -round about Leyton's wedding, that Eleanor had suddenly appeared on the -Tansley Street doorstep.... I was just getting to know the houseful of -Orly relations ... Mrs. Sloan-Paget, whisking me encouragingly into -everything.... "my dear you've got style, and taste; stunning hair and a -good complexion. Look at my girls. Darlings, I know. But what's the good -of putting clothes on figures like that?" ... Daughterless Mrs. Orly -looked pleased like a mother when Mrs. Paget said "S'Henderson's got to -come down to Chumleigh." ... I almost gave in to her reading of me; -feeling whilst I was with her, back in the conservative, church point of -view. I could have kept it up, with good coats and skirts and pretty -evening gowns. Playing games. Living hilariously in roomy country -houses, snubbing "outsiders," circling in a perpetual round of family -events, visits to town, everything fixed by family happenings, hosts of -relations always about, everything, even sorrow, shared and distributed -by large rejoicing groups; the warm wide middle circle of English life -... secure. And just as the sense of belonging was at its height, -punctually, Eleanor had come, sweeping everything away. As if she had -been watching. Coming out of the past with her claim.... Skimpier and -more beset than ever. Yet steely with determination. Deepening her -wild-rose flush and her smile. It was all over in a moment. Wreckage. -Committal to her and her new set of circumstances.... She would not -understand that a sudden greeting is always wonderful; even if the -person greeted is not welcome. But Andrew Lang did not know what he was -admitting. Men greet only themselves, their own being, past, present or -future.... I am a man. The more people put you at your ease, the more -eagerly you greet them.... That is why we men like "ordinary women." And -always disappoint them. They mistake the comfort of relaxation for -delight in their society. - -Eleanor swept everything away. By seeming to know in advance everything -I had to tell, and ignore it as not worth consideration. But she also -left her own circumstances unexplained; sitting about with peaceful -face, talking in hints, telling long stories about undescribed people, -creating a vast leisurely present, pitting it against the whole world, -with graceful condescending gestures. - -It was part of her mystery that she should have come back just that very -afternoon. Then she was in the right. If you are in the right everything -works for you. The original thing in her nature that made her so -beautiful, such a perpetually beautiful spectacle, was _right_. The -moment that had come whilst she must have been walking, brow modestly -bent, with her refined, conversational little swagger of the shoulders, -aware of all the balconies, down the street, had worked for her.... - -The impulses of expansive moments always make things happen. Or the -moments come when something is about to happen? How can people talk -about coincidence? How not be struck by the inside pattern of life? It -is so obvious that everything is arranged. Whether by God or some deep -wisdom in oneself does not matter. There is something that does not -alter. Coming up again and again, at long intervals, with the same face, -generally arresting you in midway, offering the same choice, ease or -difficulty. Sometimes even a lure, to draw you back into difficulty. -Determinists say that you choose according to your temperament, even if -you go against your inclinations. But what is temperament?... Uniqueness -... something that has not existed before. A free edge.... Contemplation -is freedom. The _way_ you contemplate is your temperament. Then action -is slavery? - -There is something always plucking you back into your own life. After -the first pain there is relief, a sense of being once more in a truth. -Then why is it so difficult to remember that things deliberately done, -with a direct movement of the will, always have a falseness? Never meet -the desire that prompted the action. The will is really meant to prevent -deliberate action? That is the hard work of life? The Catholics know -that desire can never be satisfied. You must not _desire_ God. You must -love. I can't do that. I can't get clear enough about what he wants. Yet -even without God I am not lonely; or ever completely miserable. Always -in being thrown back from outside happiness, there seem to be two. A -waiting self to welcome me. - -It can't be wrong to exist. In those moments before disaster existence -is perfect. Being quite still. Sounds come presently from the outside -world. Your mind moving about in it without envy or desire, realises the -whole world. The future and the past are all one same stuff, changing -and unreal. The sense of your own unchanging reality comes with an -amazement and sweetness too great to be borne alone; bringing you to -your feet. There _must_ be someone there, because there is a shyness. -You rush forward, to share the wonder. And find somebody engrossed with -a cold in the head. And are so emphatic and sympathetic that they think -you are a new friend and begin to expand. And it is wonderful until you -discover that they do not think life at all wonderful.... That afternoon -it had been a stray knock at the front door and a sudden impulse to save -Mrs. Bailey coming upstairs. And Mrs. Bailey, after all she had said, -also surprised into a welcome, greeting Eleanor as an old friend, taking -her in at once. And then the old story of detained luggage, and plans -prevented from taking shape. The dreadful slide back, everything -disappearing but her and her difficulties, and presently everything -forgotten but the fact of her back in the house. Afterwards when the -truth came out, it made no difference but the relief of ceasing to be -responsible for her. But this time there had been no responsibility. She -had made no confidences, asked for no help. Was it blindness, or -flattered vanity, not to have found out what she was going through? - -Yet if the facts had been stated, Eleanor would not have been able to -forget them. In those evenings and week-ends she had forgotten, and been -happy. The time had been full of reality; memorable. It stood out now, -all the going about together, drawn into a series of moments when they -had both seen with the same eyes. Experiencing identity as they laughed -together. Her recalling of their readings in the little Marylebone room, -before the curate came, had not been a pretence. Mr. Taunton was the -pretence. There had been no space even for curiosity as to the end of -his part of the story. Eleanor, too, had not wished to break the charm -by letting things in. She had been taking a holiday, between the -desperate past and the uncertain future. In the midst of overwhelming -things she had stood firm, her power of creating an endless present at -its height. A great artist. - -To Michael, a poor pitiful thing; Rodkin's victim. _She_, of course, had -given Michael that version. Little Michael, stealing to her room night -by night, towards the end, to sleep at her side and say consoling -things; never guessing that her threat of madness was an appeal to his -Jewish kindness, a way of securing him. What a story for proper English -people ... the best revelation in the whole of her adventure. And Mrs. -Bailey too; true as steel. Serenely warding off the women boarders ... -gastric distension. - -Rodkin ... poor little Rodkin with his weak dreadful little life. -Weekdays; the unceasing charm of Anglo-Russian speculation, Sundays; -boredom and newspapers. Then the week again, business and a City man's -cheap adventures. He _had_ behaved well, in spite of Michael's -scoldings. It was wonderful, the way the original Jewish spirit came out -in him, at every step. His loose life was not Jewish. And it was -_really_ comic that he should have been trapped by a girl pretending to -be an adventuress. Poor Eleanor, with all her English dreams; just -_Rodkin_. But he was a Jew when he hesitated to marry a consumptive, and -perfectly a Jew when he decided not to see the child lest he should love -it; and also when he hurried down into Sussex the moment it came, to see -it, with a huge armful of flowers, for her.... What a scene for the -Bible-woman's Hostel. All Eleanor. Her triumph. What other woman would -have dared to engage a cubicle and go calmly down without telling them? -And a week later she was in the Superintendent's room and all those prim -women sewing for her and hiding her and telling everybody she had -rheumatic fever. And crying when she came away.... - -She was right. She justified her actions and came through. And now she's -a young married woman in a pretty villa, _near_ the church, and the -vicar calls and she won't walk on Southend pier because "one meets one's -butcher and baker and candlestick maker." But only because Rodkin is a -child-worshipper. And she tolerates him and the child and he is a -brow-beaten cowed little slave.... It is tempting to tell the story. A -perfect recognisable story of a scheming unscrupulous woman; making one -feel virtuous and superior; but only if one simply outlined the facts, -leaving out all the inside things. Knowing a story like that from the -inside, knowing Eleanor, changed all "scandalous" stories.... They were -scandalous only when told? Never when thought of by individuals alone? -Speech is technical. Every word. In telling things, technical terms must -be used; which never quite apply.... To call Eleanor an adventuress does -not describe her. You can only describe her by the original contents of -her mind. Her own images; what she sees and thinks. She was an -adventuress by the force of her ideals. Like Louise going on the street -without telling her young man so that he would not have to pay for her -trousseau.... - -Exeter was another. Keeping the shapes of civilisation. Charming at tea -parties.... Knowing all the worldly things, made of good style from her -perfect brow and nose to the tip of her slender foot ... made to shine -at Ascot. It was only because she knew so much about Mrs. Drake's secret -drinking, that Mrs. Drake said suddenly in that midnight moment when -Exeter had swept off to bed after a tiff, "_I_ don't go to hotels, with -strange men." I was reading that book of Dan Leno's and thinking that if -they would let me read it aloud their voices would be different; that -behind their angry voices were real selves waiting for the unreal sounds -to stop. Up and down the tones of their voices were individual -inflexions, feminine, innocent of harm, incapable of harm, horrified -since their girlhood by what the world had turned out to be.... It was -an awful shock. But Exeter paid her young man's betting debts and kept -him on his feet. And _he_ was divorced. And so _nice_. But weak. Still -he had the courage to shoot himself. And then _she_ took to backing -horses. And now married, in a cathedral, to a vicar; looking angelic in -the newspaper photograph. He has only one regret ... their -childlessness. "Er? Have _children_?" Yet Mrs. Drake would be staunch -and kind to her if she were in need. Women are Jesuits.... - -From the first, in Eleanor's mind, had shone, unquestioned, the shape of -English life. Church and State and Family. God above. Her belief was -perfect; impressive. In all her dealings she saw the working of a higher -power, leading her to her goal. When her health failed and her vision -receded, she clutched at the nearest material for making her picture. In -all she had waded through, her courage had never failed. Nor her charm; -the charm of her strength and her singleness of vision. Her God, an -English-speaking gentleman, with English traditions, tactfully ignored -all her contrivances and waited elsewhere, giving her time, ready to -preside with full approval, over her accomplished aim.... Women are -Jesuits.... The counterpart of all those Tansley Street women was little -Mrs. Orly, innocently unscrupulous to save people from difficulty and -pain.... - - * * * * * - -It was when Eleanor went away that autumn that I found I had been made a -Lycurgan; and began going to the meetings ... in that small room in -Anselm's Inn.... Ashamed of pride in belonging to a small exclusive -group containing so many brilliant men. Making a new world. Concentrated -intelligence and goodwill. Unanimous even in their differences. Able to -joke together. Seeking, selflessly, only one thing. And because they -selflessly sought it, all the things of fellowship added to them.... -From the first I knew I was not a real Lycurgan. Not wanting their kind -of selfless seeking, yet liking to be within the stronghold of people -who were keeping watch, understanding how social injustice came about, -explaining the working of things, revealing the rest of the world as -naturally unconsciously blind, urgently requiring the enlightenment that -only the Lycurgans could bring, that could only be found by endless dry -work on facts and figures.... At first it was like going to school. -Eagerly drinking in facts; a new history. The history of the world as a -social group. Realising the immensity of the problems crying aloud all -over the world, not insoluble, but unsolved because people did not -realise themselves as members of one group. The convincing little -Lycurgan tracts, blossoming out of all their intense labour, were the -foundation of a new social order; gradually spreading social -consciousness. But the hope they brought, the power of answering all the -criticisms and objections of ordinary people, always seemed ill-gained. -Always unless one took an active share, like listening at a door.... She -was always catching herself dropping away from the first eager gleaning -of material to speculations about the known circumstances of the -lecturer, from them into a trance of oblivion, hearing nothing, -remembering afterwards nothing of what had been said, only the quality -of the atmosphere--the interest or boredom of the audience, the secret -preoccupations of unknown people sitting near.... - - * * * * * - -Everyone was going. The restaurant was beginning to close. The west-end -was driving her off. She rose to go through the business of paying her -bill, the moment of being told that money, someone's need of profits, -was her only passport into these central caverns of oblivion. Forever -driven out. Passing on. To keep herself in countenance she paid briskly, -with the air of one going purposefully. The sound of her footsteps on -the little stairway brought her vividly before her own eyes, playing -truant. She hurried to get out and away, to be walking along, by right, -in the open, freed, for the remaining time, by the necessity of getting -home, to lose herself once more.... - -The treelit golden glow of Shaftesbury Avenue flowed through her; the -smile of an old friend. The _wealth_ of swinging along up the bright -ebb-way of the west-end, conscious of being, of the absence of desire to -be elsewhere or other than herself. A future without prospects, the many -doors she had tried, closed willingly by her own hand, the growing -suspicion that nowhere in the world was a door that would open wide to -receive her, the menace of an increasing fatigue, crises of withering -mental pain, and then suddenly this incomparable sense of being plumb at -the centre of rejoicing. Something always left within her that -contradicted all the evidence. It compensated the failure of her efforts -at conformity.... Yet to live outside the world of happenings, always to -forget and escape, to be impatient, even scornful, of the calamities -that moved in and out of it like a well-worn jest, was certainly wrong. -But it could not be helped. It was forgetfulness, suddenly overtaking -her in the midst of her busiest efforts ... memory ... a perpetual -sudden blank ... and upon it broke forth this inexhaustible joy. The -tappings of her feet on the beloved pavement were blows struck -hilariously on the shoulder of a friend. To keep her voice from breaking -forth she sang aloud in her mind, a soaring song unlimited by sound. - -The visit to the revolutionaries seemed already in the past, added to -the long procession of events that broke up and scattered the moment she -was awake at this lonely centre. - -Speech came towards her from within the echoes of the night; statements -in unfamiliar shape. Years falling into words, dropping like fruit. She -was full of strength for the end of the long walk; armed against the -rush of associations waiting in her room; going swift and straight to -dreamless sleep and the joy of another day. - -The long wide street was now all even light, a fused misty gold, broken -close at hand by the opening of a dark byway. Within it was the figure -of an old woman bent over the gutter. Lamplight fell upon the sheeny -slopes of her shawl and tattered skirt. Familiar. Forgotten. The last, -hidden truth of London, spoiling the night. She quickened her steps, -gazing. Underneath the forward-falling crushed old bonnet shone the -lower half of a bare scalp ... reddish ... studded with dull, wartlike -knobs.... Unimaginable horror quietly there. Revealed. Welcome. The head -turned stealthily as she passed and she met the expected side-long -glance; naked recognition, leering from the awful face above the -outstretched bare arm. It was herself, set in her path and waiting -through all the years. Her beloved hated secret self, known to this old -woman. The street was opening out to a circus. Across its broken lights -moved the forms of people, confidently, in the approved open pattern of -life, and she must go on, uselessly, unrevealed; bearing a semblance -that was nothing but a screen set up, hiding what she was in the depths -of her being. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -At the beginning of the journey to the east-end the Lintoffs were as far -away as people in another town. When the east-end was reached they were -too near. Their brilliance lit up the dingy neighbourhood and sent out a -pathway of light across London. Their eyes were set on the far distance. -It seemed an impertinence to rise suddenly in their path and claim -attention. - -But Michael lost his way and the Lintoffs were hidden, erupting just out -of sight. The excitement of going to meet them filtered away in the din -and swelter of the east-end streets. - -They came upon the hotel at last, suddenly. A stately building with a -wide pillared porch. As they went up its steps and into the carpeted -hall, cool and clean and pillared, giving on to arched doorways and the -distances of large rooms, she wished the Russians could be spirited -away, that there were nothing but the strange escape from the midst of -squalor into this cool hushed interior. - -But they appeared at once, dim figures blocking the path, closing up all -the distances but the one towards which they were immediately obliged to -move and that quickly ended in a bleak harshly lit room. And now here -they were, set down, meekly herded at the table with other hotel people. - -No strange new force radiated from them across the chilly expanse of -coarse white tablecloth. They were able to be obliterated by their -surroundings; lost in the onward-driving tide of hotel-life; responding -murmuringly to Michael's Russian phrases, like people trying to throw -off sleep. - -Her private converse with them the day before, made it impossible even -to observe them now that they were exposed before her. And a faint hope, -refusing to be quenched, prevented her casting even one glance across at -them. If the hope remained unwitnessed there might yet be, before they -separated, something that would satisfy her anticipations. If she could -just see what he was like. There was, even now, an unfamiliar force -keeping her eyes averted from all but the vague sense of the two -figures. Perhaps it came from him. Or it was the harvest growing from -the moment in the hotel entrance. - -A dispiriting conviction was gathering behind her blind attention. If -she looked across, she would see a man self-conscious, drearily living -out the occasion, with an assumed manner. After all, he was now just a -married man, sitting there with his wife, a man tamed and small and the -prey of known circumstances, meeting an old college friend. This drop on -to London was the end of their wonderful adventure. A few weeks ago she -had still been his fellow student, his remembered companion, in a -Russian prison for her daring work, ill with the beginnings of her -pregnancy. Now, he was with her for good, inseparably married, no longer -able to be himself in relation to anyone else.... She felt herself -lapsing further and further into isolation. Something outside herself -was drowning her in isolation. - -Something in Michael.... That, at least, she could escape now that she -was aware of it. She leaned upon his voice. At present there was no sign -of his swift weariness. He was radiant, sitting host-like at the head of -the table between her and his friends, untroubled by his surroundings, -his glowing Hebrew beauty, his kind, reverberating voice expressing him, -untrammelled, in the poetry of his native speech. But he was aware of -her through his eager talk. All the time he was tacitly referring to her -as a proud English possession.... It was something more than his way of -forgetting, in the presence of fresh people, and falling again into his -determined hope. Her heart ached for him as she saw that away in -himself, behind the brave play he made, in his glance of the -deliberately naughty child relying on its charm to obtain forgiveness, -he held the hope of her changing under the influence of seeing him thus, -at his fullest expansion amongst his friends. He was purposely excluding -her, so that she might watch undisturbed; so that he might use the -spaces of her silence to persuade her that she shared his belief. She -was helplessly supporting his illusion. It would be too cruel to freeze -him in mid-career, with a definite message. She sat conforming; -expanding, in spite of herself, in the role he had planned. He must make -his way back through his pain, later on, as best he could. No one was to -blame; neither he for being Jew, nor she for her inexorable -Englishness.... - -Across the table, supporting him, were living examples of his belief in -the possibility of marriage between Christians and Jews. Lintoff was -probably as much and as little Greek Orthodox as she was Anglican, and -as pure Russian as she was English, and he had married his little -Jewess. - -Michael would eagerly have brought any of his friends to see her. But -she understood now why he had been so cautiously, carelessly determined -to bring about this meeting.... They would accept his reading, and had -noted her, superficially, in the intervals of their talk, in the light -of her relationship to him. She was wasting her evening in a hopeless -masquerade. She felt her face setting in lines of weariness as she -retreated to the blank truth at the centre of her being. Narrowly there -confined, cold and separate, she could glance easily across at their -irrelevant forms. They could be made to understand her remote -singleness; in one glance. Whatever they thought. They were nothing to -her, with their alien lives and memories. She was English; an English -spectacle for them, quite willing, an interested far-off spectator of -foreign ways and antics. No, she would not look, until she was forced; -and then some play of truth, springing in unexpectedly, would come to -her aid. Reduced by him to a mere symbol she would not even risk -encountering their unfounded conclusions. - -She heard their voices, animated now in an eager to and fro, hers -contralto, softly modulated, level and indifferent in an easy swiftness -of speech; his higher, dry and chippy and staccato; the two together a -broken tide of musical Russian words, rich under the cheerless hotel -gas-light. It would flow on for a while and presently break and die -down. Michael's social concentration would not be equal to a public -drawing-room, a prolonged sitting on sofas. Coffee would come. They -would linger a little over it, eagerness would drop from their voices, -the business of reflecting over their first headlong communications -would be setting in for each one of them, separating them into -individualities, and suddenly Michael would make a break. For she could -hear they were not talking of abstract things. Revolutionary ideas would -be, between him and Lintoff, an old battlefield they had learned to -ignore. They were just listening, in excited entrancement, to the sounds -of each other's voices, their eyes on old scenes, explaining, repeating -themselves, in the turmoil of their attentiveness ... each ready to stop -halfway through a sentence to catch at an outbreaking voice. Michael's -voice was still rich and eager. His years had fallen away from him; only -now and again the memory of his settled surrounding and relentless daily -work caught at his tone, levelling it out. - -Coffee had come. Someone asked an abrupt question and waited in a -silence. She glanced across. A tall narrow man, narrow slender height, -in black, bearded, a narrow straw-gold beard below bright red lips. -Unsympathetic; vaguely familiar. Him she must have observed in the dim -group in the hall during Michael's phrases of introduction. - -"Nu; da;" Michael was saying cordially, "Lintoff suggests we go -upstairs," he continued, to her, politely. He looked pleased and easy; -unfatigued. - -She rose murmuring her agreement, and they were all on their feet, -gathering up their coffee-cups. Michael made some further remark in -English. She responded in the vague way he knew and he watched her eyes, -standing near, taking her coffee-cup with a sturdy quiet pretence of -answering speech, leaving her free to absorb the vision of Madame -Lintoff, a small dark form risen sturdily against the cheap dingy -background, all black and pure dense whiteness; a curve of gleaming -black hair shaped against her meal-white cheek; a small pure profile, -firmly beautiful, emerging from the high close-fitting neck-shaped -collar of her black dress; the sweep of a falling fringed black shawl -across the short closely sleeved arm, the fingers of the hand stretched -out to carry off her coffee, half covered by the cap-like extension of -the long black sleeve. She might be a revolutionary, but her sense of -effect was perfect. Every line flowed, from the curve of her skull, left -free by the beautiful shaping of her thick close hair, to the tips of -her fingers. There was no division into parts, no English destruction of -lines at the neck and shoulders, no ugly break where the dull stuff -sleeve joined the wrist. In the grace of her small sturdy beauty there -seemed only scornful womanish triumph, weary; a suggestion of -unspeakable ennui. She was utterly different from English Jewesses.... - -Without breaking the rhythm of her smooth graceful movement, she turned -her head and glanced across at Miriam; a faint slight radiance, -answering Miriam's too-ready irrecoverable beaming smile, and fading -again at once as she moved towards the door. Too late--already they were -moving, separated, in single file up the long staircase, Madame Lintoff -now a little squarish dumpy Jewish body, stumping up the stairs ahead of -her--Miriam responded to the gleam she had caught in the deep _wehmuetig_ -Hebrew eyes, of something in her that had escaped from the confines of -her tribe and sex. She was not one of those Jewesses, delighting in -instant smiling familiarity with women, immediate understanding, banding -them together. She had not a trace of the half affectionate, half -obsequious envy, that survived the discovery of their being more -intelligent or better-informed than Englishwomen. She had looked -impersonally, and finding a blankness would not again enquire. She had -gone back into the European world of ideas into which somehow since her -childhood she had emerged. But she was weary of it; of her idea-haunted -life; of everything that had so far come into her mind and her -experience. Did the man leading the way upstairs know this? Perhaps -Russian men could read these signs? In any case a Russian would not have -Michael's physiological explanations of everything; even if they proved -to be true.... - -"I forgot to tell you, Miriam, that of course Lintoffs both speak -French. Lintoff has also a little English." - -It was his bright _beginning_ voice. They were to spend the _evening_ -... shut in a small cold bedroom ... resourceless, shut in with this -slain romance ... and the way already closed for communication between -herself and the Russians before she had known that they could exchange -words that would at least cast their own brief spell. Between herself -and Madame Lintoff nothing could pass that would throw even the thinnest -veil over their first revealing encounter. To the unknown man anything -she might say would be an announcement of her knowledge of his reduced -state.... - -The coming upstairs had stayed the tide of reminiscences. There was -nothing ahead but obstructive conversation, perhaps in French; but -steered all the time by Michael's immovable European generalisations; -his clear, swiftly manoeuvring, encyclopaedic Jewish mind.... - -With her eyes on the fatiguing vista she agreed that of course Monsieur -and Madame Lintoff would know French; letting her English voice sound at -last. The instant before she spoke she heard her words sound in the dim -street-lit room, an open acknowledgment of the death of her -anticipations. And when the lame words came forth, with the tone of the -helplessly insulting, polite, superfluous English smile, she knew that -it was patent to everyone that the evening was dimmed, now, for them -all. It was not her fault that she had been brought in amongst these -clever foreigners. Let them think what they liked, and go. If even -anarchists had their world linked to them by strands of clever easy -speech, had she not also her world, away from speech and behaviour? - -Lintoff was lighting a candle on the chest of drawers. The soft -reflected glare coming in at the small square windows, was quenched by -its gleam. He was standing quite near, in profile, his white face and -bright beard lit red from below. The bent head full of expression, yet -innocent, was curious, neither English nor foreign. He was a Doctor of -Philosophy. But not in the way any other European man would have been. -His figure had no bearing of any kind. Yet he did not look foolish. A -secret. There was some secret power in him ... Russia. She was seeing -Russia; far-away Michael blessedly there in the room; keeping her there. -He had sat down in his way, in a small bedroom chair, his head thrust -forward on his chest, his hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out -across the thread-bare carpet, his coffee on the floor at his side. He -was at home in Russia after his English years. Madame Lintoff in the -small corner beside the bed was ferreting leisurely in a cupboard with -her back to the room. Lintoff was holding a match to the waxy wick of -the second candle. No one was speaking. But the cold dingy room, with -its mean black draperies and bare furniture, was glowing with life. - -There was no pressure in the room; no need to buy peace by excluding all -but certain points of view. She felt a joyful expansion. But there was a -void all about her. She was expanded in an unknown element; a void, -filled by these people in some way peculiar to themselves. It was not -filled by themselves or their opinions or ideas. All these things they -seemed to have possessed and moved away from. For they were certainly -animals; perhaps intensely animal, and cultured. But principally they -seemed to be movement, free movement. The animalism and culture, so -repellent in most people, showed, in them, rich jewels of which they -were not aware. They were moving all the time in an intense joyous -dreamy repose. It centred in him and was reflected, for all her -weariness, upon Madame Lintoff. It was into this moving state, that she -had escaped from a Jewish family life. - -If the right question could be found and addressed to him, the secret -might be plumbed. It might rest on some single unacceptable thing that -would drop her back again into singleness; just the old familiar -inexorable sceptical opposition.... - -His second candle was alight. Michael spoke, in Russian, and arrested -him standing in the middle of the floor with his back to her. She heard -his voice, no longer chippy and staccato as it had been in the midst of -their intimate talk downstairs, but again dim, expressionless, the voice -of a man in a dream. Madame Lintoff had hoisted herself on to the bed. -She had put on a little black ulster and a black close-fitting astrakhan -cap. Between them her face shone out suddenly rounded, very pretty and -babyish. From the deep Hebrew eyes gleamed a brilliant vital serenity. -An emancipated Jewish girl, solid, compact, a rounded gleaming beauty -that made one long to place one's hands upon it; but completely herself, -beyond the power of admiration or solicitude; a torch gleaming in the -strange void.... But so _solidly_ small and pretty. It was absurd how -pretty she was, how startling the rounded smooth firm blossom of her -face between the close dead black of her ulster and little cap. Miriam -smiled at her behind the to and fro of dreamy Russian sentences. But she -was not looking. - -It was glorious that there had been no fussing. No one had even asked -her to sit down. She could have sung for relief. She wanted to sing the -quivering alien song that was singing itself in the spaces of the room. -There was a chair just at hand against the wall, beside a dilapidated -wicker laundry basket. But her coffee was where Michael had deposited -it, on the chest of drawers at his side. She must recover it, go round -in front of Lintoff to get it before she sat down. She did not want the -coffee, but she would go round for the joy of moving in the room. She -passed him and stood arrested by the talk flowing to and fro between her -and her goal. Michael rose and stood with her, still talking. She waited -a moment, weaving into his deep emphatic tones the dreamy absent voice -of Lintoff. - -Michael moved away with a question to Madame Lintoff sitting alone -behind them on her bed. She was left standing, turned towards Lintoff, -suddenly aware of the tide that flowed from him as he stood, still -motionless, in the middle of the room. He stood poised, without -stiffness, his narrow height neither drooping nor upright; as if held in -place by the surrounding atmosphere. Nothing came to trouble the space -between them as she moved towards him, drawn by the powerful tide. She -felt she could have walked through him. She was quite near him now, her -face lifted towards the strange radiance of the thin white face, the -glow of the flaming beard; a man's face, yielded up to her, and free -from the least flicker of reminder. - -"What do you think? What do you _see_?" she heard herself ask. Words -made no break in the tide holding her there at rest. - -His words followed hers like a continuation of her phrase: - -"Mademoiselle, I see the _People_." His eyes were on hers, an intense -blue light; not concentrated on her; going through her and beyond in a -widening radiance. She was caught up through the unresisting eyes; the -dreamy voice away behind her. She saw the wide white spaces of Russia; -motionless dark forms in troops, waiting.... - -She was back again, looking into the eyes that were now upon her -personally; but not in the Englishman's way. It was a look of remote -intense companionship. She sustained it, helpless to protest her -unworthiness. He did not know that she had just flown forward from -herself out and away; that her faint vision of what he saw as he spoke -was the outpost of all her experience. He was waiting to speak with an -equal, to share.... He had no social behaviour. No screen of adopted -voice or manner. There was evil in him; all the evils that were in -herself, but unscreened. He was careless of them. She smiled and met his -swift answering smile; it was as if he said, "I know; isn't everything -wonderful." ... They moved with one accord and stood side by side before -the gleaming candles. Across the room the two Russian voices were -sounding one against the other; Michael's grudging sceptical bass and -the soft weary moaning contralto. - -"Do you like Maeterlinck?" she asked, staring anxiously into the flame -of the nearest candle. He turned towards her with eager words of assent. -She felt his delighted smile shining through the sudden enthusiastic -disarray of his features and gazed into the candle summoning up the -vision of the old man sitting alone by his lamp. The glow uniting them -came from the old man's lamp ... this young man was a revolutionary and -a doctor of philosophy; yet the truth of the inside life was in him, -nearer to him than all his strong activities. They could have nothing -more to say to each other. It would be destruction to say anything more. -She dropped her eyes and he was at once at an immense distance. Behind -her closed door she stood alone grappling her certainties, trying to -answer the voice that cried out within her against the barriers between -them of language and relationships. Lintoff began to walk about the -room. Every time his movements brought him near he stood before her in -eager discourse. She caught the drift of the statements he flung out in -a more solid, more flexible French, mixed with struggling, stiff, -face-stiffening scraps of English. The people, alive and one and the -same all over the world, crushed by the half-people, the educated -specialists, and by the upper classes dead and dying of their luxury. -She agreed and agreed, delighting in the gentleness of his unhampered -movements, in his unself-conscious, uncompeting speech. If what he said -were true, the people to pity were the specialists and the upper -classes; clean sepulchres.... How would he take opposition? - -"Isn't it weird, etrange," she cried suddenly into a pause in his -struggling discourse, "that Christians are just the very people who make -the most fuss about death?" - -He had not understood the idiom. Sunned in his waiting smile she glanced -aside to frame a translation. - -"N'y a rien de plus drole," she began. How cynical it sounded; a cynical -French voice striking jests out of the surface of things; neighing them -against closed nostrils, with muzzles tight-crinkled in Mephistophelian -mirth. She glanced back at him, distracted by the reflection that the -contraction of the nostrils for French made _everything_ taut.... - -"Isn't it funny that speaking French banishes the inside of everything; -makes you see only _things_?" she said hurriedly, not meaning him to -understand; hoping he would not come down to grasp and struggle with the -small thought; yet longing to ask him suddenly whether he found it -difficult to trim the nails of his right hand with his left. - -He was still waiting unchanged. Yet not waiting. There was no waiting in -him. There would be, for him, no more dropping down out of life into the -humble besogne de la pensee. That was why she felt so near to him, yet -alive, keeping the whole of herself, able to say anything, or nothing. -She smiled her delight. There was no sheepishness in his answering -radiance, no grimace of the lips, not the least trace of any of the ways -men had of smiling at women. Yet he was conscious, and enlivened in the -consciousness of their being man and woman together. His eyes, without -narrowing from that distant vision of his, yet looked at her with the -whole range of his being. He had known obliterating partialities, had -gone further than she along the pathway they forge away from life, and -returned with nothing more than the revelation they grant at the outset; -his further travelling had brought him nothing more. They were equals. -But the new thing he brought so unobstructively, so humbly identifying -and cancelling himself that it might be seen, was his, or was -Russian.... - -Looking at him she was again carried forth, out into the world. Again -about the whole of humanity was flung some comprehensive feeling she -could not define.... It filled her with longing to have begun life in -Russia. To have been made and moulded there. Russians seemed to begin, -by nature, where the other Europeans left off.... - -"The educated _specialists_," she quoted to throw off the spell and -assert English justice, "are the ones who have found out about the -people; not the people themselves." His face dimmed to a mask ... dead -white Russian face, crisp, savage red beard, opaque china blue eyes, -behind which his remembered troops of thoughts were hurrying to range -themselves before her. Michael broke in on them, standing near, glowing -with satisfaction, making a melancholy outcry about the last 'bus. She -moved away leaving him with Lintoff and turned to the bedside unprepared -with anything to say. - -Where could she get a little close-fitting black cap, and an enveloping -coat of that deep velvety black, soft, not heavy and tailor--made like -an English coat, yet so good in outline, expressive; a dark moulding for -face and form that could be worn for years and would retain, no matter -what the fashions were, its untroublesome individuality? Not in London. -They were Russian things. The Russian woman's way of abolishing the mess -and bother of clothes; keeping them close and flat and untrimmed. -Shining out from them full of dark energy and indifference. More -oppressively than before, was the barrier between them of Madame -Lintoff's indifference. It was not hostility. Not personal at all; nor -founded on any test, or any opinion. - -In the colourless moaning voice with which she agreed that there was -much for her to see in London and that she had many things she wished -particularly not to miss, in the way she put her foreigner's questions, -there was an over-whelming indifference. It went right through. She sat -there, behind her softly moulded beauty, dreadfully full of clear hard -energy; yet immobile in perfect indifference. Not expecting speech; yet -filching away the power to be silent. No breath from Lintoff's wide -vistas had ever reached her. She had driven along, talking, teaching, -agitating; had gone through her romance without once moving away from -the dark centre of indifference where she lay coiled and beautiful.... -_Her_ sympathy with the proletarians was a fastidious horror of all they -suffered. Her cold clear mind summoned it easily, her logical brain -could find sharp terse phrases to describe it. She cared no more for -them than for the bourgeois people from whom she had fled with equal -horror, and terse phrases, into more desperate activities than he. He -loved and _wanted_ the people. He felt separation from them more as his -loss than as theirs. He wanted the whole vast multitude of humanity. The -men came strolling. Lintoff asked a question. They all flung sentences -in turn, abruptly, in Russian, from unmoved faces. They were making -arrangements for tomorrow. - -Lintoff stood flaring in the lamplit porch, speeding them on their way -with abrupt caressing words. - -"Well?" said Michael before they were out of hearing--"Did you like -them?" - -"Yes or no as the case may be." Michael's recovered London manner was a -support against the prospect of sustaining a second meeting tomorrow, -with everything already passed that could ever pass between herself and -them. - -"You have made an _immense_ impression on Bruno Feodorovitch." - -"How do you know?" - -"He finds you the type of the Englishwoman. Harmonious. He said that -with such a woman a man could all his life be perfectly happy. Ah, -Miriam, let us at once be married." His voice creaked pathetically; -waiting for the lash. The urgent certainty behind it was not his own -certainty. Nothing but a too dim, too intermittent sense of something he -gathered in England. She stood still to laugh aloud. His persistent -childish naughtiness assured her of the future and left her free to -speak. - -"You _know_ we can't; you _know_ how separate we are. You have seen it -again and again and agreed. You see it now; only you are carried away by -this man's first impression. Quite a wrong one. I know the sort of woman -he means. Who accepts a man's idea and leaves him to go about his work -undisturbed; sure that her attention is distracted from his full life by -practical preoccupations. It's _perfectly_ easy to create that -impression, on any man. Of bright complacency. All the busy married -women are creating it all the time, helplessly. Men see them looking out -into the world, practical, responsible, quite certain about everything, -going from thing to thing, too active amongst things to notice men's -wavering self-indulgence, their slips and shams. Men lean and feed and -are kept going, and in their moments of gratitude they laud women to the -skies. At other moments, amongst themselves, they call them -materialists, animals, half-human, imperfectly civilised creatures of -instinct, sacrificed to sex. And all the time they have no suspicion of -the individual life going on behind the surface." ... To marry would be -actually to become, as far as the outside world could see, exactly the -creature men described. To go into complete solitude, marked for life as -a segregated female whose whole range of activities was known; in the -only way men have of knowing things. - -"Lintoff of course is not quite like that. But then in these -revolutionary circles men and women live the same lives.... It's like -America in the beginning, where women were as valuable as men in the -outside life. If the revolution were accomplished they would separate -again." ... - -She backed to the railings behind her, and leant, with a heel on the low -moulding, to steady herself against the tide of thought, leaving Michael -planted in the middle of the pavement. A policeman strolled up, narrowly -observing them, and passed on. - -"No one on earth knows whether these Russian revolutionaries are right -or wrong. But they have a thing that none of their sort of people over -here have--an effortless sense of humanity as one group. The _men_ have -it and are careless about everything else. I believe they think it worth -realising if everybody in the world died at the moment of realisation. -The women know that humanity is two groups. And they go into revolutions -for the freedom from the pressure of this knowledge." - -"Revolution is by no means the sole way of having a complete sense of -humanity. But what has all this to do with _us_?" - -"It is not that the women are heartless; that is an appearance. It is -that they know that there are no _tragedies_...." - -"Listen, Mira. You have taught me much. I am also perhaps not so -indiscriminating as are some men." - -"In family life, all your Jewish feelings would overtake you. You would -slip into dressing-gown and slippers. You have said so yourself. But I -am now quite convinced that I shall never marry." She walked on. - -He ran round in front of her, bringing her to a standstill. - -"You think you will never marry ... with _this_"--his ungloved hands -moved gently over the outlines of her shoulders. "Ah--it is -most--musical; you do not know." She thrilled to the impersonal -acclamation; yet another of his many defiant tributes to her forgotten -material self; always lapsing from her mind, never coming to her aid -when she was lost in envious admiration of women she could not like. Yet -they contained an impossible idea; the idea of a man being consciously -attracted and won by universal physiological facts, rather than by -individuals themselves.... - -If Michael only knew, it was this perpetual continental science of his -that had helped to kill their relationship. With him there could never -be any shared discovery.... She grudged the formal enlightenment he had -brought her; filching it from the future. There could never now be a -single harmonious development in relation to one person. Unless in -relation to him.... For an instant marriage, with him, suggested itself -as an accomplished fact. She saw herself married and free of him; set -definitely in the bright resounding daylight of marriage ... free of -desires ... free to rest and give away to the tides of cheerfulness -ringing in confinement within her. She saw the world transformed to its -old likeness; and walked alone with it, in her old London, as if -awakened from a dream. But her vision was disturbed by the sense and -sound of his presence and she knew that her response was not to him.... - -The necessity of breaking with him invaded her from without, a -conviction, coming from the radiance on which her eyes were set, and -expanding painlessly within her mind. She recognised with a flush of -shame at the continued association of these two separated people, that -there was less reality between them now than there had been when they -first met. There was none.... She was no longer passionately attached to -him, but treacherously since she was hiding it, to someone hidden in the -past, or waiting in the future ... or _anyone_; any chance man might be -made to apprehend ... so that when his man's limitations appeared, that -past would be there to retreat to.... - -_He_ had never for a moment shared her sense of endlessness.... More -sociably minded than she ... but not more sociable ... more quickly -impatient of the cessations made by social occasions, _he_ had no -visions of waiting people.... His personal life was centred on her -completely. But the things she threw out to screen her incommunicable -blissfulnesses, or to shelter her vacuous intervals from the unendurable -sound of his perpetual circling round his set of ideas, no longer -reached him. She could silence and awaken him only in those rare moments -when she was lifted out of her growing fatigues to where she could grasp -and state in all its parts any view of life that was different from his -own. Since she could not hold him to these shifting visions, nor drop -them and accept his world, they had no longer anything to exchange.... - -At the best they were like long-married people, living, alone, side by -side; meeting only in relation to outside things. Any breaking of the -silence into which she retreated while keeping him talking, every pause -in her outbursts of irrepressible cheerfulness, immediately brought her -beating up against the bars of his vision of life as uniform experience, -and gave her a fresh access of longing to cut out of her consciousness -the years she had spent in conflict with it. - -Always until tonight her longing to escape the unmanageable burden of -his Jewishness had been quenched by the pain of the thought of his going -off alone into banishment. But tonight the long street they were in -shone brightly towards the movement of her thought. Some hidden barrier -to their separation had been removed. She waited curbed, incredulous of -her freedom to breathe the wide air; unable to close her ears to the -morning sounds of the world opening before her as the burden slipped -away. Drawing back, she paused to try upon herself the effect of his -keenly imagined absence. She was dismantled, chill and empty handed, -returning unchanged to loneliness. But no thrill of pain followed this -final test; the unbelievable severance was already made. Even whilst -looking for words that would break the shock, she felt she had spoken. - -His voice breaking his silence, came like an echo. She went like a ghost -along the anticipated phrases, keenly aware only of those early moments -when she had first gathered the shapes and rhythms of his talk. - -Freedom; and with it that terrible darkness in his voice. Words must be -said; but it was cruel to speak from far away; from the midst of joy. -The unburdened years were speeding towards her; she felt their breath; -the lifting of the light with the presence, just beyond the passing -moments, of the old companionship that for so long had been hers only -when she could forget her surrounded state.... His resonant cough -brought her again the sound of his voice ... how could the warm kind -voice disappear from her days ... she felt herself quailing in -loneliness before the sharp edges of her daily life. - -Glancing at him as they passed under a lamp she saw a pale, set face. -His will was at work; he was facing his future and making terms with it. -He would have a phrase for his loss, as a refuge from pain. That was -comforting; but it was a base, social comfort; far away from the truth -that was loading her with responsibility. He did not know what he was -leaving.... There was no conscious thought in him that could grasp and -state the reality of his loss; nor what it was in him that even now she -could not sever from herself. If he knew, there would be no separation. -He had actually moved into his future; taken of his own freewill the -first step away from the shelter she gave. Perhaps a better, kinder -shelter awaited him. Perhaps he was glad in his freedom and his manner -was made from his foreigner's sense of what was due to the occasion. He -did not know that there would be no more stillness for him. - -Yet he _did_ dimly know that part of his certainty about her was this -mysterious _youth_; the strange everlasting sense of being, even with -servants and young children, with _any_ child, in the presence of adult -cynical social ability, comfortably at home in the world.... Perhaps he -would be better off without such an isolated, helpless personality in -the life he must lead. But letting him go was giving him up to cynicism, -or to the fixed blind sentiments of all who were not cynics. No one -would live with him in his early childhood, and keep it alive in him. He -would leave it with her, without knowing that he left it. - -All the things she had made him contemplate would be forgotten.... He -would plunge into the life he used to call normal.... That was jealousy; -flaming through her being; pressing on her mind. For a moment she faced -the certainty that she would rather annihilate his mind than give up -overlooking and modifying his thoughts. Here alone was the root of her -long delay ... it held no selfless desire for his welfare ... then he -would be better off with _anyone_. He and the cynics and the -sentimentalists were human and kindly, however blind.... They were not -cruel; ready to wreck and destroy in order to impose their own -certainties.... Even as she gazed into it, she felt herself drawn -powerfully away from the abyss of her nature by the pain of anticipating -his separated future; the experiences that would obliterate and vanquish -her; justifying as far as he would ever again see, his original -outlook.... She battled desperately, imploring the power of detachment, -and immediately found words for them both. - -"It is weak to go on; it will only become more difficult." - -"You are right, it is a weakness;" his voice broke on a gusty breath; -"tomorrow we will spend as we have promised, the afternoon with -Lintoffs. On Monday I will go." - -The street swayed about her. She held on, forcing her limbs; passing -into emptiness. The sounds of the world were very far away; but within -their muffled faintness she heard her own free voice, and his, cheerful -and impersonal, sounding on through life. With the breath of this -release she touched the realization that some day, he would meet, along -a pathway unknown to her and in a vision different from her own, the -same truth.... What truth? God? The old male prison, whether men were -atheists or believers?... The whole of the truth of which her joy and -her few certainties were a part, innocently conveyed to him by someone -with a character that would win him to attend. Then he would remember -the things they had lost in speech. The enlightener would not argue. -Conviction would come to him by things taken for granted. - -Clear demonstration is at once fooled.... All _men_ in explanatory -speech about _life_, have at once either in the face, or in the -unconscious rest of them, a look of shame. Because they are not living, -but calculating.... Women who are not living ought to spend all their -time cracking jokes. In a rotten society women grow witty; making a -heaven while they wait.... - -But if from this far cool place where she now was, she breathed deep and -let mirth flow out, he would _never_ go. - - * * * * * - -At the very beginning of the afternoon Miriam was isolated with Madame -Lintoff. Forced to walk ahead with her, as if companionably, between the -closed shop-fronts and the dismal gutter of Oxford Street, while her -real place, at Michael's side, with Lintoff beyond, or side by side with -Lintoff, and Michael beyond, was empty, and the two men walked alone, -exchanging, without interference, one-sided, masculine views. - -She listened to Madame's silence. For all her indifference, she must -have had some sort of bright anticipation of her first outing in London. -And this was the outing. A walk, along a grey pavement, in raw grey air, -under a heavy sky, with an Englishwoman who had no conversation. - -Most people began with questions. But there was no question she wanted -to ask Madame Lintoff.... She knew her too well. During the short night -she had become a familiar part of the picture of life; one of the -explanations of the way things went.... Yet it was inhospitable to leave -her with no companion but the damp motionless air. - -Relaxing her attention, to make an attempt at bold friendliness, she -swung gaily along, looking independently ahead into the soft grey murk. -But hopelessness seized her as a useless topic sprang eagerly into her -mind and she felt herself submerged, unable to withstand its private -charm. Helplessly she explained, in her mind, to the far-off woman at -her side that this bleak day coming suddenly in the midst of July was -one of the glorious things in the English weather.... Only a few people -find English weather glorious.... Clever people think it contemptible to -mention weather except in jest or with a passing curse. Madame Lintoff -would have just that same expression of veiled scorn that means people -are being kept from their topics.... For a few seconds, as she skirted a -passing group, she looked back to an unforgettable thing, that would -press for expression, now that she had thought of it, through anything -she might try to say ... a wandering in twilight along a wide empty -pavement at the corner of a square of high buildings, shutting out all -but the space of sky above the trees.... That lovely line about -Beatrice, bringing bright, draped, deep-toned figures, with the grave -eyes of intensest eternal happiness, and heads bent in an attitude of -song, about her in the upper air; the way they had come down, as she had -lowered her eyes to the gleaming, wet pavement to listen again and again -into the words of the wonderful line; how they had closed about her; a -tapestry of intensifying colour, making a little chamber filled with -deep light, gathering her into such a forgetfulness that she had found -herself going along at a run, and when she had wakened to recall the -sense of the day and the season, had looked up and seen November in the -thick Bloomsbury mist, the beloved London lamplight glistening on the -puddles of the empty street, and spreading a sheen of gold over the wet -pavements; the jewelled darkness of the London winter coming about her -once more; and then the glorious shock of remembering that August and -September were still in hand, waiting hidden beyond the dark weather.... - -She came back renewed and felt for a moment the strange familiar uneasy -sense of being outside and indifferent to the occasion, the feeling that -brought again and again, in spite of experience, the illusion that -everyone was merely playing a part, distracting attention from the -realities that persisted within. That all the distortions of speech and -action were the whisperings and postures of beings immured in a bright -reality they would not or could not reveal. But acting upon this belief -always brought the same result. Astonishment, contempt, even affronted -dignity were the results of these sudden outbreaks.... - -But a Russian idealist ... would not be shocked, but would be -appallingly clever and difficult. All the topics which now came tumbling -into her mind shrank back in silence before Madame Lintoff's -intellectual oblivion. It was more oppressive than the oblivion of the -intellectual English. Theirs was a small, hard, bright circle. Within it -they were self-conscious. Hers was an impersonal spreading darkness.... - -They were nearing Oxford Circus. There were more people strolling along -the pavement. For quite a little time they were separated by the passing -of two scattered groups, straggling along, with hoarse cockney shouting, -the women yodelling and yelling at everything they saw. The reprieve -brought them together again, Miriam felt, with something rescued; a -feeling of accomplishment. Madame Lintoff's voice came hurriedly--Was -she noticing the Salvation Army Band, thumping across the Circus; or -this young man getting into a hansom as if the whole world were watching -him being importantly headlong?--mournfully came a rounded little -sentence deploring the Sunday closing of the theatres.... She would have -neatly deplored September.... Je trouve cela _triste_, l'automne. - -But thrilled by the sudden sounding of the little voice, Miriam tried -eagerly to see London through her eyes; to find it a pity that the -theatres were not open. She agreed, and turned her mind to the plays -that were on at the moment. She could not imagine Madame Lintoff at any -one of them. But their bright week-day names lost meaning in the Sunday -atmosphere; drew back to their own place, and insisted that she should -find a defence for its quiet emptiness. They themselves defended it, -these English theatre names, gathering much of their colour and -brightness from the weekly lull. But the meaning of the lull lay much -deeper than the need for contrast; deeper than the reasons given by -sabbatarians, whom it was a joy to defy, though they were right. It was -something that was as difficult to defend as the qualities of the -English weather. - -This Russian woman was also a continental, sharing the awful continental -demand that the week-day things should never cease; dependent all the -time on revolving sets of outside things ... and the modern English were -getting more and more into the same state. In a few years Sunday would -be "bright"; full of everyday noise. Unless someone could find words to -explain the thing all these people called _dullness_; what it was they -were so briskly smothering. Without the undiscoverable words, it could -not be spoken of. An imagined attempt brought mocking laughter and the -sound of a Bloomsbury voice: "Vous n'savez pas quand vous vous rasez, -hein?" Madame Lintoff would not be vulgar; but she would share the -sentiment.... - -Miriam turned to her in wrath, feeling an opportunity. Here, for all her -revolutionary opinions, was a representative of the talkative oblivious -world. She would confess to her that she dared not associate closely -with people because of the universal capacity for being bored, and the -_hurry_ everyone was in. Her anger began to change into interest as -words framed themselves in her mind.... But as she turned to speak she -was shocked by the pathos of the little cloaked figure; the beautifully -moulded, lovely disc of face, shining out clasped by the cap, above the -close black draperies, and withdrew her eyes to contemplate in silence -the individual life of this being; her moments of solitary dealing with -the detail of the day when she would be forced to think _things_; not -thoughts; and did not know how marvellous things were. That lonely one -was the person to approach, ignoring everything else. She would protest, -make some kind of defence; but if the ground could be held, they would -presently be together in a bright world. But there was not enough -_time_, between here and Hyde Park. Then later. - -Behind, near or far, the two dry men were keeping their heads, -exchanging men's ready-made remarks.... - -"Est-ce qu'il y a en Angleterre le grand drame psychologique?" - -What on earth did she mean? - -"Oh yes; here and there," said Miriam firmly. - -She sang over in her mind the duet of the contrasting voices as she -turned in panic to the region within her, that was entrenched against -England. Some light on the phrase would be there, if anywhere.... Shaw? -Were his things great psychological dramas? - -"_Galumphing_ about like an _ele_phant." ... The sudden bright English -voice reverberated through her search.... Sudermann? She saw eager, -unconscious faces, well-off English people, seeing only their English -world, translating everything they saw into its language; strayed into -Oxford Street to remind her. She wanted to follow them, and go on -hearing, within the restricted jargon of their English voices, the -answer to questions they never dreamed of putting. The continentals put -questions and answered them by theories. These people answered -everything in person; and did not know it. - -The open spaces of the Park allowed them to line up in a row, and for -some time they hovered on the outskirts of the crowd gathered nearest to -the gates. Michael, in Russian, was delightedly showing off his Hyde -Park crowds, obviously renewing his own first impression of these -numbers of people casually gathered together--looking for his friends to -show that they were impressed in the same way. They were impressed. They -stood side by side, looking small and wan; making little sounds of -appreciation, their two pairs of so different eyes wide upon the massed -people. He could not wait; interrupted their contemplation in his ironic -challenging way. - -Lintoff answered with an affectionate sideways movement of the head; two -short Russian words pouching his red lips in a gesture of denial. But he -did not move, as an Englishman would have done after he thought he had -settled a debateable point; remaining there gently, accessible and -exposed to a further onslaught. He held his truths carelessly, not as a -personal possession, to be fought over with every other male. - -It was Michael who made the first movement away from his summed-up -crowd.... They drifted in a row towards the broad pathway lined with -seated forms looking small and misty under the high trees, but presently -to show clearly, scrappy and inharmonious, shreds of millinery and -tailoring, no matter how perfect, reduced to confusion, spoiling the -effect of the flower beds brightly flaring under the grey sky and the -wide stretch of grass, brilliant emerald until it stopped without -horizon where the saffron distances of the mist shut thickly down. She -asked Michael what Lintoff had said. - -"He says quite simply that these people are not free." - -"Nor are they," she said, suddenly reminded of a line of thought. "They -are," she recited, clipping her sentences in advance as they formed, to -fit the Russian intonation, with carelessly turned head and Lintoff's -pout of denial on her lips, "docile material; an inexhaustible _supply_. -An employer must husband; his horses and machinery; his people he uses -up; as-cheaply-as-possible-always-quite-sure-of-_more_." - -"That has been so. But employers begin to understand that it is a sound -economic to care for their workers." - -"A few. And that leads only to blue canvas." - -"_What_ is this?" - -"Wells's hordes of uniformed slaves, living in security, with all sorts -of material enjoyments." - -"It surprises me that still you quote this man." - -"He makes phrases and pictures." - -"Of what service are such things from one who is incapable of -unprejudiced thought?" - -"Everybody is." - -"Pardon me; you are _wrong_." - -"Thought _is_ prejudice." - -"That is most-monstrous." - -"Thought is a secondary human faculty, and can't _lead, anyone, -anywhere_." - -He turned away to the Lintoffs with a question. His voice was like a -cracked bell. Lintoff's gentle, indifferent tones made a docile -response. - -"I suggest we have _tea_," bellowed Michael softly, facing her with a -cheerful countenance. "They agree. Is it not a good idea?" - -"Perfectly splendid," she murmured, smiling her relief. He could be -trusted not to endure ... to be tired of an adventure before it had -begun.... - -"Certainly it is splendid if it bring dimples. Where shall we go?" He -turned eagerly, to draw them back at once to the park gates, shouting -gaily as he broke the group, "Na, na; _where_. What do you think, -Miriam?" - -"There isn't anything near here," she objected. She pressed forward with -difficulty, her strength ebbing away behind her. His impatience was -drawing them away from something towards which they had all been moving. -It was as if her real being were still facing the other way. - -"No--where really can we go?" In an instant he would remember the dark -little Italian-Swiss cafe near the Marble Arch, and its seal would be -set on the whole of the afternoon. The Lintoffs would not be aware of -this. They were indifferent to surroundings in a world that had only one -meaning for them. But the sense of them and their world, already, in the -boundless immensity of Sunday, scattered into the past, would be an -added misery amongst the clerks and shop-girls crowded in that stuffy -little interior where so many of her Sunday afternoons had died. The -place cancelled all her worlds, put an end to her efforts to fit Michael -into them, led her always impatiently into the next week for -forgetfulness of their recurring, strife-tormented leisure.... - -Verandahs and sunlit sea; small drawing-rooms, made large by their -wandering shapes; spaces of shadow and sunlight beautifying all their -English Sunday contents; windowed alcoves reflecting the sky; spacious, -silken, upstairs tea-rooms in Bond Street.... But these things were hers -now, only through friends. Here, by herself, as the Lintoffs knew her, -she belonged to the resourceless crowd of London workers.... - -Michael ordered much tea and a lemonade, in a reproachful aside to the -pallid grubby little waiter squeezing his way between the close-set -tables with a crowded tray held high. - -"'Ow many?" he murmured over his shoulder, turning a low-browed anxious -face. His tray tilted dangerously, sliding its contents. - -"You can count?" said Michael without looking at him. - -"Four tea, four limonade," murmured the poor little man huskily. - -"I have ordered _tea_," thundered Michael. "You can bring also one -bottle limonade." - -The waiter pushed on, righting his noisy trayful. Michael subsided with -elbows on the smeary marble table-top, his face propped on his hands, -about to speak. The Lintoffs also; their gleaming pale faces set towards -the common centre, while their eyes brooded outwards on the crowded -little scene. Miriam surveyed them, glad of their engrossment, dizzy -with the sense of having left herself outside in the Park. - -"Shall I tell the Lintoffs that you have dimples?" Michael asked -serenely, shifting his bunched face round to smile at her. - -She checked him as he leaned across to call their attention.... It was -in this very room that she had first told him he must choose between her -company and violent scenes with waiters. He was utterly unconscious; -aware only of his compatriots sitting opposite, himself before them in -the pride of an international friendship. Yesterday's compact set aside, -quite likely, later on, to be questioned. - -The Lintoffs' voices broke out together, chalkily smooth and toneless -against the cockney sounds vibrating in the crowded space, _all_ harsh -and strident, _all_ either facetious or wrangling. Their eyes had come -back. But they themselves were absent, set far away, amongst their -generalisations. Of the actual life of the passing moment they felt no -more than Michael. Itself, its uniqueness, the deep loop it made, did -not exist for them. They looked only towards the future. He only at a -uniform pattern of humanity. - -Yet within the air itself was all the time the something that belonged -to everybody; that could be universally recognised; disappearing at once -with every outbreak of speech that sought only for distraction, from -embarrassment or from tedium.... She sat lifeless, holding for comfort -as she gathered once more, even with these free Russians, the proof of -her perfect social incompatibility, to the thought that this endurance -was the last. These were the last hours of wandering out of the course -of her being.... She felt herself grow pale and paler, sink each moment -more utterly out of life. The pain in her brow pressed upon her eyelids -like a kind of sleep. She must be looking quite horrible. Was there -anyone, anywhere, who suffered quite in this way, felt always and -everywhere so utterly different? - -Tea came bringing the end of the trio of Russian phrases. Michael began -to dispense it, telling the Lintoffs that they had discovered that the -English did not know how to drink tea. Ardent replies surged at the back -of her mind; but speech was a faraway mystery. She clung to Michael's -presence, the sight of his friendly arm handing the cup she could not -drink; to the remembered perfection of his acceptance of failures and -exhaustions ... mechanically she was speaking French ... appearing -interested and sincere; caring only for the way the foreign words gave a -quality to the barest statement by placing it in far-off surroundings, -giving it a life apart from its meaning, bearing her into a tide of -worldly indifference.... - -But real impressions living within her own voice came crowding upon her, -overwhelming the forced words, opening abysses, threatening complete -flouting of her surroundings. She snatched at them as they passed before -her, smiled her vanishing thread of speech into inanity, and sat silent, -half turned towards the leaping reproachful shapes of thought, -inexpressible to these people waiting with faces set only towards swift -replies. Madame Lintoff made a fresh departure in her moaning sweetly -querulous voice ... a host of replies belonged to it, all contradicting -each other. But there was a smooth neat way of replying to a thing like -that, leading quickly on to something that would presently cancel it ... -quite simple people.... Mrs. Bailey, saying wonderful things without -knowing it. - -Answers given knowingly, admitted what they professed to demolish.... -She had forfeited her right to speak; disappeared before their eyes, and -must yet stay, vulnerable, held by the sounds she had woven, false -threads between herself and them. Her head throbbed with pain, a molten -globe that seemed to be expanding to the confines of the room. Michael -was inaccessible, carefully explaining to Madame Lintoff, in his way, -why she had said what she had said; set with boyish intentness towards -the business of opening his dreadful green bottle. - -Lintoff sat upright with a listening face; the lit brooding face of one -listening to distant music. He was all lit, all the time, curiously -giving out light that his thinly coloured eyes and flaming beard helped -to flow forth. She could imagine him speaking to crowds; but he had not -the unmistakable speaker's look, that lifted look and the sense of the -audience; always there, even in converse with intimate friends.... But -of course in Russia there were no crowds, none of that machinery of -speaker and audience, except for things that were not going to end in -action.... When Michael lifted his glass with a German toast, Lintoff's -smile came without contracting his face, the light that was in him -becoming a person. He was so far away from the thoughts provoked by -speech that he could be met afresh in each thing that was said; coming -down into it whole and serious from his impersonal distances; but only -to go back. There was no permanent marvel for him in the present.... The -room was growing dim. Only Michael's profile was clear, tilted as he -tossed off his dreadful drink at one draught. His face came round at -last, fresh and glowing with the effervescence. He exclaimed, in gulps, -at her pallor and ordered hot milk for her, quietly and courteously from -the hovering waiter. The Lintoffs uttered little condolences most -tenderly, with direct homely simplicity. - -Sitting exempted, sipping her milk while the others talked, lounging, in -smooth gentle tones, three forces ... curbed to gentleness ... she felt -the room about her change from gloom to a strange blurred brightness, as -if she were seeing it through frosted glass.... A party of young men -were getting up to go, stamping their feet and jostling each other as -they shook themselves to rights, letting their jeering, jesting voices -reach street level before they got to the door. They filed past. Their -faces, browless under evilly flattened cloth caps, or too large under -horrible shallow bowlers set too far back, were all the same, set -towards the street with the look, even while they jested, of empty -finality; choiceless dead faces. They were not really gay. They had not -been gay as they sat. Only defiantly noisy, collected together to -banish, with their awful ritual of jeers and jests, the closed-in view -that was always before their eyes; giving them, even when they were at -their rowdiest, that look of lonely awareness of something that would -never change. That was _why_ they jeered? Why their voices were always -defensive and defiant? What else could they do when they could alter -nothing and never get away? The last of the file was different; a dark -young man with a club-footed gait. His face was pursed a little with the -habit of facetiousness, but not aggressively; the forehead that had just -disappeared under his dreadful cap was touched with a radiance, a -reflection of some individual state of being, permanently independent of -his circumstances; very familiar, reminding her of something glad ... -she found it as she brought her eyes back to the table; the figure of a -boy, swinging in clumsy boots along the ill-lit tunnel of that new tube -at Finsbury Park on a Saturday night, playing a concertina; a frightful -wheezing and jangling of blurred tones, filling the passage, bearing -down upon her, increasing in volume, detestable. But she had taken in -the leaping unconscious rhythmic swinging of his body and the joy it was -to him to march down the long clear passage, and forgiven him before he -passed; and then his eyes as he came, rapt and blissfully grave above -the hideous clamour. - -"Listen, Miriam. Here is something for you." She awoke to scan the three -busy faces. It had not been her fault that she had failed and dropped -away from them. Had it been her fault? The time was drawing to an end. -Presently they would separate for good. The occasion would have slipped -away. With this overwhelming sense of the uniqueness of occasions, she -yet forgot every time, that every occasion was unique, and limited in -time, and would not recur.... She sat up briskly to listen. There was -still time in hand. They had been ages together. She was at home. She -yawned and caught Lintoff's smiling eye. There was a brightness in this -little place; all sorts of things that reflected the light ... metal and -varnished wood, upright; flat surfaces; the face of the place; its -features certainly _sometimes_ cleansed, perhaps by whistling waiters in -the jocund morning, for her. She did not dust ... she could talk and -listen, in prepared places, knowing nothing of their preparations.... -She belonged to the leisure she had been born in, to the beauty of -things. The margins of her time would always be glorious. - -"Lintoff says that he understands not at all the speech of these young -men who were only now here. I have not listened; but it was of course -simply cockney. He declares that one man used repeatedly to the waiter -making the bill, one expression, sounding to him like a mixture of Latin -and Chinese--_Ava-tse_. I confess that after all these years it means to -me absolutely nothing. Can you recognise it?" - -She turned the words over in her mind, but could not translate them -until she recalled the group of men and the probable voice. Then she -recoiled. Lintoff and Michael did not know the horror they were handling -with such light amusement. - -"I know," she said, "it's appalling; fearful"--even to think the words -degraded the whole spectacle of life, set all its objects within reach -of the transforming power of unconscious distortion.... - -"Why fearful? It is just the speech of London. Certainly this tame boor -was not swearing?" railed Michael. Lintoff's smile was now all personal -curiosity. - -"It's not Cockney. It's the worst there is. London Essex. He meant -_I've_; _had_; _two_; buns or something. Isn't it _perfectly_ awful?" -Again the man appeared horribly before her, his world summarised in -speech that must, _did_ bring everything within it to the level of its -baseness. - -"Is it possible?" said Michael with an amused chuckle. Lintoff was -murmuring the phrase that meant for him an excursion into the language -of the people. He could not see its terrible menace. The uselessness of -opposing it.... Revolutionaries would let all these people out to spread -over everything.... But the people themselves would change? But it would -be too late to save the language.... - -"English is being destroyed," she proclaimed. "There _is_ a relationship -between sound and things.... If you heard a Canadian reading -Tennyson.... 'Come into the goiden, Mahd.' But that's different. And in -parts of America a very beautiful rich free English is going on; more -vivid than ours, and taking things in all the time. It is only in -England that deformed speech is increasing--is being _taught_ in -schools. It shapes these people's mouths and contracts their throats and -makes them hard-eyed." - -"You have no ground _whatever_ for these wild statements." - -"They are not wild; they are tame, when you really think of it." Lintoff -was watching tensely; deploring wasted emotion ... probably. - -"Do you think Lintoff...." They moved on in their talk, unapprehensive -foreigners, leaving the heart of the problem untouched. It was difficult -to keep attached to a conversation that was half Michael's, with the -Lintoffs holding back, acquiescing indulgently in his topics. An -encyclopaedia making statements to people who were moving in a dream; -halting and smiling and producing gestures and kindly echoes.... Michael -like a rock for most things as they were and had been in the past, yet -knowing them only in one way; clear as crystal about ordered knowledge, -but never questioning its value. - -She wanted, now, to talk again alone with Lintoff ... anything would do. -The opposition that was working within her, not to his vision, but to -his theory of it, and of the way it should be realised, would express -itself to him through any sort of interchange. Something he brought with -him would be challenged by the very sound on the air of the things that -would be given her to say, if she could be with him before the mood of -forgetful interest should be worn away. She sat waiting for the homeward -walk, surrounded by images of the things that had made her; not hers, -England's, but which she represented and lived in, through something -that had been born with her. If there was anyone she had ever met to -whom these things could be conveyed without clear speech or definite -ideas, it was he. But when they left the restaurant they walked out into -heavy rain and went to the place of parting, separated and silent in a -crowded 'bus. - - * * * * * - -Michael was going to keep his word. - -Michael alone. With more than the usual man's helplessness.... Getting -involved. At the mercy of his inability to read people. - -The torment of missing his near warm presence would grow less, but the -torment of not knowing what was happening to him would increase. - -This stillness creeping out from the corners of the room was the opening -of a lifetime of loneliness. It would grow to be far more dreadful than -it was tonight. Tonight it was alive, between the jolly afternoon with -the Lintoffs--_jolly_; the last bit of shared life--and the agony of -tomorrow's break with Michael. But a day would come when the silence -would be untormented, absolute, for life; echoing to all her movements -in the room; waiting to settle as soon as she was still. - -She resisted, pitting against it the sound of London. But in the distant -voice there was a new note; careless dismissal. The busy sound seemed -very far away; like an echo of itself. - -She moved quickly at the first sinking of her heart, and drew in her -eyes from watching her room, the way its features stood aloof, separate -and individual; independent of her presence. In a moment panic would -have seized her, leaving no refuge. She asserted herself, involuntarily -whistling under her breath, a cheerful sound that called across the -night to the mistaken voice of London and blended at once with its -song.... She would tell Michael he must communicate with her in any dire -necessity.... Moving about unseeing she broke up the shape of her room -and blurred its features and waited, holding on. Attention to these wise -outside threats would drive away something coming confidently towards -her, just round the corner of this vast, breathless moment.... She -paused to wait for it as for a person about to speak aloud in the room, -and drew a deep breath sending through her a glow from head to foot ... -it was there; independent, laughing, bubbling up incorrigibly, golden -and bright with a radiance that spread all round her; her _profanity_ -... but if incurable profanity was incurable happiness, how could she -help believing and trusting it against all other voices ... if the last -deepest level of her being was joy ... a hilarity against which -_nothing_ seemed to be able to prevail ... able, in spite of herself, in -spite of her many solemn eager expeditions in opposition to it, to be -always there, not gone; always waiting behind the last door. It was -simply _rum_. Her limbs stirred to a dance ... how _slowly_ he had -played that wild Norwegian tune; making it like an old woman singing to -a fretful child to cheat it into comfort; a gay quavering. - -Its expanded gestures carried her slowly and gently up and down the -room, dipping, swaying, with wooden clogs on her feet, her arms swinging -to balance the slow movements of her body, the surrounding mountain -landscape gleaming in the joy of the festival, defying the passing of -the years. She could not keep within the slow rhythm. Her feet flung off -the clogs and flew about the room until she was arrested by the flying -dust and escaped to the window while it settled behind her on the -subdued furniture. A cab whistle was sounding in the street and the -voices, coming up through the rain-moist air, of people grouped waiting -on a doorstep ... come out into the deep night, out again into endless -space, from a room, and still keeping up the sound of carefully -modulated speech and laughter. The jingling of a hansom sounded far away -in the square. It would be years before it would get to them. They would -have to go on fitting things into the shape of their carefully made -tones. She was tempted to call down to them to stop; tell them they were -not taking anyone in.... - -A puff of wind brought the rain against her face, inviting her to stay -with the night and find again, as she had done in the old days of -solitude, the strange wide spaces within the darkness. But she was drawn -back by a colloquy set in, behind her, in the room. Warmly the little -shabby enclosure welcomed her, given back, eager for her to go on -keeping her life in it; showing her the time ahead, the circling scenes; -all the undeserved, unsought, extraordinary wealth of going on being -alive. She stood with the rain-drops on her face, tingling from head to -foot to know why; why; _why_ life should exist.... - -Going back into the room she found that her movement about it had all -its old quality; she was once more in that zone of her being where all -the past was with her unobstructed; not recalled, but present, so that -she could move into any part and be there as before. She felt her way to -sit on the edge of her bed, but gently as she let herself down, the -bedstead creaked and gave beneath her, jolting her back into today, -spreading before her the nothingness of the days she must now pass -through, bringing back into her mind the threats and wise sayings. She -faced them with arguments, flinching as she recognised this -acknowledgment of their power. - -Lifelong loneliness is a _phrase_. With no evidence for its meaning, but -the things set down in books.... People who _record_ loneliness, bare -their wounds, and ask for pity, are not wholly wounded. For others, no -one has any right to speak.... What is "a lonely figure"? If it knows it -is lonely it is not altogether lonely. If it does not know, it is not -lonely. Books about people are lies from beginning to end. However -sincere, they cannot offer any evidence about _life_. Even lifelong -loneliness is life; too marvellous to express. Absolutely, of course. -But relatively? Relative things are forgotten when you are alone.... - -The thought, at this moment, of the alternative of any sort of social -life with its trampling hurry, made her turn to the simple single sense -of her solitude with thankfulness that it was preserved. Social -incompatibility thought of alone, brought a curious boundless promise, a -sense of something ahead that she must be alone to meet, or would miss. -The condemnation of social incompatibility coming from the voices of the -world roused an impatience which could not feel ashamed; an angry demand -for time, and behind it a sense of companionship for which there was no -name.... - -Single, detached figures came vividly before her, all women. Each of -them had spoken to her with sudden intimacy, on the outskirts of groups -from which she had moved away to breathe and rest. They had all -confessed their incompatibility; a chosen or accepted loneliness. But it -was certain they never felt that human forms about them crushed, with -the sets of unconsidered assumptions behind their talk, the very sense -of existence. They were either cynical, not only seeing through people, -but not caring at all to be alive, never assuming characters in order to -share the fun ... or they were "misjudged" or "resigned." The cynical -ones were really alone. They never had any sense of being accompanied by -themselves. They had a strange hard strength; unexpected hobbies and -interests. Those who were resigned were usually religious.... They lived -in the company of their idea of Christ ... but regretfully ... as if it -were a second best.... "And I who hoped for only God, found _thee_." ... -Mrs. Browning could never have realised how fearfully funny that was ... -from a churchwoman.... And Protestant churchwomen believe that only men -are eligible to associate with God. Thinking of Protestant husbands the -idea was suffocating. It made God intolerable; and even Heaven simply -_abscheulich_.... Buddhism.... "Buddhism is the only faith that offers -itself to men and women alike on equal terms ..." and then, "women are -not encouraged to become priests" ... _Thibet_.... The whole world would -be Thibet if the people were evenly distributed. Only the historic -centuries had given men their monstrous illusions; only the crowding of -the women in towns. But the Church will go on being a Royal Academy of -Males.... - -She called back her thoughts from a contemplation that would lead only -to anger, and was again aware of herself waiting, on the edge of her -bed, just in time. In spite of her truancy the gay tumult was still -seething in her mind; the whole of her past happinesses close about her, -drawing her in and out of the years. Fragments of forgotten experience -detached themselves, making a bright moving patchwork as she watched, -waiting, while she passed from one to another and fresh patches were -added drawing her on. Joy piled up within her; but while she savoured -again the quality all these past things had held as she lived them -through, she suddenly knew that they were there only because she was on -her way to a goal. Somewhere at the end of this ramble into the past, -was a release from wrath. She rallied to the coolness far away within -her tingling blood. How astoundingly good life was; generous to the -smallest effort.... The scenes gathered about her, called her back, -acquired backgrounds that spread and spread. She watched single figures -going on into lives in which she had no part; into increasing incidents, -leaving them, as they had found them, unaware. They never stopped, never -dropped their preoccupation with people and the things that happened, to -notice the extraordinariness of the world being there and they on it ... -and so it was, everywhere.... - -She seemed to be looking with a hundred eyes, multitudinously, seeing -each thing from several points at once, while through her mind flitted -one after another all the descriptions of humanity she had ever culled. -There was no goal here. Only the old familiar business of suspended -opinions, the endless battling of thoughts. She turned away. She had -gone too far. Now there would be lassitude and the precipice that -waited.... Her room was clear and hard about her as she moved to take -refuge near the friendly gas, the sheeny patch of wall underneath it. - -As she stood within the radiance, conscious only of the consoling light, -the little strip of mantelshelf and the small cavernous presence of the -empty grate, a single scene opened for a moment in the far distance, -closing in the empty vista, standing alone, indistinct, at the bottom of -her ransacked mind. It was gone. But its disappearance was a gentle -touch that lingered, holding her at peace and utterly surprised. - -This forgotten thing was the most deeply engraved of all her memories? -The most powerful? More than any of the bright remembered things that -had seemed so good as they came, suddenly, catching her up and away, -each one seeming to be the last her lot would afford? - -It was. The strange faint radiance in which it had shone cast a soft -grey light within the darkness concealing the future.... - -Oldfield. It had come about through Dr. Salem Oldfield. She could not -remember his arrival. Only suddenly realising him, one evening at dinner -when he had been long enough in the house to chaff Mrs. Bailey about -some imaginary man. Sex-chaff; that was his form of humour; giving him -away as a nonconformist. But so handsome, sitting large and square, a -fine massive head, well shaped hair, thick, and dinted with close -cropped waves; talking about himself in the eloquent American way. It -was that night he had told the table how he met his fiancee. He was a -charlatan, stagey; but there must have been something behind his clever -anecdotal American piety. Something remained even after the other -doctors' stories about his sharing their sitting-room and books, without -sharing expenses; about his laziness and self-indulgence. - -Mr. Chadband. But why shouldn't people on the way to Heaven enjoy -buttered toast? A hypocrite is all the time trying to be something, or -he wouldn't be a hypocrite.... And the story he told was _true_.... Dr. -Winchester knew. It was with his friends at Balham that the girl had -been staying. Wonderful. His lonely despair in Uganda; the way he had -forced himself in the midst of his darkness to visit the sick convert -... and found the answer to his trouble in a leaflet hymn at the -bedside; and come to London for his furlough and met the authoress in -the very first house he visited. Things like that don't happen unless -people are real in some way. And the way he had admired Michael; and -liked him. - -It had been Michael he had taken to the Quaker meeting. But there must -have been some talk with him about religion, to lead up to that sudden -little interview on the stairs, he holding a book in one large hand and -thumping it with the other.... "You'll find the basic realities of -religious belief set forth _here_; in this small volume. Your George Fox -was a marvellous man." There was an appealing truth in him at that -moment, and humility.... But before his footsteps had died away she knew -she could not read the book. Even the sight of it suggested his -sledge-hammer sentimental piety. Also she had felt that the religious -opinions of a politician could not clear up the problems that had -baffled Emerson. It was only after she had given back the book that she -remembered the other George Fox and the Quaker in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. -But she had said she had read it and that it was wonderful, to silence -his evangelistic attacks, and also for the comfort of sharing, with -anybody, the admission that there was absolute wonderfulness. - -After that there was no memory of him until the Sunday morning when -Michael had come panting upstairs to ask her to go to this meeting. He -was incoherent, and she had dressed and gone out with them, into the -high bright Sunday morning stillness; without knowing whither. Finding -out, somewhere on the way, that they were going to see Quakers waiting -to be moved by the spirit.... A whitewashed room, with people in Quaker -dress sitting in a circle? Shocking to break in on them.... Startling -not to have remembered them in all these years of hoping to meet someone -who understood silence; and now to be going to them as a show; because -Dr. Oldfield admired Michael, and being American, found out the unique -things in London.... - -In amongst the small old shops in St. Martin's Lane, gloomy, iron-barred -gates, a long bleak corridor, folding doors; and suddenly inside a large -room with sloping galleries and a platform, like a concert room, a row -of dingy modern people sitting on the platform facing a scattered -"chapel" congregation; men and women sitting on different sides of the -room ... being left standing under the dark gallery, while Dr. Oldfield -and Michael were escorted to seats amongst the men; slipping into a -chair at the back of the women's side; stranded in an atrocious emphasis -of sex. But the men were on the _left_ ... and numbers of them; not the -few of a church congregation; and young; modern young men in overcoats; -really religious, and _not_ thinking the women secondary.... But there -were men also on the women's side; here and there. Married men? Then -those across the way were bachelors.... That young man's profile; very -ordinary and with a _walrus_ moustache; but stilled from its maleness, -deliberately divested and submitted to silence, redeeming him from his -type.... - -To have been born amongst these people; to know at home and in the -church a _shared_ religious life.... They were in Heaven already. -Through acting on their belief. Where two or three are gathered -together. Nearer than thoughts; nearer than breathing; nearer than hands -and feet. The church knew it; but put the cart before the horse; the -surface before the reality. The beautiful surroundings, the bridge of -music and then, the moment the organ stopped a booming or nasal voice at -top speed, "T' th' _Lord_our God b'long _mah_cies 'n f'giveness." ... -Anger and excited discovery and still more time wasted, in glancing -across to find Michael, small and exposed at the gangway end, his head -decorously bent, the Jew in him paying respect, but looking up and -keenly about him from under his bent brows, observing on the only terms -he knew, through eye and brain.... - -Michael was a determinist.... But to assume the presence of the holy -spirit was also determinism?... Beyond him Dr. Oldfield, huge and -eagerly bowed, conforming to Quaker usages, describing the occasion in -his mind as he went. It was just then, turning to get away from his -version, that the quality of the silence had made the impression that -had come back to her now. - -Dr. McHibbert said pure being was nothing. But there is no such thing as -nothing ... being in the silence was being in something alive and -positive; at the centre of existence; being there with others made the -sense of it stronger than when it was experienced alone. Like lonely -silence it drove away the sense of enclosure. There had been no -stuffiness of congregated humanity; the air, breathed in, had held -within it a freshness, spreading coolness and strength through the -secret passages of the nerves. - -It had felt like the beginning of a life that was checked and postponed -into the future by the desire to formulate it; and by the nudging of a -homesickness for daily life with these people who lived from the centre, -admitted, in public, that life brims full all the time, away below -thoughts and the loud shapes of things that happen.... And just as she -had longed for the continuance of the admission, the spell had been -broken. Suddenly, not in continuance, not coming out of the stillness, -but interrupting it, an urbane, ingratiating voice. Standing up in the -corner of the platform, turned towards the congregation, as if he were a -lecturer facing an audience, a dapper little man in a new spring suit, -with pink cheeks and a pink rose in his buttonhole.... Afterwards it had -seemed certain that he had broken the silence because the time was -running out. Strangers were present and the spirit must move.... - -It had been a little address, a thought-out lecture on natural history, -addressed by a specialist to people less well informed. He had talked -his subject not with, but at them.... While his voice went on, the -gathering seemed to lose all its religious significance. His informing -air; his encouraging demonstrator's smiles; his obvious relish of the -array of facts. They fell on the air like lies, losing even their own -proper value, astray and intruding in the wrong context. When he sat -down the silence was there again, but within it were the echoes of the -urbane, expounding, professorial voice. Then, just afterwards, the -breaking forth of that old man's muffled tones; praying; quietly, as if -he were alone. No one to be seen; a humbled life-worn old voice, coming -out of the heart of the gathering, carrying with it, gently, all the -soreness and groaning that might be there. No whining or obsequiousness; -no putting on of a special voice; patient endurance and longing; -affection and confidence. And far away within the indistinct aged tones, -a clarion note; the warm glow of sunlight; his own strong certainty -beating up unchanged beneath the heavy weight of his years. A gentle, -clean, clear-eyed old man, with certainly a Whitman beard. Beautiful. -For a moment it had been perfectly beautiful. - -If he had stopped abruptly.... But the voice cleared and swelled. Life -dropped away from it; leaving a tiresome old gentleman in full blast; -thoughts coming in to shape carefully the biblical phrases describing -God; to God. In the end he too was lecturing the congregation, praying -at them, expressing his judgment.... Bleakness spread through the air. -It was worse than the little pink man, who partly knew what he was doing -and was ashamed. But this old chap was describing, at awful length, -without knowing it, the secret of his own surface misery, the fact that -he had never got beyond the angry, jealous, selfish, male God of the -patriarchate. - -Almost at once after that, the stirring and breaking up; and those -glimpses, as people moved and turned towards each other, shaking hands, -of the faces of some of the women, bringing back the lost impression. -The inner life of the meeting was more fully with the women? It was they -who spread the pure, live atmosphere? But they were obviously related. -They had a household look, but not narrowly; none of the air of -isolation that spread from churchwomen; the look of being used up by men -and propping up a man's world with unacknowledged, or simply unpondered, -private reservations. Nor any of the jesting air of those women who -'make the best of things.' They looked enviably, deeply, richly alive, -on the very edge of the present, representing their faith in their own -persons, entirely self-centred and self-controlled; poised and serene -and withdrawn, yet not withholding. They had no protesting competing -eagerness, and none of the secret arrogance of churchwomen. Their -dignity was not dignified. Seen from behind they had none of the -absurdity of churchwomen, devoutly uppish about the status of an -institution which was a standing insult to their very existence.... It -was they, the shock of the relief, after the revealed weakness of the -men, of their perfect poise, their personality, so strong and intense -that it seemed to hold the power of reaching forth, impersonally, in any -thinkable direction, that had finally confirmed the impression that had -been so deep and that yet had not once come up into her thoughts since -the day it was made.... - -The poorest, least sincere type of Anglican priest had a something that -was lacking in Dr. Oldfield and the pink man. The absence of it had been -the most impressive part of seeing them talking together. He had -introduced Michael first. And the feeling of being affronted had quickly -changed to thankfulness at representing nothing in the eyes of the suave -little man. He had given only half his attention, not taking up the fact -that Michael was a Zionist; his eyes wandering about; the proprietary -eyes of a churchwarden.... - -St. Pancras clock struck two. But there was no sense of night in the -soft wide air; pouring in now more strongly at the open casement, -rattling its fastening gently, rhythmically, to and fro, sounding its -two little notes. It was the _west_ wind. Of _course_ she was not tired -and there was no sense of night. She hurried to be in bed in the -darkness, breathing it in, listening to the little voice at the window. -Here was part of the explanation of her evening. Again and again it had -happened; the escape into the tireless unchanging centre; when the wind -was in the west. Michael had been hurt when she had told him that the -west wind brought her perfect happiness and always, like a sort of -message, the certainty that she must remain alone. But it was through -him that she had discovered that it transformed her. It was an augury -for tomorrow. For the way of the wind tonight, its breath passing -through her, recalled, seeming exactly to repeat, that wonderful night -of restoration when, for the only time, he had been away from London. It -was useless to deplore the seeming cruelty. The truth was forced upon -her, wafted through her by this air that washed away all the -circumstances of her life. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -She was inside the dark little hall, her luggage being set down in the -shadows by the brisk silent maid. At the sight of the wide green -staircase ascending to the upper world, the incidents of the journey, -translated as she drove to the house into material for conversation, -fell away and vanished. - -The thud of the swing door, the flurry of summer skirts threshed by -flying footsteps; Alma hurrying to meet her.... It was folly; _madness_; -to flout the year's fatigue by coming here to stay, instead of going -away with friends also tired and seeking holiday.... - -With the first step on the yielding pile of the stair-carpet she forgot -everything but the escape from noise and gloom and grime. She was going -up for four endless weeks into the clean light streaming down from -above. This time there should be no brisk beginning. She would act out -Alma's promise to accept her as an invalid deaf mute. There was so much -time that fatigue was an asset, the shadow against which all this -brightness shone out. - -But Alma was not welcoming an invalid. There she stood, at the end of -her rush, daintily jigging from foot to foot, in a delicate frilly -little dress; heading the perspective of pure white and green, surfaces -and angles sharp in the east light coming through the long casement. She -checked the bright perspective with the thought in her dress, the -careful arrangement of her softly woven pile of bright hair, the -afternoon's excitement, from which she had rushed forth, shining through -her always newly charming little pointed square face. - -"Shall I labour up the rest of the stairs, or sit down here and burst -into tears?" - -"Oh, come up, dear ole fing," she cried with tender irony; but _irony_. -"Paw fing. Is it _very_ tired?" But her gentle arms and hands were -perfectly, wonderfully understanding; though her face withdrawn from her -gentle kiss still mocked; always within the limpid brown eyes that -belabouring, rallying, mocking spirit. She held her smile radiantly, -against a long troubled stare, and then it broke into her abrupt gurgle -of laughter. - -"_Come_ along," she cried and carried a guest at a run along the passage -and through the swing door. - -It was the downstairs spare room.... Miriam had expected the winding -stair, the room upstairs, where all her shorter visits were stored up. -She was to be down here at the centre of the house, just behind low -casements, right on the garden, touched by the sound of the sea. And -within the curtain-shaded sound-bathed green-lit space there was a -deeper remoteness than even in the far high room, so weirdly shaped by -the burning roof; its orange light always full of a strange listening -silence.... - -"_Alma._ How _perfectly_ glorious." She stood still, turned away, as -Alma closed the door, contemplating the screened light falling -everywhere on spaces of pure fresh colour, against which the deep tones -of single objects shone brightly. - -Alma neighed gently and with little gurgles of laughter put her hands -about her and gently shook her. "It _is_ rather a duck of a room. It -_is_ rather a duck of a room." Another little affectionate, clutching -shake. Her face was crinkled, her eyes twinkling with mirth; as if she -gave the room a little sportive push that left it bashed amusingly -sideways. In just this way had she jested when they walked, wearing long -pigtails, down the Upper Richmond Road. If she could have echoed the -words and joined in Alma's laughter, she would have been, in Alma's -eyes, suitably launched on her visit. But she couldn't. _Amused_ -approval was an outrage on something. Yet the kind of woman who would be -gravely pleased and presently depart to her own quarters proud and -possessive, would also leave everything unexpressed. But that kind of -person would not have achieved this kind of room ... and to Alma the -wonder of it was of course inseparable from the adventure of getting it -together. It was something in the independent effect of things that was -violated by regarding them merely as successful larks.... Yet Alma's -sense of beauty, her recognition of its unfamiliar forms was keener, -more experienced, more highly-wrought than her own. - -"I shall spend the whole of my time in here, doing absolutely nothing." - -"You shall! You shall! _Dear_ old Mira." She was laughing again. "But -you'll come out and have tea. Sometimes. Won't you, for instance, come -out and have tea _now_? In a few minutes? There'll be tea; in _ever_ -such a few minutes. Wouldn't that be a bright idea?" How dainty she was; -how pretty. A Dresden china shepherdess, without the simper; a -sturdiness behind her sparkling mirth. If only she would stop trying to -liven her up. It seemed always when they were alone, as if she were -still brightly in the midst of people keeping things going.... - -"Tea! Bright idea! Tea!" A little parting shake and a brisk whirling -turn and she was sitting away on the side of the bed, meditatively, with -both hands, using a small filmy handkerchief, having given up hope of -galvanising; saying gravely, "Take off your things and tell me really -how you are." - -"I'm at my last gasp," said Miriam sinking into a chair. It was clear -now that she would not be alone with the first expressiveness of the -room. Returning later on she would find it changed. The first, already -fading, wonderful moment would return, painfully, only when she was -packing up to go. After all it was Alma's home. But it was no use trying -to fight this monstrous conviction that the things she liked of other -people, were more hers than their own. The door opened again upon a -servant with her pilgrim baskets. - -"I nearly always _am_ at my last gasp nowadays." Clean, strong neatly -cuffed hands setting the dusty London baskets down to rest in the quiet -freshness. - -Alma spoke formally; her voice a comment on expressiveness in the -presence of the maid; and an obliteration of the expressiveness of the -room; making it just a square enclosure set about with independent -things, each telling, one against the other, a separate history.... When -the maid was gone the air was parched with silence. Miriam felt -suspended; impatient; eager to be out in whatever grouping Alma had come -from, to recover there in the open the sense of life that had departed -from the sheltering room. - -"How is Sarah?" Alma felt the strain. But for her it was the difficulty -of finding common ground for interchange with anyone whose life was -lacking in brilliant features. She was behaving, kindly trying for -topics; but also, partly, underlining the featurelessness, as a -punishment for bad behaviour. - -"Oh--flourishing--I think." She rose, unpinning her stifling veil. She -would have to brace herself to reach out to something with which to -break into the questions Alma's kind patience would one by one produce. -A catechism leading her thoughts down into a wilderness of unexamined -detail that would unfit her for the coming emergence. - -"And Harriett?" - -"Harriett's simply _splendid_. You know, if she only had a little -capital she could take another house. She's sending people away all the -time." - -"Oh yes?" Alma did not want to spend time over Harriett's apartment -house, unless it was brightly described. It was too soon for bright -descriptions. The item had been dragged in and wasted, out of place. A -single distasteful fact. The servants, hidden away beyond the velvet -staircase, seemed to be hearing the unsuitable disclosure. She sought -about in her mind for something that would hold its own; one of the -points of conflict that had cleared, since she was last here, to single -unanswerable statements. But Alma forestalled her, attacking the silence -with her gayest voice. "Oh Miriam, what _do_ you think. I saw a Speck; -yesterday; on the Grand Esplanade. _Do_ you remember the Specks?" - -Miriam beamed and agreed, breathing in reminiscences. But they would be -endless; and would not satisfy them, or bring them together. She could -not, with Alma alone, pretend that those memories were merely amusing. -It was a treachery. The mere mention of a name sent her back to the -unbearable happiness of that last school summer, a sunlit flower-filled -world opening before her, the feeling of being herself a flower, -expanding in the sunlight. She could not regard it as a past. All that -had happened since was a momentary straying aside, to be forgotten. To -that other world she was still going forward. One day she would suddenly -come upon it, as she did in her dreams. The flower-scented air of it was -in her nostrils as she sat reluctantly rousing herself to take Alma's -cue. "There were millions of them." It had never occurred to her that -they were funny. Alma, even then, outside her set of grave romantic -friendships, had seen almost everything as a comic spectacle and had no -desire to go back. "Yes, _weren't_ they innumerable! And so _large_! It -was a large one I saw. The very biggest Speck of all I think it must -have been." - -"I expect it was Belinda." - -"Oh, my _dear_! _Could_ you tell them apart?" - -"Belinda was one of the middle ones. Absolutely _square_. I liked her -for that and her deep bass voice and her silence." - -"Oh, but Miriam, such a _heavy_ silence." - -"That was _why_. Perhaps because she made me feel sylph like and -elegant. Me, Susan.... Or it might have been _Mehetabel_; the eldest of -the younger ones. I once heard her answer in class...." - -"My _dear_! Could a Speck really speak?" - -"Hetta did. In a boo; like the voice of the wind." - -She contemplated her thoughtless simile. It was exactly true. First a -sound, breathy and resonant, and then words _blown_ on it.... Alma's -amused laughter was tailing off into little snickers; repeated while she -looked for something else. But the revived Specks marshalled themselves -more and more clearly, playing their parts in the crowded scene. - -"And you know the eldest, Alathea, was quite willowy. Darker than the -others. They were all mid-brown." - -"Oh Miriam; doesn't that express them?" - -"I wonder what they are all doing?" - -"Nothing, my dear. Oh _nothing_. Now _can_ you imagine a Speck doing -anything whatever?" - -"All sitting about in the big house; going mad; on their father's -money." - -"Yes," said Alma simply, gathering her face into gravity. "It's rather -terrible, you know." A black shadow bearing slowly down upon the golden -picture.... But they were so determined to see women's lives in that way -... yet there was Miss Lane, and Mildred Gaunt and Eunice Bradley ... -three of their own small group; all gone mad. - -"Well," said Alma rising, her hands moving up to her bright hair, -adjusting it, with delicate wreathing movements, "I'm so glad you've -come, old fing." She hummed herself to the door with a little tune to -which Miriam listened standing in the middle of the room in a numb -suspension. The door was opened. Alma would be gliding gracefully out. -Her song ceased, and she cleared her throat with that little sound that -was the sound of her voice in quiet comment. - -"Wow. Old brown-study." She turned to look. Alma's pretty head was -thrust back into the room. To shake things off, to make one shake things -off.... She smiled, groaning in spirit at her accentuated fatigue. One -more little amused gurgle, and Alma was gone. - -She went into her own room. Next door. Opposite to it was Hypo's room. -Opposite to her own door, the door of the bathroom, and just beyond, the -swing door leading to the landing and the rooms grouped about it. -Outside the low curtained windows was the midst of the garden. She was -set down at the heart of the house. Sounds circled about her instead of -coming faintly up.... She drew back the endmost curtain an inch or two. -Bright light fell on her reflection in the long mirror. She was -transformed already. It would be impossible to convince anyone that she -was a tired Londoner. Here was already the self that no one in London -knew. The removal of pressure had relaxed the nerves of her face, -restoring its contours. Her mushroom hat had crushed the mass of her -hair into a good shape. The sharp light called out its bright golds, -deepened the colour of her eyes and the clear tints of her skin. The -little old washed out muslin blouse flatly defining her shoulders and -arms, pouched softly above the pale grey skirt.... I _do_ understand -colour ... that tinge of lavender in such a pale, pale grey; just -warming it ... and belonging perfectly to Grannie's spidery old Honiton -collar.... The whole little toilet was quite good; could be forgotten, -and would keep fresh, bleached by the dry bright air to paler grey and -whiter white, while the notes of bright living colour in her face and -hair intensified from day to day. She hunted out her handglass and -consulted her unknown eyes. It was true. They were brown; not grey. In -the bright light there was a web, thorny golden brown, round the iris. -She gazed into its tangled depths. So strange. So warm and bright; her -unknown self. The self she was meant to be, living in that bright, goldy -brown filbert tint, irradiating the grey into which it merged. It was a -discovery. She was a goldy brown person, not cold grey. With half a -chance, goldy brown and rose. And the whites of her eyes were pearly -grey-blue. What a number of strange live colours, warmly asserting -themselves; independently. But only at close quarters. - - * * * * * - -She followed Alma back through the swing door. Alma hummed a little -song; an overture; its low tones filled the enclosed space, opened all -the doors, showed her the whole of the interior in one moment and the -coming month in an endless bright panorama passing unbroken from room to -room, each scene enriched by those accumulated behind it, and those -waiting ahead; the whole, for her, perpetually returning upon its own -perfection. Alma paused before a scatter of letters on the table below -the long lattice. Links with their other world; with things she would -hear of, stated and shaped in their way, revealing a world to which they -alone seemed to have an interpreting key; making it hold together; but -inacceptable ... but the _statement_ was forever fascinating.... Through -the leaded panes she caught a glimpse of the upper slope of the little -town. A row of grey seaside boarding-houses slanting up-hill. A -ramshackle little omnibus rumbling down the steep road. - -"Edna Prout's with us for the week-end." Alma's social tone, -deliberately clear and level. It made a little scene, the beginning of a -novel, the opening of a play, warning the players to stand off and make -a good shape, smoothly moving without pause or hitch, playing and saying -their parts, always with an eye to the good shape, conscious of a -critical audience. There would be no expansive bright beginning, alone -with Alma and Hypo, the centre of their attention. - -"Who is Edna Prout?" she demanded jealously. - -Alma turned with a little bundle of the letters in her hand, speaking -thoughtfully away through the window. "She writes; rather wonderful -stuff." - -Away outside the window stood the wonderful stuff, being written, rolled -off; the vague figure of a woman, cleverly dressed, rising pen in hand -from her work to be socially brilliant. Popular. Divided between -mysteriously clever work and successful femineity. Alma glanced, -pausing, and looked away again. - -"She has a most amazing sense of the past," she murmured reflectively. -As if it had just occurred to her. But it must be the current -description. His description. - -"The Stone Age?" - -"Oh _no_, my dear!" She shrieked gently; wheeling round to share her -mirth. "The Past. _'Istry._ The Mediterranean past." - -"Her stones are precious stones." From this beginning, to go on looking -only at things, ignoring surroundings.... - -"That's it! Come along!" Alma went blithely forward, again humming her -tune. But there was a faint change in her confident manner. She too, was -conscious of going to meet an ordeal. - -Through the still, open-windowed brightness of the brown-green room, out -into the naked blaze. Rocky dryness and sea freshness mingled in the -huge air. The little baked pathway ribboning the level grass, -disappearing round the angle of the enclosing edge, the perfect sharp -edge, irises feathering along it, sharp green spikes and deep blue hoods -of filmy blossom patterned against the paler misty blueness of the sea. -Perfect. Hidden beyond the sharp edge, the pathway winding down the -terraced slope of the cliff to the little gate opening from the tangled -bottom on to the tamarisk-trimmed sea road. Seats set at the angles of -the winding path. The sea glinting at your side between the leaf -patterns of the creeper covered pergola. The little roughstone shelter, -trapping the sunblaze. The plain bench along the centre of a piece of -pathway, looking straight out to the midmost sea; sun-baked gravel under -your feet, clumps of flowers in sight. Somewhere the rockery, its face -catching the full blaze of the light, green bosses clumped upon it, with -small pure-toned flowers, mauvy pink and tender eastern blue. On the -level just below it, a sudden little flat of grass, small flowered -shrubs at its edge towards the sea. - -All waiting for tomorrow, endless tomorrows, in the morning, when the -sunlight poured from the other side of the sky and the face of the cliff -was cool and coloured. For tonight when the blaze had deepened into -sunset and afterglow, making a little Naples of the glimpse of white -town, winding street and curve of blue bay visible in the distance -beyond the shoulder of the sidemost clump of shrubs along the end of the -sunk lawn. - -Alma had halted, just behind, letting her gaze her fill. There was no -one to be seen. No sound. Nothing to break the perfect expressiveness. - -"We've taken refuge at the back," suggested Alma into her arm-stretching -groan of contentment. Down across the lawn into the little pathway -between the shrubs. There they were, in the cool shadows under the small -trees. Large bamboo chairs, a cushioned hammock, tea going on, Hypo -rising in the middle of a sentence. Miss Prout sitting opposite, -upright, posed, knee over knee, feet shod in peacock blue, one pointing -downwards in the air, exactly above the other pointing on to the gravel. -A wide silky gown, loose; held flat above the chest by brilliant bold -embroidery; a broad dark head; short wide tanned face. - -The eyes were not brown but wide starry blue; unseeing; contradicting -her matronly shape. Now that the arrival was over and Hypo had begun -again, she still had the look of waiting, apart. As if she were sitting -alone. Yet her clever clothes and all her outlines diffused -companionship. - -The lizards must have looked perfect, darting and basking on the -rockery. But why have his heart won only by the one that quickly -wriggled out of the box?... Paying attention only to the people who were -strong enough to fuss all the time. Not seeing that half their animation -was assumed.... "Do you still," the bells of the blue flowers in the -deepest shadow were like lanterns hung on little trees crowded upon the -brown earth. The sound of grass and flowers in blissful shade poured -into the voices, making agreement, giving them all the quality of -blossoming in the surrounding coolness, aware of it, aware of the outer -huge splintering sunlight that made it perfect, fled away from, left to -itself to prepare another perfection ... "divide people into those who -like 'The Reading Girl' and those who prefer the Dresden teapot?" - -"_Sudden_ Miriam. Miriam, Edna, is ... is _terrifying_...." He turned -full round to hand the buns, both firm neatly moulded hands holding the -dish ironically-carefully. The wide blue eyes looked across. Where was -she all the time; so calm and starry.... "She comes down from London, -into our rustic solitude, primed...." - -"She's a fighter," said Miss Prout roundly, as if she had not spoken. - -"Fighting is too mild for Miriam. She crushes. She demolishes. When -words fail her," the lifting, descriptive, outlining laughter coming -into the husky voice, filling out its insistence, "she uses her fists. -Then she departs; back to London; fires off not so much letters as -reinforcements of the prostrating blow." _Kind_ Hypo. Doing his best for -her. Launching her on her holiday with approval; knowing how little was -to be expected of her.... Ages already she had been here blissful. -Getting every moment more blissful. And this was only the first tea. The -four weeks of long days, each day in four long bright separate pieces, -spread out ahead, enclosed; a long unbroken magic. Poor Miss Prout with -her short week-end.... But she went from country-house to country-house. -Certainly. Her garments, even on this languid afternoon, were electric -with social life. Then hostesses were a necessary part of her -equipment.... She must fear them, like a man. She herself could not be -imagined as a hostess. There was no look of strain about her. Only that -look of insulated waiting. Boredom if her eyes had been the thing-filled -eyes of a man, bored in the intervals between meals and talk and events. - -"Yes, but _do_ you?" Lame. But Hypo turned, accepting, not departing -afresh to tone up the talk. The ringed, lightning-quick grey eyes -glanced again, as when she had arrived, taking in the detail and the -whole of her effect, but this time directly messaging approval. The -luminous clouded grey, clear ringed, the voice husky and clear, the -strange repellent mouth below the scraggly moustache, kept from weakness -only by the perpetually hovering disclaiming ironic smile ... -fascination that could not be defined; that drove its way through all -the evidence against it.... Married, yet always seeming nearer and more -sympathetic than other men.... Her cup brimmed over. She saw herself as -she had been this morning, in dingy black, pallid, tired to death, -hurriedly finishing off at Wimpole Street. And now an accepted -harmonious part of this so different scene. But this power of blossoming -in response to surroundings was misleading. Beneath it she was utterly -weary. Tomorrow she would feel wrecked, longing for silence. - -"Any more tea, anybody? More _tea_, Miriam." Alma waved the teapot. The -little scene gleamed to the sound of her voice, a bright, intense -grouping in the green shade, with the earth thrilling beneath and the -sky arching down over its completeness. - -"Yes," said Hypo, on his feet. "She'll have, just one more cup. Let me -see," he went on, from the tea-table, "you liked; the Girl. Yes.... No. -The teapot. I accuse you of the teapot." - -"I liked both." Not true. But the answer to the wrongness of the -division. - -"Catholic Miriam. That's quite a feat. Even for you, Miriam, that is, I -think ..." - -"But she didn't! She called my teapot messy!" - -"It's true. I _do_ think Dresden china messy. But I mean that it's -possible----" She spoke her argument through his answer, volleyed over -his shoulder as he brought back her cup, to a remark from Miss Prout. -The next moment he was away in the hammock near Miss Prout's low chair, -throwing cushions out on to the grass, gathering up a sheaf of printed -leaves; leaving her classed with the teapot people.... - -"Buoyed up by _tea_, Edna," he chuckled, flinging away the end of a -cigarette; propping the pages against his knee. "By the way who is -Olga?" - -"The eldest Featherstonhaugh." She spoke carelessly; sat half turned -away from him serenely smoking; a small buff cigarette in a long amber -tube; but her voice vibrated. - -He was _reading_, in her presence, a book she had written.... Those -pages were _proofs_.... My arrival was an interruption in a -companionship that made conversation superfluous.... What need for her -to talk when she could put into his hands, alive and finished, something -that she had made; that could bring into his face that look of attention -and curiosity. How not sit suspended, and dreaming, through the small -break in her tremendous afternoon? Yet he was getting the characters -mixed up.... - -"And Cyril. Do I know Cyril?" - -She had put _people_ in.... People he knew of. They joked about it. -Horrible.... She gazed, revolted and fascinated, at the bundle of pages. -Someone ought to prevent, destroy.... This peaceful beauty.... Life -going so wonderfully on. And people being helplessly picked out and put -into books. - -"This is the episode of the _greenhouse_!" His voice broke on the word -into its utmost wail of amusement. - -_That_ was 'writing'; from behind the scenes. People and things from -life, a little altered, and described from the author's point of view. -Easy; if your life was amongst a great many people and things and you -were hard enough to be sceptical and superior. But an impossibly mean -advantage ... a cheap easy way. Cold clever way of making people look -seen-through and foolish; to be laughed at, while the authors remained -admired, special people, independent, leading easy airy sunlit lives, -supposed, by readers who did not know where they got their material, to -be _creators_. He was reading on steadily now, the look of amused -curiosity gone. - -Alma came over with a box of cigarettes and a remark; kindly thinking -she might be feeling left; offering distraction. Or wishing to make her -behave, launch out, with pretended interest upon a separate -conversation, instead of hanging upon theirs. Of course she was sitting -staring, without knowing it.... And already she had taken a cigarette -and murmured an answer obliviously, and Alma had gone, accepting her -engrossment, humming herself about amongst the trees, missing his -remarks. Deliberately asserting a separate existence? Really loving her -garden and enjoying the chance of being alone? Or because she knew all -he had to say about _everything_. She came back and subsided in a low -chair near Miss Prout just as he dropped his pages and looked out on to -the air with a grave unconscious face. Lost in contemplation. This -woman, so feminine and crafty, was a great writer. Extraordinary. -Impossible. In a second he had turned to her. - -"How do you do it, Edna? You do it. It's _shattering_, that -chapter-end." - -Miss Prout was speechless, not smiling. Crushed with joy.... Alma, at -her side, smiled in delight, genuine sympathetic appreciation. - -"I'm done in, Edna," he wailed, taking up the leaves to go on, "shan't -write another line. And the worst of it is I know you'll keep it up. -That I've got to make; before dinner; my--my _via dolorosa_; through -your abominably good penultimate and final chapters." - -"Am I allowed to read?" Miriam said rising and going with hands -outstretched for the magic leaves. - -"Yes," he chuckled, gathering up and handing. "Let's try it on Miriam. I -warn you she's deadly. And of a voracity. She reads at a gulp; spots -everything; _more_ than everything; turns on you and lays you out." - -Miriam stood considering him. Happy. He had really noticed and -remembered the things she had said from time to time. But they were -expecting a response. - -"I shan't understand. I know I shan't. May I really take them away?" - -"Now don't, Miriam ..." taking his time, keeping her arrested before -them, with his held-up minatory finger and mocking friendly smile, -"don't under-rate your intelligence." - -"May I really take them," she flounced, ignoring him; holding herself -apart with Miss Prout. The air danced between them sunlit from between -branches. A fresh perspective opened. She was to meet her. See her -unfold before her eyes in the pages of the book. - -"Yes, _do_," she smiled, a swift nice look, not scrutinising. - -"How _alive_ they look; much more alive than a book in its suit of neat -binding." - -"Are we _all_ literary?" - -"We're all literary," joined his quick voice. She blushed with pleasure. -Included; with only those ghastly little reviews. Not mocking. Quite -gravely. She beamed her gratitude and turned away blissful. - -"Is Miriam going?" - -"I've got to unpack." He wanted an audience, an outsider, for the scene -of the reading. Alma had disappeared. - -"Won't _they_ do all that for you?" - -"Still I think I'll go.... Addio." She backed along the little pathway -watching him seek and find his words, crying each one forth in a -thoughtful falsetto, while he turned conversationally towards Miss -Prout. The scene was cut off by the bushes, but she could still hear his -voice, after the break-down of his Italian into an ironic squeal, going -on in charge of it. She sped across the lawn and up on to the open above -the unexplored terraces. They could wait. For the moment, unpeopled, -they were nothing. They would be the background of further scenes, all -threaded by the sound of Hypo's voice, lit by the innumerable things she -would hear him say, obliterating the surroundings, making far-off things -seem more real.... Mental liveliness _did_ obliterate surroundings, stop -their expressiveness. Already the first expressiveness had gone from the -garden. She did not want to create it afresh. There was hurry and -pressure now in the glances she threw. A wrongness. Something left out. -There was something left out, left behind, in his scheme of things. She -wandered as far as the horizon row of irises to look out over the sea, -chased and pulled back as she went. Until the distant prospect opened -and part of the slope of the garden lay at her feet. The light had -ripened. The sun no longer towered, but blazed across at her from above -the rightmost edge of the picture. Short shadows jutted from the feet of -every standing thing. The light was deepening in perfect stillness. Wind -and rain had left the world for good. _This_ was her holiday. Everything -behind her broke down into irrelevance.... How go back to it.... How not -stay and live through the changing of the light in this perfect -stillness.... - - * * * * * - -There was no feeling of Sunday in the house. But when Miriam wandered -into her room during the after breakfast lull, she found it waiting for -her; pouring into the room from afar, from all over the world, breaking -her march, breaking up the lines of the past and of the future, -isolating her with itself. The openings of the long lattice framed wide -strips of morning brilliance between short close-drawn folds of flowered -chintz. Everything outside was sharp and near, but changed since -yesterday. The flowers stood vivid in the sunlight; very still. The -humming of the bees sounded careful and secret; not wishing to disturb. -The sea sparkled to itself, refusing to call the eye. Yet outside there, -as in the room, something called. She leaned out. Into the enlarged -picture the sky poured down. The pure blue moved within itself as you -looked, letting you through and up. An unbroken fabric of light, yet -opening all over, taking you up into endless light.... - -Sunday is in the sky.... - -Hypo, coming round the corner from the terrace, his arms threshing the -air to the beat of his swift walk; knitting up the moment, casting kind -radiance as he came. Married, but casting radiance. He was making for -the house. Then Miss Prout was somewhere down there alone.... She -hurried to be out, seeking her. On the landing she ran into Hypo. - -"Hullo, Miriametta. Going out?" - -"I think so. Where's everybody?" - -"Everybody, and chairs, is down on the terrace. But you'll want a -_hat_." - -"I shan't." He had often admired her ability to go without. He had been -talking to Miss Prout for the last half hour and was now abstractedly -making a shapely thing of a chance meeting with a stranger.... His words -had carried him to the study door. He began inventing his retort, the -unfelt shape of words that would carry him on undisturbed, facing the -door with his back to her, hand on the doorknob. The end of it would -find him within. She cried out at random into the making of his phrase -and escaped into the dining-room to the sound of his voice. In the empty -dining-room she found again the listening presence of Sunday and hurried -to be through it and away at whatever centre had formed down there in -the open. Going down the steps and along the paths she entered the -movement of the day, the beginning of the sense of tomorrow, that would -strengthen with the slow shifting of the sabbath light. Miss Prout came -into view round the first bend, a sunlit figure in a tub chair on the -grassy level at the end of the terrace. _She_ had no hat. Her dark head -was bent over the peak made in her flowing draperies by her crossed -knees. She was _sewing_. Here. In public, serenely, the first thing in -the morning. - -Strolling to join her Miriam saw her as she had been last night, set -like a flower, unaccented and harmonious, in her pleated gown of old -rose silk, towards the oval of dinner-table, an island of softly bright -silk-shaded radiance in the midst of the twilit room; under the -brightest of the central light, filmy flowers massed low in a wide -shallow bowl ... a gentleness about her, touching the easy beginnings of -talk, each phrase pearly, catching the light, expanding; expressing a -secret joy. Then the gathering and settling of the flow of talk between -him and her, lifting, shaking itself out, flashing into sharp clear -light; the fabric of words pierced by his wails of amusement as he -looked, still talking, at the pictures they drew.... People they knew -passing to and fro; _all_ laughable, all brought to their strange shared -judgment. The charm of the scene destroyed by the surrounding vision of -a wit-wrecked world. - -After dinner that moment when she had drawn herself up before him, -suddenly young, with radiant eyes; looking like a flower in her petaled -gown. He had responded standing very upright, smiling back at her, -admiring her deliberate effect.... - -The break away across the landing, white and green night brightness -under the switched-on lights, into the dusk of the study, ready peopled -with its own stillness; the last of the twilight glimmering outside the -open windows. Each figure changed by the gloom into an invisible, -memorable presence. Hypo moving in and out of the cone of soft light -amongst the shadows at the far end. - -"We'll try the contralto laugh on the lady in the window-seat." - -The fear of missing the music in looking for his discovery. And then -into the waiting stillness _Bach_. Of all people. He found a contralto -laugh in _Bach_. There were no people, no women, in Bach. Looking for -the phrase. Forgetting to look for it. The feeling of the twilight -expanding within itself, too small. The on-coming vast of night held -back, swirling, swept away by broad bright morning light running through -forest tracery. Shining into a house. The clean cool poise of everyday -morning. The sounds of work and voices, separate, united by surroundings -greeted by everyone from within. The secret joy in everyone pouring -through the close pattern of life, going on forever, the end in the -first small phrase, every phrase a fresh end and a beginning. Going on -when the last chord stood still on the air.... And if he liked Bach, how -not believe in people? How not be certain of God?... And then remarks, -breaking thinly against the vast nearness. - -"What does the lady in the window think?" - -"She's asleep." Miss Prout had really thought that.... - -"Oh no she _isn't_." - -Miss Prout looked up as she approached but kept on with her sewing and -held her easy silence as she dropped into one of the low chairs. She was -working a pattern of bright threads on a small strip of saffron-coloured -silk ... looking much older in the blaze of hard light. But far-off, not -minding, sitting there as if enthroned, for the morning, placid and -matronly and indifferent. The heavenly morning freshness was still here. -But the remarks about the day had all been made on the lawn after -breakfast.... She admired the close bright work. Miss Prout's voice came -at once, a little eagerly, explaining. She was really keen about her -lovely work. - -She was saying something about Paris. Miriam attended swiftly, not -having grasped the beginning, only the fact that she was talking and the -curious dry level of her voice. Beginning on something as everyone did, -ignoring the present, leaving herself sitting there outside life.... She -made a vague response, hoping to hear about Paris. Only to be startled -by the tone and colour of her own voice. Miss Prout would imagine that -her life had been full. In any case could not imagine.... - -"How long are you staying?" The question shot across at her. She did not -know as she answered whether she had seen the swift hot glance of the -blue eyes, or heard it in the voice. But she had found the woman who -wrote the searing scenes, the strange abrupt phrases that lashed out -from the page. - -"Tomorrow I shall be grilling in my flat," went on Miss Prout. Alma's -laughter tinkled from above. She was coming this way. Miss Prout's voice -hurried on incisive, splitting the air, ending with a rush of low words -as Alma appeared round the corner. Miriam watched their little scene, -smooth, unbroken by a single pause or hesitation, saw them go away -together, still talking. - -"My hat," she murmured to the thrilled surroundings, and again "My -_hat_." She clutched at the fading reverberations, marvelling at her own -imperviousness, at the way the drama had turned, even while it touched -her, to a painted scene, leaving her unmoved. Miss Prout's little London -eyrie. A distasteful refuge between visits.... Had it been a flattering -appeal, or an insult? - -She is like the characters in her book, direct, swift, ruthless, using -any means.... She saw me as a fool, offered me the role of one of the -negligible minor characters, there to be used by the successful ones. -She is one with her work, with her picture of life.... But it is not a -true picture. The glinting sea, all the influences pouring in from the -garden denied its existence. It was just a fuss, the biggest drama in -the world was a fuss in which people competed, gambling, everyone losing -in the end. Dead, empty loss, on the whole, because there was always the -commission to be paid. Life in the world is a vice; to which those who -take it up gradually became accustomed.... Her eyes clung to the -splinters of gold on the rippling blue sea. Dropped them, and she was -confined in the hot little rooms of a London flat. If Miss Prout was not -enviable, so _feared_ her lonely independence, then no one was enviable. - -"Hullo, Miriametta! All alone?" - -"They've gone to look at an enormous book; too big to lift." - -"Yes. And what's Miriam doing?" - -"Isn't it a perfect morning?" - -"It's a good day. It'll be a _corker_ later on. Very pleasant here till -about lunch time. You camping here for the morning?" She looked up. - -He was standing in profile, listening, with his head inclined; like a -person suffering from deafness; and pointing towards her his upheld -questioning finger; a German classmaster. - -"I don't know." - -"Then you will. That's settled?" She murmured a speculative promise, -lazily, a comment on his taut, strung-up bearing. What, to him, if she -did or didn't? - -"That's agreed then. You camp here," he dropped neatly into the chair -between hers and Miss Prout's, his face hidden behind the frill of its -canopy, "for the morning." He looked out and round at her, flushed and -grinning. "I want you to," he murmured, "now don't you go and forget." - -"All right," she beamed ... the _hours_ he was wasting spinning out his -mysterious drama ... "wild horses shan't move me." He did not want her -society. But it was miles more than wildly interesting enough that he -wished to avoid being alone with Miss Prout. But then why not dump her -as he always did guests he had run through, on to Alma? He left her a -moment for reflections, wound them up with a husky chuckle and began on -one of his improvisations; paying her in advance ... putting in time.... -She listened withheld, drawing the weft of his words through the -surrounding picture, watching it enlivened, with fresher colours and -stronger outlines ... a pause, the familiar lifting tone and the drop, -into a single italic phrase; one of his destructive conclusions. His -voice went on, but she had seized the hard glittering thread, rending -it, and watched the developing bright pattern coldly, her opposition -ready phrased for the next break. She could stay forever like this, -watching his thought; thrusting in remarks, making him reconsider. But -Miss Prout was coming. There would be a morning of improvisations with -no chance of arresting him. It was only when they were alone that he -would take opposition seriously, not turning it into materials for -spirals of wit, where nobody could stand against him. The whole morning, -hearing him and Miss Prout chant their duet about people ... helped out -no doubt by the presence of an apparently uncritical audience.... I'm -hanged if I will.... - -"I must have a book or something. I'll get a book," she said, rising. He -peeped out, as if weighing her suggestion. - -"All right.... Get a book.... But come back?" - -"Eurasians _are_ different," she said. "Have you ever _known_ any; -really _well_." - -"Never known _anybody_, Miriam. Take back everything I ever said. Get -your book and come out with it." - -On her way back she heard his voice, high; words broken and carried -along by a squeal of laughter. They were at it already, reducing -everything to absurdity. Turning the corner she found them engrossed, -sitting close at right angles, Miss Prout leaning forward, her -embroidery neglected on her knee. It was monstrous to break in.... She -wandered up and down the terrace, staring at the various views, catching -his eye upon her as she went to and fro; almost deciding to depart and -leave him to his fate. If he was engrossed he was engrossed. If not, he -shouldn't pretend to be. When she was at a distance their voices fell, -low short sentences, sounding set and colourless; but _intimate_. - -"Found your book, Miriam?" he cried, as she came near. - -"No. I couldn't see anything. So I shut my eyes and whirled round and -pointed." - -"Your shameless superstitions, Miriam." - -"I _am_. I've got a lovely one I hadn't seen." - -"A lovely one. A----" - -"I'm not going to tell you what it is." - -"You're just going to sit down and munch it up. Miriam's a paradox. -She's the omnivorous _gourmet_." - -"Can I have a cigarette?" - -"Her authors--we'll _get_ you a cigarette, Miriam, no, alright, here -they are--her authors, the only authors she allows, can be counted -rather more than twice, on the fingers of one hand." - -She took two cigarettes, lighting one from his neatly struck match and -retired to a distant chair. - -"You'll have the sun in your eyes there." - -"I like it." Their voices began again, his social and expansive, hers -clipped and solitary ... the bank of blazing snapdragon grew prominent, -told of nothing but the passing of time. What was the time? How much of -the morning had gone? There was a moment of clear silence.... - -"Is Miriam there?" - -"She is indeed; very _much_ there." Again silence, filled with the echo -of his comprehensive little chuckle. Miss Prout knew now that it was not -the stupidity of a fool that had spoiled her morning. But, if she could -go so far, why not carry him off to talk unembarrassed, or talk, here, -freely, as she wanted to, like those women in her book? - -A servant, coming briskly through the sunlight, stopping half way along -the terrace. - -"Mr. Simpson." - -"Yes. What have you done with him?" - -"He's in the study." - -"Fetch him out of the study. Bring him here. And bring, lemonade and -things." But he rose as the maid wheeled round and departed. "I'd better -get him, I think. He's Nemesis." - -Miriam rose to escape. "Now don't you go, Miriam. You stay and see it -out. You haven't met Simpson, Edna. I haven't. _No_ one has." - -"What is he?" - -"He's--he's a postscript. The letter came this morning. Now don't either -of you desert." He disappeared, leaving the terrace stricken. The rest -of the morning, lunch, perhaps the whole day ... Simpson. His voice -returned a moment later, encouraging, as if shepherding an invalid, -across the garden and round the angle. A very tall young man, in a blue -serge suit, a _pink_ collar and a face sunburnt all over, an even red. - -He was sitting upright in a headlong silence, holding on to the thoughts -with which he had come. But they were being scattered. He had held them -through the introductions and Hypo's witty distribution of drinks. But -now the bright air rang with the rapid questions, volleyed swiftly upon -the beginnings of the young man's meditative answers, and he was sitting -alone in the circle in a puzzled embarrassment, listening, but not won -by Hypo's picture of Norwich, not joining in the expansion and the -laughter, aware only of the scattering of his precious handful of -thoughts. Towards lunch-time Hypo carried him off to the study. - -"Exit the postscript," said Miss Prout. Charmingly ... dropping back -into her pose, but talkatively, a kindliness in the blue eyes gazing out -to sea. Again she bemoaned her return to London, but added at once a -little picture of her old servant; the woman's gladness at getting her -back again. - -"Only until the end of the week," said Miriam seeing the old servant, -perpetually left alone, getting older. Sad. Left out. But what an awful -way of living in London; alone with one old servant. A brilliant light -came into Miss Prout's eyes. She was looking fixedly along the terrace. - -"He wouldn't stay to lunch." Hypo, alone and gay "He's _done_ with me. -Given me up. Gone away a wise young man." - -"He was _appalling_." - -"You didn't hear him, Miriam." - -"I saw him." - -"You didn't hear him on the subject of his guild." - -"He's founded a _guild_?" - -"It's much worse than that. He's gone about, poor dear, in sublime, in -the most _sublime_ faith, collecting all the young men in Norfolk, under -my banner. I have heard this morning all I might become if I could -contrive to be ... as wooden as he is. Come along. Let's have lunch. You -know, Edna, there's a great work to be done on you. _You've_ got to be -turned into a socialist." He turned as they walked, to watch her face. -She was looking down, smiling, withdrawn, revealing nothing. Seething -with anticipation. She would be willing. For the sake of the long -conversations. They would sit apart talking, for the rest of her time. -There would be long argumentative letters. No. She would not argue. She -would be another of those women in the Lycurgan, posing and dressing and -consciously shining at soirees. Making havoc and complications. Worse -than they. How could he imagine her a socialist with her view of -humanity and human motives. - -"No. We _won't_ make you a socialist, Edna. You're too good as you are." -Beautiful, different; too good for socialism? Then he really thought her -wonderful. In some way beyond himself.... - - * * * * * - -Turning just in time to be caught by the sun dipping behind the cliff. -Perfect sudden moment. No sunset effects. No radiance. Clean dull -colours. Mealy grey-blue sky, dull gold ball, half hidden, tilted by the -slope of the green cliff. Feeling him arrested, compelled to receptive -watching; watching a sunset, like anyone else.... The last third of the -disc, going, bent intently, asserting the moment, asserting uniqueness; -unanswerable mystery of beauty. - -"God, reading a newspaper." - -"The way to see a sunset is to be _indoors_. Oblivious. Then ... just a -ruddy glow, reflected from a bright surface.... The indirect method's -the method. Old Conrad." - -"Madeleine has no use for this storm-rent sky. She wants untroubled -blue, one small pink cloud, and presently, a single star." Then he must -have wanted these things himself once. Why did he try to jest young -people into his disillusionment? - -Yet tonight the sun had set without comment. With his approval. He was -openly sharing the unspoken response to the scene of its magnificent -departure. - -The reproachful, watching eye of Sunday disappeared, drawn down over the -horizon with the setting sun. Leaving a blissful refreshment, the -strange unearned sense falling always somewhere in the space between -Sunday and Monday, of a test survived, leaving one free to go forward to -the cheerful cluster of oncoming days. - -The afterglow faded to a bright twilight, deepening in the garden to a -violet dusk. The sea glimmered in the remaining light that glared along -its further rim like a yawn, holding up the lid of the sky. The figures -in the chairs had grown dim, each face a pale disc set towards the -falling light. The talk died down to small shreds, simple and slow, -steeped in the beauty of the evening, deferring to it, as to a host. - -They were still the guests of the evening while they sat grouped round -the lamplit verandah supper-table that turned the dusk into night. But -the end was coming. The voices in the lamplight were growing excited and -forgetful. Indoors and separation were close at hand. - -He was oblivious. Given up to his jesting ... she watched his jesting -face, shiny now and a little loose, the pouching of his lips as he -spoke, the animal glimmer of teeth below the scraggy moustache, -repellent, yet part of the fascination of his smile, and perpetually -redeemed by the charm of his talk, the intense charm of the glancing -eyes, seeing and understanding, comforting even when they mistook, and -yet all the time withheld, preoccupied behind their clean rings and -filmy sightless grey--fixed always on the shifting changing mass of -obstructive mannish knowledge, always on _science_, the only thing in -the world that could get his full attention.... She felt her voice pour -out suddenly, violently quenching a flicker of speech. He glanced, -attentive, healing her despair with his quick interest. The women awoke -from their conspiring trance, alert towards her, watching. - -"Yes." His voice followed hers without a break, cool, a comment on her -violence. He turned, looking into the night. His shaggy intelligent -gaze, the reflective slight lift of his eyebrows gave him the look of an -old man lost. The rosy scene was chilled. Cold light and harsh black -shadow, his averted form in profile, helpless, making empty the deeps of -the thing that was called a summer night. Her desire beat no longer -towards the open scene. She hated it. For its sake she had pulled him -up, brought down this desolation. - -"It's a good night. It's about the human optime in nights. We ought to -sleep out." He turned back to the table, gathering up expressions, -radiating his amusement at the disarray caused by his absence. - -"Let's sleep out. Miriam will. Unless we lock her in." He was on his -feet, eagerly halted, gathering opinions. His eyes came to rest on Alma. -"Let's be dogs. Be driven, by Miriam, into fresh fields of experience." - -Would it happen? Would she agree? He was impatient, but deferring. Alma -sat considering, in the attitude Mr. Stoner had called a pretty snap, -her elbows meeting on the table, her chin on her slender hands; just its -point, resting on the bridge they made laid flatly one upon the other. -It was natural in her. But by now she knew that men admired natural -poses. _He_ was admiring, even through his impatience. - -"I didn't suggest it. I've never slept out in my life." - -"You suggested it, Miriam. My death, all our little deaths from -exposure, will lie at your door." The swift personal glance he dealt her -from the midst of his watching swept round to Miss Prout and flashed -into admiration as he turned, still sideways surveying her, to bend his -voice on Alma. - -"It's quite manageable, eh, Susan?" Miriam followed his eyes. Miss Prout -had risen and was standing away from the table posed like a -Gainsborough; challenging head, skirts that draped and spread of -themselves, gracefully, from the slenderness of her body. She was -waiting, indifferent, interpreting the scene in her way, interpreting -the other women for him, united with him in interpreting them.... - -Alma relaxed and looked up, holding the matter poised, deliberately -locating the casting vote before breaking into enthusiasm. He paid -tribute, coming round the table companionably to her side, but still -looking from face to face, claiming audience. - -"We'll break out. Each bring its little mattress and things. After -they've retired. Yes, I think, _after_ they've retired." Why the -conspirator's smile? The look of daring? What of the servants? They were -bound, anyhow, to know in the morning. - -It was glorious to rush about in the lit house, shouting unnecessary -remarks. People shouting back. Nobody attending. Shouting and laughing -for the sake of the jolly noise. Saying more than could be said in talk. -Admitting. - -And then just to lie extinguished in the darkness wondering what point -there was in sleeping out if you went to sleep at once. All that jolly -tumult. And he had been so intent on the adventure that he had let Miss -Prout change her mind without protest, _only_ crying out from the midst -of busily arranging his bed on the lawn.... "Have you seen Miriam's -pigtails?" - -And suddenly everything was prim; the joy of being out in the night -surging in the air, waiting for some form of expression. They didn't -_know_ how to be joyful; only how to be clever.... She hummed a little -song and stopped. It wreathed about her, telling off the beauties of the -night, a song sung by someone else, heard, understood, a perfect -agreement. - -"What is she doing?" - -"She's sitting up, waving her banana in the air; conducting an -orchestra, I think." - -"Tell her to _eat_ the banana and lie down." Alma, Rose Gauntlett, Mrs. -Perry and me, starting off just after I came, to paddle in the -moonlight.... "Don't, _don't_ do anything that would make a cabman -laugh." Why not? Why should he always imagine someone waiting to be -shocked? Damn the silly cabman if he _did_ laugh. Who need care? As soon -as her head was on the pillow, nothing visible but the huge night and -the stars, she spoke quietly to herself, flouting them. He should see, -hear, that it was wicked to simmer stuffily down as if they were in the -house. He didn't want to. She was making his sounds for him. - -"Tell Miriam this is not a conversazione." - -His voice was actually sleepy. Kindly, long-suffering, but simply -wanting to go to sleep. There was to be no time of being out in the -night with him. He was too far off. She imagined herself at his side, a -little space of grass between. Silent communication, understanding and -peace. All the things that were lost, obliterated by his swift speech, -communicated to him at leisure, clear in the night. Here under the -verandah, with its roof cutting off a part of the sky, they were still -attached to the house. Alma had been quietly posed for sleep from the -first moment. They were all more separated than in their separate rooms -indoors. - -The lingering faint light reflected the day, the large open space of -misunderstandings, held off the cloak of darkness in which things grew -clear. She lay watching for the night to turn to night. - -But the light seemed to grow clearer as the stillness went on. The -surrounding objects lost their night-time mystery. Teased her mind with -their names as she looked from point to point. Drove up her eyes to -search for night in the sky. But there was no night there. Only a wide -high thinness bringing an expansion of sight that could not be recalled; -drawing her out, beyond return, into a wakefulness that was more than -day-time wakefulness; a breathless feeling of being poised untethered in -the thin blue-lit air, without weight of body; going forward, more and -more thinly expanded, into the pale wide space.... - -There is no night.... Compared to this expanse of thin, shadowless, -boundless light the sunlit sky is a sort of darkness.... Even in a -motionless high midday the sky is small, part of it invisible, -obliterated by light. After sunset it is hidden by changing colours.... - -_This_ is the real sky, in full power, stripping away sleep. Time, -visible, pouring itself out. Day, not night, is forgetfulness of time. -Its movement is a dream. Only in its noise is real silence and peace. -This awful stillness is made of sound; the sound of time, _pouring_ -itself out; ceaselessly winding off short strips of life, each life a -strip of sleepless light, so much, no more, lessening all the time. - -What rubbish to talk about the stars. Vast suns, at immense distances, -and beyond them, more. What then? If you imagine yourself at any point -in space or wafting freely about from star to star you are not changed. -Like enlarging the circle of your acquaintance. And finding it, in the -end, the same circle, yourself. A difference in degree is also a -difference in kind. Yes. But the _same_ difference. Relations remain the -same however much things are changed. Interest in the stars is like -interest in your neighbours before you get to know them. A way of -running away from yourself. - -What is there to do? How know what is anyone's best welfare? - -To be alive, and to know it, makes a selfless life impossible. Any kind -of life accompanied by that stupendous knowledge, is selfish. - -Christ? But all the time he was alone with a certainty. Today thou shalt -be with me.... He was booked for Paradise from the beginning ... like -the man in No. 5 John Street going to live in a slum, imagining he was -experiencing a slum, with the latchkey of his west-end house in his -pocket.... Now if he had sacrificed Paradise. But he couldn't. Then -where was selflessness? - -Yet if Christ had never been, the sky would look different. A Grecian or -a Jewish sky. Awful. If the personal delight that the sky showed to be -nothing were put away? Nothing held on to but the endless pouring down -of time? Till an answer came.... Get up tomorrow showing indifference to -everything, refusing to be bewitched. There _is_ an answer or there -would be no question. Night is torment. That is why people go to sleep. -To avoid clear sight and torment. - -Tomorrow, certainly, gloriously, the daytime scenes, undeserved, -uncontributed to, would go forward again in the sunlight. Forgetfulness -would come of itself. Even the thought of the bright scenes, the scenes -that did not matter and were nothing, spread over the sky the sense of -the dawn it would be obliged to bring; ... the permitted postponement of -the problems set by night. Dawn stole into the heart. With a sudden -answer. That had no words. An answer that lost itself again in the day. -But there would be no dawn; only the pitiless beginning of a day spoiled -by the fever of a sleepless night. Torment, for nothing. The sky gazed -down mocking at fruitless folly. She turned away. She must, would, -sleep. But her eyes were full of the down-bent stars. Condemnation, and -the communication that would not speak; stopping short, poised, probing -for a memory that was there.... - -A harsh hissing sigh, far away; gone. The unconscious sea. Coming back. -Bringing the morning tide. The sound would increase. The sky would -thicken and come near, fill up with increasing blind light, ignoring -unanswered pain. - -"You can put tea in the bedrooms." - -Alma, folded in her dressing-gown, disappearing into the house. The -tumbled empty bed on the lawn, white in the open stare of the -morning.... - -"Edna wants to know how we're getting on." Duplication in light and -darkness, of memories of the night.... Their two figures, side by side, -silhouetted against dark starry blue. Dismantled voices. His -_simplicity_. His sharp turn and toga'd march towards the house. A -memory of dawn; a deep of sleep ending in faint light tinting the -garden? "Edna wants to know how we're getting on." _Then_ starlit -darkness? Angry sleep leading direct to this open of morning. - -Everyone in the house had plunged already into new beginnings. Panoplied -in advantages; able to feel in strong refreshed bodies the crystal -brightness of the morning; not worn out as if by long illness. - -It was Miss Prout, coming from her quiet night indoors, who was reaping -the adventure. She had some strange conscious power. She knew that it -was she who was the symbol of morning. Her look of age was gone. She had -dared to come out in a wrapper of mealy white, folded softly; and with -bare feet that gleamed against the green of the flat grass. Consciously -using the glow of adventure left over from the night to engrave her -triumphant effect upon the adventurers; of marvellous youth that was not -hers but belonged to some secret living in her stillness.... It was not -an illusion. He saw it too; let her stand for the morning; was crowning -her all the time, preoccupied in everything he said with the business of -rendering half-amused approval of her miracle. The talk was hampered, as -if, by common consent, prevented from getting far enough to interfere -with the set shape of spectacle and spectators; yet easy, its quality -heightened by the common recognition of an indelible impression. For a -moment it made her power seem almost innocent of its strange horror. - -When she had left the day was stricken. Evil had gone from the air, -leaving it empty. Everything that happened seemed to be a conspiracy to -display emptiness. The daily life of the house came into view, visible -as it was, when no guests were there, going bleakly on its way. Hypo -appeared and disappeared. Rapt and absent, though still swiftly -observant and between whiles his unchanged talking self; falling back, -with his chuckling unspoken commentary, for lack of kindred brilliance; -escaping to his study as if to a waiting guest. - -Miriam came to dinner silently raging; invisible, yet compelled to be -seen. Reduced to nonentity by his wrongly directed awareness, his -everlasting demand for bright fussy intelligence. It was her own fault. -The result of having been beguiled by joy into a pretence of conformity. -For the rest of the visit she would be roughly herself. To shreds she -would tear his twofold vision of women as bright intelligent response or -complacently smiling audience. Force him to see the evil in women who -made terms with men, the poison there was in the trivial gaiety of those -who accepted male definitions of life and the world. Somehow make him -aware of the reality that fell, all the time, in the surrounding -silence, outside his shapes and classifications. - -Sunk away into separation, she found herself gliding into communion with -surrounding things, shapes gleaming in the twilight, the intense -thrilling beauty of the deep, lessening colours.... She passed into -association with them, feeling him fade, annihilated, while her eased -breathing released the strain of battle. He was spending the seconds of -silence that to him were a void, in observation, misinterpretations. The -air was full of his momentary patience. She turned smiling and caught -his smile halting between amused contemplation of vacuity and despairing -sympathy with boredom. He had not heard the shouts of repudiation with -which she had plunged down into her silence. He dropped her and let his -testing eye, which he knew she followed, rest on Alma. Two vacuities ... -watched by empty primitive eyes, savage eyes, under shaggy brows, -staring speculatively out through a forest of eyelash. Having thus made -his statement and caught Alma's attention he made a little drama of -childish appeal, with plaintive brows, pleading for rescue. - -"Let's have some light. We're almost in darkness," said Alma. - -"We are, we are," he wailed, and Miriam caught his eyes flashed upon her -to collect her acceptance of his judgment. The central light Alma had -risen to switch on, flashed up over the silk-clad firm little column of -her body winged on either side by the falling drapery of her extended -arms, and revealed as she sat down the triangle of pendant-weighted -necklace on her white throat, the soft squareness of her face, peaked -below by the delicate sharp chin and above by her piled gold hair. The -day had gone; quenched in the decoration of the night set there by Alma, -like the first scene of a play into whose speech and movement she was, -with untroubled impersonal bearing, already steadily launched, conscious -of the audience, untroubled by their anticipation. - -"It's _awful_. The evenings are already getting short," cried Miriam, -her voice thrilling in conversation with the outer living spaces beyond -the shut-in play. His swiftly flashed glance lingered a moment; -incredulous of her mental wandering? In stupefaction that was almost -interest, over her persistence, after diagnosis, in anachronism, in -utter banality? - -Alma's voice, strangely free, softly lifted a little above its usual -note, but happy and full, as it was with outsiders with whom she was at -her best, took possession of the set scene. His voice came in answer, -deferring, like that of a delighted guest. Presently they were all in an -enchantment. From some small point of departure she had carried them off -abroad, into an Italian holiday. He urged her on with his voice, his -eyes returning perpetually from the business of his meal to rest in -admiring delight upon her face. It was lovely, radiant, full of the joy -of the theme she had set in the midst and was holding there with bright -reflective voice, unattained by the little bursts of laughter, piling up -her monologue, laughing her own laughter in its place, leading on little -bridges of gay laughter that did not break her speech, to the points of -her stories. All absurd. All making the places she described -pathetically absurd, and mysterious strangers, square German housewives -and hotel people, whom Miriam knew she would forever remember as they -looked in Alma's tales, and love, absurd. But vivid; each place, the -look and the sound and the very savour of it, each person.... - -By the end of dinner, in the midst of eating a peach, Alma was -impersonating a fat shiny Italian opera star, flinging out without -losing her dainty charm, a scrap of a rolling cadence, its swift final -run up and up in curling trills to leap clear at the end to a single -note, terrifically high, just touched and left on the air, the fat -singer silent below it, unmoved and more mountainous than before. - -Hypo was wholly won by the enchantment she had felt and cast. His face -was smooth with the pleasure that wreathed it whenever he passed, -listening, from laughter that was not of his own making, to more -laughter. He carried Alma off to the study with the bright eagerness he -gave to an entertaining guest, but intimately, with his arm through -hers. - -They sat side by side on the wide settee. There was to be no music. He -did not want to go away by himself to the other end of the room and make -music. Sitting forward with his hands clasped, towards Alma enthroned, -he suddenly improvised a holiday abroad.... "We'll go mad, stark staring -mad. Switzerland. Your ironmongery in my rucksack and off we'll go." - -To go away, not the wonderful eventful holiday life here; to go away, -with Alma, was reward and holiday for him.... This life, with its -pattern of guests was the hard work of everyday? These times abroad were -the bright points of their long march together? Then if this life and -its guests were so little, she was once more near to them. She had -shared their times abroad, by first unconsciously kindling them to go. -And presently they were deferring to her. It was strange that having -preceded them, created, even with them, the sense of advantage -persisting so long after they had outdone in such wide sweeps the scope -of her small experience. - -She had never deliberately "gone abroad." Following necessity she had -found herself in Germany and in Belgium. Pain and joy in equal balance -all the time and in memory only joy. So that all going abroad by other -people seemed, even while envy rose at the ease and quantity of their -expeditions, their rich collection of notorious beauty, somehow slight. -Envy was incomplete. She could not by stern reasoning and close effort -of imagination persuade herself that they had been so deeply abroad as -she. That they had ever utterly lost themselves in foreign things. She -forgot perpetually, in this glad moment she again found that she had -forgotten, having been abroad. She forgot it when she read and thought -by herself of other parts of the world. Yet when, as now, anyone -reminded her, she was at once alight, weighed down by the sense of -accomplishment, of rich deeps of experience that would never leave her. -Others were bright and gay about their wanderings. But even while pining -for their free movement she was beside herself with longing to convey to -them the clear deep sense they seemed to lack of what they were doing. -The wonder of it. She talked to them about Switzerland, where they had -already been. It was for her the unattainable ideal of a holiday. She -resented it when he belittled the scenery, gathered it up in a few -phrases and offered any good gorge in the Ardennes as an alternative. It -was not true. He _was_ entranced with Switzerland. It was the -protuberance of the back of his head that made him oppose. And his -repudiation of any form of expression that did not jest. She sought and -found a weapon. To go to Switzerland in the summer was not to go. She -had suddenly remembered all she had heard about Swiss winters. -Switzerland in the summer was an oleograph. In winter an engraving. That -impressed him. And when she had described all she remembered, she had -forgotten she had not been. They had forgotten. They had come into her -experience as it looked to herself. Their questions went on, turned to -her life in London. She was besieged by things to communicate, going on -and on, wondering all the time where the interest lay, in remote people, -most of them perceived only once and remembered once as speech, yet -feeling it, and knowing that they felt it. There was a clue, some clue -to some essential thing, in her mood. Suddenly she awoke to see them -sitting propped close against each other, his cheek cushioned on her -crown of hair, both of them blinking beseechingly towards her. - -"_How_ long," she raged, "have you been sitting there cursing me?" - -"Not been cursing, Miriam. You've been interesting, no end. But there's -a thing, Miriam, an awful thing called tomorrow morning." - -"Is it late?" The appalling, the utter and everywhere appalling -scrappiness of social life.... - -"Not for you, Miriam. We're poor things. We envy. We can't compete with -your appetite, your disgraceful young appetite for late hours." - -"Things always end just as they're beginning." - -"Things end, Miriam, so that other things may begin." - -She roused herself to give battle. But Alma drifted between, crying -gaily that there was tomorrow. A good strong tomorrow. Warranted to -stand hard wear. - -"And turn; and take a dye when you're tired of the colour." - -He laughed, really amused? Or crediting her with an attempt to talk in a -code? - -"A tomorrow that will wear forever and make a petticoat afterwards." - -He laughed again. Quite simply. He had not heard that old jest. Seemed -never to have heard the old family jests. Seemed to have grown up -without jests.... Tomorrow, unless no one came, would not be like today. - - * * * * * - -The morning offered a blissful eternity before lunch. She had wakened -drowsy with strength and the apprehension of good, and gone through -breakfast like a sleepwalker, playing her part without cost, independent -of sight and hearing and thought. Successful. Dreamily watching a play, -taking a part inaudibly dictated, without effort, seeing it turn into -the chief part, more and more turned over to her as she lay still in the -hands of the invisible prompter; withdrawn in an exploration of the -features of this state of being that nothing could reach or disturb. If, -this time, she could discover its secret, she would be launched in it -forever. - -Back in her room she prepared swiftly to go out and meet the day in the -open; all the world, waiting in the happy garden.... Through the -house-stillness sounded three single downward-stepping notes ... the -first phrase of the seventh symphony.... Perfect. Eternity stating -itself in the stillness. He knew it, choosing just this thing to play to -himself, alone; living in space alone, at one with everybody, as -everyone was, the moment life allowed. Beethoven's perfect expression of -the perfection of life, first thing in the morning. Morning stillness; -single dreaming notes that blossomed in it and left it undisturbed; -moved on into a pattern and then stood linked together in a single -perfect chord. Another pattern in the same simple notes and another -chord. Dainty little chords bowing to each other; gentle gestures that -gradually became an angelic little dance through which presently a song -leapt forth, the single opening notes brought back, caught up and swept -into song pealing rapturously out. - -He was revealing himself as he was when alone, admitting Beethoven's -vision of life as well as seeing the marvellous things Beethoven did -with his themes? But he liked best the slamming, hee-hawing rollick of -the last movement.... Because it did so much with a theme that -was almost nothing.... _Bang_, toodle-oodle-oodle, _Bang_, -toodle-_oodle_-oodle, _Bang_ toodle-oodle-oodle-_oo_. A lumpish phrase; -a Clementi finger exercise played suddenly in startling fortissimo by an -impatient schoolboy; smashed out with the full force of the orchestra, -taken up, slammed here and there, up and down, by a leaping, plunging, -heavy hoofed pantaloon, approving each variation with loud guffaws.... -The sly swift dig-in-the-ribs of the sudden pianissimos.... - -To watch a shape adds interest to listening. But something disappears in -listening with the form put first. Hearing only form is a kind of -perfect happiness. But in coming back there is a reproach; as if it had -been a kind of truancy.... People who care only for form think -themselves superior. Then there is something wrong with them. - -On the landing table a letter lay waiting for the post. She passed by, -gladly not caring to glance. But a tingling in her shoulders drew her -back. She had reached the garden door. The music now pouring busily -through from the next room urged her forward. But once outside she would -have become a party to bright reasonableness, a foolish frontage, -caricatured from behind. She fled back along her path to music that was -once more the promise of joy ... to read the address of one of Alma's -tradespeople, a distasteful reminder of the wheels of dull work -perpetually running under the surface of beauty. But this morning it -would not attain her.... It was not Alma's hand, but the small running -shape like a scroll, each part a tiny perfection. She bent over it. -_Miss Edna Prout...._ This, then, was what she had come back to find; -poison for the day. The house was silent as a desert; empty, swept clear -of life. The roomful of music was in another world. Alone in it, he had -written to her and then sat down, thinking of her, to his music. - - * * * * * - -Complications are enlivening.... Within the sunlight, in the great -spread of glistening sea, in the touch of the free air and the look of -the things set down on the bench there was a lively intensity. A demand -for search; for a thought that would obliterate the smear on the blue -and gold of the day. The thought had been there even at the moment of -shock. The following tumult was the effort to find it. To get round -behind the shock and slay it before it could slay. To agree. That was -the answer. Not to care. To show how much you care by deliberately not -caring? People show disapproval of their own actions by defending them. -By deliberately not hiding or defending them, they show off a version of -their actions. That they don't themselves accept. - -Meantime everything passes. There are always the powerful intervals. -Meetings, and then intervals in which other things come up and life -speaks directly, to the individual.... Except for married people. Who -are all a little absurd, to themselves and to all other married people. -That is why they always talk so hard when two couples are together? To -cover the din of their thoughts.... Their marriage was a success without -being an exception to the rule that all marriages are failures, as he -said. Why are they failures? Science, the way of thinking and writing -that makes everybody seem small, in all these new books. Biology, -_Darwin_. The way men, who have no inner convictions, no self, fasten -upon an idea and let it describe life for them. Always a new idea. -Always describing and destroying, filtering down, as time goes on to -quite simple people, poisoning their lives, because men must have a -formula. Men are gossips. Science is ... cosmic scandalmongering. - -Science is Cosmic Scandalmongering. Perhaps that might do for the House -of Lords. But those old fogies are not particularly scientific. They -quote the Classics. The same thing. Club gossip. Centuries of unopposed -masculine gossip about the universe. - -Years ago he said there will be no more him and her, the novels of the -future will be clear of all that.... Poetry nothing. Religion nothing. -Women a biological contrivance. And now. Women still a sort of -attachment to life, useful, or delightful ... the "civilised women of -the future" to be either bright obedient assistants or providers of -illusion for times of leisure. Two kinds, neatly arranged, each having -only one type of experience, while men have both, _and_ their work, into -which women can only come as Hindus, obediently carrying out tasks set -by men, dressed in uniform, deliberately sexless and deferential. How -can anyone feel romantic about him? Alma. But that is the real -old-fashioned romance of everyday, from her girlhood. Hidden through -loyalty to his shifting man's ideas? Half convinced by them? How can -people be romantic impermanently, just now and again? - -Romance is solitary and permanent. Always there. In everybody. That is -why the things one hears about people are like stories, not referring to -life. Why I always forget them when the people themselves are there. Or -believe, when they talk of their experiences, that they misread them. I -can't believe even now in the reality of any of his experiences. But -then I don't believe in the experiences of anyone, except a few people -who have left sayings I know are true.... Everything else, all the -expressions, history and legend and novels and science and everybody's -talk, seems irrelevant. That's why I don't want experience, not to be -caught into the ways of doing and being that drive away solitude, the -marvellous quiet sense of life at first hand.... But he knows that too. -"Life drags one along by the hair shrieking protests at every yard." - -"Hullo! What is she doing all alone?" - -The surrounding scene that had gradually faded, leaving her eyes -searching in the past for the prospect she could never quite recall, -shone forth again. - -"I've got to do a review." - -"What's the book?" - -"When you are in France, does a French river look different to you; -_French_?" - -"No, Miriam. It--doesn't look different." - -He glanced for a moment shaggily from point to point of the sunlit scene -and sat companionably down, turned towards her with a smile at her -discomfiture. "What's the book, Miriam? It's jolly down here. We'll have -some chairs. Yes? You can't write on a bench." - -He was gone. Meaning to come back. In the midst of the morning; in the -midst of his preoccupations sociably at leisure. She felt herself sink -into indifference. The unique opportunity was offering itself in vain. -He came back just as she had begun to imagine him caught, up at the -house, by a change of impulse. Or perhaps an unexpected guest. - -"What's the review?" - -"The House of Lords." - -"Read it?" - -"I can't. It's all post hoc." - -"Then you've read it." - -"I haven't read it. I've only sniffed the first page." - -"That's enough. Glance at the conclusion. Get your statement, three -points; that'll run you through a thousand words. Look here--shall I -write it for you?" - -"I've got _fifty_ ideas," she said beginning to write. - -"That's too many, Miriam. That's the trouble with you. You've got too -many ideas. You're messing up your mind, quite a good mind, with too -swift a succession of ideas." She wrote busily on, drinking in his -elaboration of his view of the state of her mind. "H'm," he concluded, -stopping suddenly; but she read in the sound no intention of breaking -away because she had nothing to say to him. He was watching, in some way -interested. He sat back in his chair; sympathetically withheld. Actually -deferring to her work.... - -She tore off the finished page and transfixed it on the grass with a -hatpin. Her pencil flew. The statement was finished and leading to -another. Perhaps he was right about three ideas. A good shape. The last -must come from the book. She would have to consult it. No. It should be -left till later. Her second page joined the first. It was incredible -that he should be sitting there inactive, obliterated by her work. - -She tore off the third sheet and dropped her pencil on the grass. - -"Finished? Three sheets in less than twenty minutes. How do you do it, -Miriam?" - -"It'll do. But I shall have to copy it. I've resisted the temptation to -say what _I_ think about the House of Curmudgeons. Trace it back to the -First Curmudgeon. Yet it seems somehow wrong to write in the air, so -_currently_. The first time I did a review, of a bad little book on -Whitman, I spent a fortnight of evenings reading." - -"You began at the Creation. Said everything you had to say about the -history of mankind." - -"I went nearly mad with responsibility and the awfulness of discovering -the way words express almost nothing at all." - -"It's not quite so bad as that. You've come on no end though, you know. -The last two or three have been astonishingly good. You're not creative. -You've got a good sound mind, a good style and a curious intense -critical perception. You'll be a critic. But writing, Miriam, should be -done with a pen. Can't call yourself a writer till you do it _direct_." - -"How can I write with a pen, in bed, on my knee, at midnight or dawn?" - -"A fountain pen?" - -"No one can write with a fountain pen." - -"Quite a number of us do. Quite a number of not altogether unsuccessful -little writers, Miriam." - -"Well, it's wrong. How can thought or anything, well thought perhaps -can, which doesn't matter and nobody really cares about, wait a minute, -nothing _else_ can come through a hand whose fingers are held stiffly -apart by a fat slippery barrel. A writing machine. A quill would be the -thing, with a fine flourishing tail. But it is too important. It squeaks -out an important sense of _writing_, makes people too objective, so that -it's as much a man's pen, a mechanical, see life steadily and see it -whole (when nobody knows what life _is_) man's view sort of implement as -a fountain pen. A pen should be thin, not disturbing the hand, and the -nib flexible and silent, with up and down strokes. Fountain pen writing -is like ... democracy." - -"Why not go back to clay tablets?" - -"Machine-made things are dead things." - -"You came down here by _train_, Miriam." - -"I ought to have flown." - -"You'll fly yet. No. Perhaps you won't. When your dead people have -solved the problem, you'll be found weeping over the rusty skeleton of a -locomotive." - -"I don't mean Lilienfeld and Maxim. I can be fearfully interested in all -that when I think of it. But to the people who do not see the beginning -of flying it won't seem wonderful. It won't change anything." - -"It'll change, Miriam, pretty well everything. And if you don't mean -Lilienfeld and Maxim what _do_ you mean?" - -"Well, by inventing the telephone we've damaged the chances of -telepathy." - -"Nonsense, Miriam. You're suffering from too much Taylor." - -"The most striking thing about Taylor is that he does not want to -develop his powers." - -"What powers?" - -"The things in him that have made him discover things that you admit are -true; that make you interested in his little paper." - -"They're not right you know about their phosphoric bank; energy is not a -simple calculable affair." - -"Now here's a strange thing. That time you met them, the first thing you -said when they'd gone, was what's _wrong_ with them? And the next time I -met them they said there's something _wrong_ with him. The truth is you -are polar opposites and have everything to learn from each other." - -"Elizabeth Snowden Poole." - -"Yes. And without him no one would have heard of her. No one understood. -And now psychology is going absolutely her way. In fifty years' time her -books will be as clear as daylight." - -"Damned obstructive classics. That's what all our books will be. But -I'll give you Mrs. Poole. Mrs. Poole is a very wonderful lady. She's the -unprecedented." - -"There you are. Then you must admit the Taylors." - -"I'm not so sure about your little Taylors. There's nothing to be said, -you know, for just going about not doing things." - -"They _are_ wonderful. Their atmosphere is the freest I know." - -"I envy you your enthusiasms, Miriam. Even your misplaced enthusiasms." - -"You go there, worn out, at the end of the day, and have to walk, after -a long tram-ride through the wrong part of London, along raw new roads, -dark little houses on either side, solid, without a single break, -darkness, a street-lamp, more darkness, another lamp; and something in -the air that lets you down and down. Partly the thought of these streets -increasing, all the time, all over London. Yet when someone said walking -home after a good evening at the Taylors' that the thought of having to -settle down in one of those houses made him feel suicidal, I felt he was -wrong; and saw them, from inside, bright and big; people's homes." - -"They're not big, Miriam. You wanted to marry him." - -"Good Heavens. An Adam's apple, sloping shoulders and a Cockney accent." - -"_I_ have a Cockney accent, Miriam." - -"..." - -"Don't go about classifying with your ears. People, you know, are very -much alike." - -"They're utterly different." - -"Your vanity. Go on with your Taylors." - -"They are very much like other people." - -"With _my_ Taylors. I'm interested; really." - -"Well, suddenly you are in their kitchen. White walls and aluminium and -a smell of fruit. Do you know the smell of root vegetables cooking -slowly in a casserole?" - -"I'll imagine it. Right. Where are the Taylors?" - -"You are all standing about. Happy and undisturbed. None of that feeling -of darkness and strangeness and the need for a fresh beginning. -Tranquillity. As if someone had gone away." - -"The devil; exorcised, poor dear." - -"No but glorious. Making everyone move like a song. And talk. You are -all, at once, bursting with talk. All over the flat, in and out of the -rooms. George washing up all the time, wandering about with a dish and a -cloth and Dora probably doing her hair in a dressing-gown, and cooking. -It's the only place where I can talk exhausted and starving." - -"What do you talk about?" - -"Everything. We find ourselves sitting in the bathroom, engrossed--long -speeches--they talk to each other, like strangers talking intimately on -a 'bus. Then something boils over and we all drift back to the kitchen. -Left to herself Dora would go on forever and sit down to a few walnuts -at midnight." - -"Mary." - -"But she is an absolutely perfect cook. An artist. She invents and -experiments. But he has a feminine consciousness, though he's a most -manly little man with a head like Beethoven. So he's practical. Meaning -he feels with his nerves and has a perfect sympathetic imagination. So -presently we are all sitting down to a meal and the evening begins to -look short. And yet endless. With them everything feels endless; the -present I mean. They are so immediately alive. Everything and everybody -is abolished. We _do_ abolish them I assure you. And a new world is -there. You feel language changing, every word moving, changed, into the -new world. _But_, when their friends come in the evening, weird people, -real cranks, it disappears. They all seem to be attacking things they -don't understand. I gradually become an old-fashioned Conservative. But -the evening is wonderful. None of these people mind how far or how late -they walk. And it goes on till the small hours." - -"You're getting your college time with these little people." - -"No. I'm easily the most stupidly cultured person there." - -"Then you're feeding your vanity." - -"I'm not. Even the charlatans make me feel ashamed of my sham advantage. -No; the thing that is most wonderful about those Tuesdays is waking up -utterly worn out, having a breakfast of cold fruit in the cold grey -morning, a rush for the train, a last sight of the Taylors as they go -off into the London Bridge crowd and then suddenly feeling utterly -refreshed. They do too. It's an effect we have on each other." - -"How did you come across them?" - -"Michael. Reads _Reynolds's_. A notice of a meeting of London -Tolstoyans. We rushed out in the pouring rain to the Edgware Road and -found nothing at the address but a barred up corner shop-front. Michael -wanted to go home. I told him to go and stood staring at the shop -waiting for it to turn into the Tolstoyans. I knew it would. It did. -Just as Michael was almost screaming in the middle of the road, I turned -down a side street and found a doorway, a bead of gas shining inside -just showing a stone staircase. We crept up and found a bare room, -almost in darkness, a small gas jet, and a few rows of kitchen chairs -and a few people sitting scattered about. A young man at a piano picked -out a few bars of Grieg and played them over and over again. Then the -meeting began. Dora, reading a paper on Tolstoy's ideas. Well, I felt I -was hearing the whole truth spoken aloud for the first time.... But oh -the discussion.... A gaunt man got up and began to rail at everything, -going on till George gently asked him to keep to the subject. He raved -then about some self-help book he had read. Quite incoherent; and -convincing. Then the young man at the piano made a long speech about -hitching your waggon to a star and at the end of it a tall woman, so old -that she could hardly stand, stood up and chanted, in a deep laughing -voice, Waggons and Stars. Waggons and stars. Today I am a waggon. -Tomorrow a star. I'm reminded of the societies who look after young -women. Meet them with a cup of tea, call a cab, put the young woman and -the cup of tea into the cab. Am I to watch my brother's blunderings? No. -I am his lover. Then he becomes a star. And I am a star. Then an awful -man, very broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with a low forehead and a -sweeping moustache bounded up and shouted; I am a God! You, madam, are a -goddess! Tolstoy is over-civilised! That's why he loves the godlike -peasant. All metaphysicians, artists and pious people are sensualists. -All living in unnatural excesses. The Zulu is a god. How many women in -filthy London can nurse their children? What is a woman? _Children._ -What is the glory of man? Unimaginable to town slaves. They go through -life ignorant of manhood, and the metaphysicians wallow in pleasures. -Men and women are divine. There is no other divinity. Let them not sell -their godhead for filthy food and rotting houses and moloch factories. -What stands in the way? The pious people, the artists and the -metaphysicians.... Then a gentleman, in spectacles at the back, quietly -said that Tolstoy's ideas were eclectic and could never apply -generally.... Of course he was right, but it doesn't make Tolstoy any -the less true. And you know when I hear all these convincing socialists -planning things that really would make the world more comfortable, they -always in the end seem ignorant of _humanity_; always behind them I see -little Taylor, unanswerable, standing for more difficult deep-rooted -individual things. It's _individuals_ who must change, one by one." - -"Socialism will give the individual his chance." - -"Yes, I know. I agree in a way. You've shown me all that. I know -environment and ways of thinking _do_ partly make people. But Taylor -makes socialism, even when its arguments floor him, look such a -feathery, passing thing." - -"You stand firm, Miriam. Socialism isn't feathery. _You're_ feathery. -One thinks you're there and suddenly finds you playing on the other side -of the field." - -"It's the fact that socialism is a _side_ that makes it look so shaky. -And then there's Reich; an absolute blaze of light ... on the outside -side of things." - -"Not a blaze of anything, my dear Miriam ... a poor, hard-working, -popular lecturer." - -"Everybody in London is listening. Hearing the most illuminating -things." - -"What do they illuminate?" - -"Ourselves. The English. Continuing Buckle. He's got a clear cool hard -unprejudiced foreign mind." - -"Your foreigners, Miriam. They haven't the monopoly of intelligence." - -"I know. You think the English are _the_ people. But so does Reich. -Really he would interest you. You _must_ let me tell you his idea. Just -the shape of it. Badly. He puts it so well that you know he has -something up his sleeve. He has. He's a Hungarian patriot. That is his -inspiration. That England shall save Europe, and therefore Hungary, from -the Germans. You must let me just tell you without interrupting. Two -minutes." - -"_I'm_ intelligent, Miriam. _You're_ intelligent. You have distinction -of mind. But a really surprising lack of expression you know. You -misrepresent yourself most tremendously." - -"You mean I haven't a voice, that way of talking about things that makes -one know people don't believe what they say and are thinking most about -the way they are talking. Bah." - -"Clear thought makes clear speech." - -"Well. Reich says that history so far is always one thing. The -Hellenisation of Europe.... The Greeks were the first to evolve -universal ideals. Which were passed on. Through two channels. Law-giving -Rome. And the Roman church; Paul, who had made Christianity a universal -working scheme. So Europe has been Hellenised. And the Hellenisation of -the _rest_ of the world will be through its Europeanisation. The enemy -to this is the rude materialistic modern Germany. The only hope, -England. Which he calls a nation of ignorant specialists, ignorant of -history; believing only in race, which doesn't exist--a blindfold -humanitarian giant, utterly unaware that other people are growing up in -Europe and have the use of their eyes. The French don't want to do -anything outside their large pleasant home. They are the sedentary -Greeks; townspeople. The English are Romans, official, just, inartistic. -Good colonists, not intrinsically, but because they send so much of -their best away from their little home. A child can see that the English -and Americans care less for money than any people in the western world, -are adventurous and wandering and improvident; the only people with -ideals and a sense of the future. Inartistic...." - -"Geography he calls the ground symphony of history, but nothing more, or -Ireland would play first fiddle in Great Britain. The rest is having to -fight for your life and being visited by your neighbours. England has -attracted thousands of brilliant foreigners, who have made her, -including the Scotch, who until they became foreigners in England were -nothing. And the foreigner of foreigners is the permanently alien Jew. -And the genius of all geniuses Loyola, because he made all his followers -permanent aliens. Countries without foreigners are doomed. Like Hungary. -Doomed to extinction if England does not beat Germany. That's all." - -"There won't, if we can help it, be any need for England to beat -Germany. There are, you know, possibly unobserved by your rather wildly -rocketting Reich, a few eyes in England. That war can be written away; -by journalists and others, written into absurdity." - -"Oh, I'm so glad. Listening to Reich makes one certain that the things -that seem to be happening in the world are illusions and the real result -of the unseen present movement of history is war with Germany. I don't -like Reich. His idea of making everything begin with Greece. His awful -idea that art follows only on pressure and war. Yet it is true that the -harassed little seaboard peoples who lived insecurely _did_ have their -art periods after they had fought for their lives. Then no more wars no -more Art.... _Well_; perhaps Art like war is just male ferocity!" - -"Nonsense, Miriam." - -"Do you really think the war can be written away? There are so many -opinions, and reading keeps one always balanced between different sets -of ideas." - -"You're too omnivorous, Miriam. You get the hang of too many things. -You're scattered." - -"The better you hear a thing put, the more certain you are there's -another view. And then there are _motives_." - -"Ah, now you're talking.... Motives; can be used. Almost any sort of -motive can be roped in; and directed. You ought to write up that little -meeting by the way. You're lucky you know, Miriam, in your opportunities -for odd experience. Write it up. Don't forget." - -"You weren't there. It wasn't a joke. I don't want to be facetious about -it." - -"You're too near. But you will. Save it up. You'll see all these little -excursions in perspective when you're round the next corner." - -"Oh I _hate_ all these written up things; 'Jones always wore a battered -cricket cap, a little askew.' They simply drive me _mad_. You know the -whole thing is going to be lies from beginning to end." - -"You're a romantic, Miriam." - -"I'm not. It's the 'always wore.' Trying to get at you, just as much as -'Iseult the Fair.' Just as unreal, just as much in an assumed voice. The -amazing thing is the way men go prosing on for ever and ever, admiring -each other, never suspecting." - -"You've got to create an illusion you know." - -"Why illusion? Life isn't an illusion." - -"We don't know what life is. You don't know what life is. You think too -much. Life's got to be lived. The difference between you and me is that -you think to live and I live to think. You've made a jolly good start. -Done things. Come out and got your economic independence. But you're -stuck." - -"Now _there's_ somebody who's writing about life. Who's shown what has -been going on from the beginning. Mrs. Stetson. It was the happiest day -of my life when I read _Women and Economics_." - -"It's no good, you know, that idea of hers. Women have got to -specialise. They are specialists from the beginning. They can't run -families, and successful careers at the same time." - -"They could if life were differently arranged. They will. It's not that -so much. Though it's a relief to know that homes won't be always a -tangle of nerve-racking heavy industries which ought to be done by men. -But the blaze of light she brings is by showing that women were social -from the first and that _all_ history has been the gradual socialisation -of the male. It is partly complete. But the male world is still savage." - -"The squaw, Miriam, was--" - -"Absolutely social and therefore civilised, compared to the hunting -male. She went out of herself. Mother and son was society. _He_ had no -chance. Everyone, even his own son, was an enemy and a rival." - -"That's old Ellis's idea. There's _been_ a matriarchate all right, -Miriam, for your comfort." - -"I don't want comfort, I want truth." - -"Oh you _don't_, Miriam. One gives you facts and you slide away from -them." - - * * * * * - -Household life breaks everything up. Comes crashing down on moments that -cannot recur.... Thought runs on, below the surface to conclusions, -arriving distractingly at the wrong moment. - -It always seems a deliberate conspiracy to suppress conclusions. Lunch, -grinning like a Jack-in-the-box, in a bleak emptiness. People ought not -to meet at lunch time. If the bleakness is overcome it is only by -borrowing from the later hours. And the loan is wasted by the absence of -after-time, the business of filling up the afternoon with activities; -leaving everything to be begun all over again later on. - -How can guests _allow_ themselves to arrive to lunch? The smooth young -man had come primed for his visit. Carefully talking in the Wilson way; -carefully finding everything in the world amusing. And he was not -amused. He was a cold selfish baffled young man, lost in a set. Welcomed -here as a favoured emissary from a distant potentate.... - -And now with just the same air of reflected brilliance he was blithely -playing tennis. Later on he would have to begin again with his talk; -able parroting, screening hard coldness, the hard coldness of the pale -yellow-haired Englishman with good features.... A blindfold humanitarian -giant? Where are Reich's English giants? Blind. Amongst the -old-fashioned, conservatives? Gentlepeople with fixed ideas who don't -want to change anything? The Lycurgans are not humanitarians. Because -they are humanitarians deliberately. Liberals and socialists are -humanitarian intellectually, through anger. Humanitarian idealists. The -giants are humanitarian unconsciously, through breeding. Reich said the -strongest motives, the motives that made history, were _unconscious_.... -Consciousness is increasing. The battle of unconscious fixed ideas and -conscious chosen fixed ideas. Then the conservatives must always win! -They make socialists and then absorb them. The socialists give them -ideas. Neither of them are quite true. Why doesn't God state truth once -and for all and have done with it? - -And all the time, all over the western world, life growing more -monstrous. The human head growing bigger and bigger. A single scientific -fact, threatening humanity. Hypo's _amused_ answer to the claims of the -feminists. The idea of having infants scooped out early on, and -artificially reared. Insane. Science rushing on, more and more clear and -mechanical.... "Life becomes more and more a series of surgical -operations." How _can_ men contemplate the increasing awfulness of life -for women and yet wish it to go on? The awfulness they have created by -swaddling women up; regarding them as instruments of pleasure. Liking -their cooking. _Stereotyping_ in their fixed mechanical men's way a -standard of deadly cooking that is destroying everybody, teeth first. -And they call themselves creators.... Knickers or gym skirts. A free -stride from the hips, weight forward on toes pointing straight, like -Orientals. Squatting, like a savage, keeping the pelvis ventilated and -elastic instead of sitting, knees politely together, stuffy and -compressed and unventilated. All the rules of ladylike deportment ruin -the pelvis.... Ladies are awful. Deportment and a rigid overheated -pelvis. In the kitchen they have to skin rabbits and disembowel fowls. -Otherwise no keep. Polite small mouthfuls of squashy food and pyorrhoea. -Good middleaged church people always suggest stuffy bodies and -pyorrhoea. Somewhere in the east people can be divorced for flatulence. - -But the cranks are so uncultured; cut off from books and the past. -Martyrs braving ridicule? The salt of the earth, making here and there a -new world, unseen? Their children will not be cranks.... - -A rose fell at her feet flung in through the window. - -"Come out and play!" - - * * * * * - -This is joy. To stand back from the court, fall slack, losing sight of -the scatter of watching people round the lawn. Nothing but the clasp of -the cool air and the firm little weight of the rough-coated ball in a -slack hand. The loose-limbed plunge forward to toe the line. One -measuring glance and the whole body a taut projectile driving the ball -barely clear of the net, to swish furrowing along the ground. - -"The lady serves from the cliff and Hartopp volleys from the sky. -They're invincible." The yellow young man was charming the other side of -the net. Not yellow. His hair a red gold blaze when the sun was setting, -loose about his pale eager sculptured face; and now dull gold. He had -welcomed her wrangling rush to the net after the first set, rushing -forward at once, wrangling, without hearing, Hypo coming too, squealing -incoherent contributions. And then the young man had done it again, for -her, to make a little scene for the onlookers. But the third time it had -been a failure and Hypo had filled the gap with witty shoutings. And all -the time the tall man with dense features had said not a word, only -swung sympathetically about. Yet he was a friend. From the moment he -came up through the garden from France with his bag, uninvited, and sat -down and murmured gently in response to vociferous greetings. Ill, after -a bad crossing. So huge and so gentle that it had been easy to go up to -his chair as everyone else had done, and say lame things, instead of -their bright ones, and get away with a sense of having had an immense -conversation. He played the game, thinking of nothing else. Understood -the style and rhythm of all the incidental movements. The others were -different. They had learned their tennis; could remember a time when -they did not play. Playing did not take them back to the beginning of -life. Was not pure joy to them. - -He was wonderful. He altered the tone. The style and peace of his slow -sentences. Half German. The best kind of German. Now _he_ could prevent -war with Germany, if he could be persuaded to waft to and fro, for -Reich's ten years, between the two countries, talking. - -He talked through the evening; keeping his hold of the simplest thread -of speech with his still voice and bearing. Leaving a large, peaceful -space when he paused, into which it was easy to drop any sort of -reflection that might have arisen in one's mind. Hypo scarcely spoke -except to question him and the smooth young man dramatically posed, -smoked, in silence. The huge form was a central spectacle, until the -light faded and the talk began to die down. Then Alma asked him to play. -He rose gigantic in the half light and went to the piano murmuring that -he would be pleased to improvise a little. Amazing. With all his foreign -experience and his serene mind, his musical reflections would be -wonderful. But they were not. His gentle playing was colourless. Vague -and woolly. And it brought a silence in which his own silence stood out. -He seemed to have retired, politely and gently, but definitely, into -himself. The darkness surrounding the one small shaded light began to -state the joy of the day. Everyone was beaming quietly with the sense of -a glorious day. The tall man was at ease in stillness. In his large -quiet atmosphere communication flowed, following serenely on the -cessation of sound. Nun danket alle Gott.... How far was he a believer -in the old things? His consciousness was the widest in the room; seemed -to hold the balance between the old and the new, sympathetically, broad -shouldered and rather weary with his burden. Speaking always in a frayed -tired voice that would not give in to any single brisk idea. There was -room and space and kind shelter in his mind for a woman to state -herself, completely, unopposed. But he would not accept conclusions.... -His mild smooth shape of words would survive anything; persisting. It -was his _style_. With it he carried himself through everything, making -his way of talking a thing in itself.... No ideas, no convictions; but -something in him that made a perfect manner. A blow between the eyes, -flattening him out, would not break it. There was nothing there to -break, nothing hard in him. A made mould, chosen, during his growing, -filling itself up from life, but not living ... a gentleman, of course, -that was it. Then there was an abyss beneath. Unstated things that lived -in darkness. - -But the silence lasted only an instant. Before its test could reveal -anything further than the sudden sharp division of the sitters into men -and women, Alma made movements to break up the party. Hypo's voice came, -enchanting, familiar and new, its qualities renewed by the fresh -contacts. The thing to do he said rising, coming forward into the -central light, not in farewell, into a self-made arena, with needless -challenging sturdiness from one of the distances of his crowded mind. It -would be one of his unanswerable fascinating misapprehensions. The thing -to _do_ was to go out into the world; leave everything behind, wife, and -child and things; go all over the world and come back; _experienced_. - -"And what about the wives?" - -"The wives, Miriam, will go to heaven when they die." He turned on his -laugh to the men in the background; and gathered their amused agreement -in a swift glance. They had both risen and were standing, exposed by the -frankness of their spokesman, silent in polite embarrassment. They -_really_ thought, these two nice men, that something had been said. The -spell of the evening was broken up. The show had been given. Dream -picture of moving life. Entertainment and warm forgetfulness. Everyone -enchanted and alive. Now was the time for talk, exchange; beginning with -the shattering of Hypo's silly idea. How could men have experience? -Nothing would make them discover themselves. Either of them. Perhaps the -tall man.... - -"Men as they are," she began, trusting to the travelling power of her -mental picture of him as an exception, "might go----" - -But her words were lost. Alma had come forward and was saying her good -nights, hurriedly. They were to go, just as everything was beginning. -All chance of truth was caught, in a social trap. The men were to be -left, with their illusions, to talk their monstrous lies, unchecked. -Imagining they were really talking, because there was no one to -contradict. Unfair. - -She rose perforce and got through her part. It was idiotic, a shameful -farce. Evening dress and the set scene, so beautifully arranged, were -suddenly shameful and useless. Taken to bits; silly. She seemed to be -taking leave of herself, three separate selves, united in the blessed -relief of getting rid of the women. In the person of the tall man she -strode gracefully across the room to open the door for Alma and herself, -breaking out, with the two other men, at once, before the door was -closed, with immeasurable relief, into the abrupt chummy phrases of old -friends newly met. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -The tiger stepping down his blue plaque. The one thing in the room that -nothing could influence. All the other single beautiful things change. -They are beautiful, for a moment, again and again; giving out their -expression, and presently frozen stiff, having no expression. The blue -plaque, intense fathomless eastern blue, the thick spiky grey-green -sharply shaped leaves, going up forever, the heavy striped beast forever -curving through, his great paw always newly set on the base of the -plaque; inexhaustible, never looked at enough; always bringing the same -joy.... If ever the memory of this room fades away, the blue plaque will -remain. - -Mr. Hancock was coming upstairs. In a moment she would know whether any -price had been paid; any invisible appointment irrevocably missed. - -"Good morning." The everyday tone. Not the tone of welcome after a -holiday. - -"Good morning. I'm so sorry I could not get back yesterday." - -"Yes ... I suppose it could not be helped." He was annoyed. Perhaps even -a little suspicious.... - -"You see, my brother-in-law thought I was still on holiday and free to -take my sister home." - -"I trust it is not anything serious." - -"It was just one of her attacks." Suppose Sarah should have one, at this -moment? Suppose it was Sarah who was paying for her escapade? She -summoned her despairingly, explaining ... saw her instant approval and -her private astonishment at the reason for the deceit. - -Supported by Sarah she rounded off her story. - -"I see," said Mr. Hancock pleasantly; weighing, accepting. She stood -before him seeing the incident as he would imagine it. It was growing -true in her mind. Presently she would be looking back on it. This was -how criminals got themselves mixed up.... - -"I'm glad it was not anything serious," said Mr. Hancock gravely, -turning to the scatter of letters on his table. He _was_ glad. And his -kind sympathy was not being fooled. Sarah was always being ill. It was -worth a lie to drag her out into the light of his sympathy. A breath of -true life, born from a lie. - -The incident was at an end, safely through. He was satisfied and -believing, gone on into his day. She gathered up his appointment book -from under his nose. He was using it, making entries. But he knew this -small tyranny was her real apology, a curse for the trouble she had been -obliged to give him. While he sat bereft as she took in the items of his -day, their silent everyday conversation was knitted up once more. She -was there, not failing him. He knew she would always be there as long as -he should really need her. She restored the book to its place and stood -at his side affectionately watching him tackle his task, detached, aware -of her affection, secure in its independence. - -They were so utterly far apart, foreigners in each other's worlds. -Irreconcilable.... But for all these years she had had daily before her -eyes the spectacle of his life work; the way and the cost of his -undeviating, unsparing work. It must surely be a small comfort to him -that there had been an understanding witness to the shapely building of -his life.... - -Understanding speech she could never have, with anyone ... except the -Taylors, and she was as incompletely in their world as in his. The joy -of being with him was the absence of the need for speech. She whisked -herself to the door and went out shutting it behind her with a little -slam, a last fling of holiday freedom, her communication to him of the -store of joy she had brought back, the ease with which she was -shouldering her more and more methodical, irrelevant work.... - -There was nothing to pay. Then the moment over the telegram _had_ been a -revelation.... - - * * * * * - -"You ought to see the Grahams. Stay another day and see the Grahams." - -I might have wired asking for another day. Impossible. The day would -have been spoilt by the discomfort of knowing him thinking me ungrateful -and insatiable.... Only being able to say when I came back that I waited -to see a man dying of cancer. He would have thought that morbid. The -minute the telegram was sent the feeling of guilt passed away. Whilst -Hypo was chuckling over it at the top of the stairs there was nothing -and no one. Only the feeling of having broken through and stepped -forward into space. Strong happiness. All the next day was in space; a -day taken out of life; standing by itself. - -Mr. Graham was old-fashioned ... and modern too. He seemed to have come -from so far back, to see backwards, understanding, and to see ahead the -things he had always known. Serene and interested, in absolutely -everything. As much in the tiny story of the threepenny-bit as in -anything else, making it seem worth telling, making me able to tell it. -Seeing everything as _real_. Really finding life marvellous in the way -no one else seemed to do.... Ill as he was he looked up my trains, -carefully and thoughtfully.... The horror and fear of death was taken -away from me while I watched him.... Perhaps he had always felt that the -marvellousness of there being such a thing as life was the answer to -everything.... And now that he was dying knew it more completely? - -They were both so serene. Everybody was lifted by being with them into -that part of life that goes on behind the life that seems to be being -lived.... - -All the time it was as if they had witnessed that past fortnight and -made it immaterial ... a part of the immaterial _story_ of life.... - - * * * * * - -That fortnight had the shape of an arranged story, something playing -itself out, with scenes set and timed to come in in the right place. -Upset by that one little scene that had come in of itself.... - -The clear days after the two men had gone back to town. The long talks -kept undisturbed.... All the long history of Gissing.... - -Gissing's ideal women over-cultivated, self-important creatures, with -low-pressure vitality and too little animal.... "You're rather like that -you know." ... - -"Men would always rather be made love to than talked at." - -"Your life is a complex system of evasions. You are a mass of _health_, -unused. You're not doing any thing with yourself...." "... Two kinds of -women, the kind that come it over one, tremendously, and nurses." - -"Most good men are something like chimpanzees. The best man in those -relationships is the accomplished rake ... that's the secret of old -Grooge.... Yes; you'd hate him. He's one of the old school; expert -knowledge about women. That's nonsense of course. There _is_ no expert -knowledge about women. Men and women are very much alike. But there's -the honest clean red-blooded people and the posers and rotters and -anaemic people. And there are for your comfort a few genuine monogamists. -Very few." - -"You're stuck, you know. Stuffed with romantic ignorance. You're a great -chap. A gentleman. That's an insult, isn't it. You don't exploit -yourself...." - -"I'm not sure about you. You've got an awfully good life up in town, -jolly groups; various and interesting. One hesitates to disturb it.... -But we're old friends. And there's this silly barrier between us. There -always is between people who evade what is after all only the -development of the friendly handshake." - -"She's a very fine artist. Well, she, my dear Miriam, has lovers. They -keep her going. Keep her creative. She's a woman one can talk to.... -There's no tiresome barrier...." - -"Your women are a sort of omnibus load." - -"There's always the box seat." - -"They all grin. Your one idea of women is a grin." - -"There's a great deal to be said for the cheerful grin. You know, a -woman who has the grit to take things into her own hands, take the -initiative, is no end of a relief. Women want to. They ought to. They're -inhibited by false ideas. They want, nearly all women want all their -corners taken for them." - -"This book'll be our brat. You've pulled it together no end. You ought -to chuck your work, have a flat in town. Be general adviser to -authors...." - -Queer old professor Bolly, pink and white and loud checks, standing -outside the summer house in the brilliant sun. - -"Is this the factory?" - -"This is the factory." - -"Does he dictate to you?" - -"My _dear_ Bolly.... Have five minutes; have _half_ a minute's -conversation with Miss Henderson and then, if you dare, try to imagine -_anyone_ dictating to her." - -Pink and white. Two old flamingoes. Pulling the other way. Bringing all -the old conservative world into the study ... sending it forward with -their way of looking at the new things. Such a deep life in them that -old age and artificial teeth and veined hands did not obscure their -youth. Worldly happy religious musical Englishpeople. - -"The Barrie question turns solely upon the question of romance. You -cannot, dear young lady, _hesitate_ over Barrie. You must either adore, -or detest. With equal virulence. I am one of the adorers. _Romance_, for -me, is the ultimate _reality_.... Seen through a glass darkly...." - -On the other side of the room Mrs. Bolly was telling her tales of -Bayreuth. They were both untouched by the Wilson atmosphere. Not clever. -They brought a glow like fire-light; as if the cold summer hearth were -alight, as the scenes from their stories came into the room and stood -clear. - -The second afternoon Hypo stretched out on the study lounge, asleep, -compact and calm in the sunlight like a crusader on a tomb, till just -before they went. - -"There's something unconquerable in them." - -"Yes, Miriam. Silliness _is_ unconquerable. Poor old Gourlay; went to -Greenland to get away from it. _Died_ to get away from it." - -"Don't go away. Camp in here. I'm all to bits. You know you're no end of -a comfort to me." - -"I can't be. You're hampered all the time I'm here by the silly things I -say; the way I spoil your talk." - -"You've no idea how much I like having you about. Like the sound of your -voice; the way your colour takes the sun, your laughter. I envy you your -sudden laughter, Miriam; the way you lift your chin, and laugh. You're -wasted on yourself, Miriam. You don't know the fine individual things in -yourself. You've got all sorts of illusions, but you've no idea where -you really score." - -"Can't get on with anybody." - -"You get on with me all right. But you never tell _me_ nice things about -myself. You only laugh at my jokes." - -"I've never told you a hundredth part. There's never any time. But I'll -tell you one nice thing. There's a way in which ever since I've known -you, you obliterate other men. Yes. For me. It's most tiresome." - -"Oh, my dear! Is that true, Miriam?" - -"Oh yes. From the first time I saw you. There you were. I can't bear -your ideas. But I always find myself testing other men, better men, by -the way, by you." - -"I haven't any ideas, Miriam, and I'm a reformed character. There's -heaps of time. You're here another ten days yet. You shall camp in here. -We'll talk, devastatingly." - -"If I once began----" - -"Begin. We're going to explore each other's minds." - -"I should bore you to death." - -"You never bore me. Really. It does me good to quarrel with Miriam. But -we're not going to quarrel. We're going to explore each other and stop -nowhere. Agreed?" - -"I've seen you _ill_ with boredom. You hate silence and you hate -opposition. You always think people's minds are blank when they are -silent. It's just the other way round. Only of course there are so many -kinds of silence. But the test of absolutely everything in life is the -quality of the in-between silences. It's only in silence that you can -judge of your relationship to a person." - -"You shall be silent. You shall deploy a whole regiment of silences ... -but you'll fire off an occasional volley of speech?" - -"Real speech can only come from complete silence. Incomplete silence is -as fussy as deliberate conversation." - -"One has to begin somewhere. Deliberate conversation leads to real -conversation. You _can_ talk, you know, Miriam. You're not a woman of -the world. You don't come off all the time. But when you do, you come -off no end." - - * * * * * - -If _his_ mind could be tackled even though there were no words to answer -him with, then anyone's mind could be tackled.... - -Finding him simple and sad, able to be uncertain, took away the spell -from the surroundings; leaving only him.... Seeing life as he saw it, -being forced to admit some of his truths, hard and cruel even if -rearranged or differently stated, made the world a nightmare, a hard -solid daylight nightmare, the only refuge to be, and stay, with him. Yet -the giving up of perpetual opposition brought a falseness.... Smiling -agreement, with unstated differences and reservations piling up all the -time.... Drifting on into a false relationship. - -The joy of being with him, the thing that made it worth while to flatter -by seeming to agree was more than half the sense of triumphing over -other women. Of being able to believe myself as interesting and charming -and mysteriously wonderful as all these women we talked about, who lost -their wonder as he stated their formula. - -By the time the Grimshaws came everything was sad.... That is why I was -so successful with them. Gay with sadness, easy to talk to, practised in -conversation. Without that they would not have sought me out and carried -me off by themselves and shown me their world.... - -"I've been through a terrific catechism." - -"You've impressed them, Miriam. I'm jealous. They come here; to see me; -and go off with Miriam." - -"Bosh. They thought I was intelligent. They don't think so _now_. -Besides they really were trying to interview you through me." - -"That's subtle of you, Miriam. Old James. You've no idea how you're -coming on. Or coming out. Yes. I think there's always _been_ a subtle -leap in Miriam. Without words. A song without words. Good formula for -Miriam. What did they interview me about?" - -"I refused to be drawn. Suddenly, in the middle of lunch she asked me in -her Cheltenham voice 'What do you do with your leishah?' I think she -really wanted statistics; gutter-snipe statistics." - -"She's an enchantress. No end of a lark, really. She runs old Grimshaw. -Runs everybody. You're rather like her you know. You've got the -elements, with your wrist-watch. What did you say?" - -"Nothing. I haven't the faintest idea what I do with my leisure. Besides -I can't talk about real things to a bayonet. She _is_ fascinating, -though." - -"She's a gypsy. When she looks at one ... with that _brown_ smile ... -one could do anything for her." - -"There you are. Your _smiles_.... But he's the most perfect darling. -Absolutely sincere. A Breton peasant. I talked to him about some of your -definitions. Not as yours. As mine." - -"Never mind. He knew where they came from." - -"Not at all. Only those I thought I agreed with. And he's given me quite -a fresh view of the Lycurgans." - -"Now don't you go and desert." - -"Well he must be either right or wrong." - -"What a damned silly thing to say. Oh what a damned silly thing to say." - -Chill windy afternoon, grey tamarisks waving in a bleak wind, tea -indoors and a fire bringing into the summery daylight the sudden message -that summer was at an end. The changed scene chiming together with the -plain outspoken anger. Again the enlivening power of anger, the relief -of the clean cut, of everything brought to an end, of being once more -single and clear, free of everyone, homesick for London.... - -Mr. Hancock's showing-out bell sounded in the hall. The long sitting had -turned into a short one. No need to go up yet. He'll come downstairs, -pad-pad, flexible hand-made shoes on the thick stair carpet, the sharp -turn at the stair-end, the quick little walk along the passage and soft -neat clatter of leather heels down the stone stairs to the workshop. -Always the same. The same occasion. Which occasion? That used to be so -clear and so tremendous. Confused now, but living on in every sound of -his footsteps. - -Homesick for London. For those people whose lives are set in a pattern -with mine, leaving its inner edge free to range. - -Perhaps the set pattern is enough. The daily association. The mass of -work. Its results unseen. At the end it might show as a complete whole, -crowded with life. Life comes in; strikes through. Everything comes in -if you are set in a pattern and always in one place. Changed -circumstances bring quickly, but imperfectly, without a background, the -things that would be discovered slowly and perfectly, on a background, -in calm daily air. All lives are the same life. Only one discovery, -coming to everybody. - -The little bell on the wall burred gently. Room free. No hurry. - -I'll wait till he's gone downstairs. - -"Nice Miriam. You really are a dear, you know. You've a ruddy, blazing -temper. You can sulk too, abominably. Then one discovers an unsuspected -streak of sweetness. You forget. You have a rare talent for -forgetfulness and recovery. You're suddenly pillowy. You've no _idea_, -Miriam, what a blessing that is to the creature called man. It's womanly -you are. Now don't resent that. It's a fine thing to be. It makes one -want you, quite desperately. The essential deeps of you. Like an -absolution. I'm admitting your deeps, Miriam." - -"It's most inconvenient suddenly to be forgetting you are having a row -with a person. It's really a weakness. Suddenly getting interested." - -"Your real weakness is your lack of direction, the instability of your -controls. If I had you on my hands for six months you'd be no end of a -fine chap. Now don't resent that. It's a little crude, I admit. Perhaps -I ought to beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, Miriam." - -"I never think about myself. I remember once being told that I was too -excitable. It made me stare, for a few minutes. And now you. I believe -it. But I shall forget again. And you are all wrong about 'controls.' I -don't mean mine. I mean your silly idea of women having feebler controls -than men." - -"Not my idea. Tested fact." - -"Damn facts. Those arranged tests and their facts are utterly nothing at -all. Women's controls appear to be feebler because they have so much -more to control. I don't mean physically. Mentally. By seeing everything -simultaneously. Unless they are the kind of woman who has been warped -into seeing only one thing at a time. Scientifically. They are freaks. -Women see in terms of life. Men in terms of things, because their lives -are passed amongst scraps." - -"_Nice_ Miriam." - -"... Now we can begin to talk. It's easier, you know, to talk hand in -hand." - -The touch of his hand bringing a perfect separation. Everything suddenly -darkened. Two little people side by side in a darkness. Exactly alike. -Hypo gone. His charm, quite gone. - -Alma crossing the end of the lawn. There was not any feeling of guilt. -Only the sense of her isolation. Companionship with her isolation. Then -the shock of his gay voice ringing out to her across the lawn. - -"Susan, if you have that day in town, awful things will happen." Her -little pink-clad figure turning for a moment to wave a hand. - -"Of course they will! Rather!" - -"We're licensed!" - -"Susan doesn't like me." - -"She does. She likes you no end. Likes you currently. The way your hair -goes back over your ears." - -... He misses nothing. That is his charm, his supremacy in charm over -all other men. And misinterprets everything. That is his tragedy. The -secret of his perpetual disappointments. He spoiled everything by the -perpetual shock of his _deliberate_ guilt and _deliberate_ daring. That -was driving me off all the time. The extraordinariness of his idea of -frankness! His 'stark talk' is nothing compared to the untroubled -outspokenness of the Taylors.... - -The _burden_ of his simplicity. No one in the world could be more -simple.... - -He thought my silence meant attention and agreement, when I wanted only -to watch the transformation going on all round me. That would have gone -on; if he had given me time; not destroyed everything by his sudden -trick of masterfulness; the silly application of a silly idea.... It's -not only that coercion is wrong; that it's far better to die than to be -coerced. It's the destructiveness of coercion. How long before men -discover that violence drives women utterly away into cold isolation. -Never, since the beginning of the world has a woman been mastered. I'm -glad I know why. Why violence defeats itself.... - -"You don't desert me completely? We're still friends? You'll go on being -interested in my work?" - -He knew nothing of the life that went on of itself, afterwards. I had -driven him away. I felt guilty then. Because I took my decision. And -absolved myself. The huge sounding darkness, expanding, turned to a -forest of moving green and gold. The feeling of immense deliberate -strength going forward, breaking out through life. - -If it came again I should absolve myself. But it won't. It is something -in him, and in his being an Englishman and not, like Michael, an alien -mind. - -"_Alma._ I want a slice of life!" - -"Of course, my very dear! Take one, Miriam. Take a _large_ one. An oat. -Not a vote. One woman, one oat...." - -"I want an oat _and_ a vote.... No. I don't want a vote. I want to have -one and not use it. Taking sides simply annihilates me." - -"Don't be annihilated, old fing. Take an oat." - -"Give me one." - -"I will. I _do_!" - -Alma's revealed splendour ... lighting and warming the surrounding -bleakness. In that moment her amazing gift that would move her so far -from me seemed nothing. Herself, everything to me. Alma is a star. Her -name should be Stella.... But I had already decided that it would not be -him. And that marvellous beginning cannot come again. - - * * * * * - -"Particularly jolly schoolgirls! You'll like them. They're free. They -mean to be free. Now they, Miriam, _are_ the new woman." Posing, -exploiting, deliberately uncatlike cats. _How_ could he be taken in? -_Why_ were all her poses revealed to me? What brought me on the scene -just at those moments? Why that strange little series of events placing -me, alone, of the whole large party, innocently there just at that -moment, to see the origin of his idea of a jolly smile and how he -answers it? - -"You looked like a Silenus." - -"That sort of thing always looks foolish from the outside. It was -nothing. I beg of you, I entreat you to think no more of it." - -Again the little bell. Clean. A steady little summons. He had not gone -downstairs. - -He was washing his hands; with an air of communicativeness. - -"I've a piece of news for you.... I have decided to leave Mr. Orly and -set up, elsewhere, on my own account." - -"Really?" The beating of her heart shook the things she was holding in -her hands. - -"Yes. It's a decision I've been approaching for some time. As you know, -Mr. Leyton is about to be taken into partnership. I have come to the -conclusion that it is best on the whole to move and develop my practice -along my own lines." - -So calmly handing out desolation. Here was the counterpart of the -glorious weeks. Her carelessly-made living was gone; or horribly -reduced. The Orlys alone would not be able to give her a hundred a year. - -"When is it to be?" - -"Of course, whenever I go, I shall want help." - -"_Oh_ ..." - -He went very busily on with his handwashing. She knew exactly how he was -smiling, and hidden in her corner smiled back, invisibly, and made -unnecessary clatterings to hide the glorious embarrassment. Dismay -struck across her joy, revealing the future as a grey, laborious working -out of this moment's blind satisfaction. But joy had spoken first and -left her no choice. Startling her with the revelation of the way the -roots of her being still centred in him. Joy deeper and more powerfully -stirring than the joy of the past weeks. They showed now a spread -embroidery of sunlit scenes, powerless, fundamentally irrelevant, -excursions off the main road of her life. Committed beyond recall, she -faced the prospect of unvarying, grinding experience. The truth hidden -below the surfaces of life was to yield itself to her slowly, -imperceptibly, unpleasurably. - -She got through the necessary things at top speed, anyhow, to avoid -underlining his need of her, and ran downstairs. - -A letter on the hall table, from _Hypo_.... _Dear Miriam--I've headed -off that affair. You've pulled me out of it. You really have. When can I -see you? Just to talk._ - - - - - - - A LIST OF THE LIBRARIES - AND SERIES OF COPYRIGHT - BOOKS PUBLISHED BY - DUCKWORTH & CO. - - - 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN - LONDON, W.C.2 - - - - - THE LIBRARY OF ART - - - Embracing Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, etc. Edited by Mrs - S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. Extra cloth, with lettering and design in - gold. Large cr. 8vo. (73/4 in. by 53/4 in.). 7s. 6d. net a volume. - Postage 7d. - - - LIST OF VOLUMES - - REMBRANDT. By G. Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh. - With 45 plates. - - ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO. By Maud Cruttwell. With 50 plates. - - VERROCCHIO. 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Forsyth, M.A., D.D., Principal - of the Hackney Theological College, University of London. - - A HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. By A. E. Garvie, M.A., Hon. - D.D., Glasgow University, Principal of New College, Hampstead. - - A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. By George Buchanan - Gray, M.A., D.Litt., Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament - Exegesis in Mansfield College, Oxford. - - GOSPEL ORIGINS. A Study in the Synoptic Problem. By William West - Holdsworth, M.A., Tutor in New Testament Language and Literature, - Handsworth College; author of "The Christ of the Gospels," "The - Life of Faith," etc. - - FAITH AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY. By William R. Inge, D.D., Dean of St - Paul's, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, and - Bampton Lecturer, Oxford, 1899. - - THE THEOLOGY OF THE EPISTLES. By H. A. A. Kennedy, D.D., D.Sc., - Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Theology, New College, - Edinburgh. - - CHRISTIANITY AND SIN. By Robert Mackintosh, M.A., D.D., Professor - of Apologetics in Lancashire Independent College; Lecturer in the - University of Manchester. - - ORIGINALITY OF CHRISTIAN MESSAGE. By H. R. Mackintosh, of New - College, Edinburgh. - - PROTESTANT THOUGHT BEFORE KANT. By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D., D.D., - of the Union Theological Seminary, New York. - - THE THEOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. By James Moffat, B.D., D.D., of the - U.F. Church of Scotland, sometime Jowett Lecturer, London, author - of "The Historical New Testament." - - A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT SINCE KANT. By Edward Caldwell - Moore, D.D., Parkman Professor of Theology in the University of - Harvard, U.S.A., author of "The New Testament in the Christian - Church," etc. - - THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. By J. K. Mosley, M.A., Fellow and - Tutor of Pembroke College, Cambridge. - - REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. By James Orr, D.D., Professor of - Apologetics in the Theological College of the United Free Church, - Glasgow. - - A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Arthur Samuel - Peake, D.D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Dean of the - Faculty of Theology, Victoria University, Manchester; sometime - Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. - - PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. By Hastings Rashdall, D.Litt. (Oxon.), - D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A., Dean of Carlisle. - - THE HOLY SPIRIT. By Thomas Rees, M.A. (Lond.), Principal of Bala - and Bangor College. - - PHARISEES AND JESUS. By A. T. Robertson, Professor of - Interpretation of the New Testament in the Southern Baptist - Theological Seminary. - - THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By H. Wheeler Robinson, - M.A., Tutor in Rawdon College; sometime Senior Kennicott Scholar - in Oxford University. - - TEXT AND CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Alexander Souter, M.A., - D.Litt., Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen University. - - CHRISTIAN THOUGHT TO THE REFORMATION. By Herbert B. Workman, - M.A., D.Litt., Principal of the Westminster Training College. - - - - - DUCKWORTH & CO.'S TWO SHILLING NET SERIES - - - Stiff Covers, Crown 8vo. Postage 3d. - - BROKEN STOWAGE. By David W. Bone. - - THE HOUSE IN MARYLEBONE. By Mrs W. K. Clifford. - - WRACK: A TALE OF THE SEA. By Maurice Drake. - - THE EXPLOITS OF DANBY CROKER. By R. Austin Freeman. - - THE PRICE OF THINGS. By Elinor Glyn. - - BEYOND THE ROCKS. By Elinor Glyn. - - HALCYONE. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE REASON WHY. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE REFLECTIONS OF AMBROSINE. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH. By Elinor Glyn. - - GUINEVERE'S LOVER (THE SEQUENCE). By Elinor Glyn. - - THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE. By Elinor Glyn. - - WHEN THE HOUR CAME. By Elinor Glyn. - - THREE WEEKS. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE CAREER OF KATHERINE BUSH. By Elinor Glyn. - - ELIZABETH VISITS AMERICA. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE CONTRAST AND OTHER STORIES. By Elinor Glyn. - - THE MAN AND THE MOMENT. By Elinor Glyn. - - WHERE BONDS ARE LOOSED. By Grant Watson. - - THE OILSKIN PACKET. By Reginald Berkeley and James Dixon. - - - - - THE - STUDENT SERIES - - - is designed to give, within a small compass, and at a low price, - an outline of the ideas resulting from modern study and research. - - Cr. 8vo. Paper Covers. 2s. net per volume. - - -------- - - - LIST OF VOLUMES - - 1. SYNDICALISM - J. A. R. MARRIOTT, M.P. (Late Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford) - - 2. BRITISH ASPECTS OF WAR AND PEACE - SPENSER WILKINSON - - 3. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE READING OF SHAKESPEARE - FREDERICK S. BOAS, M.A., LL.D. - - 4. THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD - FALCONER MADAN (Hon. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford) - - 5. TREATISE ON LAW - EDWARD JENKS - - 6. *THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY - BERNARD W. HENDERSON (Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford) - - 7. THE LATIN CULTURE - E. A. BURROUGHS (Fellow and Tutor of Hertford College, - Oxford) - - 8. *OUTLINE-HISTORY OF GREEK RELIGION - L. R. FARNELL (Rector of Exeter College, Oxford) - - 9. ENGLISH HISTORY, 499-1914 - ARTHUR HASSALL (Student of Christ Church, Oxford) - - * These are also issued reset, on good paper, bound in cloth, at - 6s. net each. - - DUCKWORTH & CO., 3 Henrietta Street, London, W.C.2 - - -------- - - Turnbull & Spears - Printers, Edinburgh - - - - - Transcriber's Notes - - -The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical -errors were silently corrected. Further careful corrections, some after -consulting other editions, are listed here (before/after): - - [p. 61]: - ... regarded her not with the adoration on half-pitying ... - ... regarded her not with the adoration or half-pitying ... - - [p. 89]: - ... of the atmosphere--the interest of boredom ... - ... of the atmosphere--the interest or boredom ... - - [p. 99]: - ... gleam she had caught in the deep wehrmuetig ... - ... gleam she had caught in the deep wehmuetig ... - - [p. 107]: - ... of life into the humble besogne de la pensee. ... - ... of life into the humble besogne de la pensee. ... - - [p. 167]: - ... reflectively. As if it had just occurred to her. ... - ... she murmured reflectively. As if it had just occurred to her. ... - - [p. 169]: - ... blue; unseeing; contradictng her matronly ... - ... blue; unseeing; contradicting her matronly ... - - [p. 204]: - ... ironmongery in my ruecksack and off we'll ... - ... ironmongery in my rucksack and off we'll ... - - [p. 224]: - ... they become foreigners in England were nothing. ... - ... they became foreigners in England were nothing. ... - - [p. 238]: - ... tryanny was her real apology, a curse for the ... - ... tyranny was her real apology, a curse for the ... - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Revolving Lights, by Dorothy M. 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