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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7789-8.txt b/7789-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e3f512 --- /dev/null +++ b/7789-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9708 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Memoirs of My Dead Life + +Author: George Moore + +Posting Date: April 12, 2014 [EBook #7789] +Release Date: March, 2005 +First Posted: May 17, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + +BY + +GEORGE MOORE + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +I. SPRING IN LONDON + +II. FLOWERING NORMANDY + +III. A WAITRESS + +IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + +V. LA BUTTE + +VI. SPENT LOVES + +VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE + +VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + +IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + +X. A REMEMBRANCE + +XI. BRING IN THE LAMP + +XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + +XIII. RESURGAM + + + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +[_The_ APOLOGIA _which follows needs, perhaps, a word of +explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful, +as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this +present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever +written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published. +When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of +Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East," +first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these +"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s +library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy +they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of +a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a +certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among +the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the +publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his_ Mayflower +_ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of +Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so +beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet +in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East" +that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted +the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake. +And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called +publishers, gave way on condition that this _APOLOGIA_ should +appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration +of an Ibsen comma, and if the _Mayflower_ "weeds" mere instrumental +in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew_.--THE +PUBLISHER.] + +Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader +will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that +one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me +personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm +he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were +omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg Gardens,"--Messrs. +Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the +other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was +not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a +certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question, +and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had +been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed +his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the +right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions +or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life" +and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they +depict him. + +"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly +imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to +put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental +grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are +concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the +ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run +continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which +may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You +range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander. + +"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak +of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but +interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last +analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call +illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I _do_ want to +know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do +you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned, +explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to +cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all +women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his +aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl +by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution +of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be +inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your +own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?" + + * * * * * + +The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on +the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever +this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much +a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to +think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he +would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart, +nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea. +"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not +say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of +the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I +imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he +shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with +nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along +which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing +table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my +real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself +in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I +was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these +questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of +view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather +like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began +my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the +same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even +suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have +written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying +the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that +I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads, +deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see +that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a +personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a +woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and +the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial. +Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching +of the roads, and the best way I can serve him is by drawing his +attention to the fallacy, which till now he has accepted as a truth, +that there is one immutable standard of conduct for all men and all +women." But the difficulty of writing a sufficient letter on a subject +so large and so intricate puzzled me and I sat smiling, for an odd +thought had dropped suddenly into my mind. My correspondent was a +Bible reader, no doubt, and it would be amusing to refer him to the +chapter in Genesis where God is angry with our first parents because +they had eaten of the tree of good and evil. "This passage" I said to +myself, "has never been properly understood. Why was God angry? For no +other reason except that they had set up a moral standard and could be +happy no longer, even in Paradise. According to this chapter the moral +standard is the origin of all our woe. God himself summoned our first +parents before him, and in what plight did they appear? We know how +ridiculous the diminutive fig leaf makes a statue seem in our museums; +think of the poor man and woman attired in fig leaves just plucked +from the trees! I experienced a thrill of satisfaction that I should +have been the first to understand a text that men have been studying +for thousands of years, turning each word over and over, worrying over +it, all in vain, yet through no fault of the scribe who certainly +underlined his intention. Could he have done it better than by +exhibiting our first parents covering themselves with fig leaves, and +telling how after getting a severe talking to from the Almighty they +escaped from Paradise pursued by an angel? The story can have no other +meaning, and that I am the first to expound it is due to no +superiority of intelligence, but because my mind is free. But I must +not appear to my correspondent as an exegetist. Turning to his letter +again I read: + +"I am sorely puzzled. Is your life all of a piece? Are your 'Memoirs' +a pose? I can't think the latter, for you seem sincere and frank to +the verge of brutality (or over). But what is your standard of +conduct? Is there a right and a wrong? Is everything open to any man? +Can you refer me now to any other book of yours in which you view life +steadily and view it whole from our standpoint? Forgive my intrusion. +You see I don't set myself as a judge, but you sweep away apparently +all my standards. And you take your reader so quietly and closely into +your confidence that you tempt a response. I see your many admirable +points, but your center of living is not mine, and I do want to know +as a matter of enormous human interest what your subsumptions are. I +cannot analyze or express myself with literary point as you do, but +you may see what I aim at. It is a bigger question to me than the +value or force of your book. It goes right to the core of the big +things, and I approach you as one man of limited outlook to another of +wider range." + +The reader will not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these +quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man +paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to +do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, +hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's +heart"--but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him +... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. +But if my view of him is right, my task is a more subtle one than +merely to point out that he will seek in vain for a moral standard +whether he seeks it in the book of Nature or in the book of God. I +should not move him by pointing out that in the Old Testament we are +told an eye for an eye is our due, and in the New the rede is to turn +the left cheek after receiving a blow on the right. Nor would he be +moved by referring him to the history of mankind, to the Boer War, for +instance, or the massacres which occur daily in Russia; everybody +knows more or less the history of mankind, and to know it at all is to +know that every virtue has at some time or other been a vice. But man +cannot live by negation alone, and to persuade my correspondent over +to our side it might be well to tell him that if there be no moral +standard he will nevertheless find a moral idea if he looks for it in +Nature. I reflected how I would tell him that he must not be +disappointed because the idea changes and adapts itself to +circumstance, and sometimes leaves us for long intervals; if he would +make progress he must learn to understand that the moral world only +becomes beautiful when we relinquish our ridiculous standards of what +is right and wrong, just as the firmament became a thousand times more +wonderful and beautiful when Galileo discovered that the earth moved. +Had Kant lived before the astronomer he would have been a great +metaphysician, but he would not have written the celebrated passage +"Two things fill the soul with undying and ever-increasing admiration, +the night with its heaven of stars above us and in our hearts the +moral law." The only fault I find with this passage is that I read the +word "law" where I expected to read the word "idea," for the word +"law" seems to imply a Standard, and Kant knew there is none. Is the +fault with the translator or with Kant, who did not pick his words +carefully? The metaphysician spent ten years thinking out the +"Critique of Pure Reason" and only six months writing it; no doubt his +text might be emendated with advantage. If there was a moral standard +the world within us would be as insignificant as the firmament was +when the earth was the center of the universe and all the stars were +little candles and Jehovah sat above them, a God who changed his mind +and repented, a whimsical, fanciful God who ordered the waters to rise +so that his creatures might be overwhelmed in the flood, all except +one family (I need not repeat here the story of Noah's Ark and the +doctrine of the Atonement) if there was one fixed standard of right +and wrong, applicable to everybody, black, white, yellow, and red men +alike, an eternal standard that circumstance could not change. Those +who believe in spite of every proof to the contrary that there is a +moral standard cannot appreciate the beautiful analogy which Kant +drew, the moral idea within the heart and the night with its heaven of +stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on +worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after +the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison +rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office +after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant +thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize +within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not +sufficient to lead my correspondent out of the narrow lanes of +conventions and prejudices into the open field of inquiry. Turning to +his letter, I read it again, misjudging him, perhaps ... but the +reader shall form his own estimate. + +"I honestly felt and feel a big difficulty in reading and thinking +over your 'Memoirs' for you are a propagandist whether you recognize +that as a conscious mission or not. There is in your book a +challenging standard of life which will not wave placidly by the side +of the standard which is generally looked up to as his regimental +colors by the average man. One must go down. And it was because I felt +the necessity of choosing that I wrote to you. + +"'Memoirs' is clearly to me a sincere book. You have built your life +on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that +sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for +instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward +for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say +that limitation has no other sanction than convention--race +inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it +so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is +the best? Men have been hunting the best all their history long by a +process of trial and error. Surely the build of things condemns the +murderer, the liar, the sensualist, and the coward! and how do you +come by 'natural goodness' if your moral is merely your customary? No, +with all respect for your immense ability and your cultured outlook, I +do not recognize the lawless variability of the right and the wrong +standard which you posit. How get you your evidence? From human +actions? But it is the most familiar of facts that men do things they +feel to be wrong. I have known a thief who stole every time in pangs +of conscience; not merely in the fear of detection. There is a higher +and a lower in morals, but the lower is recognized as a lower, and +does not appeal to a surface reading of the code of an aboriginal in +discussing morals. That, I think is only fair. Your artistic sense is +finely developed, but it is none the less firmly based, although there +are Victorian back parlors and paper roses. + +"You see you are a preacher, not merely an artist. Every glimpse of +the beautiful urges the beholder to imitation and _vice versa_. +And that is why your 'Memoirs' are not merely 'an exhibition' of the +immoral; they are 'an incitement' to the immoral. Don't you think so? +And thinking so would you not honestly admit, that society (in the +wide sense, of course--civilization) would relapse, go down, +deliquesce, if all of us were George Moores as depicted in your book?" + +His letter dropped from my hand, and I sat muttering, "How +superficially men think!" How little they trouble themselves to +discover the truth! While declaring that truth is all important, they +accept any prejudice and convention they happen to meet, fastening on +to it like barnacles. How disappointing is that passage about the +murderer, the sensualist, the liar, and the coward; but of what use +would it be to remind my correspondent of Judith who went into the +tent of Holofernes to lie with him, and after the love feast drove a +nail into the forehead of the sleeping man. She is in Scripture held +up to our admiration as a heroine, the saviour of our nation. +Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath, yet who regards Charlotte +Corday as anything else but a heroine? In Russia men know that the +fugitives lie hidden in the cave, yet they tell the Cossack soldiers +they have taken the path across the hill--would my correspondent +reprove them and call them liars? I am afraid he has a lot of leeway +to make up, and it is beyond my power to help him. + +Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther +Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any +book of mine in which I viewed life--I cannot bring myself to +transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold--I referred him to "Esther +Waters," saying that a critic had spoken of it as a beautiful +amplification of the beatitudes. Of the book he makes no mention in +his letter, but he writes: "There is a challenging standard of life in +your book which will not wave placidly by the side of the standard +which is generally looked up to as his regimental colors by the +average man." The idea besets him, and he refers to it again in the +last paragraph; he says: "You see, you are a preacher, not merely an +artist." And very likely he is right; there is a messianic aspect in +my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading +between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that +desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be +treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture +and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to +believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century +Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its +moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not dare to keep +Esther; but if she sent her servant away, she spoke kindly, giving her +enough money to see her through her trouble; there are good people +among Christians. The usual Christian attitude would be to tell Esther +that she must go into a reformatory after the birth of her child, for +the idea of punishment is never long out of the Christian's thoughts. +It is not necessary to recapitulate here how Esther, escaping from the +network of snares spread for her destruction, takes refuge in a +workhouse, and lives there till her child is reared; how she works +fifteen hours a day in a lodging house, sleeping in corners of +garrets, living upon insufficient food; or how, after years of +struggle, she meets William, now separated from his wife, and consents +to live with him that her child may have a father. For this second +"transgression," so said a clergyman in a review of the book, Esther +could not be regarded as a moral woman. His moral sense, dwarfed by +doctrine, did not enable him to see that the whole evil came out of +standard morality and the whole good out of the instinct incarnate in +her; and he must have read the book without perceiving its theme, the +revelation in the life of an outcast servant girl of the instinct on +which the whole world rests. + +Not until writing these lines did I ever think of "Esther Waters" as a +book of doctrine; but it is one, I see that now, and that there is a +messianic aspect in my writings. My correspondent did well to point +that out, and no blame attaches to him because he seems to fail to see +that I may be an admirable moralist while depreciating Christian +morality and advocating a return to Nature's. He belonged to the +traditions yesterday, today he is among those who are seekers, and +to-morrow I doubt not he will be among those prone to think that +perhaps Christianity is, after all, retrograde. His lips will curl +contemptuously to-morrow when he hears the cruelty of the circus +denounced by men who would, if they were allowed, relight the bon +fires of the Inquisition; ... he is a Protestant, I had forgotten. +Gladiators have begun to appear to us less cruel than monks, and +everybody who can think has begun to think that some return to pagan +morality is desirable. That is so; awaking out of the great slumber of +Christianity, we are all asking if the qualities which once we deemed +our exclusive possession have not been discovered among pagans--pride, +courage, and heroism. Our contention has become that no superiority is +claimed in any respect but one; it appears that it must be admitted +that Christians are more chaste than pagans, at all events that +chastity flourishes among Christian communities as it has never +flourished among pagan. The Christian's boast is that all sexual +indulgence outside of the marriage bed is looked upon as sinful, and +he would seem to think that if he proclaims this opinion loudly, its +proclamation makes amends for many transgressions of the ethical law. +All he understands is the law; nothing of the subtler idea that the +ethical impulse is always invading the ethical law finds a way into +his mind. Women are hurried from Regent Street to Vine Street, and his +conscience is soothed by these raids; the owners of the houses in +which these women live are fined, and he congratulates himself that +vice is not licensed in England, that, in fact, its existence is +unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not +discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of +degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these +reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human +grief, he mutters "how very sad!" + +But the assurance that the women are wretched and despised soothes his +conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish +prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It +would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of +men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish--you +would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was +once respected and honored, and the world was as beautiful then as +now, and as noble men lived in it. In many ways the world was more +moral than when your ideas began to prevail." He asks me to explain, +and I tell him that with the degradation of the courtesan the moral +standard has fallen, for as we degrade her we disgrace the act of +love. We have come to speak of it as part of our lower nature, +permissible, it is true, if certain conditions are complied with, but +always looked upon askance; and continuing the same strain of +argument, I tell him that the act of love was once deemed a sacred +rite, and that I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and +exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused +men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels +instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he +asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too +old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; +"a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort +necessary to understand me if I were to tell him, for instance, that +the desire of beauty is in itself a morality." It was, perhaps, the +only morality the Greeks knew, and upon the memory of Greece we have +been living ever since. In becoming _hetairae_, Aspasia, Lais, +Phryne, and Sappho became the distributors of that desire of beauty +necessary in a state which had already begun to dream the temples of +Minerva and Zeus. + +The words of Blake come into my mind, "the daring of the lion or the +submission of the ox." With these words I should have headed my letter +to the secretary of the charitable institution, and I should have told +him that many books which he would regard as licentious are looked +upon by me as sacred. "Mademoiselle de Maupin," "the golden book of +spirit and sense," Swinburne has called it, I have always looked upon +as a sacred book from the very beginning of my life. It cleansed me of +the belief that man has a lower nature, and I learned from it that the +spirit and the flesh are equal, "that earth is as beautiful as heaven, +and that perfection of form is virtue." "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was a +great purifying influence, a lustral water dashed by a sacred hand, +and the words are forever ringing in my ear, "by exaltation of the +spirit and the flesh thou shalt live." This book would be regarded by +my correspondent as he regards my "Memoirs," and its publication has +been interdicted in England. How could it be permitted to circulate in +a country in which the kingdom of heaven is (in theory) regarded as +more important than the kingdom of earth? A few pages back the idea +came up under my pen that the aim of practical morality was to render +illicit love as unattractive as possible, and I suppose, though he has +never thought the matter out, the Christian moralist would regard +Gautier as the most pernicious of writers, for his theme is always +praise of the visible world, of all that we can touch and see; and in +this book art and sex are not estranged. I have often wondered if the +estrangement of the twain so noticeable in English literature is not +the origin of this strange belief that bodily love is part of our +lower nature. Our appreciation of the mauve flush dying in the west +has been indefinitely heightened by descriptions seen in pictures and +read in poems, and I cannot but think that if the lover's exaltation +before the curve of his mistress's breast had not been forbidden, the +ugly thought that the lover's ardor is inferior to the poet's would +never have obtained credence. There is but one energy, and the vital +fluid, whether expended in love or in a poem, is the same. The poet +and the lover are creators, they participate and carry on the great +work begun billions of years ago when the great Breath breathing out +of chaos summoned the stars into being. But why do I address myself +like this to the average moralist? How little will he understand me! +In the Orelay adventure which horrified him there was an appreciation +of beauty which he has, I am afraid, rendered himself incapable of. +Myself and Doris were spiritual gainers by the Orelay adventure, +Doris's rendering of "The Moonlight Sonata," till she went to Orelay, +was merely brilliant and effective; and have not all the critics in +England agreed that the story in which I relate her contains some of +the best pages of prose I have written? But why talk of myself when +there is Wagner's experience to speak about? Did he not write to +Madame Wasendonck, "I owe you Tristan for all eternity"? She has not +left any written record of her debt to Wagner, perhaps because she +could not find words to give the reader any idea how great it was. + +Histories of human civilization there are in abundance, but I do not +know of any history of the human intelligence. But when this comes to +be written--if it ever should come to be written--the writer will +hesitate, at least I can imagine him hesitating, how much of the +genius of artists he would be justified in tracing back to sexual +impulses. Goethe, as my correspondent informs me, looked upon love of +woman as a means of increasing his aesthetic sensibilities, and my +correspondent seems to think that he did them wrong thereby, whereas I +think he honored them exceedingly. Balzac held the contrary belief, so +Gautier tells us, maintaining that great spiritual elation could be +gained by restraint, and when inquiry was made into his precise +beliefs on this point he confessed that he could not allow an author +more than half an hour once a year with his beloved; he placed no +restriction, however, on correspondence, "for that helped to form a +style." When Gautier mentioned the names of certain great men whose +lives offered a striking refutation of this theory, Balzac answered +they would have written better if they had lived chastely. Gautier +seems to have left the question there, and so will we, remarking only +that Balzac was prone to formulating laws out of his single +experience. I remember having written, or having heard somebody say, +"in other writers we discover this or that thing, but everything +exists in Balzac." And in his conversation with Gautier we do not find +him praising chastity as a virtue, but extolling the results that may +be gotten from chastity as a Yogi might. It is said that English +missionaries in India sometimes drive out in their pony chaises to +visit a holy man who has left his womenfolk, plentiful food, and a +luxurious dwelling for a cave in some lonely ravine. The pony chaise +only takes the parson to the mouth of the ravine, and leaving his wife +and children in charge of his servant, the parson ascends the rocky +way on foot, meeting, perchance, a fat peasant priest from Maynooth +bent on the same mission as himself--the conversion of the Yogi. It is +amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting +with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking +to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all +agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his +eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously +he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their +discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon +all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, if he +answered his visitors; "I dwell in solitude and in silence, and am +chaste, and live upon the rice that the pious leave on the rocks for +me, but I do not regard chastity and abstinence as possessed of any +inherent merits; as virtues, they are but a means to an end. How would +you impose chastity upon all men, since every man brings a different +idea into the world with him? There are men who would die if forced to +live chaste lives, and there are men who would choose death rather +than live unchaste, and many a woman if she were forced to live with +one husband would make him very unhappy, whereas if she lived with two +men she would make them both supremely happy. But the news has reached +me even here that in the West you seek a moral standard, and this +quest always fills me with wonder. There are priests among you, I can +see that, and soldiers, and fishermen, and artists and princes and +folk who labor in the fields--now do you expect all these men, living +in different conditions of life, to live under the same rule? I am +afraid that the East and the West will never understand each other. +The sun is setting, my time for speech is over," and the wise man, +rising from the stone on which he has been sitting, enters into the +cave, leaving the priest and the parson to descend the rocks together +in the twilight, their differences hushed for the moment, to break +forth again the next day. + +Schopenhauer has a fine phrase, one that has haunted my mind these +many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime +wisdom of the East like bullets fired against a cliff. + +How can it be otherwise? For when we were naked savages the Brahmans +were learned philosophers, and had seen as far into every mystery as +mortal eyes will ever see. We have progressed a little lately; our +universities, it is true, are a few hundred years old, but in +comparison with the East we are still savages; our culture is but +rudimentary, and my correspondent's letter is proof of it. It is +characteristic of the ideas that still flourish on the banks of the +Thames, ideas that have changed only a little since the +_Mayflower_ sailed. It would have been better if Columbus had +delayed his discovery for, let us say, a thousand years. I am afraid +the _Mayflower_ carried over a great many intellectual weeds +which have caught root and flourished exceedingly in your +States--Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A letter arrived +from Washington some two or three months ago. The writer was a lady +who used to write to me on all subjects under the sun; about fifteen +years ago we had ceased to write to each other, so she began her +letter, not unnaturally, by speaking of the surprise she guessed her +handwriting would cause me. She had broken the long silence, for she +had been reading "The Lake," and had been much interested in the book. +It would have been impolite to write to me without alluding to the +aesthetic pleasure the book had given her, but her interest was mainly +a religious one. About five years ago she had become a Roman Catholic, +she was writing a book on the subject of her conversion, and would +like to find out from me why I had made Father Gogarty's conversion +turn upon his love of woman, "for it seems to me clear, unless I have +misunderstood your book, that you intended to represent Gogarty as an +intellectual man." It is difficult to trace one's motives back, but I +remember the irritation her letter caused me, and how I felt it would +not be dignified for me to explain; my book was there for her to +interpret or misinterpret, as she pleased; added to which her +"conversion" to Rome was an annoying piece of news. Fifteen years ago +she was an intelligent woman and a beautiful woman, if photographs do +not lie, and it was disagreeable for me to think of her going on her +knees in a confessional, receiving the sacraments, wearing scapulars, +trying to persuade herself that she believed in the Pope's +indulgences. She must now be middle-aged, but the decay of physical +beauty is not so sad a spectacle as the mind's declension. "She began +to think," I said, "of another world only when she found herself +unable to enjoy this one any longer; weariness of this world produces +what the theologians call 'faith.' How often have we heard the phrase +'You will believe when you are dying'? She would have had," I said, +"Father Gogarty leave his church for doctrinal rather than natural +reasons, believing scrolls to be more intellectual than the instincts; +Father Gogarty poring over some early edition of the Scriptures in his +little house on the hilltop, reading by the light of the lamp at +midnight and deciding that he would go out of his parish because, +according to recent exegesis, a certain verset in the Gospel had been +added three hundred years after the death of Christ." I fell to +thinking how dry, common, and uninteresting the tale would be had it +been written on these doctrinal lines. Carlyle said that Cardinal +Newman had the brain of a half-grown rabbit, and he was right; Newman +never got further than a scroll, and man must think with his body, as +well as with his brain. To think well the whole man must think, and it +seems to me that Father Gogarty thought in this complete way. Rose +Leicester revealed to him the enchantment and the grace of life, and +his quest became life. Had it been Hose Leicester herself the story +would have merely been a sensual incident. The instinct to go rose up +within him, he could not tell how or whence it came, and he went as +the bird goes, finding his way toward a country where he had never +been, led as the bird is led by some nostalgic instinct. And I do not +doubt that he found life, whether in the form of political or literary +ambition or in some other woman who would remind him of the woman he +had lost; perhaps he found it in all these things, perhaps in none. +Told as I told it the story seems to me a true and human one, and one +that might easily occur in these modern days; much more easily than +the story my correspondent would have had me write. The story of a +priest abandoning his parish for theological reasons is not an +improbable one, but I think such a story would be more typical of the +sixteenth century, when men were more interested in the authenticity +of the Biblical texts than they are in the twentieth. The Bible has +been sifted again and again; its history is known, every word has been +weighed, and it is difficult to imagine the most scrupulous exegetist +throwing a search light into any unexplored corner. Even Catholic +scholarship, if Loisy can be regarded as a Catholic, has abandoned the +theory that the gospels were written by the Apostles. The earliest, +that of Mark, was written sixty years after the death of Christ, and +it is the only one for which any scholar claims the faintest +historical value. With this knowledge of history in our possession +belief has become in modern times merely a matter of temperament, +entirely dissociated from the intellect. Some painter once said that +Nature put him out. The theologian can say the same about the +intellect--it puts him out. Out of a great deal of temperament and a +minimum of intellect he gets a precipitate, if I may be permitted to +drop into the parlance of the chemist, for dregs would be an impolite +word to use, and the precipitate always delights in the fetich. There +will always be men and women, the cleric has discovered, who will +barter their souls for the sake of rosaries and scapulars and the +Pope's indulgences. The two great enemies of religion, as the clerics +know well, are the desire to live and the desire to know. We find this +in Genesis: God: i. e., the clerics, was angry because his creatures +ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of +the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of +the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of +the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was +written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men +from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so +anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this +tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the +ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics +were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent +herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit +of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected +were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great +feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always +ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great +depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the +tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter +fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it +has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no +conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The +origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the +glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... +The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another +instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now +directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of +knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among +themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may +always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups +to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were +infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this +fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the +earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken +when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have +involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the +Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done +all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful +that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been +written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as +heaven," and Gautier's phrase, _"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle +que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la +vertu,"_ has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to +the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual +spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of +doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather +than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of +mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more +serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So +leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on. + +My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did +more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be +vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of +an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part +of the book which interested us the least was that very part which +would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am +alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's +room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted, +for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been +seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did +he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his +own imagination made visible by some prodigy to him. For a still +briefer space Rosette shared Albert's dream, and man and wife remained +faithful to each other. It is easy to imagine the vileness which a +prosecuting counsel could extract from these beautiful pages made +entirely of vision and ecstasy. How false and shameful is the whole +business. We are allowed to state that we prefer pagan morality to +Christian, but are interdicted from illustrating our beliefs by +incident. So long as we confine ourselves to theory we are unmolested. +But these are subtleties which do not trouble the minds of the members +of vigilance associations, the men and women who gather together in +back parlors with lead pencils to mark out passages which they +consider "un-Kur-istean" (a good strong accent on the second +syllable). Their thoughts pursue beaten tracks. Books like +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" they hold would act directly on the +temperament, and we know that they do not do this, we know that the +things of the intellect belong to the intellect and the things of the +flesh to the flesh. Were it otherwise Rose Leicester, the pretty +school mistress, might have been left out of my story entitled "The +Lake," and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will +be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second +correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have +chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His +choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still +Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with +the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of +an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have had an +inflamed young man curled up in an armchair reading eagerly, walking +up and down the room from time to time, unable to contain himself, and +eventually throwing the book aside, he would find his way down to the +lake. + +These two versions of "The Lake," as it might have been written by my +correspondents, will convince, I think, almost anyone, even them, that +the desire of life which set Father Gogarty free could have been +inspired only by a woman's personality. It was not necessary that he +should go after the woman herself--but that point has already been +explained. What concerns us now to understand is how the strange idea +could have come into men's minds that literature is a more potent +influence than life itself. The solving of this problem has beguiled +many an hour, but the solution seems as far away as ever, and I have +never got nearer than the supposition that perhaps this fear of +literature is a survival of the very legitimate fear that prevailed in +the Middle Ages against writing. In my childhood I remember hearing an +old woman say that writing was an invention of the devil, and what an +old woman believed forty years ago in outlying districts was almost +the universal opinion of the Middle Ages. Denunciations and burnings +of books were frequent, and ideas die slowly, finding a slow +extinction many generations after the reason for their existence has +ceased. In the famous trial of Gille de Rais we have it on record that +the Breton baron was asked by his ecclesiastical judges if pagan +literature had inspired the strange crimes of which he was accused, if +he had read of them in--I have forgotten the names of the Latin +authors mentioned, but I remember Gille de Rais' quite simple answer +that his own heart had inspired the crimes. Whereupon the judges not +unnaturally were shocked, for the conclusion was forced upon them that +if Gille's confession were true they were not trying a man who had +been perverted by outward influence but one who had been born +perverted. Who then was responsible for his crimes? Lunacy sometimes +in these modern days serves as a scapegoat, but the knowledge of +lunacy in the fifteenth century was not so complete as it is now and +the judges preferred to believe that Gille was lying. And about ten +years ago London found itself in the same moral quandary. Three or +four little boys were discovered to have planned the murder of one of +their comrades--sixpence, I think, was the object of the murder; not +one was over eight, yet they planned the crime skillfully and very +nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys +with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages +a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the +question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; +London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be +prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a +little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it +was a little earlier, I relate these things in the order in which they +come into my mind, the London Vigilance Association instituted a +prosecution against Mr. Henry Vizetelly, a man of letters and the +publisher of Zola's novels. With the exception of Mr. Robert Buchanan +and myself not a single man of letters could be found to speak in Mr. +Vizetelly's defense. Everybody urged some excuse, his wife was ill, +his children were at the seaside and he had to go down to see them, or +that he had never cared much about naturalistic literature; whereas, +if the prosecution had been directed against something romantic, +etc.--Stranger still is the fact that it was almost impossible to find +a counsel willing to defend Mr. Vizetelly. One man threw up the case, +giving as his reason that he would have to read the books, another +said that it would be impossible to adequately defend Mr. Vizetelly's +case because no one could say what one had a right to put into a book. +This remark seemed to me at the time contemptible, but there was more +in it than I thought, for will it be believed that when the case came +into court the judge ruled that the fact that standard writers had +availed themselves of a great deal of license could not be taken as a +proof that such license was permissible? Two wrongs do not make a +right he said. In these circumstances perhaps counsel was wise to tell +Mr. Vizetelly to plead guilty to having published an indecent libel; +but the advice seemed so cruel that, justly or unjustly, I suspect the +lawyer of a wish to escape the odium that would have attached to him +if he had defended a book accused of immorality. The old man was +heavily fined. On going out of court he set to work to have the books +revised, spending hundreds of pounds having the plates altered, but +the Vigilance Association attacked him again, and this time they +succeeded in killing him. Mr. Vizetelly was over seventy years of age +when he went to prison, and the shame, anxiety, and three months of +prison life killed him. Five years afterwards the Authors' Society, +who would not say a word in his favor, voted a great banquet for Zola +when he came to London. Zola received every homage that could be paid +to a man of letters. The Vigilance Association raised no protest, and +I do not blame them. None would have been heard. But while the +banquets were held and the speeches were published in the newspapers +some of the members of the Association must have meditated sadly on +the futility of their efforts and the death of Mr. Vizetelly. It +requires a heavy blow of a very heavy mallet to get anything into some +people's heads, and nothing short of the reception that was given to +Zola could have affected the minds of the Vigilance Association. The +significance of the judge's words that the fact that classical writers +had availed themselves of a certain license could not be taken as +proof that such license was permissible escaped them altogether, for +some time afterwards the question of immorality in literature arose +again--I have forgotten the circumstances of this case--but I remember +that Mr. Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if +Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr. +Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the +Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he +answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral +doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed +himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote +beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and +the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of +duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all +those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members +and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they +must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's +moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies +with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits." +Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr. +Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of +the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again +that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be +acquitted. We must consider the question impartially. It is true that +a magistrate may be found presiding at Bow Street who will refuse to +issue a warrant against the publishers, let us say of Byron, Sterne, +the Restoration, and the Elizabethan dramatists. The Association will +have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association +from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a +magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all +that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be +picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male +and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections in Bow +Street in a crowded court would prove quite a literary entertainment, +and if the magistrate refused to issue a warrant he could only do so +on the pretext that the book had been published a long while, a +pretext which can hardly be held to be more valid than the pretext put +forward by Mr. Coote for not prosecuting Shakespeare. Of one thing +only would I warn the Society which I seem to be taking under my wing, +and that is, even if it should succeed in interdicting two-thirds of +English literature its task will still be only half accomplished. The +newspaper question will still have to be faced. Books are relatively +expensive, but the newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and it +will be admitted that no author is as indecent as the common reporter. +The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some +celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in +the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful +Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the +outraged husband of--I will spare my reader. + +About fifteen years ago I was asked if I would care to go over to ---- +College to see the sports. We walked across the downs, and while +watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if +I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than +refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse +and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, +but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished +with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some +thirty or forty boys, of ages varying from twelve to eighteen, reading +the newspapers, reading the reports of the Oscar Wilde trial; each +daily paper contained three or four columns of it. I asked the head +master if it were right to allow the boys to read such reports and he +answered that lately the newspapers contained a great deal of +objectionable matter, "But how am I to keep the daily papers out of +the college?" Now I am not easily scandalized, but I could not help +feeling that a grave scandal was being committed in allowing these +boys to read the newspapers during the week of that trial. But if you +admit the newspapers one day how can you forbid them on another +occasion? And while appreciating the head master's difficulty I walked +out into the open air unable to take any further interest in the +sports. Nor has time obliterated anything of the shame I felt that +day. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to pose as a moralist, +but I cannot help thinking that while newspapers continue to be +published, the Vigilance Society need not trouble lest certain books +should fall into the hands of young people. My correspondent forgot +that thousands of newspapers are published to-day when he wrote to me +saying that my book roused sensuality. I am afraid I omitted the +passage in which these words occur, fearing to burden my article with +quotation. Here it is: + +"The perusal of the episodes (Doris' Orelay experiences) does +certainly not ennoble me, it rouses sensuality, it lowers woman from a +friend and helpmeet into a convenience and a minister to pleasure. I +am less able and less willing to think 'high' after your book; poetry +is distasteful, art is narrowed, I look out for the licentious, the +suggestive, the low, and the mean; and don't you? You seem in passage +after passage to be world-weary in a sense that no sane man ought to +be, sated, disgusted, tired of life--is it not so? You see I speak +from what I am sure you will regard as a narrow platform, my ideals +are certainly not yours but I am simply and frankly curious as to the +ultimates in your book and in yourself." + +Let us suppose now that the Vigilance Association after a sharp +crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all +reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the +newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all +reports of sexual crimes and misdemeanors. And having extended our +imagination so far we may presume as the sequence a world of such +highly developed moral susceptibilities that Miss Austen's novels are +beginning to cause uneasiness. Miss Austen's novels are still +permitted, but in current literature nothing is said that would lead +the reader to suppose that men and women are not of the same sex. But +men and women still continue to meet and hold conversation. Only some +advanced members of the Association are in favor of that complete +separation of the sexes which obtains in Ireland in the rural +districts. In the imaginary time of which I am writing the Association +has only obtained complete control over literature. The theaters are +either closed or given over to the representation of plays on +religious subjects; but private life has not been invaded by the +Puritan missionary, and waltz tunes are still heard and figures seen +whirling past lighted windows in Grosvenor Square and Fifth Avenue. +Mr. Coote has at this time become a moderate, he is no longer among +the progressives, and is in danger of losing his post, so I have no +difficulty in imagining what he would do in such a dilemma. He would +disguise himself as a waiter and at the next meeting of the Society +tell how he had until now showed some reluctance to--the sentence +would be a difficult one to finish, perhaps Mr. Coote would break off +and say--reluctance to put restraint on the action of men and women as +long as they kept within their own doors, but after what he has seen, +he finds himself obliged to pass from the moderates to the +progressives. What has Mr. Coote seen. How would he tell his tale? + +He would tell of the length and the breadth of the ball room, of the +parquet floor usually covered with an aubusson carpet but the carpet +had been lifted and the gilded furniture taken away; the windows and +the recesses had been filled with flowers, and to keep these fresh, +great blocks of ice had been placed in the niches. He would tell of +the lighting arrangements, for are not flowers and lights incentives +to immorality? But his descriptions of the roses and the lilies would +only lead up to his descriptions of the shameless animality that came +up the staircase between twelve and one. A half-naked lady, the +hostess, stood at the head of the stairs receiving her guests with +smiles and words of welcome. The dresses the women wore resembled the +dress worn by the hostess; young and old alike went about their +pleasure with necks and bosoms and arms uncovered, and he saw these +undressed creatures slip into the arms of men who whirled them round +and round; it was but a whirling of silk ankles and a shuffling of +glazed shoes; and every now and then the men and women looked into +each other's eyes, and the whole scene was reflected shamelessly in +tall mirrors. Notwithstanding the fact that most of Mr. Coote's time +was spent behind the buffet serving out ices, he nevertheless +contrived to find a spare moment for investigation. On the pretext of +seeking a lady who had dropped a handkerchief he had crossed the ball +room and was therefore in a position to give an accurate account of +the waltzes he had heard, dulcet, undulating, capricious measures, far +more provocative than Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" which Tolstoy has +denounced. The lady that Mr. Coote sought was not in the ball room, +and so he had an opportunity of investigating all the retiring rooms, +and I need not describe the pensive and shocked faces that listened to +his descriptions of the shady nooks. Sometimes it was a screen, +sometimes it was a palm that was employed to hide the couple from +observation. Mr. Coote at last discovered the owner of the +handkerchief in one of those shady nooks, she was there with a +gentleman.... Mr. Coote, of course, would refuse to relate what he +saw, he would hesitate, but the members of his Association would +insist upon knowing everything, and he would at last confess: "Well, +the gentleman had kissed the lady on the point of her shoulder." From +this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered +of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had +worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets, +chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not +acquainted with. + +Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his +description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I +imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the +dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen +for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I +cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr. +Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the +conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their +pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex. + +We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved +by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that +dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half +a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a +woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's +"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have +prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war +cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what +is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long +consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance +Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as +completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go +by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one +night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we +are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and +the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book +rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring +day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring +days. Yet how infinitely more pernicious is their influence than any +book! What thoughts they put into the hearts of lads and lasses! and +perforce even the moralist has to accept the irrepressible feeling of +union and growth, the loosening of the earth about the hyacinth shoots +and the birds going about their amorous business, and the white clouds +floating up gladly through the blue air. Why, then, should he look +askance at my book, which is no more than memories of my spring days? +If the thing itself cannot be suppressed, why is it worth while to +interfere with the recollection? What strange twist in his mind leads +him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, +one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding +its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient +literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be +disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages +and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or +proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these +purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of +letters. Let us take a typical case, that of the late Lord ----. Forty +or fifty years ago he was one of the most strenuous advocates of +purity in literature, and more shops were raided at his instigation +than at any other; yet when he died his library was found to contain +the finest collection of impure literature in Europe, and his +executors were left wondering whether the prosecutions were prompted +by a desire to increase the value of his collection by the destruction +of rare books, copies of which were in his possession, or whether he +had been moved by conscientious scruples; a man might bamboozle +himself in this way: "I am a man of letters and possess these books +because they are rare, a curious corner of literature, but it would be +highly inexpedient for others to possess them." His conscience might +take a still more curious turn, leading to a dizzier height: "I am a +sinner; that, alas! is so; but I can prevent others from sinning +likewise." No doubt the greater part of the literature which the noble +lord collected with so much industry was of that frankly indecent kind +which is debarred from every library, Continental as well as English +and American. There is a literature which does not come within the +scope of the present inquiry, and there is what may perhaps be called +a border literature, books which are found in public libraries in the +German, the French, and the Italian texts. It seems pertinent to ask +why a little knowledge of French and German and Italian should procure +the right to read Brantôme's "Femmes Gallantes." It would be difficult +for anybody to say that this book is not frankly obscene, and yet in +the French text I suppose every library contains it. Casanova's +"Memoirs" is another book of the same kind; I am not aware of any +complete translation of Boccaccio's tales, but every library possesses +an edition in the original Italian. The only reason that can be put +forward for the suppression of a book is that it is harmful, and if +Brantôme, Casanova, and Boccaccio are harmful in English, they do harm +to those who can read them in the original texts. But perhaps I have +pointed out enough inconsistencies, and the reader, growing weary, may +say: "Are you so young, then, that you don't know that the world is a +mass of contradictions? that life is no more than a tale told by an +idiot full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?" Shakespeare did +no more than to put into eloquent language every man's belief, that we +are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is +mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of +the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book +morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, +and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back +than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the +English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years +at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of +letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame +of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet +now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be +drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other +writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of +these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings, +as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if +reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of +what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof +sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and +Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while +recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book, +etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my +story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an +authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in +England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in +Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book +had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to +publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I +answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three +weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral +book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes," +disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a +gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out +not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which, +being an expert, he felt sure that others would take exception. The +gentleman was kind enough to insist on submitting his marked copy to +me, and my wonderment increased as I turned over the pages, and it +reached a climax when I happened upon the following passage, which had +been marked to be omitted by the American printer. The passage was: +"... in her stage life Evelyn was an agent of the sensual passion, not +only with her voice, but in her arms, her neck, and hair, and in every +expression of her face; and it was the craving music that had thrown +her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her how much more would it +subjugate and hold within its persuasion the listener--the listener, +who perceived in the music nothing but its sensuality?" "But for what +reason," I asked the expert, "do you suggest the elimination of this +passage? This is the Puritan point of view. I thought that your +proposal was to draw my attention to the passages to which you thought +the Puritan would object." "Ah," he said, "that is how I began, but as +I got on with the work I thought it better to mark every passage that +might give offense." "And to whom would this passage give offense?" I +said. "Certainly not to any religious body?" "No," he answered, "not +to any religious body, but it would give offense to the subscribers to +the New Opera House. If parents read that the music of 'Tristan' threw +Evelyn Innes into the arms of Ulick Dean, they would not care to bring +their daughters to hear the opera, and might possibly discontinue +their subscriptions." Everybody will agree that "expert opinion" can +hardly go further, yet the folly which this "expert" was betrayed into +did not arise from any congenital stupidity; it is the mistake that +you and I, every one of us, would make when we seek the truth in our +casual experience instead of in our hearts. + +One would have thought that my pointing out the absurdity of this +expurgation of "Evelyn Innes" to the house of Appleton would have +saved it ever afterwards from similar folly, and forgetful that +experience is, as Coleridge describes it, only a lamp in a vessel's +stern which throws a light on the waters we have passed through, none +on those which lie before us, the publication of "The Lake" was issued +by Messrs. Appleton with my consent. The book, as the American public +already know, is free from all matter to which the most severe +moralist could take exception, yet the American edition did not +conform entirely with the English; a dedication written in French was +omitted, for what reason I do not know, but it was omitted. The matter +may seem a small one, and it may seem invidious to allude to it at +all, but on an occasion like the present nothing must be passed over. +The English proofs of the "Memoirs" were read, and the book was +accepted, but when it was set up in America it did not seem quite so +moral in the American type as it did in the English and difficulties +arose; these have been alluded to in the first paragraph of this +article, and perhaps wrongly I agreed that the two stories, "The +Lovers of Orelay" and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," should be left out. +On September 28th I wrote, suggesting that "In the Luxembourg Gardens" +might be retained, that it was only necessary to drop out a few +sentences to make it, as the expert would say, "acceptable to the +American public," but it never occurred to me that "The Lovers of +Orelay" could be published in any form except the form in which I +wrote it. This morning I received a letter from Mr. Sears. + +October 8, 1906. DEAR MR. MOORE: + +Your letter of September 28th has just arrived this morning. I hope +that by the time you receive this I shall have the open letter which +we are to print in "Memoirs of My Dead Life." The book is all ready, +waiting for it. As a matter of fact, we have not cut out either "In +the Luxembourg Gardens" or "The Lovers of Orelay." We simply have +taken out parts of each. Very truly yours, J. H. SEARS. + +"Simply have taken out parts of each!" My book, then, is a sort of +unfortunate animal, whose destiny was to be thrown on the American +vivisecting table and pieces taken out of it. Well, I raise no +objection. The promise that this preface will be published without +alteration soothes me (it is the anaesthetic), and after all, is it +not an honor to be Bowdlerized? Only the best are deemed dangerous.... +I am not aware that anybody ever took liberties with Miss Braddon's +texts. And the day of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one! Sooner or later +the original text is published. This is the rule, and I am confident I +shall not prove an exception to the rule. + +GEORGE MOORE. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRING IN LONDON + + +As I sit at my window on Sunday morning, lazily watching the +sparrows--restless black dots that haunt the old tree at the corner of +King's Bench Walk--I begin to distinguish a faint green haze in the +branches of the old lime. Yes, there it is green in the branches; and +I'm moved by an impulse--the impulse of Spring is in my feet; +india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would +see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to +stop--pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs--to call a hansom, and +to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The +quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can +be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in a hansom, +one is alone with London. London is beautiful in that narrow street, +celebrated for licentious literature. The blue and white sky shows +above a seventeenth-century gable, and a few moments after we are in +Drury Lane. The fine weather has enticed the population out of grim +courts and alleys; skipping-ropes are whirling everywhere. The +children hardly escape being run over. Coster girls sit wrapped in +shawls, contentedly, like rabbits at the edge of a burrow; the men +smoke their pipes in sullen groups, their eyes on the closed doors of +the public house. At the corner of the great theatre a vendor of cheap +ices is rapidly absorbing the few spare pennies of the neighbourhood. +The hansom turns out of the lane into the great thoroughfare, a bright +glow like the sunset fills the roadway, and upon it a triangular block +of masonry and St. Giles's church rise, the spire aloft in the faint +blue and delicate air. Spires are so beautiful that we would fain +believe that they will outlast creeds; religion or no religion we must +have spires, and in town and country--spires showing between trees and +rising out of the city purlieus. + +The spring tide is rising; the almond trees are in bloom, that one +growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the +wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light +up--how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in +the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the +spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing +together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How +exciting! It melts on the lips in fond kisses, instilling a delicate +gluttony of life. It would be pleasant in these gardens walking +through shadowy alleys, lit here and there by a ray, to see girls +walking hand in hand, catching at branches, as girls do when dreaming +of lovers. But alas! the gardens are empty; only some daffodils! But +how beautiful is the curve of the flower when seen in profile, and +still more beautiful is the starry yellow when the flower is seen full +face. That antique flower carries my mind back--not to Greek times, +for the daffodil has lost something of its ancient loveliness; it is +more reminiscent of a Wedgwood than of a Greek vase. My nonsense +thoughts amuse me; I follow my thoughts as a child follows +butterflies; and all this ecstasy in and about me, is the joy of +health--my health and the health of the world. This April day has set +brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old +canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; +an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of--well, I do not know of +what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours +waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal does +nothing. + +Here comes a boat! The canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has +interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the +last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, +the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at +the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me +of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first +wonder. We all remember the wonder with which we watched the first +barge, the wonder which the smoke coming out of the funnel excited. +When my father asked me why I'd like to go to Dublin better by canal +than by railroad, I couldn't tell him. Nor could I tell any one to-day +why I love a canal. One never loses one's fondness for canals. The +boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he +strains, sticking his toes into the path! + +There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always +women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining +light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round +Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets +full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank +historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away, +and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius. +Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach +to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is +peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original +marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and +mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image; +till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white +Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it +has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs +are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her +veiled face and read. I have only to fix my thoughts to +decipher--what? I know not. Something ... perhaps. But I cannot +control my thoughts. I am absorbed in turn by the beauty of the Marble +Arch and the perspective of the Bayswater Road, fading like an +apparition amid the romance of great trees. + +As I turn away, for the wind thrills and obliges me to walk rapidly, I +think how fortunate I am to experience these emotions in Hyde Park, +whereas my fellows have to go to Switzerland and to climb up Mont +Blanc, to feel half what I am feeling now, as I stand looking across +the level park watching the sunset, a dusky one. The last red bar of +light fades, and nothing remains but the grey park with the blue of +the suburb behind it, flowing away full of mist and people, dim and +mournful to the pallid lights of Kensington; and its crowds are like +strips of black tape scattered here and there. By the railings the +tape has been wound into a black ball, and, no doubt, the peg on which +it is wound is some preacher promising human nature deliverance from +evil if it will forego the spring time. But the spring time continues, +despite the preacher, over yonder, under branches swelling with leaf +and noisy with sparrows; the spring is there amid the boys and girls, +boys dressed in ill-fitting suits of broadcloth, daffodils in their +buttonholes; girls hardly less coarse, creatures made for work, +escaped for a while from the thraldom of the kitchen, now doing the +business of the world better than the preacher; poor servants of +sacred Spring. A woman in a close-fitting green cloth dress passes me +to meet a young man; a rich fur hangs from her shoulders; and they go +towards Park Lane, towards the wilful little houses with low balconies +and pendent flower-baskets swinging in the areas. Circumspect little +gardens! There is one, Greek as an eighteenth-century engraving, and +the woman in the close-fitting green cloth dress, rich fur hanging +from her shoulders, almost hiding the pleasant waist, enters one of +these. She is Park Lane. Park Lane supper parties and divorce are +written in her eyes and manner. The old beau, walking swiftly lest he +should catch cold, his moustache clearly dyed, his waist certainly +pinched by a belt, he, too, is Park Lane. And those two young men, +talking joyously--admirable specimens of Anglo-Saxons, slender feet, +varnished boots, health and abundant youth--they, too, are +characteristic of Park Lane. + +Park Lane dips in a narrow and old-fashioned way as it enters +Piccadilly. Piccadilly has not yet grown vulgar, only a little modern, +a little out of keeping with the beauty of the Green Park, of that +beautiful dell, about whose mounds I should like to see a comedy of +the Restoration acted. + +I used to stand here, at this very spot, twenty years ago, to watch +the moonlight between the trees, and the shadows of the trees floating +over that beautiful dell; I used to think of Wycherly's comedy, "Love +in St. James's Park," and I think of it still. In those days the +Argyle Rooms, Kate Hamilton's in Panton Street, and the Café de la +Régence were the fashion. But Paris drew me from these, towards other +pleasures, towards the Nouvelle Athènes and the Elysée Montmartre; and +when I returned to London after an absence of ten years I found a new +London, a less English London. Paris draws me still, and I shall be +there in three weeks, when the chestnuts are in bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FLOWERING NORMANDY + + +On my arrival in Paris, though the hour was that stupid hour of seven +in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was +filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed +like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which +the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life +itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed +into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were +due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a +line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky, +one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound +except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the +fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails +only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange +crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I +remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere +could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in +the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral, +the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof +disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full +of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and +courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there +in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour +we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the +green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten +years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were +visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy +movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the +train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a +quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides +breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless +and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I +say of their beauty when the first faint lights appeared, when the +first rose clouds appeared above the hills? Orchard succeeded orchard, +and the farmhouses were all asleep. There is no such journey in the +world as the journey from Dieppe to Paris on a fine May morning. Never +shall I forget the first glimpse of Rouen Cathedral in the diamond +air, the branching river, and the tall ships anchored in the deep +current. I was dreaming of the cathedral when we had left Rouen far +behind us, and when I awoke from my dream we were in the midst of a +flat green country, the river winding about islands and through fields +in which stood solitary poplar-trees, formerly haunts of Corot and +Daubigny. I could see the spots where they had set their easels--that +slight rise with the solitary poplar for Corot, that rich river bank +and shady backwater for Daubigny. Soon after I saw the first weir, and +then the first hay-boat; and at every moment the river grew more +serene, more gracious, it passed its arms about a flat, green-wooded +island, on which there was a rookery; and sometimes we saw it ahead of +us, looping up the verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running +through it like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown +disappearing in fine muslin vapours, drawn about the low horizon. + +I did not weary of this landscape, and was sorry when the first villa +appeared. Another and then another showed between the chestnut-trees +in bloom; and there were often blue vases on the steps and sometimes +lanterns in metalwork hung from wooden balconies. The shutters were +not yet open, those heavy French shutters that we all know so well, +and that give the French houses such a look of comfort, of ease, of +long tradition. Suddenly the aspect of a street struck me as a place I +had known, and I said, "Is it possible that we are passing through +Asnières?" The name flitted past, and I was glad I had recognised +Asnières, for at the end of that very long road is the restaurant +where we used to dine, and between it and the bridge is the _bal_ +where we used to dance. It was there I saw the beautiful Blanche +D'Antigny surrounded by her admirers. It was there she used to sit by +the side of the composer of the musical follies which she sang--in +those days I thought she sang enchantingly. Those were the days of +L'Oeil, Crevé, and Chilpéric. She once passed under the chestnut-trees +of that dusty little _bal de banlieue_ with me by her side, proud +of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has +outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It +would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in +the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her +sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light +of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great +poets have voiced her woe and decadence. + +Not five minutes from that _bal_ was the little house in which +Hervé lived, and to which he used to invite us to supper; and where, +after supper, he used to play to us the last music he had composed. We +listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken +all the tinkle out of it, and the poor _compositeur toqué_ never +caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, +believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the +Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for +a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, +cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the great goddess of folly, +used to come down there to sing the songs which were intended to +revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and +Hervé's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly +did he seize the conductor's _bâton_; the days of their glory had +gone. Now Asnières itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen +another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled +down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor +scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages +came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense +and Blanche and Julia. + +But after all I am in Paris. Almost the same Paris; almost the same +George Moore, my senses awake as before to all enjoyment, my soul as +enwrapped as ever in the divine sensation of life. Once my youth moved +through thy whiteness, O City, and its dreams lay down to dreams in +the freedom of thy fields! Years come and years go, but every year I +see city and plain in the happy exaltation of Spring, and departing +before the cuckoo, while the blossom is still bright on the bough, it +has come to me to think that Paris and May are one. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WAITRESS + + +Feeling that he would never see Scotland again, Stevenson wrote in a +preface to "Catriona":--"I see like a vision the youth of my father, +and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there +far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out +in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I +admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny." Does not this +sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile +emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it +reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however +vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be +remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget +the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler +phrase will form itself in our memories. The emotion that Stevenson +had to express transpires only in the words, "romance of destiny, +ultimate islands." Who does not feel his destiny to be a romance, and +who does not admire the ultimate island whither his destiny will cast +him? Giacomo Cenci, whom the Pope ordered to be flayed alive, no doubt +admired the romance of destiny that laid him on his ultimate island, a +raised plank, so that the executioner might conveniently roll up the +skin of his belly like an apron. And a hare that I once saw beating a +tambourine in Regent Street looked at me so wistfully that I am sure +it admired in some remote way the romance of destiny that had taken it +from the woodland and cast it upon its ultimate island--in this case a +barrow. But neither of these strange examples of the romance of +destiny seems to me more wonderful than the destiny of a wistful Irish +girl whom I saw serving drinks to students in a certain ultimate café +in the Latin Quarter; she, too, no doubt, admired the destiny which +had cast her out, ordaining that she should die amid tobacco smoke, +serving drinks to students, entertaining them with whatever +conversation they desired. + +Gervex, Mademoiselle D'Avary, and I had gone to this café after the +theatre for half an hour's distraction; I had thought that the place +seemed too rough for Mademoiselle D'Avary, but Gervex had said that we +should find a quiet corner, and we had happened to choose one in +charge of a thin, delicate girl, a girl touched with languor, +weakness, and a grace which interested and moved me; her cheeks were +thin, and the deep grey eyes were wistful as a drawing of Rossetti; +her waving brown hair fell over the temples, and was looped up low +over the neck after the Rossetti fashion. I had noticed how the two +women looked at each other, one woman healthful and rich, the other +poor and ailing; I had guessed the thought that passed across their +minds. Each had doubtless asked and wondered why life had come to them +so differently. But first I must tell who was Mademoiselle D'Avary, +and how I came to know her. I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated +cafe at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. +When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is +recorded that he said: "Now I've done with music, it has served its +turn, and I'm going to dine every day at Tortoni's." Even in my time +Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one +was there at five o'clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in +Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. +Tortoni was a sort of publication. At Tortoni I had discovered a young +man, one of my oldest friends, a painter of talent--he had a picture +in the Luxembourg--and a man who was beloved by women. Gervex, for it +was he, had seized me by the hand, and with voluble eagerness had told +me that I was the person he was seeking: he had heard of my coming and +had sought me in every cafe from the Madeleine to Tortoni. He had been +seeking me because he wished to ask me to dinner to meet Mademoiselle +D'Avary; we were to fetch her in the Rue des Capucines. I write the +name of the street, not because it matters to my little story in what +street she lived, but because the name is an evocation. Those who like +Paris like to hear the names of the streets, and the long staircase +turning closely up the painted walls, the brown painted doors on the +landings, and the bell rope, are evocative of Parisian life; and +Mademoiselle D'Avary is herself an evocation, for she was an actress +of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of +those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of +life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work +is done, _nous pouvons faire la fête ensemble_." But however +defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for +it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I +looked round the drawing-room admiring it--a drawing-room furnished +with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, _étagères_ +covered with silver ornaments, three drawings by Boucher--Boucher in +three periods, a French Boucher, a Flemish Boucher, and an Italian +Boucher--that I must not think that any of these things were presents +from him, and from saying when she came into the room that the +bracelet on her arm was not from him. It had seemed to me in slightly +bad taste that he should remind her that he made no presents, for his +remark had clouded her joyousness; I could see that she was not so +happy at the thought of going out to dine with him as she had been. + +It was _chez Foyoz_ that we dined, an old-fashioned restaurant +still free from the new taste that likes walls painted white and gold, +electric lamps and fiddlers. After dinner we had gone to see a play +next door at the Odéon, a play in which shepherds spoke to each other +about singing brooks, and stabbed each other for false women, a play +diversified with vintages, processions, wains, and songs. Nevertheless +it had not interested us. And during the _entr'actes_ Gervex had +paid visits in various parts of the house, leaving Mademoiselle +D'Avary to make herself agreeable to me. I dearly love to walk by the +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers. After the +play he had said, "Allons boire un bock," and we had turned into a +students' café, a café furnished with tapestries and oak tables, and +old-time jugs and Medicis gowns, a café in which a student +occasionally caught up a tall bock in his teeth, emptied it at a gulp, +and after turning head over heels, walked out without having smiled. +Mademoiselle D'Avary's beauty and fashion had drawn the wild eyes of +all the students gathered there. She wore a flower-enwoven dress, and +from under the large hat her hair showed dark as night; and her +southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the +hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent +suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her +ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. +Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her +lips parted, the small teeth showing between the red lips. The +waitress sat, her thin arms leaning on the table, joining very +prettily in the conversation, betraying only in one glance that she +knew that she was only a failure and Mademoiselle D'Avary a success. +It was some time before the ear caught the slight accent; an accent +that was difficult to trace to any country. Once I heard a southern +intonation, and then a northern; finally I heard an unmistakable +English intonation, and said: + +"But you're English." + +"I'm Irish. I'm from Dublin." + +And thinking of a girl reared in its Dublin conventions, but whom the +romance of destiny had cast upon this ultimate café, I asked her how +she had found her way here; and she told me she had left Dublin when +she was sixteen; she had come to Paris six years ago to take a +situation as nursery governess. She used to go with the children into +the Luxembourg Gardens and talk to them in English. One day a student +had sat on the bench beside her. The rest of the story is easily +guessed. But he had no money to keep her, and she had to come to this +café to earn her living. + +"It doesn't suit me, but what am I to do? One must live, and the +tobacco smoke makes me cough." I sat looking at her, and she must have +guessed what was passing in my mind, for she told me that one lung was +gone; and we spoke of health, of the South, and she said that the +doctor had advised her to go away south. + +Seeing that Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary were engaged in +conversation, I leaned forward and devoted all my attention to this +wistful Irish girl, so interesting in her phthisis, in her red Medicis +gown, her thin arms showing in the long rucked sleeves. I had to offer +her drink; to do so was the custom of the place. She said that drink +harmed her, but she would get into trouble if she refused drink; +perhaps I would not mind paying for a piece of beef-steak instead. She +had been ordered raw steak! I have only to close my eyes to see her +going over to the corner of the cafe and cutting a piece and putting +it away. She said she would eat it before going to bed, and that would +be two hours hence, about three. While talking to her I thought of a +cottage in the South amid olive and orange trees, an open window full +of fragrant air, and this girl sitting by it. + +"I should like to take you south and attend upon you." + +"I'm afraid you would grow weary of nursing me. And I should be able +to give you very little in return for your care. The doctor says I'm +not to love any one." + +We must have talked for some time, for it was like waking out of a +dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing +how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that +it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry +jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them +into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg +Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad +to find oneself alone on the pavement at midnight. Instead of going +back to the café I wandered on, thinking of the girl I had seen, and +of her certain death, for she could not live many months in that café. +We all want to think at midnight, under the moon, when the city looks +like a black Italian engraving, and poems come to us as we watch a +swirling river. Not only the idea of a poem came to me that night, but +on the Pont Neuf the words began to sing together, and I jotted down +the first lines before going to bed. Next morning I continued my poem, +and all day was passed in this little composition. + + We are alone! Listen, a little while, + And hear the reason why your weary smile + And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet, + And how my love of you is more complete + Than any love of any lover. They + Have only been attracted by the grey + Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim + And delicate form, or some such other whim, + The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I + For other reason. Listen whilst I try + To say. I joy to see the sunset slope + Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, + Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm + Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, + In mildly modulated phrases; thus + Your life shall fade like a voluptuous + Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die + Like some soft evening's sad serenity.... + I would possess your dying hours; indeed + My love is worthy of the gift, I plead + For them. Although I never loved as yet, + Methinks that I might love you; I would get + From out the knowledge that the time was brief, + That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, + And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm + Beyond all other loves, for now the arm + Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims + You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames + Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet + To see you fading like a violet, + Or some sweet thought, would be a very strange + And costly pleasure, far beyond the range + Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I + Will chose a country spot where fields of rye + And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains, + Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, + To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where + The porch and windows are festooned with fair + Green leaves of eglantine, and look upon + A shady garden where we'll walk alone + In the autumn summer evenings; each will see + Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree, + The garden's length, is far, and you will rest + From time to time, leaning upon my breast + Your languid lily face, then later still + Unto the sofa by the window-sill + Your wasted body I shall carry, so + That you may drink the last left lingering glow + Of evening, when the air is filled with scent + Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent + The while with many griefs. Like some blue day + That grows more lovely as it fades away, + Gaining that calm serenity and height + Of colour wanted, as the solemn night + Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep + For ever and for ever; I shall weep + A day and night large tears upon your face, + Laying you then beneath a rose-red place + Where I may muse and dedicate and dream + Volumes of poesy of you; and deem + It happiness to know that you are far + From any base desires as that fair star + Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. + Death takes but little, yea, your death has given + Me that deep peace and immaculate possession + Which man may never find in earthly passion. + +Good poetry of course not, but good verse, well turned every line +except the penultimate. The elision is not a happy one, and the mere +suppression of the "and" does not produce a satisfying line. + + Death takes but little, Death I thank for giving + Me a remembrance, and a pure possession + Of unrequited love. + +And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the café near +the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the +girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, +fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the +soul of a poet is not the soul of Florence Nightingale. I was sorry +for this wistful Irish girl, and was hastening to her, I knew not why; +not to show her the poem--the very thought was intolerable. Often did +I stop on the way to ask myself why I was going, and on what errand. +Without discovering an answer in my heart I hastened on, feeling, I +suppose, in some blind way that my quest was in my own heart. I would +know if it were capable of making a sacrifice; and sitting down at one +of her tables I waited, but she did not come, and I asked the student +by me if he knew the girl generally in charge of these tables. He said +he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a +transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He +described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and +passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things +began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying, +"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could +not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking +of her. + +Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little +Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate +café. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the +romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once, +should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten +her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe +and dedicate to her nameless memory. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + + +Octave Barrès liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us +who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and +little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one +never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming +into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never +seen before on the easel. + +"It was in the back room turned to the wall," he said. "I took it out, +thinking that the Russian prince who ordered the Pegasus decoration +might buy it," and he turned away, not liking to hear my praise of it; +for it neither pleases a painter to hear his early works praised nor +abused. "I painted it before I knew how to paint," and standing before +me, his palette in his hand, he expounded his new aestheticism: that +up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all painting had been +done first in monochrome and then glazed, and what we know as solid +painting had been invented by Greuze. One day in the Louvre he had +perceived something in Delacroix, something not wholly satisfactory; +this something had set him thinking. It was Rubens, however, who had +revealed the secret! It was Rubens who had taught him how to paint! He +admitted that there was danger in retracing one's steps, in beginning +one's education over again; but what help was there for it, since +painting was not taught in the schools. + +I had heard all he had to say before, and could not change my belief +that every man must live in the ideas of his time, be they good or +bad. It is easy to say that we must only adopt Rubens's method and +jealously guard against any infringement on our personality; but in +art our personality is determined by the methods we employ, and +Octave's portrait interested me more than the Pegasus decoration, or +the three pink Venuses holding a basket of flowers above their heads. +The portrait was crude and violent, but so was the man that had +painted it; he had painted it when he was a disciple of Manet's, and +the methods of Manet were in agreement with my friend's temperament. +We are all impressionists to-day; we are eager to note down what we +feel and see; and the carefully prepared rhetorical manner of Rubens +was as incompatible with Octave's temperament as the manner of John +Milton is with mine. There was a thought of Goya in the background, in +the contrast between the grey and the black, and there was something +of Manet's simplifications in the face, but these echoes were faint, +nor did they matter, for they were of our time. In looking at his +model he had seen and felt something; he had noted this harshly, +crudely, but he noted it; and to do this, is after all the main thing. +His sitter had inspired him. The word "inspired" offended him; I +withdrew it; I said that he had been fortunate in his model, and he +admitted that: to see that thin, olive-complexioned girl with fine +delicate features and blue-black hair lying close about her head like +feathers--she wore her hair as a blackbird wears his wing--compelled +one to paint; and after admiring the face I admired the black silk +dress he had painted her in, a black silk dress covered with black +lace. She wore grey pearls in her ears, and pearls upon her neck. + +I was interested in the quality of the painting, so different from +Octave's present painting, but I was more interested in the woman +herself. The picture revealed to me something in human nature that I +had never seen before, something that I had never thought of. The soul +in this picture was so intense that I forgot the painting, and began +to think of her. She was unlike any one I had ever met in Octave +Barrès's studio; a studio beloved of women; the women one met there +seemed to be of all sorts, but in truth they were all of a sort. They +began to arrive about four o'clock in the afternoon, and they stayed +on until they were sent away. He allowed them to play the piano and +sing to him; he allowed them, as he would phrase it, to +_grouiller_ about the place, and they talked of the painters they +had sat to, of their gowns, and they showed us their shoes and their +garters. He heeded them hardly at all, walking to and fro thinking of +his painting, of his archaic painting. I often wondered if his +appearance counted for anything in his renunciation of modern methods, +and certainly his appearance was a link of association; he did not +look like a modern man, but like a sixteenth-century baron; his beard +and his broken nose and his hierarchial air contributed to the +resemblance; the jersey he wore reminded one of a cuirass, a coat of +mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively +to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of +which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and +the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the +middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. +Octave was always, as he would phrase it, _dans une dèche +épouvantable_, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the +stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as +the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, +mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and +many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode +away. + +But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that +cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might +have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual +women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a +Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken +out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus +might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's +mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her +history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly +endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was +saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to +propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his +present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, +"and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." + +"Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to +sit. A _concierge's_ daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" +My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know +her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where +he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where +Alphonsine's was. + +"I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going +back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier +Bréda on her holiday. _Sacré nom!_ Half-past five, and I haven't +washed my brushes yet!" + +In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Bréda +for a holiday, he said: + +"I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." + +But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he +must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and +swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes +he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the +lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a +_peignoir_, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a +polished _parquet_ floor. We at last returned to the carriage, +but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He +scribbled notes in the lodges of the _concierges_, and between +whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This +delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was +the daughter of a _concierge_ on the Boulevard Extérieur. She had +run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysée Montmartre. + + Sa jupe avait des trous, + Elle aimait des voyous, + Ils ont des yeux si doux. + +But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built +her a palace in the Champs Elysées; but the Russian prince and his +palace bored her. + +The stopping of the carriage interrupted Octave's narrative. "Here we +are," he said, seizing a bell hanging on a jangling wire, and the +green door in the crumbling wall opened, and I saw an undersized +woman--I saw Alphonsine! And her portrait, a life-sized caricature +drawn by Octave, faced me from the white-washed wall of the hen-coop. +He had drawn her two cats purring about her legs, and had written +under it, "Ils viennent après le mou." Her garden was a gravelled +space; I think there was one tree in it. A tent had been stretched +from wall to wall; and a seedy-looking waiter laid the tables (there +were two), placing bottles of wine in front of each knife and fork, +and bread in long sticks at regular intervals. He was constantly +disturbed by the ringing of the bell, and had to run to the door to +admit the company. Here and there I recognised faces that I had +already seen in the studio; Clementine, who last year was studying the +part of Elsa and this year was singing, "La femme de feu, la cui, la +cui, la cuisinière," in a _café chantant_; and Margaret Byron, +who had just retreated from Russia--a disastrous campaign hers was +said to have been. The greater number were _hors concours_, for +Alphonsine's was to the aged courtesan what Chelsea Hospital is to the +aged soldier. It was a sort of human garden full of the sound and +colour of October. + +I scrutinised the crowd. How could any one of these women interest the +woman whose portrait I had seen in Barrès's studio? That one, for +instance, whom I saw every morning in the Rue des Martyres, in a +greasy _peignoir_, going marketing, a basket on her arm. Search +as I would I could not find a friend for Marie among the women nor a +lover among the men--neither of those two stout middle-aged men with +large whiskers, who had probably once been stockbrokers, nor the +withered journalist whom I heard speaking to Octave about a duel he +had fought recently; nor the little sandy Scotchman whose French was +not understood by the women and whose English was nearly +unintelligible to me; nor the man who looked like a +head-waiter--Alphonsine's lover; he had been a waiter, and he told +you with the air of Napoleon describing Waterloo that he had "created" +a certain fashionable café on the Boulevard. I could not attribute +any one of these men to Marie; and Octave spoke of her with +indifference; she had interested him to paint, and now he hoped she +would get the Russian to buy her picture. + +"But she's not here," I said. + +"She'll be here presently," Octave answered, and he went on talking to +Clementine, a fair pretty woman whom one saw every night at the _Rat +Mort_. It was when the soup-plates were being taken away that I saw +a young woman dressed in black coming across the garden. + +It was she, Marie Pellegrin. + +She wore a dress similar to the one she wore in her portrait, a black +silk covered with lace, and her black hair was swathed about her +shapely little head. She was her portrait and something more. Her +smile was her own, a sad little smile that seemed to come out of a +depth of her being, and her voice was a little musical voice, +irresponsible as a bird's, and during dinner I noticed how she broke +into speech abruptly as a bird breaks into song, and she stopped as +abruptly. I never saw a woman so like herself, and sometimes her +beauty brought a little mist into my eyes, and I lost sight of her or +very nearly, and I went on eating mechanically. Dinner seemed to end +suddenly, and before I knew that it was over we were getting up from +table. + +As we went towards the house where coffee was being served, Marie +asked me if I played cards, but I excused myself, saying that I would +prefer to sit and look at her; and just then a thin woman with red +hair, who had arrived at the same time as Marie and who had sat next +her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was +Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever +Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as _La Glue_, her +real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, +but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red +hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of +_des petits verres de cognac_. Her sketch-book was being passed +round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear +stays and was dressed in old grey woollen. She lit cigarette after +cigarette, and leaned over Marie with her arm about her shoulder, +advising her what cards to play. The game was baccarat, and in a +little while I saw that Marie was losing a great deal of money, and a +little later I saw _La Glue_ trying to persuade her away from the +card-table. + +"One more deal." That deal lost her the last louis she had placed on +the table. "Some one will have to pay my cab," she said. + +We were going to the Elysée Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a +couple of louis, _pour passer sa soirée_, and we all went away in +carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the +plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was +in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high +steps leading from the street to the _bal_. + +"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysée +for many a month." + +"You'll soon be back again?" + +"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to +Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysée," +and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which +she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said, +"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like, +rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric +lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played +upon an _estrade_, and everyone whirled his partner as if she +were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle," +she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when +her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn +together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie +Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began +to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting +under her tree, she and _La Glue_ together, their friends about +them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little +procession suddenly formed under the trees and came towards her, and +Marie was presented with a great basket of flowers, and all her +company with bouquets; and a little cheer went up from different parts +of the _bal_, "Vive Marie Pellegrin, la reine de l'Elysée." + +The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two +women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them +I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in +Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night +at the Elysée. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its +height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a +little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to +ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The +falling fire changed again and again. And Marie stood on a chair and +watched till the last sparks vanished. + +"Doesn't she look like my picture now?" said Octave. + +"You seemed to have divined her soul." + +He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I'm not a psychologist; I +am a painter. But I must get a word with her," and with a carelessness +that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called +her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the +_bal_ together. I could not understand his indifference to her +charm, and asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a +little while they returned. + +"I'll do my best," I heard her say; and she ran back to join her +companions. + +"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysée?" + +"Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le +Russe." + +We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said +anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and +presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia. + +"I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to +paint." + +"Do you think she'll go to Russia?" + +"Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and +I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of +the art of painting; the art is forgotten. The old masters did +perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days +Rubens finished his _grisaille_, and the glazing was done with +certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more +depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much +paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's +none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it +doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and +Cézanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt." + +I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying +many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and +this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was +glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted. + +"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope +he'll buy the portrait." + +"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it." + +"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the +woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the +day after to-morrow?" + +"Yes," I said, "I'll come." + +"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture." + +Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian +had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely +settled yet. + +Marie had gone to St. Petersburg with the prince, and this was the +last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed +without something happening to remind me of her. One day a books of +travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to +a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts, where he +had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The +gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the +reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, +betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one +of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell +of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew +melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original +instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He +disappeared, and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan +came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed +himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any +knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor +did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of +Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, +returned for her holiday to the Quartier Bréda? + +A few days afterwards I heard in Barrès's studio that she had escaped +from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine's to dinner, hoping +to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except +Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of +her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was +nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; +no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little +higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the +Elysée Montmartre. The number I could inquire out, she said, and I +went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing +the café and then the _brasserie_ and a little higher up the +fruit-seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one +notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. +The first house we stopped at happened to be the right one, and the +_concierge_ said, "The fourth floor." As I went upstairs I +thought of _La Glue_, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and +it was she who answered the bell and asked me into an unfurnished +drawing-room, and we stood by the chimneypiece. + +"She's talking of going to the Elysée to-night. Won't you come in? +She'd like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know +them. Clementine, Margaret Byron?" And she mentioned some other names +that I did not remember, and opening a door she cried: "Marie, here's +a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine's. You know, dear, the +Englishman, Octave Barrès's friend." + +She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while. + +"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Dès qu'on est malade--" + +I don't think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear +her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for +cards. + +"You didn't play that night at Alphonsine's when I lost all my money. +You preferred to look at Victorine's drawings. She has done some +better ones. Go and look at them, and let's finish our game. Then I'll +talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine's? They say I'm very +ill, don't they? But now that I've come back I'll soon get well. I'm +always well at Montmartre, amn't I, Victorine?" "Nous ne sommes pas +installés encore," Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, +and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there +were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery +among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the +games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate +and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small +beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features +about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above +all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and +then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in +her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself--her soul; and +Marie's soul rose up like a water-flower in her eyes, and then the +soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, _une grue_, +playing cards with five others from Alphonsine's, losing her money and +her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful Empire table +that her prince had given her, and Bijou, Clementine's little dog, +slept on an embroidered cushion. Bijou was one of those dear little +Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King +Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky +coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard +Clementine's voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a +great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been +fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and _La +Glue_ told Clementine that she was not wanted, that _elle ferait +bien de débarrasser les planches_, that was the expression she +used. I heard further accusations, and among them the plaintive voice +of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught +each other by the hair, and tore at each other's faces, and Marie +raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell +back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down +to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then +everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each +other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them +quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bijou jumped from her +chair and followed her mistress. + +"Help me to look," Marie said; and looking I saw her faint hands +seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a +bracelet and some pearls, as well as all her money. Marie fell back +among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow +of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon +soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had +been paid her by a _fournisseur_ in the _Quartier_, who had +given her two thousand francs for her _garniture de cheminée_. A +few francs were found among the bed-clothes, and these few francs, she +said, were sufficient _pour passer sa soirée_, and she begged me +to go the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised +for ten o'clock. + +"I shall be at the Elysée by eleven. _Au revoir, au revoir!_ Let +me rest a little now. I shall see you to-night. You know where I +always sit, in the left-hand corner; they always keep those seats for +me." + +Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm +and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable +life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying +here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept +contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid +the bedclothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the +Elysée! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of +her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if +he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If +she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes on the +streets. And this decadence--was it her fault? Octave would say: +"Qu'est ce que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ou moins fichue +... si je pouvais réussir un peu dans ce sacré métier!" This was how +he talked, but he thought more profoundly in his painting; his picture +of her was something more than mere sarcasm. + +She was going to the Elysée to-night. It was just six o'clock, so she +wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten away to the dressmaker at once; +it might be wiser not--she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the +Elysée she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until +three in the morning. But I had promised: she wouldn't forgive me if I +didn't, and I went. + +The dressmaker said that Madame Pellegrin would have her dress by +nine, and at half-past ten I was at the Elysée waiting for her. + +How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the +unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the +quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the +human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs +and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that +Marie's friends spent their evening in the left-hand corner; but they +did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money +they were spending was stolen money. + +I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had +not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she +had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, +for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the afternoon sitting to +him. + +We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, +when we heard footsteps on the stairs. + +"Only some women," he said; "I've a mind not to open the door." + +"But do," I said, feeling sure the women were Marie's friends bringing +news of her. And it was so. She had been found dead on her balcony +dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker. + +I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some +ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. "Even Octave," I +said, "refrains, _on ne blague pas la mort_." + +"But what was she doing on the balcony?" he asked. "What I don't +understand is the balcony." + +We all stood looking at her picture, trying to read the face. + +"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about +eleven." + +It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to +explain the picture. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LA BUTTE + + +To-morrow I shall drive to breakfast, seeing Paris continuously +unfolding, prospect after prospect, green swards, white buildings, +villas engarlanded; to-day I drive to breakfast through the white +torridities of Rue Blanche. The back of the coachman grows drowsier, +and would have rounded off into sleep long ago had it not been for the +great paving stones that swing the vehicle from side to side, and we +have to climb the Rue Lepic, and the poor little fainting animal will +never be able to draw me to the Butte. So I dismiss my carriage, half +out of pity, half out of a wish to study the Rue Lepic, so typical is +it of the upper lower classes. In the Rue Blanche there are +_portes-cochères_, but in Rue Lepic there are narrow doors, +partially grated, open on narrow passages at the end of which, +squeezed between the wall and the stairs, are small rooms where +_concierges_ sit, eternally _en camisole_, amid vegetables +and sewing. The wooden blinds are flung back on the faded yellow +walls, revealing a portion of white bed-curtain and a heavy +middle-aged woman, _en camisole_, passing between the cooking +stove, in which a rabbit in a tin pail lies steeping, and the men +sitting at their trades in the windows. The smell of leather follows +me for several steps; a few doors farther a girl sits trimming a +bonnet, her mother beside her. The girl looks up, pale with the +exhausting heat. At the corner of the next street there is the +_marchand de vins_, and opposite the dirty little _charbonnier_, +and standing about a little hole which he calls his _boutique_ +a group of women in discoloured _peignoirs_ and heavy carpet +slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of +meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch +common in our London streets--the man with bare feet, the furtive +and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, +tattered shirt about his consumptive chest. + +The asphalt is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, +my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer +neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow +has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the +street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above +the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill +is now a mute ornament, a sign for the _Bal du Moulin de la +Galette_. + +As I ascend the street grows whiter, and at the Butte it is empty of +everything except the white rays of noon. There are some dusty +streets, and silhouetting against the dim sky a dilapidated façade of +some broken pillars. Some stand in the midst of ruined gardens, +circled by high walls crumbling and white, and looking through a +broken gateway I see a fountain splashing, but nowhere the inhabitants +that correspond to these houses--only a workwoman, a grisette, a child +crying in the dust. The Butte Montmartre is full of suggestion; grand +folk must at some time have lived there. Could it be that this place +was once country? To-day it is full of romantic idleness and +abandonment. + +On my left an iron gateway, swinging on rusty hinges, leads on to a +large terrace, at the end of which is a row of houses. It is in one of +these houses that my friend lives, and as I pull the bell I think that +the pleasure of seeing him is worth the ascent, and my thoughts float +back over the long time I have known Paul. We have known each other +always, since we began to write. But Paul is not at home. The servant +comes to the door with a baby in her arms, another baby! and tells me +that Monsieur et Madame are gone out for the day. No breakfast, no +smoke, no talk about literature, only a long walk back--cabs are not +found at these heights--a long walk back through the roasting sun. And +it is no consolation to be told that I should have written and warned +them I was coming. + +But I must rest, and ask leave to do so, and the servant brings me in +some claret and a siphon. The study is better to sit in than the front +room, for in the front room, although the shutters are closed, the +white rays pierce through the chinks, and lie like sword-blades along +the floor. The study is pleasant and the wine refreshing. The house +seems built on the sheer hillside. Fifty feet--more than that--a +hundred feet under me there are gardens, gardens caught somehow in the +hollow of the hill, and planted with trees, tall trees, for swings +hang out of them, otherwise I should not know they were tall. From +this window they look like shrubs, and beyond the houses that surround +these gardens Paris spreads out over the plain, an endless tide of +bricks and stone, splashed with white when the sun shines on some +railway station or great boulevard: a dim reddish mass, like a +gigantic brickfield, and far away a line of hills, and above the plain +a sky as pale and faint as the blue ash of a cigarette. + +I can never look upon this city without strong emotion; it has been +all my life to me. I came here in my youth, I relinquished myself to +Paris, never extending once my adventure beyond Bas Meudon, Ville +d'Avray, Fontainebleau--and Paris has made me. How much of my mind do +I owe to Paris? And by thus acquiring a fatherland more ideal than the +one birth had arrogantly imposed, because deliberately chosen, I have +doubled my span of life. Do I not exist in two countries? Have I not +furnished myself with two sets of thoughts and sensations? Ah! the +delicate delight of owning _un pays ami_--a country where you may +go when you are weary to madness of the routine of life, sure of +finding there all the sensations of home, plus those of irresponsible +caprice. The pleasure of a literature that is yours without being +wholly your own, a literature that is like an exquisite mistress, in +whom you find consolation for all the commonplaces of life! The +comparison is perfect, for although I know these French folk better +than all else in the world, they must ever remain my pleasure, and not +my work in life. It is strange that this should be so, for in truth I +know them strangely well. I can see them living their lives from hour +to hour; I know what they would say on any given occasion. + +There is Paul. I understand nothing more completely than that man's +mind. I know its habitual colour and every varying shade, and yet I +may not make him the hero of a novel when I lay the scene in +Montmartre, though I know it so well. I know when he dresses, how long +he takes to dress, and what he wears. I know the breakfast he eats, +and the streets down which he passes--their shape, their colour, their +smell. I know exactly how life has come to him, how it has affected +him. The day I met him in London! Paul in London! He was there to meet +_une petite fermière_ with whom he had become infatuated when he +went to Normandy to finish his novel. Paul is _foncièrement bon; he +married her_, and this is their abode. There is the _salle-à-manger_, +furnished with a nice sideboard in oak, and six chairs to match; on the +left is their bedroom, and there is the baby's cot, a present from +_le grand, le cher et illustre maître_. + +Paul and Mrs. Paul get up at twelve, and they loiter over breakfast; +some friends come in and they loiter over les _petits verres_. +About four Paul begins to write his article, which he finishes or +nearly finishes before dinner. They loiter over dinner until it is +time for Paul to take his article to the newspaper. He loiters in the +printing office or the cafe until his proof is ready, and when that is +corrected he loiters in the many cafés of the Faubourg Montmartre, +smoking interminable cigars, finding his way back to the Butte between +three and four in the morning. Paul is fat and of an equable +temperament. He believes in naturalism all the day, particularly after +a breakfast over _les petits verres_. He never said an unkind +word to any one, and I am sure never thought one. He used to be fond +of grisettes, but since he married he has thought of no one but his +wife. _Il écrit des choses raides_, but no woman ever had a +better husband. And now you know him as well as I do. Here are his own +books, "The End of Lucie Pellegrin," the story that I have just +finished writing: I think I must explain how it was that I have come +to rewrite one of Paul's stories, the best he ever wrote. I remember +asking him why he called her Lucie, and he was surprised to hear her +name was Marie; he never knew her, he had never been to Alphonsine's, +and he had told the story as he had picked it up from the women who +turned into the Rat Mort at midnight for a _soupe à l'oignon_. He +said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I +could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in +the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had +never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have +done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a +miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully +shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the +blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so +why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my +friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on +her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that +every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism. + +I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the +author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Céard, Maupassant, Hennique, +etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who +tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les +Moralités Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by +Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I +suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their +authors do not visit here. + +And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation +except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists +than Paul. I am the youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the +symbolists. The naturalists affected the art of painting, the +symbolists the art of music; and since the symbolists there has been +no artistic manifestation--the game is played out. When Huysmans and +Paul and myself are dead, it will be as impossible to write a +naturalistic novel as to revive the megatherium. Where is Hennique? +When Monet is dead it will be as impossible to paint an +impressionistic picture as to revive the ichthyosaurus. A little world +of ideas goes by every five-and-twenty years, and the next that +emerges will be incomprehensible to me, as incomprehensible as Monet +was to Corot.... Was the young generation knocking at the door of the +Opéra Comique last night? If the music was the young generation, I am +sorry for it. It was the second time I had gone. I had been to hear +the music, and I left exasperated after the third act. A friend was +with me and he left, but for different reasons; he suffered in his +ears; it was my intelligence that suffered. Why did the flute play the +chromatic scale when the boy said, "Il faut que cela soit un grand +navire," and why were all the cellos in motion when the girl answered, +"Cela ou bien tout autre chose?" I suffered because of the divorce of +the orchestra and singers, uniting perhaps at the end of the scene. It +was speaking through music, no more, monotonous as the Sahara, league +after league, and I lost amid sands. A chord is heard in "Lohengrin" +to sustain Elsa's voice, and it performs its purpose; a motive is +heard to attract attention to a certain part of the story, and it +fills its purpose, when Ortrud shrieks out the motive of the secret, +and in its simplest form, at the church door, the method may be +criticised as crude, but the crudest melodrama is better than this +desert wandering. While I ponder on the music of the younger +generation, remembering the perplexity it had caused me, I hear a +vagrant singing on the other side of the terrace: + +[Illustration] + + Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + +and I say: "I hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one +who possibly has no _trou_ wherein to lay his head." _Et moi +aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y +reste, car mon trou est_--Richard Wagner. My _trou_ is the +Ring--the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of +Liszt and Wagner and Strauss was to write music. However long Wotan +might ponder on Mother Earth the moment comes when the violins begin +to sing; ah! how the spring uncloses in the orchestra, and the lovers +fly to the woods!... + +The vagrant continued his wail, and forgetful of Paul, forgetful of +all things but the philosophy of the minstrel of the Butte, I picked +my way down the tortuous streets repeating: + +[Illustration] + +Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SPENT LOVES + + +I am going to see dear and affectionate friends. The train would take +me to them, that droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_, and it +seems a pity to miss the Gare St. Lazare, its Sunday morning tumult of +Parisians starting with their mistresses and their wives for a +favourite suburb. I never run up these wide stairways leading to the +great wide galleries full of bookstalls (charming yellow notes), and +pierced with little _guichets_ painted round with blue, without +experiencing a sensation of happy lightness--a light-headedness that I +associate with the month of May in Paris. But the tramway that passes +through the Place de la Concorde goes as far as Passy, and though I +love the droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_ I love this +tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the +garden of the Champs Elysées, through miles of chestnut bloom, the +roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet +overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, +cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little +steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I +love this sprightly little river better than the melancholy Thames, +along whose banks saturnine immoralities flourish like bulrushes! +Behold the white architecture, the pillars, the balustraded steps, the +domes in the blue air, the monumented swards! Paris, like all pagan +cities, is full of statues. A little later we roll past gardens, +gaiety is in the air.... And then the streets of Passy begin to +appear, mean streets, like London streets. I like them not; but the +railway station is compensation; the little railway station like a +house of cards under toy trees, and the train steaming out into the +fanciful country. The bright wood along which it speeds is like the +season's millinery. + +It is pleasant to notice everything in Paris, the flymen asleep on +their box-seats, the little horses dozing beneath the chestnut trees, +the bloused workmen leaning over a green-painted table in an arbour, +drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre, the villas of Auteuil, rich +woodwork, rich iron railings, and the summer hush about villas +engarlanded. Auteuil is so French, its symbolism enchants me. Auteuil +is like a flower, its petals opening out to the kiss of the air, its +roots feeling for way among the rich earth. Ah, the land of France, +its vineyards and orchards, its earthly life! Thoughts come unbidden, +my thoughts sing together, and I hardly knowing what they are singing. +My thoughts are singing like the sun; do not ask me their meaning; +they mean as much and as little as the sun that I am part of--the +sun of France that I shall enjoy for thirty days. May takes me to dear +and affectionate friends who await me at Auteuil, and June takes me +away from them. There is the villa! And there amid the engarlanding +trees my friend, dressed in pale yellow, sits in front of his easel. +How the sunlight plays through the foliage, leaping through the rich, +long grass; and amid the rhododendrons in bloom sits a little girl of +four, his model, her frock and cap impossibly white under the great, +gaudy greenery. + +Year after year the same affectionate welcome, the same spontaneous +welcome in this garden of rhododendrons and chestnut bloom. I would +linger in the garden, but I may not, for breakfast is ready _et il +ne faut pas faire manquer la messe à Madame. La messe_! How gentle +the word is, much gentler than our word, mass, and it shocks us hardly +at all to see an old lady going away in her carriage _pour entendre +la messe_. Religion purged of faith is a pleasant, almost a pretty +thing. Some fruits are better dried than fresh; religion is such a +one, and religion, when nothing is left of it but the pleasant, +familiar habit, may be defended, for were it not for our habits life +would be unrecorded, it would be all on the flat, as we would say if +we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are +our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what +we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to +think the matter out--here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and +how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only +goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent +of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who +said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds +us of the beautiful goodness that floats over his face, a light from +Paradise. But why from Paradise? Paradise is an ugly ecclesiastical +invention, and angels are an ugly Hebrew invention. It is unpardonable +to think of angels in Auteuil; an angel is a prig compared to the dear +doctor, and an angel has wings. Well, so had this admirable chicken, a +bird that was grown for the use of the table, produced like a +vegetable. A dear bird that was never allowed to run about and weary +itself as our helpless English chicken is; it lived to get fat without +acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon +in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it +was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only +stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour +came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge +or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards +its predestined end--a delicious repast! What better end, what greater +glory than to be a fat chicken? The carcasses of sheep that hang in +butchers' shops are beginning to horrify the conscience of Europe. To +cut a sheep's throat is an offensive act, but to clip out a bird's +tongue with a long pair of scissors made for the purpose is genteel. +It is true that it beats its wings for a few moments, but we must not +allow ourselves to be disturbed by a mere flutter of feathers. Man is +merciful, and saved it from life. It grew like an asparagus! And +talking of asparagus, here are some from Argenteuil thick as umbrellas +and so succulent! A word about the wine. French red wines in England +always seem to taste like ink, but in France they taste of the sun. +Melons are better in June--that one comes, no doubt, from Algeria. It +is, however, the kind I like best, the rich, red melon that one eats +only in France; a thing of the moment, unrememberable; but the chicken +will never be forgotten; twenty years hence I shall be talking of a +chicken, that in becoming a fat chicken acquired twenty years of +immortality--which of us will acquire as many? + +As we rise from table the doctor calls me into his studio: for he +would give me an excellent cigar before he bids me good-bye, and +having lighted it I follow my friend to the studio at the end of the +garden, to that airy drawing-room which he has furnished in pale +yellow and dark blue. On the walls are examples of the great modern +masters--Manet and Monet. That view of a plain by Monet--is it not +facile? It flows like a Japanese water-colour: the low horizon +evaporating in the low light, the spire of the town visible in the +haze. And look at the celebrated "Leçon de Danse" by Degas--that +dancer descending the spiral staircase, only her legs are visible, the +staircase cutting the picture in twain. On the right is the dancing +class and the dancing master; something has gone wrong, and he holds +out his hands in entreaty; a group of dancers are seated on chairs in +the foreground, and their mothers are covering their shoulders with +shawls--good mothers anxious for their daughters' welfare, for their +advancement in life. + +This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that +plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait +by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature. +Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with +a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied +with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I +turned into the Salle Carrée for relaxation, and there wandered about, +waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and +I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I +delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this +year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells +of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of +the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she +is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion +that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at +you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her +eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling +her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful +tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white, +faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes +through the yellow. She wears a fur jacket, but the fur was no trouble +to Rembrandt; he did not strive for realism. It is fur, that is +sufficient. Grey pearls hang in her ears, there is a brooch upon her +breast, and a hand at the bottom of the picture passing out of the +frame, and that hand reminds one, as the chin does, of the old story +that God took a little clay and made man out of it. That chin and that +hand and arm are moulded without display of knowledge, as Nature +moulds. The picture seems as if it had been breathed upon the canvas. +Did not a great poet once say that God breathed into Adam? and here it +is even so. + +The other pictures seem dry, insignificant; the Mona Liza, celebrated +in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared +with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the +ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; +that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem +but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe +or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, +an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle +or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a +sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention +rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive +her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose +passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil paint, +that arid glazing of _terre verte_, and has come into her +possession of eternal life, into the immortality of Pater's prose. +Degas is wilting already; year after year he will wither, until one +day some great prose writer will arise and transfer his spirit into +its proper medium--literature. The Mona Liza and the "Leçon de Danse" +are intellectual pictures; they were painted with the brains rather +than with the temperaments; and what is any intellect compared with a +gift like Manet's! Leonardo made roads; Degas makes witticisms. +Yesterday I heard one that delighted me far more than any road would, +for I have given up bicycling. Somebody was saying he did not like +Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to +show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it, he +would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel he would +say with a sigh 'That is my fault!'" + +My reverie is broken by the piano; my friend is playing, and it is +pleasant to listen to music in this airy studio. But there are women I +must see, women whom I see every time I go to Paris, and too much time +has been spent in the studio--I must go. + +But where shall I go? My thoughts strike through the little streets of +Passy, measuring the distance between Passy and the Arc de Triomphe. +For a moment I think that I might sit under the trees and watch the +people returning from the races. Were she not dead I might stop at her +little house in the fortifications among the lilac trees. There is her +portrait by Manet on the wall, the very toque she used to wear. How +wonderful the touch is; the beads--how well they are rendered! And +while thinking of the extraordinary handicraft I remember his studio, +and the tall fair woman like a tea-rose coming into it: Mary Laurant! +The daughter of a peasant, and the mistress of all the great +men--perhaps I should have said of all the distinguished men. I used +to call her _toute la lyre_. + +The last time I saw her we talked about Manet. She said that every +year she took the first lilac to lay upon his grave. Is there one of +her many lovers who brings flowers to her grave? What was so +rememberable about her was her pleasure in life, and her desire to get +all the pleasure, and her consciousness of her desire to enjoy every +moment of her life. Evans, the great dentist, settled two thousand a +year upon her, and how angry he was one night on meeting Manet on the +staircase! In order to rid herself of her lover she invited him to +dinner, intending to plead a sick headache after dinner.... She must +go and lie down. But as soon as her guest was gone she took off the +_peignoir_ which hid her ball dress and signed to Manet, who was +waiting at the street corner, with her handkerchief. But as they went +downstairs together whom should they meet but the dentist _qui a +oublié ses carnets_. And he was so disappointed at meeting his +beautiful but deceitful mistress that he didn't visit her again for +three or four days. His anger mattered very little to Mary. Someone +else settled two thousand a year more upon her; and having four +thousand a year or thereabouts, she dedicated herself to the love and +conversation of those who wrote books and music and painted pictures. + +We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the +imagination, at least the imagination stimulates the senses, acting as +a sort of adjuvant. The barmaid falls in love with No. 1 because he +wipes a glass better than No. 2, and Mary fell in love with Coppée on +account of his sonnet "Le Lys," and she grew indifferent when he wrote +poems like "La Nourrice" or "Le petit épicier de Montrouge qui cassait +le sucre avec mélancolie." And it was at this time when their love +story was at wane that I became a competitor. But one day Madame +Albazi came to Manet's studio, a splendid creature in a carriage drawn +by Russian horses from the Steppes, so she said; but who can tell +whether a horse comes from the Steppes or from the horse-dealers? Nor +does it matter when the lady is extraordinarily attractive, when she +inspires the thought--a mistress for Attila! That is not exactly how +Manet saw her: but she looks like that in his pastel. In it she holds +a tortoiseshell fan widespread across her bosom, and it was on one of +the sticks of the fan that he signed his name. A great painter always +knows where to sign his pictures, and he never signs twice in the same +place. The merit of these Russians is that they never leave one in +doubt. She could not sit that day, she was going to the Bois, and +asked me and a young man who happened to be in Manet's studio at the +time to go there with her, and we went there drawn by the Russian +horses, the young man and I wondering all the while which was going to +be the countess's lover; we played hard for her; but that day I was +wiser than he; I let him talk and recite poetry and jingle out all the +aphorisms that he had been collecting for years, feeling his +witticisms were in vain, for she was dark as a raven and I was as gold +as a sunflower. It was at the corner of the Rue Pontière that we got +rid of him. Some days afterwards she sat to Manet. The pastel now +hangs in the room of a friend of mine; I bought it for him. + +The picture of a woman one knows is never so agreeable a companion as +the picture of a woman one has never seen. One's memory and the +painter's vision are in conflict, and I like to think better of the +long delicate nose, and the sparkling eyes, and a mouth like red +fruit. The pastel once belonged to me; it used to hang in my rooms; +for with that grace of mind which never left him, Manet said one day, +"I always promised you a picture," and searching among the pastels +that lined the wall he turned to me saying, "Now I think that this +comes to you by right." When I left Paris hurriedly, and left my +things to be sold, the countess came to the sale and bought her +picture, and then she sold it years afterwards to a picture-dealer, +tempted by the price that Manet's pictures were fetching. Hearing that +it was for sale, I bought it, as I have said, for a friend. And now I +have told the whole story, forgetting nothing except that it was years +afterwards, when I had written "Les Confessions d'un jeune Anglais" in +the _Revue Indépendante_, that Mary Laurant asked me--oh! she was +very enterprising; she sent the editor of the _Revue_ to me; an +appointment was made. She was wonderful in the garden. She said the +moment I arrived, "Now, my dear ----, you must go," and we walked +about, I listening to her aphorisms. Mary was beautiful, but she liked +one to love her for her wit, to admire her wit; and when I asked her +why she did not leave Evans, the great dentist, she said, "That would +be a base thing to do. I content myself by deceiving him," and +then--this confidence seemed to have a particular significance--"I am +not a woman," she said, "that is made love to in a garden." Her garden +was a nook at the fortifications, hidden among lilac bushes. She +wished to show me her house, and we talked for a long time in her +boudoir. But I knew she was Mallarmé's mistress at the time, so +nothing came of this _caprice littéraire_. + +My thoughts run upon women, and why not? On what would you have them +run? on copper mines? Woman is the legitimate subject of all men's +thoughts. We pretend to be interested in other things. In the +smoking-rooms I have listened to men talking about hunting, and I have +said to myself, "Your interest is a pretence: of what woman are you +thinking?" We forget women for a little while when we are thinking +about art, but only for a while. The legitimate occupation of man's +mind is woman; and listening to my friend who is playing music--music +I do not care to hear, Brahms--I fall to thinking which of the women I +have known in years past would interest me most to visit. + +In the spring weather the walk from Passy to the Champs Elysées would +be pleasant and not too far; I like to see the swards and the poplars +and the villas, the tall iron railings, and the flower vases hidden in +bouquets of trees. These things are Paris; the mind of the country, +that mind which comes out of a long past, and which may be defined as +a sort of ancestral beauty and energy is manifested everywhere in +Paris; and a more beautiful day for seeing the tall, white houses and +the villas and the trees and the swards can hardly be imagined. I +should be interested in all these things, but my real interest would +be in one little hillside, a line of houses, eight or nine, close by +the Arc de Triomphe, the most ordinary in the avenue. She liked the +ordinary, and I have often wondered what was the link of association? +Was it no more than her blonde hair drawn up from the neck, her +fragrant skin, or her perverse subtle senses? It was something more, +but you must not ask me to explain further. I like to remember the +rustle of a flowered dress she wore as she moved, drifting like a +perfume, passing from her frivolous bedroom into the drawing-room. A +room without taste, stiff and middle-class, notwithstanding the crowns +placed over the tall portraits. I see a picture of two children; but +she is the fairer, and in her pale eyes and thinly-curved lips there +is a mixture of yearning and restlessness. As the child was, so is the +woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom +with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. +The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her +slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes +are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one +and cotillon favours for the other. + +We often sat on her bedroom balcony reading, talking, or watching the +sky growing pale beyond Mount Valerian, the shadow drifting and +defining and shaping the hill. In hours like the present, dreaming in +a studio, we remember those who deceived us, those who made us suffer, +and in these hours faces, fragments of faces, rise out of a past, the +line of a bent neck, the whiteness of a hand, and the eyes. I remember +her eyes; one day in an orchard, in the lush and luxuriance of June, +her husband was walking in front with a friend, and I was pleading. +"Well," she said, raising her eyes, "you can kiss me now." But her +husband was in front, and he was a thick-set man, and there was a +stream, and I foresaw a struggle--and an unpleasant one: confess and +be done with it!--I didn't dare to kiss her, and I don't think she +ever forgave me that lack of courage. All this is twenty years ago, +and is it not silly to spend the afternoon thinking of such rubbish? +But it is of such rubbish that our lives are made. Shall I go to her +now and see her in her decadence? Grey hair has not begun to appear +yet in the blonde, it will never turn grey, but she was shrivelling a +little the last time I saw her. And next year she will be older. At +her age a year counts for double. Others are more worthy of a visit. +If I do not go to her this year, shall I go next? + +In imagination I go past her house, thinking of a man she used to talk +about, "the man she left her 'ome for"; that is how the London street +girl would word it. He had been the centre of a disgraceful scandal in +his old age, a sordid but characteristic end for the Don Juan of the +nineteenth century. Perhaps she loved the big, bearded man whose +photograph she had once shown me. He killed himself for not having +enough money to live as he wished to live. That was her explanation. I +think there was some blackmail; she had to pay some money to the dead +man's relations for letters. These sensual American women are like +orchids, and who would hesitate between an orchid and a rose? It was +twenty years ago since she turned round on me in the gloom of her +brougham unexpectedly, and it was as if some sensual spirit had come +out of a world of perfume and lace. + + * * * * * + +In imagination I have descended the Champs Elysées, and have crossed +the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine is flowing past just as it +flowed when the workmen were building Notre Dame, just as it will flow +a thousand years hence. A thousand years hence men will stand watching +its current, thinking of little blonde women, and the shudder they can +send through the flesh; they can, but not twenty years afterwards. The +Reverend Donne has it that certain ghosts do not raise the hair but +the flesh; mine do no more than to set me thinking that rivers were +not created to bear ships to the sea, but to set our memories flowing. +Full many a time have I crossed the Pont Neuf on my way to see another +woman--an American! The time comes when desire wilts and dies, but the +sexual interest never dies, and we take pleasure in thinking in middle +life of those we enjoyed in youth. She, of whom I am thinking, lives +far away in the Latin Quarter, in an ill-paven street. How it used to +throw my carriage from side to side! I have been there so often that I +know all the shops, and where the shops end, and there is a +whitewashed wall opposite her house; the street bends there. The +_concierge_ is the same, a little thicker, a little heavier; she +always used to have a baby in her arms, now there are no more babies; +her children, I suppose, have grown up and have gone away. There used +to be a darkness at the foot of the stairs, and I used to slip on +those stairs, so great was my haste; the very tinkle of the bell I +remember, and the trepidation with which I waited. + +Her rooms looked as if they had never been sat in; even the studio was +formal, and the richly-bound volumes on the tables looked as if they +had never been opened. She only kept one servant, a little, redheaded +girl, and seeing this girl back again after an absence of many years, +I spoke to Lizzie of the old days. Lizzie told me her servant's story. +She had gone away to be married, and after ten years of misfortune she +had returned to her old mistress, this demure, discreet and sly New +Englander, who concealed a fierce sensuality under a homely +appearance. Lizzie must have had many lovers, but I knew nothing of +her except her sensuality, for she had to let me into that secret. + +She was a religious woman, a devout Protestant, and thinking of her my +thoughts are carried across the sea, and I am in the National Gallery +looking at Van Eyke's picture, studying the grave sensuality of the +man's face--he speaks with uplifted hand like one in a pulpit, and the +gesture and expression tell us as plainly as if we heard him that he +is admonishing his wife (he is given to admonition), informing her +that her condition--her new pregnancy--is an act of the Divine Will. +She listens, but how curiously! with a sort of partial comprehension +afloat upon her face, more of the guinea-pig than of the rabbit type. +The twain are sharply differentiated, and one of the objects of the +painter seems to have been to show us how far one human being may be +removed from another. The husband is painfully clear to himself, the +wife is happily unconscious of herself. Now everything in the picture +suggests order; the man's face tells a mind the same from day to day, +from year to year, the same passions, the same prayers; his apparel, +the wide-brimmed hat, the cloak falling in long straight folds, the +peaked shoon, are an habitual part of him. We see little of the room, +but every one remembers the chandelier hanging from the ceiling +reflected in the mirror opposite. These reflections have lasted for +three hundred years; they are the same to-day as the day they were +painted, and so is the man; he lives again, he is a type that Nature +never wearies of reproducing, for I suppose he is essential to life. +This sober Flemish interior expresses my mistress's character almost +as well as her own apartment used to do. I always experienced a chill, +a sense of formality, when the door was opened, and while I stood +waiting for her in the prim drawing-room. Every chair was in its +appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the +tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung +about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage +there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting +for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable +to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me +as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten +emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same +olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's, +and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not +detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech +Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival +of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_ and +settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was _le grave +Puritan du tableau_. The reader will notice that I write _le +grave Puritan_, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was +nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with +her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain +cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside. She never +relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we +always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions +and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells +us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs +and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, +and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles +away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and +real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day; +she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the +homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years +ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation +is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during +these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the +changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her +figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a +good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have +thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year +she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me +disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has +loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially +when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly +young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said. She asked me my age; +the question was unpleasant, and before I was aware of it I had told +her a lie, and I hate those who force me to tell lies. The interview +grew painful, and to bring it to a close she asked me if I would care +to see her husband. + +We found the old man alone in his studio, looking at an engraving +under the light of the lamp, much more like a picture than any of his +paintings. She asked him if he remembered me, and he got up muttering +something, and to help him I mentioned that I had been one of his +pupils. The dear old man said of course he remembered, and that he +would like to show me his pictures, but Lizzie said--I suppose it was +nervousness that made her say it, but it was a strangely tactless +remark--"I don't think, dear, that Mr. ---- cares for your pictures." +However celebrated one may be, it is always mortifying to hear that +some one, however humble the person may be, does not care for one's +art. But I saved the situation, and I think my remarks were judicious +and witty. It is not always that one thinks of the right words at the +right moment, but it would be hard to improve on the admonition that +she did me a wrong, that, like every one who liked art, I had changed +my opinion many times, but after many wanderings had come back to the +truth, and in order to deceive the old man I spoke of Ingres. I had +never failed in that love, and how could I love Ingres without loving +him? The contrary was the truth, but the old man's answer was very +sweet. Forgetful of his own high position, he answered, "We may both +like Ingres, but it is not probable that we like the same Ingres." I +said I did not know any Ingres I did not admire, and asked him which +he admired, and we had a pleasant conversation about the Apotheosis of +Homer, and the pictures in the Musée de Montauban. Then the old man +said, "I must show Mr. ---- my pictures." No doubt he had been +thinking of them all through the conversation about the Musée de +Montauban. "I must show you my Virgin," and he explained that the face +of the Infant Jesus was not yet finished. + +It was wonderful to see this old man, who must have been nearly +eighty, taking the same interest in his pictures as he took fifty +years ago. Some stupid reader will think, perchance, that it mattered +that I had once loved his wife. But how could such a thing matter? +Think for a moment, dear reader, for all readers are dear, even the +stupidest, and you will see that you are still entangled in +conventions and prejudices. Perhaps, dear reader, you think she and I +should have dropped on our knees and confessed. Had we done so, he +would have thought us two rude people, and nothing more. + +What will happen to her when he dies? Will she return to Boston? Shall +I ever see her again? Last year I vowed that I would not, and I think +it would please her as well if I stayed away.... And she is right, for +so long as I am not by her she is with me. But in the same room, amid +the familiar furniture, we are divided by the insuperable past, and to +retain her I must send her away. The idea is an amusing one; I think I +have read it somewhere, it seems to me like something I have read. Did +I ever read of a man who sent his mistress away so that his possession +might be more complete? Whether I did or didn't matters little, the +idea is true to me to-day--in order to possess her I must never see +her again. A pretty adventure it would be, nevertheless, to spend a +week paying visits to those whom I loved about that time; and I can +imagine a sort of Beau Brummel of the emotions going every year to +Paris to spend a day with each of his mistresses. + +There were others about that time. There was Madame ----. The name is +in itself beautiful, characteristically French, and it takes me back +to the middle centuries, to the middle of France. I always imagined +that tall woman, who thought so quickly and spoke so sincerely, +dealing out her soul rapidly, as one might cards, must have been born +near Tours. She was so French that she must have come from the very +heart of France; she was French as the wine of France; as Balzac, who +also came from Tours; and her voice, and her thoughts, and her words +transported one; by her side one was really in France; and, as her +lover, one lived through every circumstance of a French love story. +She lived in what is called in Paris an hotel; it had its own +_concierge_, and it was nice to hear the man say, "Oui, monsieur, +Madame la Marquise est chez elle," to walk across a courtyard and wait +in a boudoir stretched with blue silk, to sit under a Louis XVI. rock +crystal chandelier. She said one day, "I'm afraid you're thinking of +me a great deal," and she leaned her hands on the back of the chair, +making it easy for me to take them. She said her hands had not done +any kitchen work for five hundred years, and at the time that seemed a +very witty thing to say. The drawing-room opened onto a conservatory +twenty feet high; it nearly filled the garden, and the marquise used +to receive her visitors there. I do not remember who was the +marquise's lover when the last fête was given, nor what play was +acted; only that the ordinary guests lingered over their light +refreshments, scenting the supper, and that to get rid of them we had +to bid the marquise ostentatiously goodnight. Creeping round by the +back of the house, we gained the bedrooms by the servants' staircase, +and hid there until the ordinary guests in decency could delay no +longer. As soon as the last one was gone the stage was removed, and +the supper tables were laid out. Shall I ever forget the moment when +the glass roof of the conservatory began to turn blue, and the +shrilling of awakening sparrows! How haggard we all were, but we +remained till eight in the morning. That fête was paid for with the +last remnant of the poor marquise's fortune. Afterwards she was very +poor, and Suzanne, her daughter, went on the stage and discovered a +certain talent for acting which has been her fortune to this day. I +will go to the Vaudeville to-night to see her; we might arrange to go +together to see her mother's grave. To visit the grave, and to strew +azaleas upon it, would be a pretty piece of sentimental mockery. But +for my adventure there should be seven visits; Madame ---- would make +a fourth; I hear that she is losing her sight, and lives in a chateau +about fifty miles from Paris, a chateau built in the time of Louis +XIII., with high-pitched roofs and many shutters, and formal gardens +with balustrades and fish-ponds, yes _et des charmilles--charmilles_--what +is that in English?--avenues of clipped limes. To walk in an avenue +of clipped limes with a woman who is nearly blind, and talk to her of the +past, would be indeed an adventure far "beyond the range of formal man's +emotion." + +Madame ---- interrupted our love story. She would be another--that +would be five--and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I +must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a +straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last +notes trickle out--somebody has been playing the prelude to +"Tristan"--I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on +art and women--and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow +will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again +meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied with +what I once heard dear old M'Cormac, Bishop of Galway, describe in his +sermon as 'the degrading passion of "loave."'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE + + +The day dies in sultry languor. A warm night breathes upon the town, +and in the exhaustion of light and hush of sound, life strikes sharply +on the ear and brain. + +It was early in the evening when I returned home, and, sitting in the +window, I read till surprised by the dusk; and when my eyes could no +longer follow the printed page, holding the book between finger and +thumb, my face resting on the other hand, I looked out on the garden, +allowing my heart to fill with dreams. The book that had interested me +dealt with the complex technique of the art of the Low Countries--a +book written by a painter. It has awakened in me memories of all +kinds, heartrending struggles, youthful passion, bitter +disappointments; it has called into mind a multitude of thoughts and +things, and, wearied with admiring many pictures and arguing with +myself, I am now glad to exchange my book for the gentle +hallucinations of the twilight. + +I see a line of leafage drawn across the Thames, but the line dips, +revealing a slip of grey water with no gleam upon it. Warehouses and a +factory chimney rise ghostly and grey, and so cold is that grey tint +that it might be obtained with black and white; hardly is the warmth +of umber needed. Behind the warehouses and the factory chimney the sky +is murky and motionless, but higher up it is creamy white, and there +is some cloud movement. Four lamps, two on either side of the factory +chimney, look across the river; one constantly goes out--always the +same lamp--and a moment after it springs into its place again. Across +my window a beautiful branch waves like a feather fan. It is the only +part of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost +imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, +and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the +gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a +man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying +branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his +mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers +of Temple Gardens the pigeons have gone to sleep. I can see the cots +under the conical caps of slate. + +The gross, jaded, uncouth present has slipped from me as a garment +might, and I see the past like a little show, struggles and +heartbreakings of long ago, and watch it with the same indifferent +curiosity as I would the regulated mimicry of a stage play. Pictures +from the past come and go without an effort of will; many are habitual +memories, but the one before me rises for the first time--for fifteen +years it has lain submerged, and now like a water weed or flower it +rises--the Countess Ninon de Calvador's boudoir! Her boudoir or her +drawing-room, be that as it may, the room into which I was ushered +many years ago when I went to see her. I was then a young man, very +thin, with sloping shoulders, and that pale gold hair that Manet +used to like to paint. I had come with a great bouquet for Ninon, +for it was _son jour de fête_, and was surprised and somewhat +disappointed to meet a large brunette with many creases in her neck, a +loose and unstayed bosom; one could hardly imagine Ninon dressed +otherwise than in a _peignoir_--a blue _peignoir_ seemed inevitable. +She was sitting by a dark, broad-shouldered young man when I came +in; they were sitting close together; he rose out of a corner and +showed me an impressionistic picture of a railway station. He was +one of the many young men who at that time thought the substitution of +dots of pink and yellow for the grey and slate and square brushwork of +Bastien Lepage was the certain way to paint well. I learned +afterwards, during the course of the evening, that he was looked at +askance, for even in Montmartre it was regarded as a dishonour to +allow the lady with whom you lived to pay for your dinner. Villiers de +L'Isle Adam, who had once been Ninon's lover, answered the reproaches +levelled against him for having accepted too largely of her +hospitality with, "Que de bruit pour quelques côtelettes!" and his +transgressions were forgiven him for the sake of the _mot_ which +seemed to summarise the moral endeavour and difficulties of the entire +quarter. When Villiers was her lover Villiers was middle-aged, and +Ninon was a young woman; but when I knew her she was interested in the +young generation, yet she kept friends with all her old lovers, never +denying them her board. How funny was the impressionist's indignation +against Villiers! He charged him with having squandered a great part +of Ninon's fortune, but Villiers's answer to the young man was, "He +talks like the _concierge_ in my story of 'Les Demoiselles de +Bienfillatre.'" + +Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's +temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room +testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had +been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand +francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for +it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open +house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in +Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but +when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all +hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the +_ratés_ she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in +Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysées? Any friend could introduce +another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a +restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another +unless the newcomer was a _raté_--in other words, unless he had +written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not +appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the +taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there. + +The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my +expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew +there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked +about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the +companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches +and strutted across the swards. I came upon a badger and her brood, +and at my approach they disappeared into an enormous excavation, and +behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated +hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. +"That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the +different parts--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we +were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until +suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that +had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the +ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta and her admirers had to +leave the piano, and they came from the house glad to breathe the +evening air. How dear to me are flowered gowns and evening skies and +women with scarfs about their shoulders. Ah! what a beautiful evening +it was! And how well do I remember the poet comparing the darkening +sky to a blue veil with the moon like a gold beetle upon it. One of +the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice +streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of +the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes +grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen +faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had +only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a +cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare +had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could not tell. It was +whispered that she was the wife of a rich _commerçant_ at Tours. +This added to the mystery, and later in the evening the lady told me +she had never been in artistic society before, and begged me to point +out to her the celebrities present, and to tell her why they were +celebrated. + +"Who is he--that one slouching towards the pond, that one wearing grey +trousers and a black jacket?--oh!" + +My companion's exclamation was caused by a new sight of Verlaine; at +that moment he had lifted off his hat (the evening was still warm), +and the great bald skull, hanging like a cliff over the shaggy +eyebrows, shaggy as furze bushes, frightened her. The poet continued +his walk round the pond, and, turning suddenly towards us, he stopped +to speak to me. I was but a pretext; he clearly wished to speak to my +companion. But how strangely did he suit his conversation to her, yet +how characteristic of his genius were the words I heard as I turned +away, thinking to leave them together--"If I were in love with a young +girl or with a young man?" My companion ran forward quickly and seized +my arm. "You must not leave me with him," she said. On account of his +genius Verlaine was a little slow to see things outside of +himself--all that was within him was clear, all without him obscure; +so we had some difficulty in getting rid of him, and as soon as he was +out of hearing my companion inquired eagerly who he was, and I was +astonished at the perception she showed. "Is he a priest? I mean, was +he ever a priest?" "A sort of cross between a thieves' kitchen and a +presbytery. He is the poet Verlaine. The singer of the sweetest verses +in the French language--a sort of ambling song like a robin's. You +have heard the robin singing on a coral hedge in autumn-tide; the +robin confesses his little soul from the topmost twig; his song is but +a tracery of his soul, and so is Verlaine's. His gift is a vision of +his own soul, and he makes a tracery as you might of a drawing with a +lead pencil, never troubling himself to inquire if what he traces is +good or ill. He knows that society regards him as an outcast, but +society's point of view is not the only one, that he knows too, and +also, though he be a lecher, a crapulous and bestial fellow at times, +at other times he is a poet, a visionary, the only poet that +Catholicism has produced since Dante. Huysmans, the apologist of +Gilles de Rais,--there he is over yonder, talking to the impressionist +painter, that small thin man with hair growing thickly, low down on +his forehead--Huysmans somewhere in his description of the trial of +the fifteenth-century monster, the prototype, so it is said, of the +nursery tale of Blue Beard, speaks of the white soul of the Middle +Ages; he must have had Verlaine on his mind, for Verlaine has spoken +of himself as a mediaeval Catholic, that is to say a Catholic in whom +sinning and repentance alternates regularly as night and day. Verlaine +has not cut the throats of so many little boys as Gilles de Rais, but +Gilles de Rais always declared himself to be a good Catholic. Verlaine +abandons himself to the Church as a child to a fairy tale; he does +trouble to argue whether the Conception of the Virgin was Immaculate; +the mediaeval sculptors have represented her attired very prettily in +cloaks with long folds, they have put graceful crowns upon her head, +and Verlaine likes these things; they inspire him to write, he feels +that belief in the Church is part of himself, and his poetical genius +is to tell his own story; he is one of the great soul-tellers. From a +literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of +faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma +shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate +himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas--the curse +of modern literature--and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living +his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have +freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get +the real taste of life--the aroma as from a wine that has been many +years in bottle. And Verlaine is aware that this is so. Sometimes he +thinks he might have written a little more poetry, and he sighs, but +he quickly recovers. 'After all, I have written a good many volumes.' +'And what would art be without life, without love?' He has a verse on +that subject; I wish I could remember it for you. His verse is always +so winsome, so delicate, slender as the birch tree, elegiac like it; a +birch bending over a lake's edge reminds me of Verlaine. He is a lake +poet, but the lake is in a suburb not far from a casino. What makes me +speak about the lake is that for a long time I thought these verses, + + Ton âme est un lac d'amour + Dont mes pensêes sont les cygnes. + Vois comme ils font le tour.... + +were Verlaine's, but they are much less original; their beauty, for +they are beautiful, is conventional; numbers of poets might have +written them, whereas nobody but Verlaine could have written any of +his, really his own, poetry. His desires go sometimes as high as the +crucifix; very often they are in the gutter, hardly poetry at all, +having hardly any beauty except that of truth, and of course the +beauty of a versification that haunts in his ear, for he hears a song +in French verse that no French poet has ever heard before, and a song +so fluent, ranging from the ecstasy of the nightingale to the robin's +little homily. + + Oui, c'était par un soir joyeux de cabaret, + Un de ces soirs plutôt trop chauds où l'on dirait + Que le gaz du plafond conspire à notre perte + Avec le vin du zinc, saveur naïve et verte. + On s'amusait beaucoup dans la boutique et on + Entendait des soupirs voisins d'accordéon + Que ponctuaient des pieds frappant presque en cadence. + Quand la porte s'ouvrit de la salle de danse + Vomissant tout un flot dont toi, vers où j'étais, + Et de ta voix fait que soudain je me tais, + S'il te plaît de me donner un ordre péremptoire. + Tu t'écrias 'Dieu, qu'il fait chaud! Patron, à boire!' + +"She was from Picardy; and he tells of her horrible accent, and in +elegy number five he continues the confession, telling how his well +beloved used to get drunk. + + "Tu fis le saut de ... Seine et, depuis morte-vive, + Tu gardes le vertige et le goût du néant." + +"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we +stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, +cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking +at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I +said: + +"Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed +of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. +It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all +written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." + +"In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the _commerçant's_ +wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went +towards her pocket. + +"No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of +vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three +years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and +renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil +somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these +hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will +not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a +caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with +these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine +preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he +drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing +beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling +in love with drabs." + + Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouvé l'ange + Qu'il eût fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi! + L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy, + Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle; + Elle ne m'adressa guère qu'une parole + Et c'était d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait, + En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre, + Une troisième, recemment chanteuse au Havre, + Affectait de dandinement des matelots + Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots, + Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacrédié, quel dommage + La quatrième était sage comme une image, + Châtain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois: + Le diantre soit de ses sacrés signes de croix! + Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma mémoire + Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire + Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'îlot" + Tantôt bien, tantôt moins, le clair café falot + Les terasses l'été, l'hiver les brasseries + Et par degrés l'humble trottoir en théories + En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants + Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants + _Qutorum ego parva pars erim_, me disais-je. + Mais toutes, comme la première du cortège, + Dès avant la bougie éteinte et le rideau + Tiré, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau." + +"In the verses I have just quoted, you remember, he says that the +fourth was chaste as an image, her hair was pale brown, she had +scarcely any bosom, and prayed to God sometimes. He always hated piety +when it interfered with his pleasure, and in the next verse he says, +'The devil take those sacred signs of the Cross!'" + +"But do you know any of these women?" + +"Oh, yes; we all know the terrible Sara. She beats him." + +The _commerçante's_ wife asked if she were here. + +"He wanted to bring her here, in fact he did bring her once, only she +was so drunk that she could not get beyond the threshold, and Ninon's +lover, the painter you saw painting the steam engines, was charged to +explain to the poet that Sara's intemperance rendered her impossible +in respectable society. 'I know Sara has her faults,' he murmured in +reply to all argument, and it was impossible to make him see that +others did not see Sara with his eyes. 'I know she has her faults,' he +repeated, 'and so have others. We all have our faults.' And it was a +long time before he could be induced to come back: hunger has brought +him." + +"And who is that hollow-chested man? How pathetic he looks with his +goat-like beard." + +"That is the celebrated Cabaner. He will tell you, if you speak to +him, that his father was a man like Napoleon, only more so. He is the +author of many aphorisms; 'that three military bands would be +necessary to give the impression of silence in music' is one. He comes +every night to the Nouvelle Athènes, and is a sort of rallying-point; +he will tell you that his ballad of 'The Salt Herring' is written in a +way that perhaps Wagner would not, but which Liszt certainly would +understand." + +"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his +music, I suppose?" + +"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la +Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five +francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of +art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you +should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain, +and he broke off the head of the Vénus de Milo, saying that now she no +longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could +henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid +recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness, +his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his +music accompanies his own verses." + +"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?" + +"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the +last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is +the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam." + +And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all +I knew about Villiers. + +"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a +raté," I said. + +But the woman was not so simple as I had imagined, and one or two +questions she put to me led me to tell her that Villiers's genius only +appeared in streaks, like gold in quartz. + +"The comparison is an old one, but there is no better one to explain +Villiers, for when he is not inspired his writing is very like +quartz." + +"His great name----" + +"His name is part of his genius. He chose it, and it has influenced +his writings. Have I not heard him say, 'Car je porte en moi les +richesses stériles d'un grand nombre de rois oubliés.'" + +"But is he a legitimate descendant?" + +"Legitimate in the sense that he desired the name more than any of +those who ever bore it legitimately." + +At that moment Villiers passed by me, and I introduced him to her, and +very soon he began to tell us that his _Eve_ had just been +published, and the success of it was great. + +"On m'a dit hier de passer à la caisse ... l'edition était épuisée, +vous voyez--il paraît, la fortune est venue ... même à moi." + +But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon +as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his +stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately +in the _brasseries_ about a man in quest of a quiet village where +he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he +written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I +liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away +from us, and I had to tell my companion the story. + +"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in +his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less +of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the +café--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, +recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest +in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that +touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will +find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of +from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst +of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees +at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and +gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins. + +"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning +on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The +point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, +how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced +he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the +manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So +they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and +tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise +the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the café, but when +morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some +night to the Nouvelle Athènes to hear him; leaning across the table he +will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the +house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the +staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in +bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He +dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the +sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man +piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside +hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a +dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle +Athènes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow +night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too +bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it." + +The _commerçant's_ wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she +came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot +remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think +of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in +which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the +years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue +eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of +sensual Christ? He, too, was after the _commerçant's_ wife. And +didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure +yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. + + "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or. + Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore." + +The _commerçant's_ wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by +the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew +nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here +and there? + + "Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite + Elle effleurait la Marguerite." + +The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires +him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. +Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt +Herring." + + "He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty, + A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed, + And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy. + He placed the ladder high, high, high, + Against the wall white, white, white. + He went up the ladder high, high, high, + Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed + Against the wall--toc! toc! toc! + He tied to the nail a string long, long, long, + And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry, + And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy, + He got down from the ladder high, high, high, + And went away, away, away. + Since then at the end of the string long, long, long, + A salt herring dry, dry, dry, + Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly. + Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple, + To make all serious men mad, mad, mad, + And to amuse children, little, little, little." + +This was the libretto on which Cabaner wrote music "that Wagner would +not understand, but which Liszt certainly would." Dear, dear Cabaner, +how well I can see thee with thy goat-like beard, and the ape in the +tree interrupting thee; he was not like Liszt, he chattered all night. +Poor ape, he broke his chain earlier in the evening, and it was found +impossible to persuade him to come down. The brute seemed somehow +determined that we should not hear Cabaner. Soon after the cocks began +answering each other, though it was but midnight; and so loud was +their shrilling that I awoke, surprised to find myself sitting at my +window in King's Bench Walk. A moment ago I was in Madame Ninon de +Calvador's garden, and every whit as much as I am now in King's Bench +Walk. Madame Ninon de Calvador--what has become of her? + +Is the rest of her story unknown? As I sit looking into the darkness, +a memory suddenly springs upon me. Villiers, who came in when dinner +was half over, brought a young man with him. Fumbling at his shirt +collar, apologising for being late, assuring us that he had dined, he +introduced his friend to the company as a young man of genius, of +extraordinary genius. Don't I remember Villiers's nervous, hysterical +voice! Don't I remember the journalist's voice when he asked Ninon's +lover if he sold his pictures, creating at once a bad impression? By +some accident a plate was given to him, out of which one of the cats +had been fed. The plate might have been given to any one else: +Villiers would not have minded, and as for Cabaner, he never knew what +he was eating; but it was given to the journalist. Now I remember the +young man misconducted himself badly; he struck the table with his +fist, and said, "Et bien, je casse tout." Yes, it was he who wrote the +article entitled "Ninon's Table d'hôte" in the _Gil Blas_, and +from it she learned for the first time how the world viewed her +hospitality, how misinterpreted were her efforts to benefit the arts +and the artists. Somebody told me this story: who I cannot tell; it is +all so long ago. But it seems to me that I remember hearing that it +was this article that killed her. + +The passing of things is always a moving subject for meditation, and +it is strange how accident will bring back a scene, explicit in every +detail--a tree taking shape upon the dawning sky, the hairy ugliness +of the ape in its branches, and along the grey grass a waddling squad +of the ducks betaking themselves to the pond, a poet talking to a +_commerçant's_ wife, Madame de Calvador leaning on a lover's arm. + +Had I a palette I could match the blue of the _peignoir_ with the +faint grey sky. I could make a picture out of that dusky suburb. Had I +a pen I could write verses about these people of old time, but the +picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream, and the +verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the +meditation, which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. +Better to sit by my window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the +memory. The mood has nearly passed, the desire of action is +approaching.... I would give much for another memory, but memory may +not be beckoned, and my mind is dark now, dark as that garden; the +swaying, fan-like bough by my window is nearly one mass of green; the +last sparrow has fallen asleep. I hear nothing.... I hear a horse +trotting in the Strand. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + + +I had come a thousand miles--rather more, nearly fifteen hundred--in +the hope of picking up the thread of a love story that had got +entangled some years before and had been broken off abruptly. A +strange misadventure our love story had been; for Doris had given a +great deal of herself while denying me much, so much that at last, in +despair, I fled from a one-sided love affair; too one-sided to be +borne any longer, at least by me. And it was difficult to fly from her +pretty, inveigling face, delightful and winsome as the faces one finds +on the panels of the early German masters. One may look for her face +and find it on an oak panel in the Frankfort Gallery, painted in pale +tints, the cheeks faintly touched with carmine. In the background of +these pictures there are all sorts of curious things; very often a +gold bower with roses clambering up everywhere. Who was that master +who painted cunning virgins in rose bowers? The master of Cologne, was +it not? I have forgotten. No matter. Doris's hair was darker than the +hair of those virgins, a rich gold hair, a mane of hair growing as +luxuriously as the meadows in June. And the golden note was continued +everywhere, in the eyebrows, in the pupils of the eyes, in the +freckles along her little nose so firmly and beautifully modelled +about the nostrils; never was there a more lovely or affectionate +mouth, weak and beautiful as a flower; and the long hands were curved +like lilies. + +There is her portrait, dear reader, prettily and truthfully and +faithfully painted by me, the portrait of a girl I left one afternoon +in London more than seventeen years ago, and whom I had lost sight of, +I feared for ever. Thought of her? Yes, I thought of her occasionally. +Time went by, and I wondered if she were married. What her husband was +like, and why I never wrote. It were surely unkind not to write.... +Reader, you know those little regrets. Perhaps life would be all on +the flat without regret. Regret is like a mountaintop from which we +survey our dead life, a mountaintop on which we pause and ponder, and +very often looking into the twilight we ask ourselves whether it would +be well to send a letter or some token. Now we had agreed upon one +which should be used in case of an estrangement--a few bars of +Schumann's melody, "The Nut Bush," should be sent, and the one who +received it should at once hurry to the side of the other and all +difference should be healed. But this token was never sent by me, +perhaps because I did not know how to scribble the musical phrase: +pride perhaps kept her from sending it; in any case five years are a +long while, and she seemed to have died out of my life altogether; but +one day the sight of a woman who had known her, brought her before my +eyes, and I asked if Doris married. The woman could not tell me; she +had not seen her for many years; they, too, were estranged, and I went +home saying to myself: "Doris must be married. What sort of a husband +has she chosen? Is she happy? Has she a baby? Oh, shameful thought!" + +Do you remember, dear reader, how Balzac, when he had come to the last +page of "Massimilla Doni," declares that he dare not tell you the end +of this adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for the worshippers +of the ideal: "Massimilla Doni was expecting." Then in a passage that +is pleasanter to think about than to read--for Balzac when he spoke +about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the +passage is altogether grammatical--he tells how the ideas of all the +great artists, painters, and sculptors--the ideas they have wrought on +panels and in stone--escaped from their niches and their frames--all +these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept. It +would be as disgraceful for Doris to be "expecting" as it was for +Massimilla Doni, and I like to think of all the peris, the nymphs, the +sylphs, the fairies of ancient legend, all her kinsfolk gathering +about her bed, deploring her condition, regarding her as lost to +them--were such a thing to happen I should certainly kneel there in +spirit with them. And feeling just as Balzac did about Massimilla +Doni, that it was a sacrilege that Doris should be "expecting" or even +married, I wrote, omitting, however, to tell her why I had suddenly +resolved to break silence; I sent her a little note, only a few words, +that I was sorry not to have heard of her for so long a time; but +though we had been estranged she had not been forgotten; a little +commonplace note, relieved perhaps by a touch of wistfulness, of +regret. And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask +for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat +disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to +her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would +be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and +I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long +telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had +come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said, +"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the +least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was +better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing." +The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full +of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black +misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her +health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in +this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that +if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak +to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it +was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long +estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied +the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could +it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if---- + +At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer +to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should +undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I +muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a +phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own +reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more +aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you +would not have me consider it good news, would you?" + +Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's +intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering +by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that +vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to +have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a +law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are +not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were +possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a +thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be +pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much. She had said +she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old +times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a +pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was +propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle +of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a +conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or +three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything +whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met +myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not +remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy +similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes +of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand +miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in +either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden +fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had +discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey, +for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the +train. + +When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the +train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had +rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of +some financial embarrassments. During those eight years I thought +often of Italy and the south of France, but the train journey of +sixteen or seventeen or eighteen hours to the Italian frontier always +seemed so much like what purgatory must be, that the heaven of Italy +on the other side never tempted me sufficiently to undertake it. A +companion would be of no use; one cannot talk for fifteen or sixteen +hours, and while debating with myself whether I should go to Plessy, I +often glanced down the long perspective of hours. Everything, pleasure +and pain alike, are greater in imagination than in reality--there is +always a reaction, and having anticipated more than mortal weariness, +I was surprised to find that the first two hours in the train passed +very pleasantly. It seemed that I had only been in the train quite a +little while when it stopped, yet Laroche is more than an hour from +Paris, quite a countryside station, and it seems strange that the +_Côte d'Azur_ should stop there. That was the grand name of the +train that I was travelling by. Think of any English company running a +train and calling it "The Azure Shore"! Think of going to Euston or to +Charing Cross, saying you are going by "The Azure Shore"! So long as +the name of this train endures, it is impossible to doubt that the +French mind is more picturesque than the English, and one no longer +wonders why the French school of painting, etc. + +A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just +before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the +train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in +the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of +glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought +a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many +various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the +bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I +began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed +to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The +directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should +exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to +examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that +would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter +to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like +ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The +French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune +no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on +how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way +of remedying abuses. + +I don't think we stopped again till we got to Lyons, and all the way +there I sat at the window looking at the landscape--the long, long +plain that the French peasant cultivates unceasingly. Out of that long +plain came all the money that was lost in Panama, and all the money +invested in Russian bonds--fine milliards came out of the French +peasants' stockings. We passed through La Beauce. I believe it was +there that Zola went to study the French peasant before he wrote "La +Terre." Huysmans, with that benevolent malice so characteristic of +him, used to say that Zola's investigation was limited to going out +once for a drive in a carriage with Madame Zola. The primitive man +that had risen out of some jungle of my being did not view this +immense and highly cultivated plain sympathetically. It seemed to him +to differ little from the town, so utterly was nature dominated by man +and portioned out. On a subject like this one can meditate for a long +time, and I meditated till my meditation was broken by the stopping of +the train. We were at Lyons. The tall white-painted houses reminded me +of Paris--Lyons, as seen from the windows of _La Côte d'Azur_ at +the end of a grey December day might be Paris. The climate seemed the +same; the sky was as sloppy and as grey. At last the train stopped at +a place from which I could look down a side street, and I decided that +Lyons wore a more provincial look than Paris, and I thought of the +great silk trade and the dull minds of the merchants ... their dinner +parties, etc. I noticed everything there was to notice in order to +pass the time; but there was so little of interest that I wrote out a +telegram and ran with it to the office, for Doris did not know what +train I was coming by, and it is pleasant to be met at a station, to +meet one familiar face, not to find oneself amid a crowd of strangers. +Very nearly did I miss the train; my foot was on the footboard when +the guard blew his whistle. "Just fancy if I had missed the train," I +said, and settling myself in my seat I added, "now, let us study the +landscape; such an opportunity as this may never occur again." + +The long plain cultivated with tedious regularity that we had been +passing through before we came to Lyons, flowed on field after field; +it seemed as if we should never reach the end of it, and looking on +those same fields, for they were the same, I said to myself: "If I +were an economist that plain would interest me, but since I got +Doris's letter I am primitive man, and he abhors the brown and the +waving field, and 'the spirit in his feet' leads him to some grassy +glen where he follows his flocks, listening to the song of the wilding +bee that sings as it labours amid the gorse. What a soulless race that +plain must breed," I thought; "what soulless days are lived there; +peasants going forth at dusk to plough, and turning home at dusk to +eat, procreate and sleep." At last a river appeared flowing amid +sparse and stunted trees and reeds, a great wide sluggish river with +low banks, flowing so slowly that it hardly seemed to flow at all. +Rooks flew past, but they are hardly wilding birds; a crow--yes, we +saw one; and I thought of a heron rising slowly out of one of the +reedy islands; maybe an otter or two survives the persecution of the +peasant, and I liked to think of a poacher picking up a rabbit here +and there; hares must have almost disappeared, even the flock and the +shepherd. France is not as picturesque a country as England; only +Normandy seems to have pasturage, there alone the shepherd survives +along the banks of the Seine. Picardy, though a swamp, never conveys +an idea of the wild; and the middle of France, which I looked at then +for the first time, shocked me, for primitive man, as I have said, was +uppermost in me, and I turned away from the long plain, "Dreary," I +said, "uneventful as a boarding-house." + +But it is a long plain that has no hill in it, and when I looked out +again a whole range showed so picturesquely that I could not refrain, +but turned to a travelling companion to ask its name. It was the +Esterelles; and never shall I forget the picturesqueness of one +moment--the jagged end of the Esterelles projecting over the valley, +showing against what remained of the sunset, one or two bars of dusky +red, disappearing rapidly amid heavy clouds massing themselves as if +for a storm, and soon after night closed over the landscape. + +"Henceforth," I said, "I shall have to look to my own thoughts for +amusement," and in my circumstances there was nothing reasonable for me +to think of but Doris. Some time before midnight I should catch sight +of her on the platform. It seemed to me wonderful that it should be +so, and I must have been dreaming, for the voice of the guard, crying +out that dinner was served awoke me with a start. + +It is said to be the habit of my countrymen never to get into +conversation with strangers in the train, but I doubt if that be so. +Everything depends on the tact of him who first breaks silence; if his +manner inspires confidence in his fellow-traveller he will receive +such answers as will carry the conversation on for a minute or two, +and in that time both will have come to a conclusion whether the +conversation should be continued or dropped. A pleasant little book +might be written about train acquaintances. If I were writing such a +book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with +whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should +have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette +of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the +quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection +in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting +people I met at dinner on board _La Côte d'Azur_, though some +readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman +was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the +upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas +the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or +would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more, +being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he +took off his hat I could see that he had come from the +tropics--Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less +stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look +like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the +desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained +by his long residence among the Arabs. He had lived in the desert +since he was fourteen. "Almost a Saharian," I said to him. And during +dinner, and long after dinner we sat talking of the difference +between the Oriental races and the European; of the various Arab +_patois_. He spoke the Tunisean _patois_ and wrote the language +of the Koran, which is understood all over the Sahara and the +Soudan, as well as in Mecca. What interested me, perhaps even more +than the language question, was the wilding's enterprise in attempting +to cultivate the desert. He had already enlarged his estate by the +discovery of two ancient Roman wells, and he had no doubt that all +that part of the desert lying between the three oases could be brought +into cultivation. In ancient times there were not three oases but one; +the wells had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of acres had +been laid waste by the Numidians in order, I think he told me, to save +themselves from the Saracens who were following them. He spent eight +months of every year in his oasis, and begged of me, as soon as I had +wearied of Cannes, to take the boat from Marseilles--I suppose it was +from Marseilles--and spend some time with him in the wild. + +"Visitors," he said, "are rare. You'll be very welcome. The railway +will take you within a hundred miles; the last hundred miles will be +accomplished on the back of a dromedary; I shall send you a fleet one +and an escort." + +"Splendid," I answered. "I see myself arriving sitting high up on the +hump gathering dates--I suppose there are date palms where you are? +Yes?--and wearing a turban and a bournous." + +"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise +he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only +shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. +When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out +for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father +had brought home from the East. Nothing else would have satisfied me; +my father led the pony, and I have always thought this fantasy +exceedingly characteristic; it must be so, for it awoke in me twenty +years afterwards; and fanciful and absurd as it may appear, I +certainly should have liked to have worn my travelling companion's +bournous in the train if only for a few minutes. All this is twelve +years ago, and I have not yet gone to visit him in his oasis, but how +many times have I done so in my imagination, seeing myself arriving on +the back of a dromedary crying out, "Allah! Allah! And Mohammed is his +prophet!" But though one can go on thinking year after year about a +bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; +and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my +friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as +Fromentin says, _chez lui_, I was glad to say good-bye to my +friends at Marseilles. + +I was still quite far from the end of my journey, and so weary of talk +that at first I was doubtful whether or not it would be worth while to +engage again in conversation, but a pleasant gentleman had got into my +carriage, and he required little encouragement to tell me his story. +His beginnings were very humble, but he was now a rich merchant. It is +always interesting to hear how the office boy gets his first chance; +the first steps are the interesting ones, and I should be able to tell +his story here if we had not been interrupted in the middle of it by +his little girl. She had wearied of her mother, who was in the next +carriage, and had come in to sit on her father's knee. Her hair hung +about her shoulders just as Doris's had done five years ago, taking +the date from the day that I journeyed in quest of the golden fleece. +She was a winsome child, with a little fluttering smile about her lips +and a curious intelligence in her eyes. She admitted that she was +tired, but had not been ill, and her father told me that long train +journeys produced the same effect on her as a sea journey. She spoke +with a pretty abruptness, and went away suddenly, I thought for good, +but she returned half an hour afterwards looking a little faint, I +thought, green about the mouth, and smiling less frequently. One +cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these +people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in +about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should +have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey +dragged itself out very wearily. + +Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting +for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not +even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and +the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I +congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the +telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel +than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same +pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in +Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to +tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little +paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile +inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform +talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There +was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink. +"She is going to tell me that I cannot come to her hotel. Why did I +send that telegram from Lyons?" Had it not been for that telegram I +could have gone straight to her hotel. It was just the telegram that +had brought her to the station, and she had come to tell me that it +was impossible for me to stay at her hotel. + +After thirty hours of travel it mattered little which hotel I stayed +at, but to-morrow and the next day, the long week we were to spend +together passed before my eyes, the tedium of the afternoons, the +irritation and emptiness of Platonic evenings--"Heavens! what have I +let myself in for," I thought, and my mind went back over the long +journey and the prospect of returning _bredouille_, as the +sportsmen say. But to argue about details with a woman, to get angry, +is a thing that no one versed in the arts of love ever does. We are in +the hands of women always; it is they who decide, and our best plan is +to accept the different hotel without betraying disappointment, or as +little as possible. But we had not seen each other for so long that we +could not part at once. Doris said that I must come to her hotel and +eat some supper. No; I had dined on board the train, and all she could +persuade me to have was a cup of chocolate. Over that cup of chocolate +we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon +looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling +very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my +heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however, +and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come +quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning +when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves +symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight +flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to +jump out of bed at once and to throw open _les croisées_. And +what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim, +alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as +the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere. +And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous +gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer +wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I +think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the +morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the +sea. + +Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I +breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees; +remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is +this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed +more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted +among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see +when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, +nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the +golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to +pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so +much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell +we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never +grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at +last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly +happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more +than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so +surprised as I did that morning. The _valet de chambre_ brought +in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of +him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find +the sunlight a bewitchment. But who would not be bewitched by the +pretty sunlight that finds its way into the gardens of Plessy? I knew +I was going to walk with Doris by a sea blue as any drop-curtain, and +for a moment Doris seemed to be but a figure on a drop-curtain. Am I +very cynical? But are we not all figures on drop-curtains, and is not +everything comic opera, and "La Belle Hélène" perhaps the only true +reality? Amused by the idea of Jason or Paris or Menelaus in Plessy, I +asked Doris what music was played by the local orchestra, and she told +me it played "The March of Aïda" every evening. "Oh, the cornet," I +said, and I understood that the mission of Plessy was to redeem one +from the coil of one's daily existence, from Hebrew literature and its +concomitants, bishops, vicars, and curates--all these, especially +bishops, are regarded as being serious; whereas French novels and +their concomitants, pretty girls, are supposed to represent the +trivial side of life. A girl becomes serious only when she is engaged +to be married; the hiring of the house in which the family is reared +is regarded as serious; in fact all prejudices are serious; every +deflection from the normal, from the herd, is looked upon as trivial; +and I suppose that this is right: the world could not do without the +herd nor could the herd do without us--the eccentrics who go to Plessy +in quest of a golden fleece instead of putting stoves in the parish +churches (stoves and organs are always regarded as too devilishly +serious for words). + +Once I had a long conversation with my archbishop concerning the Book +of Daniel, and were I to write out his lordship's erudition I might +even be deemed sufficiently serious for a review in the _Church +Gazette_. But looking back on this interview and judging it with +all the impartiality of which my nature is capable, I cannot in truth +say that I regard it as more serious than pretty Doris's fluent +conversation, or the melancholy aspect of his lordship's cathedral as +more serious than the pretty Southern sunlight glancing along the +seashore, lighting up the painted houses, and causing Doris to open +her parasol. What a splendid article I might write on the trivial side +of seriousness, but discussion is always trivial; I shall be much more +serious in trying to recall the graceful movement of the opening of +her parasol, and how prettily it enframed her face. True that almost +every face is pretty against the distended silk full of sunlight and +shadow, but Doris's, I swear to you, was as pretty as any medieval +virgin despite its modernness. Memline himself never designed a more +appealing little face. Think of the enchantment of such a face after a +long journey, by the sea that the Romans and the Greeks used to cross +in galleys, that I used to read about when I was a boy. There it was, +and on the other side the shore on which Carthage used to stand; there +it was, a blue bay with long red hills reaching out, reminding me of +hills I had seen somewhere, I think in a battle piece by Salvator +Rosa. It seemed to me that I had seen those hills before--no, not in a +picture; had I dreamed them, or was there some remembrance of a +previous existence struggling in my brain? There was a memory +somewhere, a broken memory, and I sought for the lost thread as well +as I could, for Doris rarely ceased talking. + +"And there is the restaurant," she said, flinging up her parasol, +"built at the end of those rocks." + +We were the first swallows to arrive; the flocks would not be here for +about three weeks. So we had the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter +and doubtless the cook; and they gave us all their attention. Would we +have breakfast in the glass pavilion? How shall I otherwise describe +it, for it seemed to be all glass? The scent of the sea came through +the window, and the air was like a cordial--it intoxicated; and +looking across the bay one seemed to be looking on the very thing that +Whistler had sought for in his Nocturnes, and that Steer had nearly +caught in that picture of children paddling, that dim, optimistic blue +that allures and puts the world behind one, the dream of the +opium-eater, the phrase of the syrens in "Tannhäuser," the phrase +which begins like a barcarolle; but the accompaniment tears underneath +until we thrill with expectation. + +As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost +insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing +even if I did not succeed in winning her. + +"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you, +but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was +doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said: +"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem, +as it were, to have come into my inheritance." + +"Your inheritance! Am I not----" + +"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful +inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my +arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked +across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness +blowing across the bay. + +"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue." + +"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in +reality red." + +"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white +sides of villas." + +"Peeping through olive trees." + +"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive +begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when +we passed through Avignon." + +"You'll see very few trees here; only olives and ilex." + +"The ilex I know, and there is no more beautiful tree than the ilex." + + "Were not the crocuses that grew + Under that ilex tree, + As beautiful in scent and hue + As ever fed the bee?" + +"Whose verses are those?" + +"Shelley's. I know no others. Are the lines very wonderful? They seem +no more than a statement, yet they hang about my memory. I am glad I +shall see the ilex tree." + +"And the eucalyptus--plenty of eucalyptus trees." + +"That was the scent that followed us this morning as we came through +the gardens." + +"Yes, as we passed from our hotel one hung over the garden wall, and +the wind carried its scent after us." + +The arrival of the waiter with _hors d'oeuvres_ distracted our +attention from the olive tree to its fruit, I rarely touch olives, but +that morning I ate many. Should we have mutton cutlets or lamb? Doris +said the Southern mutton was detestable. "Then we'll have lamb." An +idea came into my head, and it was this, that I had been mistaken +about Doris's beauty. Hers was not like any face that one may find in +a panel by Memline. She was like something, but I could not lay my +thoughts on what she was like. + +"A sail would spoil the beauty of the bay," I said when the waiter +brought in the coffee, and left us--we hoped for the last time. Taking +hands and going to the window we sat looking across the sailless bay. +"How is it that no ships come here? Is the bay looked upon as a mere +ornament and reserved exclusively for the appreciation of visitors? +Those hills, too, look as if they had been designed in a like +intent.... How much more beautiful the bay is without a sail--why I +cannot tell, but----" + +"But what?" + +"A great galley rowed by fifty men would look well in this bay.... The +bay is antiquity, and those hills; all the morning while talking to +you a memory or a shadow of a memory has fretted in my mind like a fly +on a pane. Now I know why I have been expecting a nymph to rise out of +those waves during breakfast. For a thousand years men believed that +nymphs came up on those rocks, and that satyrs and their progeny might +be met in the woods and on the hillsides. Only a thin varnish has been +passed over these beliefs. One has only to come here to look down into +that blue sea-water to believe that nymphs swim about those rocks; and +when we go for a drive among those hillsides we'll keep a sharp +lookout for satyrs. Now I know why I like this country. It is heathen. +Those mountains--how different from the shambling Irish hills from +whence I have come! And you, Doris, you might have been dug up +yesterday, though you are but two-and-twenty. You are a thing of +yester age, not a bit like the little Memline head which I imagined +you to be like when I was coming here in the train, nor like anything +done by the Nuremberg painters. You are a Tanagra figure, and one of +the finest. In you I read all the winsomeness of antiquity. But I must +look at the bay now, for I may never see anything like it again; never +have I seen anything like it before. Forgive me, remember that three +days ago I was in Ireland, the day before yesterday I was in England, +yesterday I was in Paris. I have come out of the greyness of the +North. When I left Paris all was grey, and when the train passed +through Lyons a grey night was gathering; now I see no cloud at all: +the change is so wonderful. You cannot appreciate my admiration. You +have been looking at the bay for the last three weeks, and _La côte +d'azur_ has become nothing to you now but palms and promenades. To +me it is still quite different. I shall always see you beautiful, +whereas Plessy may lose her beauty in a few days. Let me enjoy it +while I may." + +"Perhaps I shall not outlast Plessy." + +"Yes, you will. Do you know, Doris, that you don't look a day older +since the first time I saw you walking across the room to the piano in +your white dress, your gold hair hanging down over your shoulders. It +has darkened a little, that is all." + +"It is provoking you should see me when I am thin. I wish you had seen +me last year when I came from the rest cure. I went up more than a +stone in weight. Every one said that I didn't look more than sixteen. +I know I didn't, for all the women were jealous of me." + +As I sat watching the dissolving line of the horizon, lost in a dream, +I heard my companion say: + +"Of what are you thinking?" + +"I'm thinking of something that happened long ago in that very bay." + +"Tell me about it;" and her hand sought mine for a moment. + +"Would you like to hear it? I'd like to tell it, but it's a long, long +story, and to remember it would be an effort. The colour of the sea +and the sky is enough; the warmth of the sunlight penetrates me; I +feel like a plant; the only difference between me and one of those +palm trees----" + +"I am sure those poor palms are shivering. There is not enough heat +here for them; they come from the south, and you come from the north." + +"I suppose that is so. They grow, but they don't flourish here. +However, my mood is not philanthropic; I cannot pity even a palm tree +at the present moment. See how my cigar smoke curls and goes out! It +is strange, Doris, that I should meet you here, for some years ago it +was arranged that I should come here----" + +"With a woman?" + +"Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? Our lives are woven along +and across with women. Some men find the reality of their lives in +women, others, as we were saying just now, in bishops." + +"Tell me about the woman who asked you to come here? Did you love her? +And what prevented you from coming here with her?" + +"It is one of the oddest stories--odd only because it is like myself. +Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each +spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, +such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a +long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with +her, and her letter was most welcome, for I had no plans for that +evening. I do not know if you know that curious dread of life which +steals through the twilight; it had just laid its finger on my +shoulder when the bell rang, and I said: 'My visitor is welcome, +whoever she or he may be.' The visitor would have only spent a few +minutes perhaps with me, but Gertrude's letter--that was her name--was +a promise of a long and pleasant evening, for it was more than a mere +invitation to dinner. She wrote: 'I have not asked any one to meet +you, but you will not mind dining alone with me. I hope you will be +able to come, for I want to consult you on a matter about which I +think you will be able to advise me.' As I dressed I wondered what she +could have to propose, and with my curiosity enkindled I walked to her +house. The evening was fine--I remember it--and she did not live far +from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and +I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had +never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to +her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be +Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of +forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners +still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French +gowns and underwear that cost a little fortune made her a woman that +one would still take a pleasure in making love to. It would be +pleasant to be her lover for many reasons. There were disadvantages, +however, for Gertrude, though never vulgar herself, liked vulgar +things. Her friends were vulgar; her flat, for she had just left her +husband, was opulent, overdecorated; the windows were too heavily +curtained, the electric light seemed to be always turned on, and as +for the pictures--well, we won't talk of them; Gertrude was the only +one worth looking at. And she was rather like a Salon picture, a +Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as +vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white +dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't +you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour +of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her +bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought +that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my +hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been +doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I +have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or +intentional." + +"Probably a little of both," Doris said. + +"I see you understand. You always understand." + +"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her +bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,' +and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company +and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two +men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking +to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist." + +"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations." + +"Yes, I think I can. You have not changed; I have not forgotten you +though we have not seen each other for five years; and now go on, tell +me about Gertrude." + +"Well, sitting beside her on the sofa----" + +"Under the shaded electric light," interrupted Doris. + +"I tried to discover--not the reason of this invitation to dinner; of +course it was natural that old friends should dine together, but she +had said in her letter that she wished to talk to me about some matter +on which she thought I could advise her. The servant would come in a +moment to announce that dinner was ready, and if Gertrude did not tell +me at once I might, if the story were a long one, have to wait till +dinner was over; her reluctance to confide in me seemed to point to +pecuniary help. Was it possible that Gertrude was going to ask me to +lend her money! If so, the loan would be a heavy one, more than I +could afford to lend. That is the advantage of knowing rich people; +when they ask for money they ask for more than one can afford to lend, +and one can say with truth: 'Were I to lend you five hundred pounds, +I should not be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.' Her +reluctance to confide in me seemed incomprehensible, unless indeed she +wanted to borrow money. But Gertrude was not that kind, and she was a +rich woman. At last, just before the servant came into the room, she +turned round saying that she had sent for me because she wished to +speak to me about a yacht. Imagine my surprise. To speak to me about a +yacht! If it had been about the picture. + +"The door opened, the servant announced that dinner was ready, and we +had to talk in French during dinner, for her news was that she had +hired a yacht for the winter in order that she might visit Greece and +the Greek Islands. But she did not dare to travel in Greece alone for +six months, and it was difficult to find a man who was free and whom +one could trust. She thought she could trust me, and remembering that +I had once liked her, it had occurred to her to ask me if I would like +to go with her. I shall never forget how Gertrude confided her plan to +me, the charming modesty with which she murmured: 'Perhaps you do +still, and you will not bore me by claiming rights over me. I don't +mind your making love to me, but I don't like rights. You know what I +mean. When we return to England you will not pursue me. You know what +I have suffered from such pursuits; you know all about it?' Is it not +curious how a woman will sometimes paint her portrait in a single +phrase; not paint, but indicate in half-a-dozen lines her whole moral +nature? Gertrude exists in the words I have quoted just as God made +her. And now I have to tell you about the pursuit. When Gertrude +mentioned it I had forgotten it; a blankness came into my face, and +she said: 'Don't you remember?' 'Of course, of course,' I said, and +this is the story within the story. + +"One day after lunch Gertrude, getting up, walked unconsciously +towards me, and quite naturally I took her in my arms, and when I had +told her how much I liked her, and the pleasure I took in her company, +she promised to meet me at a hotel in Lincoln. We were to meet there +in a fortnight's time; but two days before she sent for me, and told +me that she would have to send me away. I really did like Gertrude, +and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to +tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust +things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of +it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But +Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to +give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes--they +seemed like genuine tears--and it was difficult to believe that she +had taken all this trouble merely to arrive at this inexplicable and +most disagreeable end. Months passed without my hearing anything of +Gertrude, till one day she sent me a little present, and in response +to a letter she invited me to come to see her in the country. And, +walking through some beautiful woods, she told me the reason why she +had not gone to Lincoln. A Pole whom she had met at the gambling +tables at Monte Carlo was pursuing her, threatening her that if he saw +her with any other man he would murder her and her lover. This at +first seemed an incredible tale, but when she entered into details, +there could be no doubt that she was telling the truth, for had she +not on one occasion very nearly lost her life through this man? They +were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up +in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had +pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the +trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' +she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if +things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But +things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. 'What +you tell me is terrible'; and we talked for a long time, walking about +the woods, fearing that the Pole might spring from behind every bush, +the pistol in his hand. But he did not appear; she evidently knew +where he was, or had made some compact with him. Nevertheless, at the +close of the day, I drove through the summer evening not having got +anything from Gertrude except a promise that if she should find +herself free, she would send for me. Weeks and months went by during +which I saw Gertrude occasionally; you see love stories, once they get +entangled, remain entangled; that is what makes me fear that we shall +never be able to pick the knot that you have tied our love story into. +Misadventure followed misadventure. It seems to me that I behaved very +stupidly on many occasions; it would take too long to tell you +how--when I met her at the theatre I did not do exactly what I should +have done; and on another occasion when I met her driving in a suburb, +I did not stop her cab, and so on and so on until, resolved to bring +matters to a crisis, Gertrude had sent me an invitation to dinner, and +her plan was the charming one which I have told you, that we should +spend six months sailing about the Greek Islands in a yacht. We left +the dining-room and returned to the drawing-room, she telling me that +the yacht had been paid for--the schooner, the captain, the crew, +everything for six months; but I not unnaturally pointed out to her +that I could not accept her hospitality for so long a time, and the +greater part of the evening was spent in trying to persuade her to +allow me to pay--Gertrude was the richer--at least a third of the +upkeep of the yacht must come out of my pocket. + +"The prospect of a six months' cruise among the Greek Islands kindled +my imagination, and while listening to Gertrude I was often in spirit +far away, landing perchance at Cyprus, exalted at the prospect of +visiting the Cyprians' temple; or perchance standing with Gertrude on +the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the +sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a +wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water +parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined +how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, +a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. +'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as +I walked home, and the title of the book was an inspiration, 'An +Unsentimental Journey.' It was Gertrude's own words that had suggested +it. Had she not said that she did not mind my making love to her, but +she did not like rights? She couldn't complain if I wrote a book, and +I imagined how every evening when the lover left her, the chronicler +would sit for an hour recording his impressions. Very often he would +continue writing until the pencil dropped from his hand, till he fell +asleep in the chair. An immediate note-taking would be necessary, so +fugitive are impressions, and an analysis of his feelings, their +waxing and their waning; he would observe himself as an astronomer +observes the course of a somewhat erratic star, and his descriptions +of himself and of her would be interwoven with descriptions of the +seas across which Menelaus had gone after Helen's beauty--beauty, the +noblest of men's quests. + +"For once Nature seemed to me to put into the hands of the artist a +subject perfect in its every part; the end especially delighted me, +and I imagined our good-byes at Plymouth or Portsmouth or Hull, +wherever we might land. 'Well, Gertrude, goodbye. We have spent a very +pleasant six months together; I shall never forget our excursion. But +this is not a rupture; I may hope to see you some time during the +season? You will allow me to call about tea-time?' And she would +answer: 'Yes, you may call. You have been very nice.' Each would turn +away sighing, conscious of a little melancholy in the heart, for all +partings are sad; but at the bottom of the heart there would be a +sense of relief, of gladness--that gladness which the bird feels when +it leaves its roost: there is nothing more delicious perhaps than the +first beat of the wings. I forget now whether I looked forward most to +the lady or to the book.... If the winds had been more propitious, I +might have written a book that would have compared favourably with the +eighteenth-century literature, for the eighteenth century was cynical +in love; while making love to a woman, a gallant would often consider +a plan for her subsequent humiliation. Gouncourt----" + +"But, dear one, finish about the yacht." + +"Well, it seemed quite decided that Gertrude and I were to go to +Marseilles to meet the schooner; but the voyage from the Bay of Biscay +is a stormy and a tedious one; the weather was rough all the way, and +she took a long time to get to Gibraltar. She passed the strait +signalling to Lloyd's; we got a telegram; everything was ready; I had +ordered yachting clothes, shoes, and quantities of things; but after +that telegram no news came, and one evening Gertrude told me she was +beginning to feel anxious; the yacht ought to have arrived at +Marseilles. Three or four days passed, and then we read in the +paper--the _Evening Standard_, I think it was--the _Ring-Dove_, +a large schooner, had sunk off the coast while making for the Bay +of Plessy. Had she passed that point over yonder, no doubt she +would have been saved; all hands were lost, the captain, seven +men, and my book." + +"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were +you never her lover?" + +"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in +love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores +her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms." + +At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the +sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months' +cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I +loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that +my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and +taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't +know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had +anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing +questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in +love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though +not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that +since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once +incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a +_liaison_ that had lasted many years and had come to an end at +last. Fearing that Doris would ask if it had come to an end through +weariness, it seemed well to add that the lady had a daughter growing +up, and it was for the girl's sake we had agreed to bring our love +story to a close. We had, however, promised to remain friends. + +Doris's silence embarrassed me a little, for she didn't ask any +questions about the lady and her daughter; and it was impossible to +tell from her manner whether she believed that this lady comprised the +whole of my love life for the last five years, and if she thought I +had really broken with her. For a moment or two I did not dare to look +at Doris, and then I felt that her disbelief mattered little, so long +as it did not enter as an influencing factor into the present +situation. Under a sky as blue and amid nature poetical as a +drop-curtain, one's moral nature dozes. No doubt that was it. There is +an English church at Plessy, but really! Dear little town, town of my +heart, where the local orchestra plays "The March of Aida" and "La +Belle Hélène"! If I could inoculate you, reader, with the sentiment of +the delicious pastoral you would understand why, all the time I was at +Plessy, I looked upon myself as a hero of legend, whether of the +Argonauts or the siege of Troy matters little. Returning from Mount +Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest +of women with the apple, I said: + +"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have +you been in love?" + +"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married." + +"And you are still engaged?" + +She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that +it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, +but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice. + +"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and +dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a +little mouse about?" + +"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what +happened." + +"Really?" + +"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered." + +"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall +understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as +you say, your story will ... I must hear it." + +"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered +horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over +it all again?" + +"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love +story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it. Tell it, and +in telling, the bitterness will pass from you. Who was this man? How +did you meet him?" + +"He was a friend of Albert's. Albert introduced him." + +"Albert is the man you are engaged to? The old story, the very oldest. +Why should it always be the friend? There are so many other men, but +it is always the friend who attracts." And I told Doris the story of a +friend who had once robbed me, and my story had the effect of drying +her tears. But they began again as soon as she tried to tell her own +story. There could be no doubt that she had suffered. Things are +interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; +Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it +may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert +was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have +suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed +with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she +should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories +happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the +old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and +this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my +eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of +mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that +it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. When +I turned to Doris I could see she was wholly immersed in her own +sorrow, and it took all my art to persuade her to tell it, or it +seemed as if all my art of persuasion were necessary. + +"As soon as you knew you loved him, you resolved to see him no more?" + +Doris nodded. + +"You sent him away before you yielded to him?" + +She nodded, and looking at me her eyes filled with tears, but which +only seemed to make them still more beautiful, she told me that they +had both felt that it was impossible to deceive Albert. + + * * * * * + +All love stories are alike in this; they all contain what the +reviewers call "sordid details." But if Tristan had not taken +advantage of King Mark's absence on a hunting expedition, the world +would have been the poorer of a great love story; and what, after all, +does King Mark's happiness matter to us--a poor passing thing, whose +life was only useful in this, that it gave us an immortal love story? +And if Wagner had not loved Madame Wasendonck, and if Madame +Wasendonck had not been unfaithful to her husband, we should not have +had "Tristan." Who then would, for the sake of Wasendonck's honour, +destroy the score of "Tristan"? Nor is the story of "Tristan" the only +one, nor the most famous. There is also the story of Helen. If +Menelaus's wife had not been unfaithful to him, the world would have +been the poorer of the greatest of all poems, the "Iliad" and the +"Odyssey." Dear me, when one thinks of it, one must admit that art +owes a great deal to adultery. Children are born of the marriage, +stories of the adulterous bed, and the world needs both--stories as +well as children. Even my little tale would not exist if Doris had +been a prudent maiden, nor would it have interested me to listen to +her that day by the sea if she had naught to tell me but her +unswerving love for Albert. Her story is not what the world calls a +great story, and it would be absurd to pretend that if a shorthand +writer had taken it down his report would compare with the stories of +Isolde and Helen, but I heard it from her lips, and her tears and her +beauty replaced the language of Wagner and of Homer; and so well did +they do this that I am not sure that the emotion I experienced in +listening to her was less than that which I have experienced before a +work of art. + +"Do you know," she began, "perhaps you don't, perhaps you've never +loved enough to know the anxiety one may feel for the absent. We had +been together all day once, and when we bade each other good-bye we +agreed that we should not see each other for two days, till Thursday; +but that night in bed an extraordinary desire took hold of me to know +what had become of him. I felt I must hear from him; one word would be +enough. But we had promised. It was stupid, it was madness, yet I had +to take down the telephone, and when I got into communication what do +you think the answer was?--'Thank God you telephoned! I've been +walking about the room nearly out of my mind, feeling that I should go +mad if the miracle did not happen.'" + +"If you loved Ralph better than Albert----" + +"Why didn't I give up Albert? Albert's life would have been broken and +ruined if I had done that. You see he has loved me so many years that +his life has become centred in me. He is not one of those men who like +many women. Outside of his work nothing exists but me. He doesn't care +much for reading, but he reads the books I like. I don't know that he +cares much about music for its own sake, but he likes to hear me sing +just because it is me. He never notices other women; I don't think +that he knows what they wear, but he likes my dresses, not because +they are in good taste, but because I wear them. One can't sacrifice a +man like that. What would one think of oneself? One would die of +remorse. So there was nothing to be done but for Ralph to go away. It +nearly killed me." + +"I'm afraid I can give you no such love; my affection for you will +prove very tepid after such violent emotions." + +"I don't want such emotions again; I could not bear them, they would +kill me; even a part would kill me. Two months after Ralph left I was +but a little shadow. I was thinner than I am now, I was worn to a +thread, I could hardly keep body and skirt together." + +We laughed at Doris's little joke; and we watched it curling and going +out like a wreath of cigarette smoke. + +"But did you get no happiness at all out of this great love?" + +"We were happy only a very little while." + +"How long?" + +Doris reflected. + +"We had about six weeks of what I should call real happiness, the time +while Albert was away. When he came back the misery and remorse began +again. I had to see him--not Albert, the other--every day; and Albert +began to notice that I was different. We used to go out together, we +three, and at last the sham became too great and Albert said he could +not stand it any longer. 'I prefer you should go out with him alone, +and if it be for your happiness I'll give you up.'" + +"So you nearly died of love! Well, now you must live for love, liking +things as they go by. Life is beautiful at the moment, sad when we +look back, fearful when we look forward; but I suppose it's hopeless +to expect a little Christian like you to live without drawing +conclusions, liking things as they go by as the nymphs do. Dry those +tears; forget that man. You tell me it is over and done. Remember +nothing except that the sky and the sea are blue, that it is a luxury +to feel alive here by the sea-shore. My happiness would be to make you +happy, to see you put the past out of your mind, to close your eyes to +the future. That will be easy to do by this beautiful sea-shore, under +those blue skies with flowers everywhere and drives among the +mountains awaiting us. We create our own worlds. Chance has left you +here and sent me to you. I want you to eat a great deal and to sleep +and to get fatter and to dream and to read Theocritus, so that when we +go to the mountains we shall be transported into antiquity. You must +forget Albert and him who made you unhappy--he allowed you to look +back and forwards." + +"I think I deserve some happiness; you see I have sacrificed so much." + +At these words my hopes rose--shall I say like a balloon out of which +a great weight of ballast has been thrown?--and so high did they go +that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. +"She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. +Her words could bear no other interpretation; she had spoken without +thought, and instinctively. Albert was away; why should she not take +this happiness which I offered her? Would she understand that distance +made a difference, that it was one thing to deceive Albert if he were +with her, and another when she was a thousand miles away? It was as if +we were in a foreign country; we were under palm trees, we were by the +Mediterranean. With Albert a thousand miles away it would be so easy +for her to love me. She had said there was no question of her marrying +any one but Albert--and to be unfaithful is not to be inconstant. +These were the arguments which I would use if I found that I had +misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it +would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, +feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being +able to think of anything more plausible: + +"You spoke, didn't you, of going for a drive?" + +"We were speaking of happiness--but if you'd like to go for a drive. +There's no happiness like driving." + +"Isn't there?" + +She pinched my arm, and with a choking sensation in the throat I asked +her if I should send for a carriage. + +"There will be time for a short drive before the sun setting. You said +you admired the hills--one day we will go to a hill town. There is a +beautiful one--Florac is the name of it--but we must start early in +the morning. To-day there will be only time to drive as far as the +point you have been admiring all the morning. The road winds through +the rocks, and you want to see the ilex trees." + +"My dear, I want to see you." + +"Well, you're looking at me. Come, don't be disagreeable." + +"Disagreeable, Doris! I never felt more kindly in my life. I'm still +absorbed in the strange piece of luck which has brought us together, +and in such a well-chosen spot; no other would have pleased me as +much." + +"Now why do you like the landscape? Tell me." + +"I cannot think of the landscape now, Doris: I'm thinking of you, of +what you said just now." + +"What did I say?" + +"You said--I tried to remember the words at the time, but I have +forgotten them, so many thoughts have passed through my mind +since--you said--how did you word it?--after having suffered as much +as you did, some share of happiness----" + +"No, I didn't say that; I said, having sacrificed so much, I thought I +deserved a little happiness." + +"So she knew what she was saying," I said to myself. "Her words were +not casual," but not daring to ask her if she intended to make me her +happiness, I spoke about the landscape. "You ask me why I like the +landscape? Because it carries me back into past times when men +believed in nymphs and in satyrs. I have always thought it must be a +wonderful thing to believe in the dryad. Do you know that men +wandering in the woods sometimes used to catch sight of a white breast +between the leaves, and henceforth they could love no mortal woman? +The beautiful name of their malady was nympholepsy. A disease that +every one would like to catch." + +"But if you were to catch it you wouldn't be able to love me, so I'll +not bring you to the mountains. Some peasant girl----" + +"Fie! Doris, I have never liked peasant girls." + +"Your antiquity is eighteenth-century antiquity. There are many +alcoves in it." + +"I don't know that the alcove was an invention of the eighteenth +century. There were alcoves at all times. But, Doris, good heavens! +what are those trees? Never did I see anything so ghastly; they are +like ghosts. Not only have they no leaves, but they have no bark nor +any twigs; nothing but great white trunks and branches." + +"I think they are called plantains." + +"That won't do, you are only guessing; I must ask the coachman." + +"I think, sir, they are called plantains." + +"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people." + +"Sont des plantains, Monsieur." + +"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing. + +Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields, +and Doris murmured: + +"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the +folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch." + +I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you +had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months +of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those +fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that +interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by +her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she +were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were +robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of +it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of +things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself +on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit +the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our +talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another. + +Lovers are divided into two kinds, the babbling and the silent. + +We meet specimens of the silent kind on a Thames back-water--the punt +drawn up under the shady bank with the twain lying side by side, their +arms about each other all the afternoon. When evening comes, and it is +time to return home, her fellow gets out the sculls, and they part +saying: "Well, dear, next Sunday, at the same time." "Yes, at the same +time next Sunday." + +We were of the babbling kind, as the small part of our conversation +that appears in this story shows. + +"My dear, my dear, remember that we are in an open carriage." + +"What do those folks matter to us?" + +"My dear, if I don't like it?" + +To justify my desire of her lips I began to compare her beauty with +that of a Greek head on a vase, saying that hers was a cameo-like +beauty, as dainty as any Tanagra figure. + +"And to see you and not to claim you, not to hold your face in my +hands just as one holds a vase, is----" + +"Is what?" + +"A kind of misery. What else shall I say? Fancy my disappointment if, +on digging among these mountains, I were to find a beautiful vase, and +some one were to say: 'You can look at it but not touch it.'" + +"Do you love me as well as that?" she answered, somewhat moved, for my +words expressed a genuine emotion. + +"I do indeed, Doris." + +"We might get out here. I want you to see the view from the hilltop." + +And, telling the driver that he need not follow us, to stay there and +rest his panting horse, we walked on. Whether Doris was thinking of +the view I know not; I only know that I thought only of kissing Doris. +To do so would be pleasant--in a way--even on this cold hillside, and +I noticed that the road bent round the shoulder of the mount. We soon +reached the hilltop, and we could see the road enter the village in +the dip between the hills, a double line of houses--not much +more--facing the sea, a village where we might go to have breakfast; +we might never go there; however that might be, we certainly should +remember that village and the road streaming out of it on the other +side towards the hills. Now and then we lost sight of the road; it +doubled round some rock or was hidden behind a group of trees; and +then we caught sight of it a little farther on, ascending the hills in +front of us, and no doubt on the other side it entered another +village, and so on around the coast of Italy. Even with the thought of +Doris's kisses in my mind, I could admire the road and the curves of +the bay. I felt in my pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil. The +colour was as beautiful as a Brabizon; there were many tints of blue, +no doubt, but the twilight had gathered the sea and sky into one tone, +or what seemed to be one tone. + +"You wanted to see olive trees--those are olives." + +"So those are olives! Do I at last look upon olives?" + +"Are you disappointed?" + +"Yes and no. The white gnarled trunk makes even the young trees seem +old. The olive is like an old man with skimpy legs. It seems to me a +pathetic tree. One does not like to say it is ugly; it is not ugly, +but it would be puzzling to say wherein lies its charm, for it throws +no shade, and is so grey--nothing is so grey as the olive. I like the +ilex better." + +Where the road dipped there was a group of ilex trees, and it was in +their shade that I kissed Doris, and the beauty of the trees helps me +to appreciate the sentiment of those kisses. And I remember that road +and those ilex trees as I might remember a passage in Theocritus. +Doris--her very name suggests antiquity, and it was well that she was +kissed by me for the first time under ilex trees; true that I had +kissed her before, but that earlier love story has not found a +chronicler, and probably it never will. I like to think that the +beauty of the ilex is answerable, perhaps, for Doris's kisses--in a +measure. Her dainty grace, her Tanagra beauty, seemed to harmonise +with that of the ilex, for there is an antique beauty in this tree +that we find in none other. Theocritus must have composed many a poem +beneath it. It is the only tree that the ancient world could have +cared to notice; and if it were possible to carve statues of trees, I +am sure that the ilex is the tree sculptors would choose. The beech +and the birch, all the other trees, only began to be beautiful when +men invented painting. No other tree shapes itself out so beautifully +as the ilex, lifting itself up to the sky so abundantly and with such +dignity--a very queen in a velvet gown is the ilex tree; and we stood +looking at the group, admiring its glossy thickness, till suddenly the +ilex tree went out of my mind, and I thought of the lonely night that +awaited me. + +"Doris, dear, it is more than flesh and blood can bear. My folly lay +in sending the telegram. Had I not sent it you wouldn't have known by +what train I was coming; you would have been fast asleep in your bed, +and I should have gone straight to your hotel." + +"But, darling, you wouldn't compromise me. Every one would know that +we stayed at the same hotel." + +"Dearest, it might happen by accident, and were it to happen by +accident what could you do?" + +"All I can say is that it would be a most unfortunate accident." + +"Then I have come a thousand miles for nothing. This is worse than the +time in London when I left you for your strictness. Can nothing be +done?" + +"Am I not devoted to you? We have spent the whole day together. Now I +don't think it's at all nice of you to reproach me with having brought +you on a fool's errand." + +"I didn't say that," and we quarrelled a little until we reached the +carriage. Doris was angry, and when she spoke again it was to say: + +"If you are not satisfied, you can go back. I'm sorry. I think it's +most unreasonable that you should ask me to compromise myself." + +"And I think it's unkind of you to suggest that I should go back, for +how can I go back?" + +She did not ask me why--she was too angry at the moment--and it was +well she did not, for I should have been embarrassed to tell her that +I was fairly caught. + +I had come a thousand miles to see her, and I could not say I was +going to take the _Côte d'azur_ back again, because she would not +let me stay at her hotel; to do so would be too childish, too futile. +The misery of the journey back would be unendurable. There was nothing +to do but to wait, and hope that life, which is always full of +accidents, would favour us. Better think no more about it. For it is +thinking that makes one miserable. + +There were many little things which helped to pass the time away. +Doris went every evening to a certain shop to fetch two eggs that had +been laid that morning. It was necessary for her health that she +should eat eggs beaten up with milk between the first and second +breakfast. We went there, and it was amusing to pick my way through +the streets, carrying her eggs back to the hotel for her. She knew a +few people--strange folk, I thought them--elderly spinsters living +_en pension_ at different hotels. We dined with her friends, and +after dinner Doris sang, and when she had played many things that she +used to play to me in the old days, it was time for her to go to bed, +for she rarely slept after six o'clock, so she said. + +"Good-night. Ah, no, the hour is ill," I murmured to myself as I +wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything +that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to +say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at +night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's +head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain +argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more +Christian spirit--all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads +and satyrs and fauns frightened her. In the heat of the moment one +says more than one intends, though it is quite true that, as a rule, +it is well to insist that there is no such thing as our lower nature, +that everything about us is divine. So constituted are we that the +mind accepts the convention, and what we have to do is to keep to the +convention, just as in opera. Singing appears natural so long as the +characters do not speak. Once they speak they cannot go back to music; +the convention has been broken. As in Art so it is in Life. Tell a +woman that she is a nymph, and she must not expect any more from you +than she would from a faun, that all you know is the joy of the +sunlight, that you have no dreams beyond the worship of the perfect +circle of her breast, and the desire to gather grapes for her, and she +will give herself to you unconscious of sin. I must have fallen asleep +thinking of these things, and I must have slept soundly, for I +remembered nothing until the servant came in with my bath, and I saw +again the pretty sunlight flickering along the wall-paper. Before +parting the previous night, Doris and I had arranged that I was to +call an hour earlier than usual at the hotel; I was to be there at +half-past ten. She had promised to be ready. We were going to drive to +Florac, to one of the hill towns, and it would take two hours to get +there. We were going to breakfast there, and while I dressed, and in +the carriage going there, I cherished the hope that perhaps I might be +able to persuade Doris to breakfast in a private room, though feeling +all the while that it would be difficult to do so, for the public room +would be empty, and crowds of waiters would gather about us like +rooks, each trying to entice us towards his table. + +The village of Florac is high up among the hills, built along certain +ledges of rock overlooking the valley, and going south in the train +one catches sight of many towns, like it built among mountain +declivities, hanging out like nests over the edge of precipices, +showing against a red background, crowning the rocky hill. No doubt +these mediaeval towns were built in these strange places because of +the security that summit gives against raiders. One can think of no +other reason, for it is hard to believe that in the fifteenth century +men were so captivated with the picturesque that for the sake of it +they would drag every necessary of life up these hills, several +hundred feet above the plain, probably by difficult paths--the +excellent road that wound along the edge of the hills, now to the +right, now to the left, looping itself round every sudden ascent like +a grey ribbon round a hat, did not exist when Florac was built. On the +left the ground shelves away into the valley, down towards the sea, +and olives were growing down all these hillsides. Above us were olive +trees, with here and there an orange orchard, and the golden fruit +shining among the dark leaves continued to interest me. Every now and +again some sudden aspect interrupted our conversation; the bay as it +swept round the carved mountains, looking in the distance more than +ever like an old Italian picture of a time before painters began to +think about values and truth of effect, when the minds of men were +concerned with beauty; as mine was, for every time I looked at Doris +it occurred to me that I had never seen anything prettier, and not +only her face but her talk still continued to enchant me. She was +always so eager to tell me things, that she must interrupt, and these +interruptions were pleasant. I identified them with her, and so +closely that I can remember how our talk began when we got out of the +suburbs. By the last villa there was a eucalyptus tree growing; the +sun was shining, and Doris had asked me to hold her parasol for her; +but the road zigzagged so constantly that I never shifted the parasol +in time, and a ray would catch her just in the face, adding perhaps to +the freckles--there were just a few down that little nose which was +always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our +talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those +little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only +from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest +us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear +Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I +have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember +suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, +that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch +and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in +the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down +the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where +one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going +to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I +should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I +agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is +only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... + +"But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." + +"I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am +amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is +amused, whether somebody is making love to her." + +"Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to +anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, +the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, +only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the +sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." + +"My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been +there." + +"Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up +two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The +seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who +suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb +the Matterhorn." + +"The Matterhorn!" + +"Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, +glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him +saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and +would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he +answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arrêter pour +vous expliquer les trois passés.'" + +Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years +ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the +_fussent_ and the _eussent, été_, and when our language of +the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we +had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days +in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course. + +"I'm not sure at all that mountain air would not do me good. Plessy +lies very low and is very relaxing." + +"Very." + +But though I convinced her that it would have been better if she had +gone at once to stop at Florac, I could do nothing to persuade her to +pass three days with me in the inn there. As we drove up through the +town the only hope that remained in my mind was that I might induce +her to take breakfast in a private room. But the _salle du +restaurant_ was fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, it contained a +hundred tables, maybe more, the floor was polished oak, and the +ceilings were painted and gilded, and there were fifty waiters waiting +for the swallows that would soon arrive from the north; we were the +van birds. + +"Shall we breakfast in a private room?" I whispered humbly. + +"Good heavens! no! I wouldn't dare to go into a private room before +all these waiters." + +My heart sank again, and when Doris said, "Where shall we sit?" I +answered, "Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter." + +It had taken two hours for the horses to crawl up to the mountain +town, and as I had no early breakfast I was ravenously hungry. A box +of sardines and a plate of butter, and the prospect of an omelette and +a steak, put all thoughts of Doris for the moment out of my head, and +that was a good thing. We babbled on, and it was impossible to say +which was the more interested, which enjoyed talking most; and the +pleasure which each took in talking and hearing the other talk became +noticeable. + +"I didn't interrupt you just now, I thought it would be cruel, for you +were enjoying yourself so much," said Doris, laughing. + +"Well, I promise not to interrupt the next time--you were in the midst +of one of your stories." + +It was not long before she was telling me another story, for Doris was +full of stories. She observed life as it went by, and could recall +what she had seen. Our talk had gone back to years before, to the +evening when I first saw her cross the drawing-room in a white dress, +her gold hair hanging over her shoulders; and in that moment, as she +crossed the room, I had noticed a look of recognition in her eyes; the +look was purely instinctive; she was not aware of it herself, but I +could not help understanding it as a look whereby she recognised me as +one of her kin. I had often spoken to her of that look, and we liked +speaking about it, and about the time when we became friends in Paris. +She had written asking me to go to see her and her mother. I had found +them in a strange little hotel, just starting for some distant suburb, +going there to buy presents from an old couple, dealers in china and +glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy +her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of +those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save +twopence on a vase. + +"It took us two hours to get to that old, forgotten quarter, to the +old quaint street where they lived. They were old-world Jews who read +the Talmud, and seemed to be quite isolated, out of touch with the +modern world. It was like going back to the Middle Ages; this queer +old couple moving like goblins among the china and glass. Do you ever +see them now? Are they dead?" + +"Let me tell you," cried Doris, "what happened. The old man died two +years ago, and his wife, who had lived with him for forty years, could +not bear to live alone, so what do you think she did? She sent for her +brother-in-law----" + +"To marry him?" + +"No, not to marry him, but to talk to him about her husband. You see +this couple had lived together for so many years that she had become +ingrained, as it were, in the personality of her late husband, her +habits had become his habits, his thoughts had become hers. The story +really is very funny," and Doris burst out laughing, and for some time +she could not speak with laughing. "I am sorry for the poor man," she +said at last. + +"For whom? For the brother-in-law?" + +"Yes; you see he is dyspeptic, and he can't eat the dishes at all that +his brother used to like, but the wife can't and won't cook anything +else." + +"In other words," I said, "the souvenir of brother Isaac is poisoning +brother Jacob." + +"That is it." + +"What a strange place this world is!" And then my mind drifted back +suddenly. "O Doris, I'm so unhappy--this place--I wish I had never +come." + +"Now, now, have a little patience. Everything comes right in the end." + +"We shall never be alone." + +"Yes, we shall. Why do you think that?" + +"Because I can't think of anything else." + +"Well, you must think of something else. We're going to the factory +where they make perfume, and I'm going to buy a great many bottles of +scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy +the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper." + +"Don't you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a +church here." + +On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed +Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the +superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few +old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did +not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear +that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease +absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of +alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what +perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris +decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of +that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she +always used it. + +"And you like it, don't you dear?" + +"Yes, but what does it matter what I like?" + +"Now, don't be cross. Don't look so sad." + +"I don't mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase +of heliotrope is really too cynical." + +"Cynical! Why is it cynical?" + +"Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving +among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour +as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?" + +"But, dear one----" + +I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the +carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm +calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the +driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing +chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his +horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one +is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were +passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back +to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, +for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after +her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said: + +"You don't mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a +visit to pay." + +In the three weeks' time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, +Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who +lived in the different hotels _en pension_, and who would go away +as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another "resort" where the +season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and +bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs +and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had +explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once. + +"But as we're going to spend the evening with them, I don't see the +necessity----" + +"Of course not, dear, but don't you remember you promised to go to see +the Formans with me?" + +Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been +able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to +Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her +daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to +dinner, "One of the family is enough." What her mother's age could be +I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But +after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so +old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those +who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is +generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to +narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions +age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see +from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her +life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those +daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living +with their mothers on small incomes. "The daughter's tragedy is +written all over her face," I said, and while speaking to her I +scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that +tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are +heroines--the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, +grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her +manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the +life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked +old-fashioned--why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black +lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung +from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of +bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me +farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed +to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a +rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, +before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and +her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her +politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished +speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind +was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most +trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and +sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her +ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking +of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it +wonderful that her mother had read--shall we say, "The Three +Musketeers?" three times. She was interested in all her mother's +characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her +mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she +pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to +understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a +colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be +forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, +philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to +this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I +have no right to grumble." + +I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, +I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who +accepts her daughter's sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter +that has been sacrificed. From the daughter's appearance I had +imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, +lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered +with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature +is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, +two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a +more subtle rhythm. But though Nature's rhythm is irregular, its +irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear +that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I +recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and +that Nature's combination was more harmonious than mine. The first +thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the +daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five +years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been +overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have +grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt +somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her +love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up +hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma--that +short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything +else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small +beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face--forgetful of her +daughter's sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their +shins over the fire: + +"Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn't marry +Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well." + +My interest in these two women who had lived side by side all their +lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if +Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house +by her mother's side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I +waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for +as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had +lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and +planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her +high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so +energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even +her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss +Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer +heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had +gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks +there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman +explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, +"Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go +home again"; and they had come home after six days in the hill +village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her +mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: "I +always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here +until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come +down to mamma's balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go +away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. +I don't think mamma was ever afraid of anything." Her voice seemed to +me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, "I don't think mamma was +ever afraid of anything," and I said, "She is proud of her ideal, and +it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not +for her at least," and noticing that the three women were talking +together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to +studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived. + +On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits--two +engravings--and I did not need to look at the date to know that they +had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other +her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in +my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a +small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa +covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More +characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music +rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her +stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same +old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little. + +Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be +regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to +the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back +again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans +had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please +them. "They don't know anything about singing," she whispered to me; +"but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little +to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for +them to hear me sing," and she went to the piano and sang song after +song. + +"It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a +middle-aged woman," Mrs. Forman said, "and I hope you will come to see +us again, both of you." + +"What should bring me to see them again?" I asked myself as I tried to +get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making +impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to +England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to +Plessy again she would rush to see them. "Why should she go on like +that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this +world?" I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should +accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss +Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and +Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would +come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to +send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and +she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she +consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. +"No," she said, "I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this +evening to try on mamma's dress, and mamma is very particular about +her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown +had to go back--you must excuse me." + +"Good-bye, dear, good-bye," I heard Doris crying, and I said to +myself, "How kind she is!" + +"Now, my dear, aren't you glad that you came to see them? Aren't they +nice? Isn't she good? And you like goodness." + +"Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. +Don't you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon +your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your +face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems +to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my +love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, +years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become +of the two blind women you used to help?" + +"So you haven't forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful +that a blind woman should be able to get her living." + +"Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any +one should be able to earn his living." + +"You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not +realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs." + +"But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough +money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, +knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever +it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the +dark." + +"Do you remember her story?" + +"I think so. She was once rich, wasn't she? In fairly easy +circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit +by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told +it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part +of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even +then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox +and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to +England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop +in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And +where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind +woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don't +understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work +every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who +led her about? + +"How well you remember, dear." + +"Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a +sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind +woman's life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never +happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a +hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman's life. +Now don't tell me; it's all coming back to me. Something about a +student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and +they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each +other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. +This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with +serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to +read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty +story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud +to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?" + +"No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference." + +"You're quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it +was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn't he?" + +Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. "No +sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst +kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a +long time. The friend upstairs didn't dare to come down to tell her. +But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It's +extraordinary how tragedy follows some." + +"Isn't it?" + +"And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But +she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people +who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no +interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable +are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money's worth. I +only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her +truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything +from her!" + +"Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?" + +"Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn't she?" Doris nodded. +"And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three +or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman +with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet." + +"I don't think I said like red velvet, dear." + +"Well, it doesn't sound like a woman's description of another woman, +but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that +that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have +love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn't +realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the +blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things +from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, +something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love +than anybody else. She wouldn't know if he were a man of forty or one +of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?" + +"Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are." + +"Perhaps." + +"I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man +and a middle-aged. There was little she didn't know." + +"I daresay you're quite right. But still everything must have been +more intense and vague. When the blind woman's lover is not speaking +to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home +she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. +She doesn't know what eyes are, but she imagines them like--what? +anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no +eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes +like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think +of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front +of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice +to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that +these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a +difficult thing to do in any circumstances--but in hers! And when her +voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her +one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the +one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn't +know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when +she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching +recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils +might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?" + +"I don't think there was any reason. She lost her pupils in the +ordinary way; she was unlucky. As you were just saying, it was more +difficult for her to earn her living than for those who could see, and +Judith is no longer as young as she was; she isn't old, she is still a +handsome woman, but in a few years.... If old-age pensions are to be +granted to people, they surely ought to be granted to blind women." + +"Yes, I remember; the sentiment of the whole story is in my mind; only +I am a little confused about the facts. I remember you wrote a lot of +letters--how was it?" + +"Well, I just felt that the thing to do was to get an annuity for +Judith; I could not afford to give her one myself; so after a great +deal of trouble I got into communication with a rich woman who was +interested in the blind and wanted to found one." + +"You are quite right, that was it. You must have written dozens of +letters." + +"Yes, indeed, and all to no purpose. Judith knew the trouble I was +taking, but she couldn't bear with her loneliness any longer; the +dread of the long evenings by herself began to prey upon her nerves, +and she went off to Peckham to marry a blind man--quite an elderly +man; he was over sixty. They had known each other for some time, and +he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty +pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than +the annuity." + +"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity." + +"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The +charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she +regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from +somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel +herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages." + +"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its +goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't +even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to +live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to +live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they +are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I +mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if +she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!" + +"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write +them." + +"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach; +only Turgenieff could write them. But here we are at the Dog's Home." + +"Don't talk like that--it's unkind." + +"I don't mean to be unkind, but I have to try to realise things before +I can appreciate them." + +It seemed not a little incongruous that these two little spinsters +should pay for our dinners, and I tried to induce Doris to agree to +some modification in the present arrangements, but she said it was +their wish to entertain us. + +The evening I spent in that hotel hearing Doris sing, and myself +talking literature to a company of about a dozen spinsters, all plain +and elderly, all trying to live upon incomes varying from a hundred +and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, comes up before my mind, every +incident. Life is full of incidents, only our intelligence is not +always sufficiently trained to perceive them; and the incident I am +about to mention was important in the life I am describing. Miss Tubbs +had asked me what wine I would drink. And in a moment of inadvertence +I said "Vin Ordinaire," forgetting that the two shillings the wine +would cost would probably mean that Miss Tubbs would very likely have +to go without her cup of tea at five o'clock next day in order that +her expenditure should not exceed her limit, and I thought how +difficult life must be on these slippery rocks, incomes of one hundred +and fifty a year. Poor little gentlefolk, roving about from one +boarding-house to another, always in search of the cheapest, sometimes +getting into boarding-houses where the cheapness of the food +necessitates sending for the doctor, so the gain on one side is a loss +on the other. Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, +the pence and threepenny bits of human life! + +That Doris's singing should have provoked remarks painfully +inadequate, mattered little. Inadequate remarks about singing and +about the other arts are as common in London drawing-rooms as in +hotels and boarding-houses (all hotels are boarding-houses; there is +really no difference), and the company I found in these winter resorts +would have interested me at any other time. I can be interested in the +woman who collects stamps, in the gentle soul who keeps a botany book +in which all kinds of quaint entries are found, in the lady who writes +for the papers, and the one who is supposed to have a past. Wherever +human beings collect there is always to be found somebody of interest, +but when one's interest is centred in a lady, everybody else becomes +an enemy; and I looked upon all these harmless spinsters as my +enemies, and their proposals for excursions, and luncheons, and +dinners caused me much misgiving, not only because they separated me +from Doris, but because I felt that any incident, the proposed picnic, +might prove a shipwrecking reef. One cannot predict what will happen. +Life is so full of incidents; a woman's jealous tongue or the arrival +of some acquaintance might bring about a catastrophe. A love affair +hangs upon a gossamer thread, you know, and that is why I tried to +persuade Doris away from her friends. + +She was very kind and good and didn't inflict the society of these +people too much upon me. Perhaps she was conscious of the danger +herself, and we only visited the boarding-houses in the evening. But +these visits grew intolerable. The society of Miss Tubbs and Miss +Whitworth jarred the impressions of a long day spent in the open air, +in a landscape where once the temples of the gods had been, where men +had once lived who had seen, or at all events believed, in the fauns +and the dryads, in the grotto where the siren swims. + +One afternoon I said to Doris: "I'm afraid I can't go to see Miss +Tubbs this evening. Can't we devise something else? Another dinner in +a boarding-house would lead me to suicide, I think." + +"You would like to drown yourself in that bay and join the nymphs. Do +you think they would prove kinder than I?" + +I did not answer Doris. I suddenly seemed to despair; the exquisite +tenderness of the sky, and the inveigling curves of the bay seemed to +become detestable to me, theatrical, absurd. "Good God!" I thought: "I +shall never win her love. All my journey is in vain, and all this +love-making." The scene before me was the most beautiful in shape and +colour I had ever seen; but I am in no mood to describe the +Leonardo-like mountains enframing the azure bay. The reader must +imagine us leaning over a low wall watching the sea water gurgling +among the rocks. We had come to see some gardens. The waiter at my +hotel had told me of some, the property of a gentleman kind enough to +throw them open to the public twice a week; and I had taken his +advice, though gardens find little favour with me--now and again an +old English garden, but the well-kept horticultural is my abhorrence. +But one cannot tell a coachman to drive along the road, one must tell +him to go somewhere, so we had come to see what was to be seen. And +all was as I had imagined it, only worse; the tall wrought-iron gate +was twenty feet high, there was a naked pavilion behind it, and a +woman seated at a table with a cash-box in front of her. This woman +took a franc apiece, and told us that the money was to be devoted to a +charitable purpose; we were then free to wander down a gravel walk +twenty feet wide branching to the right and the left, along a line of +closely clipped shrubs, with a bunch of tall grasses here and a +foreign fir there; gardens that a painter would turn from in horror. I +said to Doris: + +"This is as tedious as a play at the _Comédie_, as tiresome as a +tragedy by Racine, and very like one. Let us seek out one of the +external walks overlooking the sea; even there I'm afraid the +knowledge that these shrubs are behind us will spoil our pleasure." + +Doris laughed; that was one of her charms, she could be amused; and it +was in this mood that we sat down on a seat placed in a low wall +overlooking the bay, looking at each other, basking in the rays of the +afternoon sun, and there we sat for some little while indolent as +lizards. Pointing to one at a little distance I said: + +"It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not +sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake +all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I +was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. +Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one +doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy." + +"But why, dear, do you allow yourself to be unhappy? Look at that +lizard. Isn't he nice? Isn't he satisfied? He desires nothing but what +he has got, light and warmth." + +"And, Doris, would you like me to be as content as that lizard--to +desire nothing more than light and warmth?" + +Doris looked at me, and thinking her eyes more beautiful even than the +sunlight, I said: + + "'And the sunlight clasps the earth, + And the moonbeams kiss the sea, + But what are all those kissings worth, + If thou kiss not me?' + +"That is the eternal song of the spheres and of the flowers. If I don't +become part of the great harmony, I must die." + +"But you do kiss me," Doris answered wilfully, "when the evening turns +cold and the coachman puts up the hood of the carriage." + +"Wilful Doris! Pretty puss cat!" + +"I'm not a puss cat; I'm not playing with you, dear. I do assure you I +feel the strain of these days; but what am I to do? You wouldn't have +me tell you to stay at my hotel and to compromise myself before all +these people?" + +"These people! Those boarding-houses are driving me mad! That Miss +Forman!" + +"I thought you liked her. You said she is good, 'a simple, kind +person, without pretensions.' And that is enough, according to +yesterday's creed. You were never nicer than you were yesterday +speaking of her (I remember your words): you said the flesh fades, the +intellect withers, only the heart remembers. Do you recant all this?" + +"No, I recant nothing; only yesterday's truth is not to-day's. One day +we are attracted by goodness, another day by beauty; and beauty has +been calling me day after day: at first the call was heard far away +like a horn in the woods, but now the call has become more imperative, +and all the landscape is musical. Yesterday standing by those ancient +ruins, it seemed to me as if I had been transported out of my present +nature back to my original nature of two thousand years ago. The sight +of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I +say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never +wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never +appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to +appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that +has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me. +That hat I would put away----" + +"Don't you like my hat?" + +"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two +thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the +nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes." + +"Why should you not see her, dear?" + +"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their +inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me. +I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am +saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me +of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite +clear to me." + +"But you do possess me, dear?" + +"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that +will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live, +but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the +squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard. If some way is not +found out of this horrible dilemma, I shall remember you as a +collector remembers a vase which a workman handed to him and which +slipped and was broken, or like a vase that was stolen from him; I +cannot find a perfect simile, at least not at this moment; my speech +is imperfect, but you will understand." + +"Yes, I understand, I think I understand." + +"If I do not get you, it will seem to me that I have lived in vain." + +"But, dear one, things are not so bad as that. We need not be in Paris +for some days yet, and though I cannot ask you to my hotel, there is +no reason why----" + +"Doris, do not raise up false hopes." + +"I was only going to say, dear, that it does not seem to be necessary +that we should go straight back to Paris." + +"You mean that we might stop somewhere at some old Roman town, at +Arles in an eighteenth-century house. O Doris, how enchanting this +would be! I hardly dare to think lest----" + +"Lest what, dear? Lest I should deceive you?" + +There was a delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot +be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired +by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the +eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the +nineteenth, and had reproduced its spirit. + +"Is it not strange that, in the midst of reality, artistic conceptions +always hang about me; but shall I ever possess you, Doris? Is it my +delicious fate to spend three days with you in an old Roman town?" + +"There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Where shall it be?" + +"Any town would be sufficient with you, Doris; but let us think of +some beautiful place"; and looking across the bay into the sunset, I +recalled as many names as I could; many of those old Roman towns rose +up before my eyes, classic remains mingling with mediaeval towers, +cathedral spires rising over walls on which Roman sentries had once +paced. We could only spend our honeymoon in a town with a beautiful +name--a beautiful name was essential--a name that it would be a +delight to remember for ever after; the name would have to express by +some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be +expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking +doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was +too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after +all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were +rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among +these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening +and the next we studied _L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer_. +"Armance," I said, interrupting Doris, who was telling me that we +should lose our tickets by the _Côte d'Azur_. For in Doris's +opinion it was necessary that we should leave Plessy by the _Côte +d'Azur_. Her friends would certainly come to the station to see her +off. "That is a matter of no moment," I said. "At Marseilles we can +catch an express train, which will be nearly as good. There are two +excellent trains; either will do, if you have decided to spend three +days at Armance." + +She asked me if Armance were a village or a town, and I answered, +"What matter?"--for everywhere in France there are good beds and good +food and good wine--ay, and omelettes. We should do very well in any +village in the south of France for three days. But suddenly two names +caught my eye, Orelay and Verlancourt, and we agreed that we preferred +either of these names to Armance. + +"Which name shall give shelter to two unfortunate lovers flying in +search of solitude?" + +"Orelay is a beautiful name." + +"Orelay it shall be," I said. "We shall be able to get there from +Marseilles in a few hours." + +"You see, dear, it would be impossible for me to travel all the way to +Paris--a journey of at least twenty-four hours would kill me, and I'm +not strong; nothing tires me more than railway traveling. We must stop +somewhere. Why not at Orelay?" + +As this history can have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I +must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify +herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human +than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not +unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would +strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, +no more: where there is no subterfuge there is no life. + +This story will be read, no doubt, by the young and the old, the wise +and the foolish, by the temperate and the intemperate, but the subject +matter is so common to all men that it will interest every one, even +ecclesiastics, every one except certain gentlemen residing chiefly in +Constantinople, whose hostility to the lover on his errand is so well +known, and so easily understandable, that I must renounce all hope of +numbering them among the admirers of my own or Doris's frailty. But +happily these gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected +that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of +certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary +falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting +abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few +critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged +men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an interest in +a love story; in these modern days when the novel wanders even as far +as the nuns in their cells (I have good authority for making this +statement), perhaps I may be able to count upon an aged Mother Abbess +to be, outwardly perhaps a disapproving, but at heart a sympathetic +reader. Indeed, I count upon the ascetic more than upon any other +class for appreciation, for the imagination of those who have had no +experience in love adventures will enkindle, and they will appreciate +perhaps more intensely than any other the mental trouble that a +journey to Orelay with Doris would entail. + +It would take nearly five hours according to the time table to get +from Marseilles to Orelay; and these five hours would wear themselves +wearily away in conversation with Doris, in talking to her of every +subject except the subject uppermost in my mind. I should have kept a +notebook, just as I had arranged to do when I thought I was going on +the yachting excursion among the Greek Islands with Gertrude; but, +having no notes, I can only appeal to the reader's imagination. I must +ask him to remember the week of cruel abstinence I had been through, +and to take it into his consideration. My dear, dear reader, I am sure +you can see me if you try (in your mind's eye, of course) walking +about the corridors, seeking the guard, asking every one I meet: + +"How far away are we now from Orelay?" + +"Orelay? Nearly two hours from Orelay." + +Our heavy luggage had been sent on before, but we had a number of +dressing cases and bags with us, and there might not be time to remove +all these. The guard, who had promised to take them out of the +carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be, +he was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times +up and down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader, +can you not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of +catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not +stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young +lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last +moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw +myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake +of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is +an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and +every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of +the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes +closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to +Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I? + +And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same +interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often +as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between +us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our +lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an +excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day. And as I write +the sad thought floats past that such expectations will never be my +lot again. The delights of the moment are perhaps behind me, but why +should I feel sad for that? Life is always beautiful, in age as well +as in youth; the old have a joy that the youths do not +know--recollection. It is through memory we know ourselves; without +memory it might be said we have hardly lived at all, or only like +animals. + +This is a point on which I would speak seriously to every reader, +especially to my young readers; for it is of the utmost importance +that every one should select adventures that not only please them at +the moment, but can be looked back upon with admiration, and for which +one can offer up a mute thanksgiving. My life would not have been +complete, a corner-stone would have been lacking if Doris had not come +to Orelay with me. Without her I should not have known the joy that +perfect beauty gives; that beauty which haunted in antiquity would +never have been known to me. But without more, as the lawyers say, we +will return to Doris. I asked her if she had been asleep? No, she had +not slept, only it rested her to keep her eyes closed, the sunlight +fatigued her. I did not like to hear her talk of fatigue, and to hide +from her what was passing in my mind I tried to invent some +conversation. Orelay--what a lovely name it was! Did she think the +town would vindicate or belie its name? She smiled faintly and said +she would not feel fatigued as soon as she got out of the train, and +there was some consolation in the thought that her health would not +allow her to get farther that day than Orelay. + +We decided to stay at the Hôtel des Valois. One of the passengers had +spoken to me of this hotel; he had never stayed there himself, but he +believed it to be an excellent hotel. But it was not his +recommendation that influenced me, it was the name--the Hôtel des +Valois. How splendid! And when we got out at Orelay I asked the +porters and the station-master if they could recommend a hotel. No, +but they agreed that the Hôtel des Valois was as good as any other. We +drove there wondering what it would be like. Everything had turned out +well up to the present, but everything would go for naught if the +Hôtel des Valois should prove unworthy of its name. And the first +sight of it was certainly disappointing. Its courtyard was +insignificant, only saved by a beautiful ilex tree growing in one +corner. The next moment I noticed that the porch of the hotel was +pretty and refined--a curious porch it was, giving the hotel for a +moment the look of an eighteenth-century English country house. There +were numerous windows with small panes, and one divined the hall +beyond the porch. The hall delighted us, and I said to Doris as we +passed through that the hotel must have been a nobleman's house some +long while ago, when Orelay had a society of its own, perhaps a +language, for in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century Provençal +or some other dialect must have been written or spoken at Orelay. We +admired the galleries overlooking the hall, and the staircase leading +to them. We seemed to have been transported into the eighteenth +century; the atmosphere was that of a Boucher, a provincial Boucher +perhaps, but an eighteenth-century artist for all that. The doves that +crowd round Aphrodite seemed to have led us right; and we foresaw a +large quiet bedroom with an Aubusson carpet in the middle of a parquet +floor, writing-tables in the corners of the room or in the +silken-curtained windows. + +This was the kind of room I had imagined--one as large as a +drawing-room, and furnished like a drawing-room, with sofas and +arm-chairs that we could draw around the fire, and myself and Doris +sitting there talking. Love is composed in a large measure of desire +of intimacy, and if the affection that birds experience in making +their nest be not imitated, love descends to the base satisfaction of +animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as +soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better +than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of +the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were +offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined +the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French +words _chambre meublée_ will convey an idea of the rooms we were +shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into the +corner, an eider-down on top, a tall dusty window facing the bed, with +skimpy red curtains and a vacant fireplace? There were, no doubt, a +few chairs--but what chairs! + +The scene was at once tragic and comic. It was of vital importance to +myself and Doris to find a room such as I have attempted to describe, +and it was of equal indifference to the waiter whether we did or +didn't. The appearance of each contributed to the character of the +scene. Doris's appearance I have tried to make clear to the reader; +mine must be imagined; it only remains for me to tell what the waiter +was like; an old man, short and thick, slow on the feet from long +service, enveloped in an enormous apron; one only saw the ends of his +trousers and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever +seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his +head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a +pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and +restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a +thick provincial accent--that alone amused me. + +"Have you no other rooms?" + +"Nous n'avons que cela." + +I quote his words in the language in which they were spoken, for I +remember how brutal they seemed, and how entirely in keeping with the +character of the room. No doubt the words will seem flat and tame to +the reader, but they never can seem that to me. "_Nous n'avons que +cela_" will always be to me as pregnant with meaning as the famous +_to be or not to be_. For it really amounted to that. I can see +Doris standing by me, charming, graceful as a little Tanagra +statuette, seemingly not aware of the degradation that the possession +of her love would mean in such a room as that which we stood in; and I +think I can honestly say that I wished we had never come to Orelay, +that we had gone straight on to Paris. It were better even to +sacrifice her love than that it should be degraded by vulgar +circumstances; and, instead of a holy rite, my honeymoon had come to +seem to me what the black mass must seem to the devout Christian. + +"The rooms will look better," Doris said, "when fires have been +lighted, and when our bags are unpacked. A skirt thrown over the arm +of a chair furnishes a room." + +Taking her hands in mine I kissed them, and was almost consoled; but +at that moment my eyes fell upon the beds, and I said: + +"Those beds! O Doris, those beds! yours is no better than mine." Women +are always satisfied, or they are kind, or they are wise; and accept +the inevitable without a murmur. + +"Dearest, ask the waiter to bring us some hot water." + +I did so, and while he was away I paced the room, unable to think of +anything but the high bed; it was impossible to put out of my sight +the ridiculous spectacle of a couple in a nightgown and pyjama suit +climbing into it. The vision of myself and Doris lying under that +eider-down, facing that tall window, with nothing to shut out the +light but those vulgar lace curtains, pursued me, and I paced the room +till the pink waiter returned with two jugs; and then, feeling very +miserable, I began to unpack my bag without getting further than the +removal of the brushes and comb; Doris unpacked a few things, and she +washed her hands, and I thought I might wash mine; but before I had +finished washing them I left the dreadful basin, and going to Doris +with dripping hands I said: + +"There is very little difference in the rooms. Perhaps you would like +to sleep in mine?" + +"I can see no difference. I think I'll remain where I am." + +Which room she slept in may seem insignificant to the reader, but this +is not so, for had we changed rooms this story would never have been +written. I can see myself even now walking to and fro like a caged +animal vainly seeking for a way of escape, till suddenly--my adventure +reminds me very much of the beginning of many romantic novels--the +tapestry that the wind had blown aside, the discovery of the secret +door--suddenly I discovered a door in the wall paper; it was +unlatched, and pushing through it I descended two steps, and lo! I was +in the room of my heart's desire; a large, richly-coloured saloon with +beautifully proportioned windows and red silk damask curtains hanging +from carved cornices, and all the old gilding still upon them. And the +silk fell into such graceful folds that the proportions of the windows +were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine +romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the +curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the +marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to +examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value +... it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago. + +"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and +seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom +likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, +it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, +"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But +the curtains hung well from _les ciels de lit_ (one cannot say +_cieux de lit_, I suppose)--the English word is, I think, +"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I +muttered, "but _à la rigueur ça peut marcher_." But pursuing my +quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two +windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have +satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable +Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various +perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed +should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my +head: + + "Madame, shall we undress you for the fight? + The wars are naked that you make to-night." + +And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with +a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a +crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.... He rarely painted +bedrooms. I do not remember any at this moment; but I remember many by +Fragonard, and Fragonard would have said: "I have no fault to find +with that bed." The carpet was not Aubusson, but it was nevertheless a +finely-designed carpet, and its colour was harmonious; the sofa was +shapely enough, and the Louis XVI. arm-chairs were filled with deep +cushions. I turned to the toilet-table fearing it might prove an +incongruity, but it was in perfect keeping with the room, and I began +at once to look forward to seeing it laid out with all the manifold +ivories and silver of Doris's dressing-case. + +Imagine my flight, dear reader, if you can, back to Doris, whom I had +left trying to make the best of that miserable square room; more like +a prison cell than a bedroom. + +"What is the matter, dearest?" she asked. + +But without answering her I said, "Give me your hand," and led her as +a prince leads his betrothed, in a fairy tale, through the +richly-coloured salon, lingering a moment for her to admire it, and +then I took her through my room, the double-bedded room, saying: "All +this is nothing; wait till you see your room." And Doris paused +overcome by the beauty of the bed, of the curtains falling from the +tester gracefully as laburnum or acacia branches in June. + +"The rooms are beautiful, but a little cheerless." + +"Doris, Doris, you don't deserve to lie there! The windows of course +must be opened, fresh air must be let in, and fires must be lighted. +But think of you and me sitting here side by side talking before our +bedtime." + +Fires were lighted quickly, servants came in bearing candelabra in +their hands, and among them, and with Doris by my side, I imagined +myself a prince, for who is a prince but he who possesses the most +desirable thing in the world, who finds himself in the most delectable +circumstances? And what circumstance is more delightful than sitting +in a great shadowy bedroom, watching the logs burning, shedding their +grateful heat through the room, for the logs that were brought to us, +as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in +Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense +and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very +soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had +said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; +and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room +back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a +flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing tables, filled +with pigments and powders and glasses. + +There was one of those tables in the room, and I drew it from the +corner and raised its lid, the lid with the looking-glass in it. And I +liked the unpacking of her dressing-case, the discovery of a multitude +of things for bodily use, the various sponges; the flat sponge for the +face, the round sponge for the body, and the little sponges; all the +scissors and the powder for the nails, and the scents, the soft silks, +the lace scarfs, and the long silk nightgown soon to droop over her +shoulders. My description by no means exhausts the many things she +produced from her dressing-case and bags, nor would the most complete +catalogue convey an impression of Doris's cleanliness of her little +body! One would have to see her arranging her things, with her long +curved hands and almond nails carefully cut--they were her immediate +care, and many powders and ointments and polishers were called into +requisition. Some reader will cry that all this is most unimportant, +but he is either hypocritical or stupid, for it is only with scent and +silk and artifices that we raise love from an instinct to a passion. + +"I am longing," said Doris, "to see that beautiful red drawing-room +with all the candelabra lighted and half a dozen logs blazing on the +hearth. It is extraordinary how cold it is." + +To procure an impartial mind, bodily ease is necessary, and we sat on +either side of a splendid fire warming our toes. At the bottom of his +heart every Christian feels, though he may not care to admit it in +these modern days, that every attempt to make love a beautiful and +pleasurable thing is a return to paganism. In his eyes the only excuse +for man's love of woman is that without it the world would come to an +end. Why he should consider the end of the world a misfortune I have +never been able to find out, for if his creed be a true one the +principal use of this world is to supply Hell with fuel. He is never +weary of telling us that very few indeed may hope to get to Heaven. + +"But France is not a Christian country, and yet you see the high bed +has not become extinct," said Doris. + +Doris, who was doubtless feeling a little tired, sat looking into the +fire. Her attitude encouraged reverie; dream linked into dream till at +last the chain of dreams was broken by the entrance of the pink waiter +bringing in our dinner. In the afternoon I had called him an imbecile, +which made him very angry, and he had explained that he was not an +imbecile, but if I hurried him he lost his head altogether. Of course +one is sorry for speaking rudely to a waiter; it is a shocking thing +to do, and nothing but the appearance of the bedroom we were shown +into would excuse me. His garrulousness, which was an irritation in +the afternoon, was an amusement as he laid the cloth and told me the +bill of fare; moreover, I had to consult him about the wine, and I +liked to hear him telling me in his strong Southern accent of a +certain wine of the country, as good as Pomard and as strong, and +which would be known all over the world, only it did not bear +transportation. Remembering how tired we were, and the verse-- + + "Quand on boit du Pomard on devient bon on aime, + On devient aussi bon que le Pomard lui-même--" + +we drank, hoping that the wine would awaken us. But the effect of that +strong Southern wine seemed to be more lethargic than exhilarating, +and when dinner was over and we had returned to our seats by the +fireside we were too weary to talk, and too nervous. + +The next morning, the coffee and the rolls and butter were ready +before Doris, and the vexation of seeing the breakfast growing cold +was recompensed by the pleasure of teasing her, urging her to pass her +arms into her dressing-gown, to come as she was, it did not matter +what she had on underneath. The waiter did not count; he was not a +man, he was a waiter, a pink creature, pinker than anything in the +world, except a baby's bottom, and looking very like that. + +"Hasten, dear, hasten!" and I went back to the salon and engaged in +chatter with the old provincial, my English accent contrasting +strangely with his. It was the first time I had heard the Southern +accent. At Plessy I had heard all accents, Swiss, German, Italian; +there was plenty of Parisian accent there, and I had told a Parisian +flower-woman, whose husband was a Savoyard, that I declined to believe +any more in the Southern accent _"C'est une blague qu'on m'a +faite"_; but at Orelay I had discovered the true accent, and I +listened to the old man for the sake of hearing it. He was asking me +for my appreciation of the wine we had drunk last night when Doris +entered in a foamy white dressing-gown. + +"You liked the wine, dear, didn't you? He wants to know if we will +have the same wine for twelve-o'clock breakfast." + +"Dear me, it's eleven o'clock now," Doris answered, and she looked at +the waiter. + +"Monsieur and Madame will go for a little walk; perhaps you would like +to breakfast at one?" + +We agreed that we could not breakfast before one, and our waiter +suggested a visit to the cathedral--it would fill up the time +pleasantly and profitably; but Doris, when she had had her coffee, +wanted to sit on my knee and to talk to me; and then there was a +piano, and she wanted to play me some things, or rather I wanted to +hear her. But the piano was a poor one; the notes did not come back, +she said, and we talked for some hours without perceiving that the +time was passing. After lunch the waiter again inquired if we intended +to go for a little walk; there were vespers about four in the +cathedral. + +"It would do Monsieur and Madame good." + +"The walk or the cathedral?" we inquired, and, a little embarrassed, +the old fellow began to tell us that he had not been to the cathedral +for some years, but the last time he was there he had been much +impressed by the darkness. It was all he could do to find his way from +pillar to pillar; he had nearly fallen over the few kneeling women who +crouched there listening to the clergy intoning Latin verses. +According to his account there were no windows anywhere except high up +in the dome. And leaning his hands on the table, looking like all the +waiters that ever existed or that will ever exist, his _tablier_, +reaching nearly to his chin, upheld by strings passed over the +shoulders, he told us that it was impossible to see what was happening +in the chancel; but there had seemed to be a great number of clergy +seated in the darkness at the back, for one heard voices behind the +tall pieces of furniture singing Latin verses; one only heard the +terminations of the words, an "us" and a "noster," and words ending in +"e," and the organ always coming in a little late. + +"My good man," I said, "your description leaves nothing to be desired. +Why should I go to the cathedral unless to verify your impressions? I +am sure the service is exactly as you describe it, and I would not for +the world destroy the picture you have evoked of those forgotten +priests intoning their vespers in the middle of the granite church +behind a three-branched candlestick." + +The poor man left the room very much disconcerted, feeling, Doris +said, as if he had lost one of the forks. + +"Thank Heaven that matter is done with--a great weight is off my +mind." + +"But there is the museum. You would like to see that?" said Doris, and +a change came into my face. + +"Well, Doris, the waiter has told us that there is a celebrated study +by David in the museum, 'The Nymph of Orelay.'" + +"But, dear one, am I not your nymph of Orelay?" and Doris slipped on +her knees and put her arms about me. "Will I not do as well as the +painted creature in the museum?" + +"Far better," I said, "far better. Now we are free, Doris, freed from +the cathedral and from the museum. All the day belongs to us, and +to-morrow we may pass as we like." + +"And so we will," Doris said meditatively; and so we did, dear reader, +and I consider the time was well spent, for by so doing we avoided +catching cold, a thing easy to do when a mistral is blowing. It was +not until the following evening we remembered that time was always on +the wing, that our little bags would have to be packed. Next morning +we were going. + +"Going away by the train," Doris said regretfully. "Would we were +going away in a carriage! We shall leave Orelay knowing nothing of it +but this suite of apartments." + +"There is no reason why we should not drive," and I stopped packing my +bag, and stood looking at her. + +"I wonder if we should have stayed three days if we had not discovered +these rooms? Dear one, I think I should not have meant so much to you +in those humbler rooms: you attach much importance to these cornices +and hangings." + +"I should have loved you always, Doris, but I think I can love you +better here," and with our bags in our hands we wandered from the +bedroom into the drawing-room and stood admiring its bygone splendour. +"Doris, dear, you must play me 'The Nut Bush.' I want to hear it on +that old piano. Tinkle it, dear, tinkle it, and don't play 'The Nut +Bush' too sentimentally, nor yet too gaily." + +"Which way will you have it?" she asked; "'a true love's truth or a +light love's art'?" + +"I would have it dainty and fantastic as Schumann wrote it, 'only the +song of a secret bird.'" + +"With a pathos of loneliness in it?" + +"That is it," I cried, "that is the right time to play it in, without +stress on either side.... No, you mustn't leave the piano, Doris. +Sing me some songs. Go on singing Schumann or Schubert; there are no +other songs. Let me hear you sing 'The Moonlight' or 'The +Lotus-flower.' Schumann and Schubert were the singing birds of the +fifties; I love their romantic sentimentalities, orange gardens, south +winds, a lake with a pinnace upon it, and a nightingale singing in a +dark wood by a lonely shore; that is how they felt, how they dreamed." + +And resigning herself to my humour, she sang song after song till at +last, awaking from a long reverie of music and old association of +memories, I said, "Play me a waltz, Doris; I would hear an old-time +waltz played in this room; its romantic flourishes will evoke the +departed spirits." And very soon, sitting in my chair with half-closed +eyes, it seemed to me that I saw crinolines faintly gliding over the +floor, and white-stockinged feet, sloping shoulders and glistening +necks with chignons--swan-like women, and long-whiskered cavaliers +wearing peg-top trousers and braided coats dancing or talking with +them.... The music suddenly stopped and Doris said: + +"If we are to catch our train we must go on with our packing." + +"You mustn't talk to me of trains," and overcome with a Schumann-like +longing and melancholy I took her in my arms, overcome by her beauty. +She was perfection. No Chelsea or Dresden figure was ever more dainty, +gayer, or brighter. She was Schumann and Dresden, but a Dresden of an +earlier period than Schumann; but why compare her to anything? She was +Doris, the very embodiment of her name. + +"Ah, Doris, why are we leaving here? Why can't we remain here for +ever?" + +"It is strange," she said; "I feel the charm of those old stately +rooms as much as you do. But, dearest, we have missed the train." + +The pink waiter came up, I promised to hasten, but my love of Doris +delayed us unduly, and we arrived at the station only to hear that the +train had gone away some ten minutes before. The train that had left +was the only good train in the day, and missing it had given us +another twenty-four hours in Orelay; but Doris was superstitious. "Our +three days are done," she said; "if we don't go today we shall go +to-morrow, and to go on the fourth day would be unlucky. What shall we +do all day? The spell has been broken. We have left our hotel. Let us +take a carriage," she pleaded, "and drive to the next station. The sun +is shining, and the country is beautiful; we saw it from the railway, +a strange red country grey with olives, olive orchards extending to +the very foot of the mountains, and mingling with the pine trees +descending the slopes." + +"The slopes!" I said, "the precipitous sides of that high rock! Shall +I ever forget it, beginning like the tail of a lion and rising up to +the sky, towering above the level landscape like a sphinx." + +"The drive would be delightful!" + +"And it would be a continuation of the romance of the old Empire +drawing-room. A post-chaise would be the thing if we could discover +one." + +Sometimes Nature seems to conspire to carry out an idea, and though no +veritable post-chaise of old time was discovered in the coach-house +behind the courtyard in which the ilex trees flourished, we happened +to catch sight of a carriage some twenty-five or thirty years old, a +cumbersome old thing hung upon C springs, of the security of which the +coachman seemed doubtful. He spoke disparagingly, telling us that the +proprietor had been trying to sell it, but no one would buy it, so +heavy was it on the horses' backs, so out of fashion one was ashamed +to go out in it. The coachman's notions of beauty did not concern us, +but Doris dreaded lest one of the wheels should come off; however, on +examination it was found to be roadworthy, and I said to Doris as I +helped her into it: + +"If it be no post-chaise, at all events ladies wearing crinolines have +sat inside it, that is certain, and gentlemen wearing peg-top trousers +with braid upon them. Good God, Doris, if you were to wear a crinoline +I should love you beyond hope of repentance. Don't I remember when I +was a boy every one wore white stockings; I had only heard of black +ones, and I always hoped to meet a lady wearing black stockings... now +my hope is to meet one wearing white." + +"We might have searched the town for a crinoline and a pair of white +stockings." + +"Yes, and I might have discovered a black silk stock. I wonder how I +should have looked in it. Doris," I said, "we have missed the best +part of our adventure. We forgot to dress for the part we are playing, +the lovers of Orelay." + +Who will disagree with me when I say that no adventure is complete +unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, +high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress +himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some +strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of +these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and +believe it to be natural--the comedy that Doris and I played in the +old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, where we hoped to +breakfast. + +We could hardly speak for excitement. Doris thought of how she would +look in a crinoline, and I remembered the illustrations in an early +edition of Balzac of which I am the happy possessor. How nice the men +looked in the light trousers and the black stockings of the period; +and crossing my legs I followed with interest the line of my calf. +Somebody did that in "Les Illusions Perdues." She and I lay back +thinking which story in "The Human Comedy" was the most applicable to +our case; and the only one we could think of was when Madame Bargeton, +a provincial blue-stocking, left Angoulême for Paris with Lucien de +Rubempré. There were no railways in the forties; they must have +travelled in a post-chaise. Yes, I remember their journey, faintly it +is true, but I remember it. Madame Bargeton was a woman of +five-and-thirty at least, and Doris was much younger. Lucien was only +one-and-twenty, and even at that time I was more than that. The names +of these people and of the people they met at the theatre and in the +Tuileries Gardens--Rastignac, Madame d'Espard, the Duchess of +Chaulieu, Madame de Rochefide, and Canalis--carried my mind back from +crinolines and white stockings, from peg-top trousers and braided +coats, to the slim trousers that were almost breeches and to the +high-breasted gowns of the Restoration. Our mothers and fathers wore +the crinolines and the peg-top trousers, and our grandfathers the +tight trousers and the black silk stocks. The remembrance of these +costumes filled me with a tenderness and a melancholy I could not +subdue, and I could see that Doris was thinking of the same subject as +myself. + +We were thinking of that subject which interested men before history +began, the mutability of human things, the vanishing of generations. +Young as she was, Doris was thinking of death; nor is it the least +extraordinary she should, for as soon as any one has reached the age +of reflection the thought of death may come upon him at any moment, +though he be in the middle of a ballroom or lying in the arms of his +mistress. If the scene be a ballroom he has only to look outside, and +the night will remind him that in a few years he will enter the +eternal night; or if the scene be a bedroom the beautiful face of his +mistress may perchance remind him of another whose face was equally +beautiful and who is now under the earth; lesser things will suffice +to recall his thoughts from life to death, a rose petal falling on a +marble table, a dead bird in the path as he walks in his garden. And +after the thought of death the most familiar thought is the decay of +the bodily vesture. The first grey hair may seem to us an amusing +accident, but very few years will pass before another and yet another +appear, and if these do not succeed in reminding us that decay has +begun, a black speck on a tooth cannot fail to do so; and when we go +to the dentist to have it stopped we have begun to repair artificially +the falling structure. The activity of youth soon passes, and its +slenderness. I remember still the shock I felt on hearing an athlete +say that he could no longer run races of a hundred yards; he was half +a second or a quarter of a second slower than he was last year. I +looked at him saying, "But you are only one-and-twenty," and he +answered, "Yes, that is it." A football player I believe is out of +date at eight-and-twenty. Out of date! What a pathos there is in the +words--out of date! _Suranné_, as the French say. How are we to +render it in English? By the beautiful but artificial word +"yester-year"? Yester-year perhaps, for a sorrow clings about it; it +conveys a sense of autumn, of "the long decline of roses." There is +something ghostlike in the out-of-date. The landscape about Plessy had +transported us back into antiquity, making us dream of nymphs and +dryads, but the gilt cornices and damask hangings and the salon at +Orelay had made us dream of a generation ago, of the youth of our +parents. Ancient conveys no personal meaning, but the out-of-date +transports us, as it were, to the stern of the vessel, throws us into +a mournful attitude; we lean our heads upon our hands and, looking +back, we see the white wake of the vessel with shores sinking in the +horizon and the crests of the mountains passing away into the clouds. + +While musing on these abstract questions raised by my remark that we +had not managed our adventure properly, since we had forgotten to +provide ourselves with proper costumes, the present suddenly thrust +itself upon me. + +"Good God!" I said to Doris, "let us look back, for we shall never see +Orelay again!" and she from one window, and I from the other, saw the +spires of Orelay for the last time. We could not tear ourselves away, +but fortunately the road turned; Orelay was blotted out from our sight +for ever, and we sank back to remember that a certain portion of our +lives was over and done, a beautiful part of our lives had been thrown +into the void, into the great rubble-heap of emotions that had been +lived through, that are no more. + +"Of what are you thinking, dear? You have been far away. This is the +first time we have been separated, and we are not yet five miles from +Orelay." + +"Five miles! Ah, if it were only five!" + +We did not speak for a long time, and watching the midday sun, I +thought that peradventure it was not farther from us than yesterday. +Were I to say so to Doris she would answer, "It will be the same in +Paris," but if she did it would be the first falsehood she had told +me, for we both knew that things are never the same; things +change--for better or worse, but they change. + +This last sentence seems to me somewhat trite, and if I were to +continue this story any further my pen would run into many other +superficial and facile observations, for my mind is no longer +engrossed with the story. I no longer remember it; I do not mean that +I do not remember whether we got to Verlancourt, whether we had +breakfast, or whether we drove all the way to Paris with relays of +horses. I am of course quite certain about the facts: we breakfasted +at Verlancourt, and after breakfast we asked the coachman whether he +would care to go on to Paris with us; he raised his eyes--"The +carriage is a very old one, surely, Monsieur----" Doris and I laughed, +for, truth to tell, we had been so abominably shaken that we were glad +to exchange the picturesque old coach of our fathers' generation for +the train. + +These stories are memories, not inventions, and an account of the days +I spent in Paris would interest nobody; all the details are forgotten, +and invention and remembrance do not agree any better than the goat +and the cabbage. So, omitting all that does not interest me--and if it +does not interest me how can it interest the reader?--I will tell +merely that my adventure with Doris was barren of scandal or +unpleasant consequences. Her mother, a dear unsuspicious +woman--whether her credulity was the depth of folly or the depth of +wisdom I know not; there are many such mothers, my blessing be upon +them!--took charge of her daughter, and Doris and her mother returned +to England. I am afraid that when I confess that I did not speak to +Doris of marriage I shall forfeit the good opinion of my reader, who +will, of course, think that a love story with such an agreeable +creature as Doris merited a lifetime of devotion; but I pray the +reader to discover an excuse for me in the fact that Doris had told me +when we were at Plessy that there was no question of her marrying any +one but Albert. Had she not sacrificed the great love of her life in +order that she might remain constant to Albert? Is it to be expected, +then, that having done that, she would put Albert aside and throw her +lot in with mine? She might have done this; men and women act +inconsequently. Having on one occasion refused to drop the mutton chop +for the shadow, on the next occasion they would drop it for the shadow +of the shadow; but Doris was made of sterner stuff, and some months +afterwards she wrote me a steady, sensible little letter telling me +that she was going to be married, and that it seemed to her quite +natural that she should marry Albert. Years have passed away, and +nothing has happened to lead me to believe that she has not proved a +true and loving wife. Albert has always told me that he found all the +qualities in her which he had foreseen from the first time he looked +upon her pretty, sparkling face. Frown not, reader; accuse me not of +superficial cynicism! Albert is part of the world's inheritance. You +may be Albert yourself--every one has been or will be Albert; Albert +is in us all, just as I am in you all. Doris, too, is in you, dear +lady who sit reading my book--Doris my three-days mistress at Orelay, +and Doris the faithful spouse of Albert for twenty years in a lonely +London suburb. + +Study and boudoir would like to know if Doris had any children. About +two years afterwards I heard that she was "expecting." The word came +up spontaneously in my mind, perhaps because I had written it in the +beginning of the story. Reader, do you remember in "Massimilla Doni" +how Balzac, when he came to the last pages, declares that he dare not +tell you the end of the adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for +the worshippers of the ideal--_Massimilla Doni_ was "expecting." +I have not read the story for many years, but the memory of it shines +in my mind bright--well, as the morning star; and I looked up this +last paragraph when I began to write this story, but had to excuse +myself for not translating it, my pretext being that I was baffled by +certain grammatical obscurities, or what seemed to me such. I seemed +to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that +"_les peuplades de cent cathédrales gothiques_" (which might be +rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals), +"_tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir à +vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques filles +incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent!_" What puzzles me is why statues should break their +forms (_form_ I suppose should be translated by _mould_)--break +their moulds--the expression seems very inadequate--break their +moulds "in order to go to you, great imaginative artists." How +could they break their moulds or their forms to go to the +imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift of +the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if +he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas +and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of +_Massimilla_ to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little +tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage: + +"Les péris, les ondines, les fées, les sylphides du vieux temps, les +muses de la Grèce, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le +Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le +premier mit au bas des tableaux d'église, et que Raphaël a faits si +divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gèle +a Dresde, les délicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'église de +San-Michele à Florence, les chœurs célestes du tombeau de Saint Sébald +à Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent +cathédrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur +forme pour venir à vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques +filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + + +There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I +remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of +Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool +in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, +of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the +foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the +picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my +copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been +promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has +abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some +Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a +sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, +and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking +of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it. + +After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half +satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that +awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the +Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for +breakfast in a queer little café; the meal cost us about a shilling. +On my return from this café soon after twelve--I had breakfasted early +that morning--I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could +not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and +the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw +myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in +the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, +smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself. + +Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, +whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards--the Rue de Rivoli, +the Rue de la Paix--knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April +playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great +stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts +embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city +that lies far away behind the Hôtel de Ville and behind the Boulevard +St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely +visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; +but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sévigné, and did not care +whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the +Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel +interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old +French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty +tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the +high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I +tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one +forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always +seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful +domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, +like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries +to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. +One cannot view it--I cannot, at least--without thinking of the great +monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have +learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his +"Étude de Catherine de Médicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and +I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de +Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte +Bouverand de la Loyère, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coëtlogon, +La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other +names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. +I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in +the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious +and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the +names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain +that others bearing equally noble names lived there. + +Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth +century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the +Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his +house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most +interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind +to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient +to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion +that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such +sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame +together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the +historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the +sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that +Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this +somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I +looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight +flickered. + +But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the +beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, +tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young +blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I +could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and +single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the +sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are +statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single +figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every +thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of +statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; +no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always +reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was +the only world. + +When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight +than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately +flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone +basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these +gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills +where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his +arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these +gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, +after admiring Frémiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, +appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved +to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken. + +"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, +idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've +been working all day." + +"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might +interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could +not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came +every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread +from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny +little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, +seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin +Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing +the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The +strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their +charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the +beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench +eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?--a model no doubt come from a +studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an _exalté_ or a +_fumist_; a very innocent _fumist_ if he were one, not one +of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know +that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the +frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met +an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, +playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty +April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, +telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to +dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first +opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the +life of the Quarter, in _le bal Bullier_, in my stories of +grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every +student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long +frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his +slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a +week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the +boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes +were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes +Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I +thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, +and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband +still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and +then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her +movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for +her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost +disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her +eyebrows were black, and they nearly met. + +The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner--we had come by +chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother +was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked +very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She +had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her +face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner +her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent +and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk." + +"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that +lovely two-step?" + +Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, +but she had not played many bars before her daughter said: + +"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us." + +I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; +an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not +want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any +opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn +Cake Walk," I said: + +"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?" + +The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague +expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it +was indifference or stupidity. + +"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She +plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life." + +"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate +and----" + +"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play +something for me. + +"I haven't got my keys--they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me +alone; I'm thinking of other things." + +Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred +looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the +illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about +foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a +small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much +better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not +know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else +why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met +some nice Englishmen, but Yankees--oh! Yankees! There was one at +Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are +they not? There was one at Cannes. + +"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I +am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was +given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be +upon me if I gave it away." + +"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her." + +"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always +get sick of me if they see me two days running." + +"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it." + +"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true." + +Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully +than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and +a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked +less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I +could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was +searching for an excuse to send her to bed. + +"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?" + +"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it." + +Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" +but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and +had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face +appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said: + +"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!" + +She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper: + +"Not a word. He's my fiancé, and mother doesn't know he's here. She +does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank +you; you played that sonata very nicely." + +"Won't you play, my dear?" + +"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day." + +And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room +to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when +she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened. + +"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiancé, +and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell +mamma. He said _'Foi de gentilhomme,_' so I suppose it's all +right." + +"Why not have your fiancé in here? I'm going to bed." + +"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my +bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't +matter what people say." + +A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my +shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me +through the open door she said: + +"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I +know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the +world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre +with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?" + +"I never split on any one." + +"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without +leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. +Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to +her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner." + +Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door. + +"_Entré!_" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for +you in the salon." + +When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married +Donald, or said she had. + +"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to +go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we +might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting +to-day?" + +"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never +seen Madame de Sévigné's house." + +"Who is she?" + +"The woman who wrote the famous letters." + +"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books." + +"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the +morning." + +There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out +with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human +that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I +told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sévigné's house. The reader +doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sévigné's +house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her +remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris +wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's +memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it +without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I +felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when +we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent +the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for +her. Madame de Sévigné and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated +ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity +of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that +evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat +in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April +sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these +things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my +mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just +when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens +with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet +we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows +how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the +gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, +thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, +and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and +statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to +find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little +mamma suspected anything. + +"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?" + +"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I +think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit." + +As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past +life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but +since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He +had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a +merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and +just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a +purse of five pounds. + +She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her +attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the +painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to +remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like +his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, +laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young +naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey +sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred +said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. +"He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: +I hate a little man." + +We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation +occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and +I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called +away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me +that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for +she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to +wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the +sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had +posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; +sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore +open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried +to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought +rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could +not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is +antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early +in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed +here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, +notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we +are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. +To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each +other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of +the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the +river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for +her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take +an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these +floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries--how could it be +otherwise since I was there with Mildred?--and I began to argue that +it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind +to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying +like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence. + +"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the +knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater +length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to +the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?" + +"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A +short tibia is not pretty." + +A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that +we are going to Italy next week?" + +"Yes, you told me." + +Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the +statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. +She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same +square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the +square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, +he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days +before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had +become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in +putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice. + +"But you like Donald much better than Toby?" + +"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all +about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do +look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made +Rodin put a woman in that position." + +She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. +Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the +statue was "La Danaide." + +"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his +sculpture may be sometimes called _l'article de Paris_. It is +occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great +exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the +back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the +same." + +"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. +Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about +lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of +these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all +these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no +change." + +"Do you think so? I wonder." + +"Do you doubt it?" + +"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my +life." + +"Not even Donald?" + +"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after +we arrived?" + +"Your wedding night?" + +"Yes, my wedding night." + +We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl +was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she +did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, +she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an +exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and +her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her +instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught +sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little +dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only +floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of +a stream. + +"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be +good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has +been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you +to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma +will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my +nerves." + +"You play the violin, don't you?" + +"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think +was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if +this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or +to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the +hotel." + +"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would +amuse you." + +"I wish I were a grisette." + +"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have +to get on with my painting." + +That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the +morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and +as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away. + +"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, +and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told +you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here." + +"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in +yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to +everybody else as they are to you." + +"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the +first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was +because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that +you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--" + +My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark +was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before +I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you +said--" + +"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like +to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it +would not have mattered to you if I had." + +She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her +seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender +it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or +if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her +fiddle-case with her? + +"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play +now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it." + +These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew +that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing +might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should +sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald. + +"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me." + +"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How +pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight +flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water +dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. +Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case." + +"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I +thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow +morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma +would want to accompany me." + +"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!" + +"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to +anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with +hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end +of the alley reciting his verses. + +"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him." + +"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; +I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour +for playing until your remark about--" + +"About what?" + +"You know very well," she answered. + +The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. +The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the +translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts +into another age. I began to see a picture--myself, the poet, and +this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to +make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet +intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading +his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose +lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed +the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini +whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a +man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why +describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because +its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I +dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive +suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my +pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred +to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must +happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without +sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of +violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and +in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, +advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played +the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined +the others, playing as she danced. + +"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if +they'll let me." + +Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred +as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander +and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up +their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. +Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these +three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one +enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a +noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at +last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode +of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house +which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking +together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the +fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of +mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would +not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune +awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust +the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She +stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so +much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that +God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. +This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be +danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges." + +"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the +youngest sister. + +"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, +and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the +Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine--the true gavotte as it was +danced when Madame de Sévigné drove up in a painted coach drawn by six +horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon." + +This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to +the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the +fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves +along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte +tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the +sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between +the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the +fashion of the time--the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! +How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old +women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until +the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. +After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing +a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before--in +church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long +phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of +Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its +way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has +desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred +could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing +that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? +Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an +echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious +self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged +in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by +another. + +She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and +then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to +play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it +seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady +in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred +Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been +unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows +not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the +ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament--how well Mildred played +it!--followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul +upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in +elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet +saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is +different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but +just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are +deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as +shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things +exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that +hears? + +A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the +great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as +well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of +the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing +and returned to me. + +"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?" + +"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't +play the 'Impassionata.'" + +"Why aren't you always like this?" + +"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I +play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great +deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it." + +We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at +all, thinking of the music. + +"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. +Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall +meet again some day." + +"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and +you're not often in the mood." + +"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better----" + +"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch +you?" + +"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money." + +"And you'll fall in love with some one else?" + +"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this +week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I +like those collars; they have just come out--those turned-down ones. +Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about +three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move +their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour +she liked best--violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor +Donald! He's so handsome." + +After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before +we reached the hotel she who had played--I cannot say for certain what +she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was +not then fully awakened; could it have been?--the names of Bach and +Chopin come up in my mind--"I can't speak about music," she said, as +we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel +possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to +play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," +as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she +looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the +line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic +look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the +hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday. + +"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the +office I saw a Yank--oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather +boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But +presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and +put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So +I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did." + + * * * * * + +I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of +her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose +individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived +many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to +me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing +anything to destroy the mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A REMEMBRANCE + + +It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the +first time--saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. +The next time was in her own home--a farm-house that had been rebuilt +and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy +thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of +harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be +coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted +with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the +parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his +pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down +their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was +effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned +eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day +I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to +study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the +value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of +interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she +passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere +belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had +wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The +Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared +that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest +of the family--another was invented which appealed more to their +imagination--but she held to the name she had given me, and during the +course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. + +There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these +people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we +seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly +there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth +was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw +and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds +when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl +and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was +aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, +and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred +yards--an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the +seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than +shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of +the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might +an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking +up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought +at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by +chance in London. + +Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had +left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was +the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, +walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came +upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part +and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; +life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become +distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was +surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had +appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an +age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and +effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years +older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought +each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became +companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I +liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in +the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded +poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an +old gipsy woman." + +"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet." + +She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. +"It is a regular show." + +"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I +like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to +Brighton." + +"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk." + +"I think I like you equally well at all times." + +We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our +friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you +half as much when I knew you first?" + +"How was that? I was quite a young woman then." + +"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that +time I was a mere boy--I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed +around me." + +"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw +in me was a woman with a grown-up son." + +Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she +said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on +the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate +teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on +that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of +age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I +admired. + +One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown +paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old +_Athenaeums_. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I +could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the +_Athenaeum_ in a house where never a book was read. I looked at +the dates--three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was +gathering some withering apples from the floor. + +"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the +_Athenaeum_ here?" + +"Oh, they are my _Athenaeums_," she said. "I always used to read +the _Athenaeum_ when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. +You must have heard of him--he wrote that famous book about the +Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used +to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built +over now." + +This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us +closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the +odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her +girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her. + +"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you +then I should have asked you to marry me." + +"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read +books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of +books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should +have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father +thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look +after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted +to help us." + +At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them +when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six +months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. +The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I +used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If +I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at +dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate +intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was +in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her +from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain +till this hour in the garden?" + +I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight +confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness +became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would +accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation +with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for +her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to +London. + +The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the +waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in +truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are +some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was +endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on +you over the brink of the grave. + +We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came +back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she +remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her +sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, +and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew +better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of +movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the +old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, +coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the +library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable +drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up +in pieces of paper. + +"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a +girl of fifteen." + +She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old +woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more +to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so +does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something +strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent +charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, +at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time +had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an +affection that formal man knows not of. + +I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. +Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought +it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent +long hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely +on her back, and we supplicated--I was the foremost among her +supplicators--that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and +fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and +to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one +of those who would do everything herself--who thought that if she did +not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of +her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, +everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to +make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work +where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it +became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our +friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, +and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that +with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the +present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I +spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, +looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be +saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to +her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting +through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the +fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in +in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her +husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw +the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, +soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been +married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used +all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I +remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, +Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the +little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet +the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful +with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking +out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, +with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who +was to die. + +"Is it then incurable?" + +"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only +stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, +and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end." + +"Then there is no hope?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Can she live for five years?" + +"I should think it extremely improbable." + +"What length of life do you give her?" + +"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year." + +The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly +sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. +That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, +very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: +"Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my +work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters +telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death +grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in +person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter +came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the +winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another +month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at +once." + +It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the +Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its +jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station +shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and +beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for +the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and +welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping +in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How +is she?" + +"Very bad indeed, sir." + +She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we +waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what +remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these +lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into +disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great +our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other +things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not +escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we +commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will +not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over +Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." +Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is +dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts." + +One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my +return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, +and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." +I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came +downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before +she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before +sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor +arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little +child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was +given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were +glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing +grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she +was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were +collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains +undone! How will they get on without me!" + +I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and +expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving +wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of +sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when +they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And +during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her +dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not +be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but +it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the +price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered +with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed +with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember +the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of +the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral +procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on +a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line +and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on +my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old +church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn +village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees +showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were +discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's +arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the +grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the +altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked +unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, +impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into +that comfortless hole. + +The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the +deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable +and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those +who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology +to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered +to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely +disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young +corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, +larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we +approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded +pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at +the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that +anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to +cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, +dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its +way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had +loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a +shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the +pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered +that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her +he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely +personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the +world offering to its creatures. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BRING IN THE LAMP + + +For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the +landscape reminds me of a somnambulist--the same silence, the same +mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even +the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The +hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, +the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night +a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were +few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars +hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last +days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. +At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no +doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves +hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, +and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say +whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the +blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks +in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, +benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a +painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are +forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins +in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or +little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last +seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, +or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of +pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his +writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are +written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker +green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when +his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh +forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his +garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than +the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories +any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? +Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium +which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and +his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the +easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will +seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the +horse is pumping water--water is necessary; but art, even if his work +is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary +to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world +can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that +is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have +to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts +say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, +otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He +asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an +idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! +Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His +thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It +would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South +America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. +He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to +horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by +the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping +through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by +leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the +air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But +if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can +the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? +His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the +evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell +of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. +No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to +write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story +shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it +forming part of the procession of things? The best part of +story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of +church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long +tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the +homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps +the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage +enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire +lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch +of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in +his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze +of the flesh the spirit awakes. What--is the story coming now? Yes; it +is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take +shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he +sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young +men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to +the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a +waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him--a +waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since +forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he +able to remember that _coda_, and it comes with a scent of +violets in it--the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she +dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice +was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear _crêpe de +chime_, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill +about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after +marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of +the world, from America--Baltimore will do as well as any other, +perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion +whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by +mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her +come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street--Cathedral +Street--there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of +the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose +Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an +informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her +husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be +dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass +between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the +dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and +women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the +women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon +her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook +between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. +She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or +jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are +these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should +take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her +dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to +keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A +little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material +existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that +one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the +Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no +denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious +than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is +rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what +we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is +going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are +going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as +he passes the _concierge's_ lodge, pitying the poor couple +asleep--what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience +the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, +words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his +writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song +moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume--the +handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a +rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her +tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him--where? No better place +for lovers than the garden of L'Église de la Trinité. His night passes +in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking +he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how +carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him +better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet +or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and +what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five +going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and +forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Église de la Trinité? He knows +she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at +ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the +nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another +occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the +prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of +existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. +He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have +done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the +gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in +black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover +going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, +hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to +breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common +pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on +the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of +the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her +that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is +whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going +to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been +there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place +where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be +again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they +go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast. + +The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding--like +gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining--all is +omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What +a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance +in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket--he must read +it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty +years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees +and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon--for +all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is +made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object +of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, +to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. +Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the +blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable +setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits--the dreamer +can see her on the warm grass--hidden as well as she can hide herself +behind some bushes, the black crêpe dress hiding her feet or +pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears +white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little +black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; +the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young +man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem +pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her +affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the +night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him +many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to +bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the +beauty of her blond hair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + May flowers are not more sweet + Than the shower of loosened hair + That will fall around my feet. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "The golden curls they paint, + Round the forehead of a saint, + Ne'er glittered half so bright + As thy enchanted hair, + Full of shadow, full of light. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair, + And weave a web of gold + Of thy enchanted hair, + Till all be in its hold. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair." + +"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by +'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a +web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'--do you mean unloose my hair?" + + "Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds + Qui sont si lourds et si longs. + +"How well it goes with French!" + +"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you +know, I like it very much!" + +It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the +mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that +it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he +sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers +the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly +sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries +to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was +reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked +him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he +must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had +she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is +not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote +that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the +phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should +think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man +prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be +paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her +hair unwreathed. + +"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" +and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer +can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, +how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! +On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be +doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he +refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of +Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has +just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a +bench at a little distance. + +"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us." + +"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, +before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed." + +Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away +even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. +The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He +insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from +him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the +season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get +something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet. + +Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this +restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a _cabinet +particulier_, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, +would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over +with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear +reader, if you are expecting a _cabinet particulier_ in this +story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page +at once--you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains +nothing that will shock your--shall I say your "prudish +susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured +American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the +great long _salle_ lined with tables, and they were attended by +an army of waiters weary of their leisure. + +There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it +and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes +of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty +reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished +story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, +how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a +sensual _dénouement_ be a better end than, let us say, that the +lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an +accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at +the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers +of Vincennes rushing into one of the _concierge's_ lodges at the +gates of the villas. + +"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon." + +But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three +umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for +herself. + +"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes." + +"No more I do." + +"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that +Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)." + +"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go--it will be +rather fun." + +"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?" + +"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?" + +The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex +mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them +clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the +villa to the _perron_--an explicit word that the English language +lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at +Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both +a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? +A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their +host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered +sofas and chairs. + +A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller +could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller +would see at once that _le bon bourgeois et sa dame_ and the +children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for +the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that +the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the +rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers +from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After +dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of +neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose +than that it was _la bourgeoise's_ evening at home? The young +couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own +sweet selves. _Le bourgeois et sa dame_ would watch them with +kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there +were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined +that they must depart, _le bourgeois_ and _la bourgeoise_ +would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no +possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little +situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage--on the +French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman +to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with +the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, +"did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in +allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished +story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had +acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not +being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say +how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous +thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The +situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not +happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that +the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their +adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made +to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or +the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already +taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end +of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between +us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a +big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It +would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' +invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an +impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun +again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the +train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did +not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all +with the _bourgeois et sa dame_, and the dear little widow might +never have known her fate--O happy fate!--until the time came for them +to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the +rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come +back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he +must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should +give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in +the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next +time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the +story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a +year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know +that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief +which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps +some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am +sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had +taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he +wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so +well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was +not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty +years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, +and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but +change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always +overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a +stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are +pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the +unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there +is no hope, not a particle. + + * * * * * + +I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my +feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there +no light? Bring in the lamp!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + + +Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? +Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or +ten at the Café Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on +the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on +the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the +tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps +spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we +will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the +reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the +unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives +resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom +and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely +thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we +are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are +together. + +At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to +put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if +he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom +shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and +after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the +northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's +Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who +will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round +of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin +with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is +interesting company he seeks. + +It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how +different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was +Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins +about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that +evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had +enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences +refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and +the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass +the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was +to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in +St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had +fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been +divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along +the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or +seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of landscape-gardening +is more akin to the art of a musician than to that of +a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The +formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by +Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the +Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a +boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, +but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but +after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the +silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight +stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the +shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so +beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy +to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, +ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled +shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. +Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead--that was his fault; but +Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the +pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows +are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great +designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples--those +pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? +Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist +and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from +Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his +own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say. + +Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the +tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in +illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to +look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards +shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I +may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what +interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's +Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset--there is the lake, and, +led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of +Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts +occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of +the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little +life of the ponds--the ducks going hither and thither, every duck +intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely +fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more +beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of +the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage +hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the +ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century +couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was +to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies +are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, +too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main +business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all +returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was +surely because it was part of me--not that part known to my friends; +our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they +discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or +herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply +interested in the fact when attention was called to it.... + +I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying--solemnly silent +and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a +breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! +In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more +beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very +subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness +did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like +plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the +deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park +for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. +But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures +flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of +festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which +all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered +dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that +they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the +sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, +great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the +fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing +and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, +the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the +satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged +for a guitar. + +As the twilight gathered under the plane trees my vision became more +mixed and morbid, and I hardly knew if the picture I saw was the +picture in the Dulwich Gallery or the exquisite picture in the Louvre, +"Une Assemblée dans la Parc." We all know that picture, the gallants +and the ladies by the water-side, and the blue evening showing through +the tall trees. The picture before me was like that picture, only the +placing of the trees and the slope of the greensward did not admit of +so extended a composition. A rough tree-trunk, from which a great +branch had been broken or lopped off, stood out suddenly in very +nineteenth-century naturalness, awaking the ghost of a picture which I +recognised at once as Corot. Behind the tree a tender, evanescent sky, +pure and transparent as the very heart of a flower, rose up, filling +the park with romance, and as the sunset drooped upon the water, my +soul said, "The Lake!" Ah, the pensive shadow that falls from the +hills on either side of "The Lake," leaving the middle of the picture +suffused with a long stream of light, narrowing as it approached the +low horizon. But the line of the trees on the hither side of this +London lake was heavier than the spiritual trees in the picture +entitled "By the Water-side," and there was not anywhere the beauty of +the broken birch that leans over the lake in "Le Lac de Garde." Then I +thought of "The Ravine," for the darkening island reminded me of the +hillside in the picture. But the St. James's Park sky lacked the +refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, +low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the +right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the +difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is +anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity--self! Therefore +not quite so interesting as a good Corot. + +So did I chatter to myself as I walked toward the bridge, that dear +bridge, thrown straight as a plank across the lake, with numerous +water-fowl collected there, a black swan driving the ducks about, +snatching more than his due share of bread, and little children +staring stolidly, afraid of the swan, and constantly reproved by their +mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A +little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the +waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their +webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round +the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with +outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into +the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, which +the night instantly obliterated. + +An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. +One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise +after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we +like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all +our poets and priests. + +The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding +me that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining +alone I should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had +not lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, +and meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the +absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting +with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it +would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the +dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one +appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young +man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we +went to a restaurant to talk art. + +"After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about +the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women +hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them +all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an +enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the +ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me +extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last +that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all +socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which +obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that +somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight +London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent +Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of +his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." + + * * * * * + +The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken +sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... +I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I +said: + +"He reminds me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping +sensualities of his phrase--his one phrase--how descriptive it is of +the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's +muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on +silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of +embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries of bronze lamps. Or, +maybe, the scene passes on a terrace overlooking a dark river. Behind +the domes and minarets a yellow moon dreams like an odalisque, her +hand on the circle of her breast; and through the torrid silence of +the garden, through the odour of over-ripe fruit and the falling sound +thereof, comes the melancholy warble of a fountain. Or is it the +sorrow of lilies rising through the languid air to the sky? The night +is blue and breathless; the spasms of the lightning are intermittent +among the minarets and the domes; the hot, fierce fever of the garden +waxes in the almond scent of peaches and the white odalisques +advancing, sleek oracles of mood.... He reminds me of the dark-eyed +Bohemian who comes into a tavern silently, and, standing in a corner, +plays long, wild, ravishing strains. I see him not, I hardly hear him; +my thoughts are far away; my soul slumbers, desiring nothing. I care +not to lift my head. Why should I break the spell of my meditations? +But I feel that his dark eyes are fixed upon me, and little by little, +in spite of my will, my senses awake; a strange germination is in +progress within me; thoughts and desires that I dread, of whose +existence in myself I was not aware, whose existence in myself I would +fain deny, come swiftly and come slowly, and settle and absorb and +become part of me.... Fear is upon me, but I may not pause; I am +hurried on; repudiation is impossible, supplication and the wringing +of hands are vain; God has abandoned me; my worst nature is uppermost. +I see it floating up from the depths of my being, a viscous scum. But +I can do nothing to check or control.... God has abandoned me.... I am +the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable +fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him +all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The +Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and +forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, +its mankind and its godkind--surely it is nearer to life! Or go into +the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! +We are nearer life lying by a shady brook, hearing the quail in the +meadows and the yellow-hammer in the thicket, than we are now, under +this oppressive sky. This street is like Klinsor's garden; here, too, +are flower-maidens--patchouli, jessamine, violet. Here is the +languorous atmosphere of "Parsifal." Come, let us go; let us seek the +country, the moon-haunted dells we shall see through Piccadilly +railings. Have you ever stood in the dip of Piccadilly and watched the +moonlight among the trees, and imagined a comedy by Wycherley acted +there, a goodly company of gallants and fine ladies seated under the +trees watching it? Every one has come there in painted sedan-chairs; +the bearers are gathered together at a little distance." + +"My dear friend, you're talking so much that you don't see those who +are passing us. That girl, she who has just turned to look back, +favours heliotrope; it is delicious still upon the air; she is as +pretty a girl as any that ever came in a sedan-chair to see a comedy +by Wycherley. The comedy varies very little: it is always the same +comedy, and it is always interesting. The circus in a sultry summer +night under a full moon is very like Klinsor's garden. Come, if you be +not _Parsifal_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RESURGAM + + +I was in London when my brother wrote telling me that mother was ill. +She was not in any immediate danger, he said, but if a change for the +worse were to take place, and it were necessary for me to come over, +he would send a telegram. A few hours after a telegram was handed to +me. It contained four words: "_Come at once.--Maurice._" "So +mother is dying," I muttered to myself, and I stood at gaze, +foreseeing myself taken into her room by a nurse and given a chair by +the bedside, foreseeing a hand lying outside the bed which I should +have to hold until I heard the death-rattle and saw her face become +quiet for ever. + +This was my first vision, but in the midst of my packing, I remembered +that mother might linger for days. The dear friend who lies in the +church-yard under the downs lingered for weeks; every day her husband +and her children saw her dying under their eyes: why should not this +misfortune be mine? I know not to what God, but I prayed all night in +the train, and on board the boat; I got into the train at the +Broadstone praying. It is impossible, at least for me, to find words +to express adequately the agony of mind I endured on that journey. +Words can only hint at it, but I think that any one possessed of any +experience of life, or who has any gift of imagination, will be able +to guess at the terror that haunted me--terror of what?--not so much +that my mother might die, nor hope that she might live, but just that +I might arrive in time to see her die. In this confession I am afraid +I shall seem hard and selfish to some; that will be because many +people lack imagination, or the leisure to try to understand that +there are not only many degrees of sensibility, but many kinds, and it +is doubtful if any reader can say with truth any more than that my +sensibility is not his or hers. It is my privilege to be sympathetic +with ideas I do not share, and in certain moods I approach those who +take a sad pleasure in last words, good-byes, and at looking on the +dead. In my present mood it seems to me that it is not unlikely that +my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in +imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can +be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of +what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our +perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. +There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we +should not be able to live at all. + +But to the journey. How shall I tell it? The third part must have been +the most painful, so clearly do I remember it: the curious agony of +mind caused by a sudden recognition of objects long forgotten--a tree +or a bit of bog-land. The familiar country, evocative of a great part +of my childhood, carried my thoughts hither and thither. My thoughts +ranged like the swallows; the birds had no doubt just arrived, and in +swift elliptical flights they hunted for gnats along the banks of the +old weedy canal. That weedy canal along which the train travelled took +my thoughts back to the very beginning of my life, when I stood at the +carriage window and plagued my father and mother with questions +regarding the life of the barges passing up and down. And it was the +sudden awakenings from these memories that were so terrible--the +sudden thrust of the thought that I was going westward to see my +mother die, and that nothing could save her from death or me from +seeing her die. Perhaps to find one's self suddenly deprived of all +will is the greatest suffering of all. How many times did I say to +myself, "Nothing can save me unless I get out at the next station," +and I imagined myself taking a car and driving away through the +country! But if I did such a thing I should be looked upon as a +madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think +how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were +selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it +all, must be perhaps the greatest part of their pain. + +The morning was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I used +to catch myself thinking out a picturesque expression to describe it. +It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked +so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast +feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton +made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to +provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on +instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself +plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility of keeping one's +thoughts fixed on any one subject for any considerable length of time. +At the end of these reflections I fell back, wondering, again asking +if I were really destined to watch by my mother's death-bed. That day +I seemed to become a sheer mentality, a sort of buzz of thought, and I +could think of myself only as of a fly climbing a glass dome. It +seemed to me that I was like a fly climbing and falling back, buzzing, +and climbing again. "Never," I said to myself, "have I been more than +a fly buzzing in a glass dome. And, good Lord, who made the glass +dome?" How often did I ask myself that question, and why it was made, +and if it were going to endure for ever! + +In such sore perplexity of mind questions from anybody would be +intolerable, and I shrank back into the corner of the carriage +whenever a passer-by reminded me, however vaguely, of anybody I had +ever known; the mental strain increased mile after mile, for the names +of the stations grew more familiar. I began to try to remember how +many there were before we arrived at Claremorris, the station at which +I was going to get out. Half an hour afterward the train slackened, +the porter cried out "Ballyhaunis." The next would be Claremorris, and +I watched every field, foreseeing the long road, myself on one side of +the car, the driver on the other; a two hours' drive in silence or in +talk--in talk, for I should have to tell him my errand.... He might be +able to tell me about my mother, if the news of her illness had got as +far as Claremorris. At the public-house where I went to get a car I +made inquiries, but nothing was known. My mother must have fallen ill +suddenly--of what? I had not heard she was ailing; I did not remember +her ever to have been ill. At that moment some trees reminded me that +we were close to Ballyglass, and my thoughts wandered away to the long +road on the other side of the hill, and I saw there (for do we not +often see things in memory as plainly as if they were before us?) the +two cream-coloured ponies, Ivory and Primrose, she used to drive, and +the phaeton, and myself in it, a little child in frocks, anxious, +above all things, to see the mail-coach go by. A great sight it was to +see it go by with mail-bags and luggage, the guard blowing a horn, the +horses trotting splendidly, the lengthy reins swinging, and the +driver, his head leaned a little on one side to save his hat from +being blown away--he used to wear a grey beaver hat. The great event +of that time was the day that we went to Ballyglass, not to see the +coach go by, but to get into it, for in those days the railway stopped +at Athenry. And that was the day I saw the canal, and heard with +astonishment that there was a time long ago, no doubt in my father's +youth, when people used to go to Dublin in a barge. Those memories +were like a stupor, and awaking suddenly I saw that more than two and +a half miles lay between me and my mother. In half an hour more I +should know whether she were alive or dead, and I watched the horse +trotting, interested in his shambling gait, or not at all interested +in it--I do not know which. On occasions of great nervous tension one +observes everything.... Everything I remembered best appeared with +mechanical regularity; now it was a wood, a while afterward somebody's +farmyard, later on a line of cottages, another wood, one of my own +gate lodges. An old sawyer lived in it now--looking after it for me; +and I hoped that the wheels of the car would not bring him out, for it +would distress me to see him. The firs in the low-lying land had grown +a little within the last thirty years, but not much. We came to the +bridge; we left it behind us; the gate lodge and the drive from it; +the plantation that I knew so well, the lilac bushes, the laburnums--good +Heavens! How terrible was all this resurrection! Mists hide the +mountains from us, the present hides the past; but there are times +when the present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared +away, and the past confronts us in naked outline, and that perhaps is +why it is so painful to me to return home. The little hill at the +beginning of the drive is but a little hill, but to me it is much +more, so intimately is it associated with all the pains and troubles +of childhood. All this park was once a fairyland to me; now it is but +a thin reality, a book which I have read, and the very thought of +which bores me, so well do I know it. There is the lilac bush! I used +to go there with my mother thirty years ago at this time of year, and +we used to come home with our hands full of bloom. Two more turnings +and we should be within sight of the house! This is how men feel when +condemned to death. I am sure of it. At the last hill the driver +allowed his horse to fall into a walk, but I begged of him to drive on +the horse, for I saw some peasants about the steps of the hall door; +they were waiting, no doubt, for news, or perhaps they had news. "We +have bad news for you," they cried in the wailing tones of the West. + +"Not altogether bad news," I said to myself; "my mother is dead, but I +have been saved the useless pain, the torture of spirit, I should have +endured if I had arrived in time." China roses used to grow over the +railings; very few blooms were left. I noticed just a few as I ran up +the high steps, asking myself why I could not put the past behind me. +If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but +never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I +opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and +painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that +corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying, +showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will +show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning +of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to +spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see +his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put +his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country, +and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How +the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning +my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which +the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear! + +In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was +there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died +that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of +our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness +unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is +why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a +little shocked at my own insensibility. This was stupid of me, for I +knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately +after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But +in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect; +one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable +as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister +could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's +goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It +even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she +might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the +specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had +blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have +submitted to an operation. + +While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk +of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A +Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her +husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I +at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her +suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the +butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready. How these incidents +jar our finer feelings! They seem to degrade life, and to such a point +that we are ashamed of living, and are tempted to regard life itself +as a disgrace. + +I foresaw that the same interruptions, the same devagations, would +happen among ourselves in the square Georgian house standing on a +hill-top overlooking a long winding lake, as had happened among my +friends in the Italian house under the downs amid bunches of evergreen +oaks. Nor had I to wait long for one of these unhappy devagations. My +sister had to tell me who was staying in the house: an aunt was there, +my mother's sister, and an uncle, my mother's brother, was coming over +next day. It is easy to guess how the very mention of these names +beguiled us from what should be the subject of our thought. And the +room itself supplied plenty of distractions: all the old furniture, +the colour of the walls, the very atmosphere of the room took my +thought back to my childhood. The sofa on which my sister was sitting +had been broken years ago, and I unwittingly remembered how it had +been broken. It had been taken away to a lumber-room; somebody had had +it mended. I began to wonder who had done this--mother, most likely; +she looked after every thing. I have said that I had just arrived +after a long journey. I had eaten nothing since the night before. My +sister spoke of lunch and we went into the dining-room, and in the +middle of the meal my brother came in looking so very solemn that I +began to wonder if he had assumed the expression he thought +appropriate to the occasion--I mean if he had involuntarily +exaggerated the expression of grief he would naturally wear. We are so +constituted that the true and the false overlap each other, and so +subtly that no analysis can determine where one ends and the other +begins. I remembered how the relatives and the friends on the day of +the funeral in Sussex arrived, each one with a very grave face, +perchance interrupting us in the middle of some trivial conversation; +if so, we instantly became grave and talked of the dead woman +sympathetically for a few minutes; then on the first opportunity, and +with a feeling of relief, we began to talk of indifferent things; and +with every fresh arrival the comedy was re-acted. Returning from the +past to the present, I listened to my brother, who was speaking of the +blunder that had been made: how a wrong doctor had come down owing +to--the fault was laid upon somebody, no matter upon whom; the subject +was a painful one and might well have been dropped, but he did not +dare to talk of anything but our mother, and we all strove to carry on +the conversation as long as possible. But my brother and I had not +seen each other for years; he had come back from India after a long +absence. Nor, I think, had I seen my sister since she was married, and +that was a long while ago; she had had children; I had not seen her +before in middle age. We were anxious to ask each other questions, to +hear each other's news, and we were anxious to see the landscape that +we had not seen, at least not together, for many years; and I remember +how we were tempted out of the house by the soft sunlight floating on +the lawn. The same gentle day full of mist and sunlight that I had +watched since early morning had been prolonged, and the evening +differed hardly from the morning; the exaltation in the air was a +little more intense. My mother died certainly on the most beautiful +day I had ever seen, the most winsome, the most white, the most +wanton, as full of love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a +spray of hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I wonder why +death should have come to any one on such a bridal-like day. That we +should expect Nature to prepare a decoration in accordance with our +moods is part of the old savagery. Through reason we know that Nature +cares for us not at all, that our sufferings concern her not in the +least, but our instincts conform to the time when the sun stood still +and angels were about. It was impossible for us not to wonder why the +black shadow of death should have fallen across the white radiant day. +I say "us," for my brother no doubt pondered the coincidence, though +he did not speak his thoughts to me. No one dares to speak such +thoughts; they are the foolish substance of ourselves which we try to +conceal from others, forgetting that we are all alike. The day moved +slowly from afternoon to evening, like a bride hidden within a white +veil, her hands and her veil filled with white blossom; but a black +bird, tiny like a humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, +and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister black speck that +had intruded itself upon it. No doubt I could think of something +better were I to set my mind upon doing so, but that is how I thought +the day I walked on the lawn with my brother, ashamed and yet +compelled to talk of what our lives had been during the years that +separated us. How could one be overpowered with grief amid so many +distracting circumstances? Everything I saw was at once new and old. I +had come among my brother and sister suddenly, not having seen them, +as I have said, for many years; this was our first meeting since +childhood, and we were assembled in the house where we had all been +born. The ivy grown all over one side of the house, the disappearance +of the laburnum, the gap in the woods--these things were new; but the +lake that I had not seen since a little child I did not need to look +at, so well did I know how every shore was bent, and the place of +every island. My first adventures began on that long yellow strand; I +did not need to turn my head to see it, for I knew that trees +intervened and I knew the twisting path through the wood. That yellow +strand speckled with tufts of rushes was my first playground. But when +my brother proposed that we should walk there, I found some excuse; +why go? The reality would destroy the dream. What reality could equal +my memory of the firs where the rabbits burrowed, of the drain where +we fished for minnows, of the long strand with the lake far away in +summertime? How well I remember that yellow sand, hard and level in +some places as the floor of a ball-room. The water there is so shallow +that our governess used to allow us to wander at will, to run on ahead +in pursuit of a sandpiper. The bird used to fly round with little +cries; and we often used to think it was wounded; perhaps it pretended +to be wounded in order to lead us away from its nest. We did not think +it possible to see the lake in any new aspect, yet there it lay as we +had never seen it before, so still, so soft, so grey, like a white +muslin scarf flowing out, winding past island and headland. The +silence was so intense that one thought of the fairy-books of long +ago, of sleeping woods and haunted castles; there were the castles on +islands lying in misted water, faint as dreams. Now and then a bird +uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall +larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft +murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. +Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island +seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror--a mirror that somebody had +breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about +the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear eternity murmuring its sad +monotony. + +The lake curves inland, forming a pleasant bay among the woods; there +is a sandy spit where some pines have found roothold, and they live on +somehow despite the harsh sallies of the wind in winter. Along the +shore dead reeds lie in rows three feet deep among the rushes; had +they been placed there by hand they could not have been placed with +more regularity; and there is an old cart-track, with hawthorns +growing out of a tumbled wall. The hillside is planted--beautiful +beeches and hollies at one end, and at the other some lawny +interspaces with tall larches swaying tasselled branches shedding +faint shadows. These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads +through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a +seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some +reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a +child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the +knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the +end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was +taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my +father was taken there. + +What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear +again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up +with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman +no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others +with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all +wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon +they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a +funeral! + +Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked +that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the +elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer +lingered there. And the interval between her death and her burial I +spent along the lake's shore. The same weather continued day after +day, and it is almost impossible to find words to express the beauty +of the grey reflection of the islands and the reeds, and the faint +evanescent shores floating away, disappearing in the sun-haze, and the +silence about the shores, a kind of enchanted silence, interrupted, as +I have said, only by the low gurgle of the water about the limestone +shingle. Now and then the song of a bird would break out, and all was +silence again.... "A silence that seems to come out of the very heart +of things!" I said, and I stopped to listen, like one at the world's +end; I walked on, wondering, through the rushes and tussocked grass +and juniper bushes which grew along the wilding shore, along the edge +of the wood. Coming from the town, I could not but admire the +emptiness of the country; hardly ever did I hear the sound of a human +voice or a footstep; only once did I meet some wood-gatherers, poor +women carrying bundles of faggots, bent under their loads. And +thinking that perchance I knew them--they were evidently from the +village; if so, I must have known them when I was a boy--I was +suddenly seized by an unaccountable dread or a shyness, occasioned no +doubt by the sense of the immense difference that time had effected in +us: they were the same, but I was different. The books I had pondered +and the pictures I had seen had estranged me from them, simple souls +that they were; and the consciousness of the injustice of the human +lot made it a pain to me to look into their eyes. So I was glad to be +able to pass behind some bushes, and to escape into the wood without +their perceiving me. + +And coming upon pleasant interspaces, pleasanter even than those that +lingered in my memory, I lay down, for, though the days were the first +days of May, the grass was long and warm and ready for the scythe, the +tasselled branches of the tall larches swung faintly in a delicious +breeze, and the words of the old Irish poet came into my mind, "The +wood was like a harp in the hands of a harper." To see the boughs, to +listen to them, seemed a sufficient delight, and I began to admire the +low sky full of cotton-like clouds, and the white flower that was +beginning to light up the little leaves of the hedgerow, and I suppose +it was the May-flower that drew down upon me a sudden thought of the +beloved girl lost to me for ever. My mother's death had closed that +wound a little, but in a moment all my grief reappeared, the wound +gaped again, and it was impossible to stanch the bleeding. + +A man cannot lament two women at the same time, and only a month ago +the most beautiful thing that had ever appeared in my life, an idea +which I knew from the first I was destined to follow, had appeared to +me, had stayed with me for a while, and had passed from me. All the +partial loves of my youth seemed to find expression at last in a +passion that would know no change. Who shall explain the mystery of +love that time cannot change? Fate is the only word that conveys any +idea of it, for of what use to say that her hair was blond and thick, +that her eyes were grey and blue? I had known many women before her, +and many had hair and eyes as fine and as deep as hers. But never one +but she had had the indispensable quality of making me feel I was more +intensely alive when she was by me than I was when she was away. It +is that tingle of life that we are always seeking, and that perhaps we +must lose in order to retain. On such a day, under the swaying +branches of the larches, the whiteness of the lake curving so +beautifully amid low shores could not fail to remind me of her body, +and its mystery reminded me of her mystery; but the melancholy line of +mountains rippling down the southern sky was not like her at all. One +forgets what is unlike, caring only to dwell upon what is like.... +Thinking of her my senses grow dizzy, a sort of madness creeps up +behind the eyes. What an exquisite despair is this--that one shall +never possess that beautiful personality again, sweet-scented as the +May-time, that I shall never hold that dainty oval face in my hands +again, shall look into those beautiful eyes no more, that all the +intimacy of her person is now but a memory never to be renewed by +actual presence--in these moments of passionate memory one experiences +real grief, a pang that never has found expression perchance except in +Niobe; even that concentration of features is more an expression of +despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that +prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned +her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her +virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I +lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, +her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I +should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now, +intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking, +the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost +in losing her. + +We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the +pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of +our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best +thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if +her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be +beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be +loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of +her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him +for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to +him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was +thinking of myself when shame prevented me from going to meet the poor +wood-gatherers; they would not have thought at all of the injustice of +having been left to the labour of the fields while I had gone forth to +enjoy the world; they would have been interested to see me again, and +a few kind words would have made their load seem easier on their +backs. Called back by a sudden association of ideas, I began to +consider that shameful injustice is undoubtedly a part of our human +lot, for we may only grieve passionately for the casual, or what seems +the merely casual; perhaps because the ultimate law is hidden from us; +I am thinking now of her who comes suddenly into our lives tempting us +with colour, fugitive as that of a flower, luring us with light as +rapid as the light shed from the wings of a dove. Why, I asked myself, +as I lay under the larches, are we to mourn transitory delight so +intensely, why should it possess us more entirely than the sorrow that +we experience for her who endured the labour of child-bearing, who +nourished us perchance at her breast, whose devotion to us was +unceasing, and who grew kindlier and more divorced from every thought +of self as the years went by? From injustice there can be no escape, +not a particle. At best we can, indeed we must, acquiesce in the fact +that the only sorrow to be found in our hearts for aged persons is a +sort of gentle sorrow, such as the year itself administers to our +senses in autumn, when we come home with our hands full of the +beautiful single dahlias that the Dutchmen loved and painted, bound up +with sprays of reddening creepers; we come home along the sunny roads +over which the yellow beeches lean so pathetically, and we are sad for +the year, but we do not grieve passionately; our hearts do not break. + +Then again we cannot grieve as the conventions would have us +grieve--in strange dress; the very fact of wearing crepe and black +gloves alienates us from our real selves; we are no longer ourselves, +we are mummers engaged in the performance of a masque. I could have +mourned my mother better without crêpe. "There never has been invented +anything so horrible as the modern funeral," I cried out. A picture of +the hearse and the mutes rose up in my mind, and it was at that very +moment that the song of the bird broke out again, and just above my +head in the larches an ugly, shrilling song of about a dozen notes +with an accent on the two last, a stupid, tiresome stave that never +varied. "What bird can it be," I cried out, "that comes to interrupt +my meditations?" and getting up I tried to discover it amid the +branches of the tree under which I had been lying. It broke out again +in another tree a little farther away, and again in another. I +followed it, and it led me round the wood towards the hilltop to the +foot of the steps, two short flights; the second flight, or part of it +at least, has to be removed when the vault is opened. It consists, no +doubt, of a single chamber with shelves along either side; curiosity +leads few into vaults not more than a hundred years old; above the +vault is the monument, a very simple one, a sort of table built in, +and when my father was buried, a priest scrambled up or was lifted up +by the crowd, and he delivered a funeral oration from the top of it. + +That day the box edgings were trampled under foot, and all the flowers +in the beds. My mother, perhaps, cared little for flowers, or she did +not live here sufficiently long to see that this garden was carefully +tended; for years there were no children to come here for a walk, and +it was thought sufficient to keep in repair the boundary wall so that +cattle should not get in. No trees were cut here when the Woods were +thinned, and the pines and the yews have grown so thickly that the +place is overshadowed; and the sepulchral dark is never lifted even at +midday. At the back of the tomb, in the wood behind it, the headstones +of old graves show above the ground, though the earth has nearly +claimed them; only a few inches show above the dead leaves; all this +hillside must have been a graveyard once, hundreds of years ago, and +this ancient graveyard has never been forgotten by me, principally on +account of something that happened long ago when I was a little child. +The mystery of the wood used to appeal to my curiosity, but I never +dared to scramble over the low wall until one day, leaving my +governess, who was praying by the tomb, I discovered a gap through +which I could climb. My wanderings were suddenly brought to an end by +the appearance, or the fancied appearance, of somebody in a brown +dress--a woman I thought it must be; she seemed to float along the +ground, and I hurried back, falling and hurting myself severely in my +hurry to escape through the gap. So great was my fear that I spoke not +of my hurt to my governess, but of the being I had seen, beseeching of +her to come back; but she would not come back, and this fact impressed +me greatly. I said to myself, "If she didn't believe somebody was +there she'd come back." The fear endured for long afterwards; and I +used to beg of her not to cross the open space between the last shift +of the wood and the tomb itself. We can re-live in imagination an +emotion already experienced. Everything I had felt when I was a child +about the mysterious hollows in the beech wood behind the tomb and the +old stone there, and the being I had seen clothed in a brown cloak, I +could re-live again, but the wood enkindled no new emotion in me. +Everything seemed very trivial. The steps leading to the tomb, the +tomb itself, the boundary wall, and the enchanted wood was now no more +than a mere ordinary plantation. There were a few old stones showing +through the leaves, that is all. Marvels never cease; in youth one +finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner +life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I +should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down +to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery +also a dream, an imagination? Which is the truth--that experience robs +the earth of its mystery, or that we have changed so that the +evanescent emanations which we used suddenly to grow aware of, and +which sometimes used to take shape, are still there, only our eyes are +no longer capable of perceiving them? May not this be so?--for as one +sense develops, another declines. The mystic who lives on the hillside +in the edge of a cave, pondering eternal rather than ephemeral things, +obtains glimpses, just as the child does, of a life outside this life +of ours. Or do we think these things because man will not consent to +die like a plant? Wondering if a glimpse of another life had once been +vouchsafed to me when my senses were more finely wrought, I descended +the hillside; the bird, probably a chaffinch, repeated its cry without +any variation. I went down the hillside and lay in the shadow of the +tasselled larches, trying to convince myself that I had not hoped to +see the brown lady, if it were a lady I had seen, bending over the +stones of the old burial-ground. + + +One day the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of a mason's +hammer, and on making inquiry from a passing workman--his hodman +probably--I learned that on opening the vault it had been discovered +that there was not room for another coffin. But no enlargement of the +vault was necessary; a couple of more shelves was all that would be +wanted for many a year to come. His meaning was not to be +mistaken--when two more shelves had been added there would be room for +my brothers, myself, and my sister, but the next generation would have +to order that a further excavation be made in the hill or look out for +a new burial-ground. He stood looking at me, and I watched for a +moment a fine young man whose eyes were pale as the landscape, and I +wondered if he expected me to say that I was glad that things had +turned out very well.... The sound of the mason's hammer got upon my +nerves, and feeling the wood to be no longer a place for meditation, I +wandered round the shore as far as the old boat-house, wondering how +it was that the words of a simple peasant could have succeeded in +producing such a strange revulsion of feeling in me. No doubt it was +the intensity with which I realised the fact that we are never far +from death, none of us, that made it seem as if I were thinking on +this subject for the first time. As soon as we reach the age of +reflection the thought of death is never long out of our minds. It is +a subject on which we are always thinking. We go to bed thinking that +another day has gone, that we are another day nearer our graves. Any +incident suffices to remind us of death. That very morning I had seen +two old blue-bottles huddled together in the corner of a pane, and at +once remembered that a term of life is set out for all things--a few +months for the blue-bottle, a few years for me. One forgets how one +thought twenty years ago, but I am prone to think that even the young +meditate very often upon death; it must be so, for all their books +contain verses on the mutability of things, and as we advance in years +it would seem that we think more and more on this one subject, for +what is all modern literature but a reek of regret that we are but +bubbles on a stream? I thought that nothing that could be said on this +old subject could move me, but that boy from Derryanny had brought +home to me the thought that follows us from youth to age better than +literature could have done; he had exceeded all the poets, not by any +single phrase--it was more his attitude of mind towards death (towards +my death) that had startled me--and as I walked along the shore I +tried to remember his words. They were simple enough, no doubt, so +simple that I could not remember them, only that he had reminded me +that Michael Malia, that was the mason's name, had known me since I +was a little boy; I do not know how he got it out; I should not have +been able to express the idea myself, but without choosing his words, +without being aware of them, speaking unconsciously, just as he +breathed, he had told me that if my heart were set on any particular +place I had only to tell Michael Malia and he would keep it for me; +there would be a convenient place for me just above my grandfather +when they had got the new shelf up; he had heard we were both writers. + +That country boy took it out of me as perhaps no poet had ever done! I +shall never forget him as I saw him going away stolidly through the +green wood, his bag of lime on his back. + +And sitting down in front of the tranquil lake I said, "In twenty or +thirty years I shall certainly join the others in that horrible vault; +nothing can save me," and again the present slipped away from me and +my mind became again clear as glass; the present is only subconscious; +were it not so we could not live. I have said all this before; again I +seemed to myself like a fly crawling up a pane of glass, falling back, +buzzing, and crawling again. Every expedient that I explored proved +illusory, every one led to the same conclusion that the dead are +powerless. "The living do with us what they like," I muttered, and I +thought of all my Catholic relations, every one of whom believes in +the intervention of priests and holy water, the Immaculate Conception, +the Pope's Indulgences, and a host of other things which I could not +remember, so great was my anguish of mind at the thought that my poor +pagan body should be delivered helpless into their pious hands. I +remembered their faces, I could hear their voices--that of my dear +brother, whom I shall always think of as a strayed cardinal rather +than as a colonel; I could see his pale eyes moist with faith in the +intercession of the Virgin--one can always tell a Catholic at sight, +just as one can tell a consumptive. The curving lake, the pale +mountains, the low shores, the sunlight, and the haze contributed not +a little to frighten me; the country looked intensely Catholic at that +moment. My thoughts swerved, and I began to wonder if the face of a +country takes its character from the ideas of those living in it. "How +shall I escape from that vault?" I cried out suddenly. Michael Malia's +hodman had said that they might place me just above my grandfather, +and my grandfather was a man of letters, a historian whose histories I +had not read; and in the midst of the horror my probable burial +inspired in me, I found some amusement in the admission that I should +like the old gentleman whose portrait hung in the dining-room to have +read my novels. This being so, it was not improbable that he would +like me to read his histories, and I began to speculate on what the +author of a history of the French Revolution[1] would think of "Esther +Waters." The colour of the chocolate coat he wears in his picture +fixed itself in my mind's eye, and I began to compare it with the +colour of the brown garment worn by the ghost I had seen in the wood. +Good Heavens, if it were his ghost I had seen! + +[Footnote 1: Still unpublished.] + +And listening to the lapping of the lake water I imagined a horrible +colloquy in that vault. It all came into my mind, his dialogue and my +dialogue. "Great God," I cried out, "something must be done to +escape!" and my eyes were strained out on the lake, upon the island on +which a Welshman had built a castle. I saw all the woods reaching down +to the water's edge, and the woods I did not see I remembered; all the +larch trees that grew on the hillsides came into my mind suddenly, and +I thought what a splendid pyre might be built out of them. No trees +had been cut for the last thirty years; I might live for another +thirty. What splendid timber there would then be to build a pyre for +me!--a pyre fifty feet high, saturated with scented oils, and me lying +on the top of it with all my books (they would make a nice pillow for +my head). The ancient heroes used to be laid with their arms beside +them; their horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be +free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My +pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen +for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body +would become a sort of beacon-fire--the beacon of the pagan future +awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be +anything too excessive--a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a +thousand larches and a few barrels of scented oil and the great feast: +for while I was roasting, my mourners should eat roast meat and drink +wine and wear gay dresses--the men as well as the women; and the +gayest music would be played. The "Marriage of Figaro" and some +Offenbach would be pleasing to my spirit, the ride of the Valkyrie +would be an appropriate piece; but I am improvising a selection, and +that is a thing that requires careful consideration. It would be a +fine thing indeed if such a funeral--I hate the word--such a burning +as this could be undertaken, and there is no reason why it should not +be, unless the law interdicts public burnings of human bodies. And +then my face clouded, and my soul too; I grew melancholy as the lake, +as the southern mountains that rippled down the sky plaintive as an +Irish melody, for the burning I had dreamed of so splendidly might +never take place. I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium +in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the +belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to +myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral +liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen," +and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin. + +It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my +interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed +as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who +would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should +catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of +so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological +reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a +fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the +Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in +the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor +would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there +would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up +whatever will I was minded to make. In order to secure the burial of +my body, my notion was to leave all my property, lands, money, +pictures, and furniture to my brother, Colonel Maurice Moore on the +condition that I should be burnt and the ashes disposed of without the +humiliation of Christian rites; that if the conditions that the +inheritance carried with it were so disagreeable to Colonel Maurice +Moore that he could not bring himself to see that the disposal of my +remains was carried out according to my wishes, my property, lands, +money, pictures, and furniture, should go to my brother Augustus +Moore; that in the event of his declining to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all my property should go to my +brother Julian Moore; that if he should refuse to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all the said property should go +to my friend Sir William Eden, who would, I felt sure, take a sad +pleasure in giving effect to the wishes of his old friend. A will +drawn up on these lines would secure me against all chance of being +buried with my ancestors in Kiltoon, and during the next two days I +pondered my own burning. My brother might think that he was put to a +good deal of expense, but he would not fail me. He had taken off my +hands the disagreeable task of seeing the undertakers and making +arrangements for the saying of Masses, etc., arrangements which would +be intensely disagreeable to me to make so. I had plenty of time to +think out the details of my burning; and I grew happy in the thought +that I had escaped from the disgrace of Christian burial--a disgrace +which was never, until the last two days, wholly realised by me, but +which was nevertheless always suspected. No doubt it was the dread of +Kiltoon that had inspired that thought of death from which in late +years I had never seemed able to escape. I am of the romantic +temperament, and it would be a pity to forgo the burning I had +imagined. I delighted in the vision that had come upon me of the +felling of the larch trees on the hillside and the building of the +pyre about the old castle. It would reach much higher; I imagined it +at least fifty feet high. I saw it flaming in imagination, and when +half of it was burnt, the mourners would have to take to the boats, so +intense would be the heat. What a splendid spectacle! Never did any +man imagine a more splendid funeral! It would be a pity if the law +obliged me to forgo it. But there was no use hoping that the law would +not; there was a law against the burning of human remains, and I might +have to fall back on the Public Crematorium: it only remained for me +to decide what I would wish to be done with the ashes. In a moment of +happy inspiration I conceived the idea of a Greek vase as the only +suitable repository for my ashes, and I began to remember all the +Greek vases I had seen: all are beautiful, even the Roman Greek; these +are sometimes clumsy and heavy, but the sculpture is finely designed +and executed. Any Greek vase I decided would satisfy me, provided, of +course, that the relief represented Bacchanals dancing, and nearly +every Greek vase is decorated in this way. The purchase of the vase +would be an additional expense; no doubt I was running my brother in +for a good deal of money; it is becoming more and more difficult to +buy original Greek sculpture! and in a moment of posthumous parsimony +my thoughts turned to a copy of a Greek vase in granite, granite being +more durable than marble, and I wanted the vase to last for a long +time. It was delightful to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and to +draw all that I remembered of the different vases I had seen, +different riots of lusty men carrying horns of wine, intermingled with +graceful girls dancing gracefully, youths playing on pipes, and amidst +them fauns, the lovely animality of the woods, of the landscape ages, +when men first began to milk their goats, and when one man out of the +tribe, more pensive, more meditative than the others, went down to the +river's bank and cut a reed and found music within it. The vase I +remembered best has upright handles springing from the necks of swans. +It stands about two feet high, perhaps a little more, and its cavity +should be capable of containing all that remains of me after my +burning. None would have thought, from the happy smile upon my lips, +that I was thinking of a Grecian urn and a little pile of white ashes. +"O death, where is thy sting?" I murmured, and the pencil dropped from +my hand, for my memory was more beautiful than anything I could +realise upon paper. I could only remember one side of a youth, that +side of him next to an impulsive maiden; her delight gives her wings; +his left arm is about her shoulder. She is more impulsive than he, and +I wondered at his wistfulness--whether he was thinking of another love +or a volume of poems that he loved better. Little by little many of +the figures in the dance were remembered, for the sculpture was so +well done that the years had only clouded my memory. The clouds +dispersed, and I saw this time one whole figure, that of a +dancing-girl; her right arm is extended, her left arm is bent, she +holds a scarf as she dances, and the muscles of the arms are placed so +well, and the breasts too, that one thinks that the girl must have +been before the sculptor as he worked. Ingres and Antiquity alone knew +how to simplify. There is little, but that little is so correct that +detail is unnecessary, and I exulted in remembrance of the dainty +design of the belly, half hidden, half revealed by little liquid +folds. "How exquisite," I said, "is that thigh! how well it advances! +And we poor moderns have lived upon that beauty now well-nigh two +thousand years? But how vainly we have attempted to imitate that +drapery flowing about the ankles, like foam breaking on the crest of a +wave." A slender youth stands next; his shoulders are raised, for the +pipes are to his lips, his feet are drawn close together, and by him a +satyr dances wildly, clashing cymbals as he dances. He is followed, I +think--it is difficult to say whether this be a recollection of +another vase or whether the figure is included in the same group--by a +faun tempting the teeth and claws of a panther with a bunch of grapes. +And it was this winsome faun that decided me to select this vase as +the repository of my ashes. And I determined to stipulate in my will +that this vase be chosen. But my will must not be too complicated, +otherwise it might be contested. All that is not common can easily be +argued to be madness by a loquacious lawyer before a stupid jury. Who +except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to +what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees +with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour +that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead +coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because +men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs +insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The +common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our +remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It +is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander +away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor +humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at +least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that +might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some +little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every +one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of +the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is +served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of +crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I +am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last +manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have +I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have +done in this order for my tomb. One trouble, however, still remained +upon my mind. Where should the vase be placed? Not in Westminster +Abbey. Fie upon all places of Christian burial! A museum inspires +lofty thoughts in a few; Gouncourt speaks of the icy admiration of +crowds. The vase might stand in the stone wall, and in the very corner +where I learned to spin my top? But sooner or later a housemaid would +break it. The house itself will become the property of another family, +and the stranger will look upon the vase with idle curiosity, or +perhaps think it depressing to have me in the hall. An order for my +removal to a garret might be made out. + +The disposal of the vase caused me a great deal of anxiety, and I +foresaw that unless I hit upon some idea whereby I could safeguard it +from injury for ever, my project would be deprived of half its value. +As I sat thinking I heard a noise of feet suddenly on the staircase. +"They are bringing down my mother's coffin," I said, and at that +moment the door was opened and I was told that the funeral procession +was waiting for me. My brother, and various relatives and friends, +were waiting in the hall; black gloves were on every hand, crepe +streamed from every hat, "All the paraphernalia of grief," I muttered; +"nothing is wanting." My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why +should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far +be it from me to criticise such a desire!" + +The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up +to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first +understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to +understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant +follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that +there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain +themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try +to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were +any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the +chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, +we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the +wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing +about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; +Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of +what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to +prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with +scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the +point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people, +I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But +Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against +violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the +Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed? + +Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they +chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking +that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very +moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of +the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase +containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it +would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless +depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made +without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel +of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods, +man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some +millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase +containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some +secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless +desert that the earth will then be). + +Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and +maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the +extinct sea of an extinct planet. Millions of years will pass away, +and the earth, after having lain dead for a long winter, as it does +now for a few weeks under frost and snow, will, with all other +revolving planets, become absorbed in the sun, and the sun itself will +become absorbed in greater suns, Sirius and his like. In the matters +of grave moment, millions of years are but seconds; billions convey +very little to our minds. At the end of, let us say, some billion +years the ultimate moment towards which everything from the beginning +has been moving will be reached; and from that moment the tide will +begin to flow out again, the eternal dispersal of things will begin +again; suns will be scattered abroad, and in tremendous sun-quakes +planets will be thrown off; in loud earth-quakes these planets will +throw off moons. Millions of years will pass away, the earth will +become cool, and out of the primal mud life will begin again in the +shape of plants, and then of fish, and then of animals. It is like +madness, but is it madder than Christian doctrine? and I believe that +billions of years hence, billions and billions of years hence, I shall +be sitting in the same room as I sit now, writing the same lines as I +am now writing: I believe that again, a few years later, my ashes will +swing in the moveless and silent depths of the Pacific Ocean, and that +the same figures, the same nymphs, and the same fauns will dance +around me again. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 7789-8.txt or 7789-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/8/7789/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/7789-8.zip b/7789-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5b916b --- /dev/null +++ b/7789-8.zip diff --git a/7789-h.zip b/7789-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca79e47 --- /dev/null +++ b/7789-h.zip diff --git a/7789-h/7789-h.htm b/7789-h/7789-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9742778 --- /dev/null +++ b/7789-h/7789-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11415 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> +<TITLE>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore</TITLE> +<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white} +img {border: 0;} +h1,h2,h3 {text-align: center;} +.ind {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} +hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} +.ctr {text-align: center;} +--> +</style> +</HEAD> +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Memoirs of My Dead Life + +Author: George Moore + +Posting Date: April 12, 2014 [EBook #7789] +Release Date: March, 2005 +First Posted: May 17, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>GEORGE MOORE</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p class="ctr"> +<b>CONTENTS</b> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#apologia">APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#i">I. SPRING IN LONDON</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#ii">II. FLOWERING NORMANDY</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#iii">III. A WAITRESS</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#iv">IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#v">V. LA BUTTE</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#vi">VI. SPENT LOVES</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#vii">VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#viii">VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#ix">IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#x">X. A REMEMBRANCE</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#xi">XI. BRING IN THE LAMP</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#xii">XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="#xiii">XIII. RESURGAM</a> +</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h2><a name="apologia">APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS</a></h2> + +<p> +[<i>The</i> APOLOGIA <i>which follows needs, perhaps, a word of +explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful, +as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this +present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever +written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published. +When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of +Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East," +first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these +"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s +library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy +they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of +a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a +certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among +the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the +publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his</i> Mayflower +<i>ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of +Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so +beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet +in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East" +that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted +the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake. +And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called +publishers, gave way on condition that this </i>APOLOGIA<i> should +appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration +of an Ibsen comma, and if the </i>Mayflower<i> "weeds" mere instrumental +in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew</i>.--THE +PUBLISHER.] +</p> + +<p> +Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader +will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that +one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me +personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm +he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were +omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg +Gardens,"--Messrs. Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the +other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was +not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a +certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question, +and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had +been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed +his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the +right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions +or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life" +and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they +depict him. +</p> + +<p> +"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly +imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to +put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental +grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are +concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the +ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run +continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which +may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You +range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander. +</p> + +<p> +"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak +of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but +interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last +analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call +illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I <i>do</i> want to +know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do +you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned, +explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to +cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all +women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his +aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl +by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution +of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be +inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your +own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?" +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on +the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever +this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much +a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to +think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he +would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart, +nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea. +"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not +say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of +the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I +imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he +shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with +nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along +which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing +table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my +real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself +in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I +was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these +questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of +view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather +like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began +my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the +same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even +suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have +written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying +the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that +I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads, +deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see +that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a +personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a +woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and +the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial. +Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching +of the roads, and the best way I can serve him is by drawing his +attention to the fallacy, which till now he has accepted as a truth, +that there is one immutable standard of conduct for all men and all +women." But the difficulty of writing a sufficient letter on a subject +so large and so intricate puzzled me and I sat smiling, for an odd +thought had dropped suddenly into my mind. My correspondent was a +Bible reader, no doubt, and it would be amusing to refer him to the +chapter in Genesis where God is angry with our first parents because +they had eaten of the tree of good and evil. "This passage" I said to +myself, "has never been properly understood. Why was God angry? For no +other reason except that they had set up a moral standard and could be +happy no longer, even in Paradise. According to this chapter the moral +standard is the origin of all our woe. God himself summoned our first +parents before him, and in what plight did they appear? We know how +ridiculous the diminutive fig leaf makes a statue seem in our museums; +think of the poor man and woman attired in fig leaves just plucked +from the trees! I experienced a thrill of satisfaction that I should +have been the first to understand a text that men have been studying +for thousands of years, turning each word over and over, worrying over +it, all in vain, yet through no fault of the scribe who certainly +underlined his intention. Could he have done it better than by +exhibiting our first parents covering themselves with fig leaves, and +telling how after getting a severe talking to from the Almighty they +escaped from Paradise pursued by an angel? The story can have no other +meaning, and that I am the first to expound it is due to no +superiority of intelligence, but because my mind is free. But I must +not appear to my correspondent as an exegetist. Turning to his letter +again I read: +</p> + +<p> +"I am sorely puzzled. Is your life all of a piece? Are your 'Memoirs' +a pose? I can't think the latter, for you seem sincere and frank to +the verge of brutality (or over). But what is your standard of +conduct? Is there a right and a wrong? Is everything open to any man? +Can you refer me now to any other book of yours in which you view life +steadily and view it whole from our standpoint? Forgive my intrusion. +You see I don't set myself as a judge, but you sweep away apparently +all my standards. And you take your reader so quietly and closely into +your confidence that you tempt a response. I see your many admirable +points, but your center of living is not mine, and I do want to know +as a matter of enormous human interest what your subsumptions are. I +cannot analyze or express myself with literary point as you do, but +you may see what I aim at. It is a bigger question to me than the +value or force of your book. It goes right to the core of the big +things, and I approach you as one man of limited outlook to another of +wider range." +</p> + +<p> +The reader will not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these +quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man +paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to +do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, +hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's +heart"--but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him +... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. +But if my view of him is right, my task is a more subtle one than +merely to point out that he will seek in vain for a moral standard +whether he seeks it in the book of Nature or in the book of God. I +should not move him by pointing out that in the Old Testament we are +told an eye for an eye is our due, and in the New the rede is to turn +the left cheek after receiving a blow on the right. Nor would he be +moved by referring him to the history of mankind, to the Boer War, for +instance, or the massacres which occur daily in Russia; everybody +knows more or less the history of mankind, and to know it at all is to +know that every virtue has at some time or other been a vice. But man +cannot live by negation alone, and to persuade my correspondent over +to our side it might be well to tell him that if there be no moral +standard he will nevertheless find a moral idea if he looks for it in +Nature. I reflected how I would tell him that he must not be +disappointed because the idea changes and adapts itself to +circumstance, and sometimes leaves us for long intervals; if he would +make progress he must learn to understand that the moral world only +becomes beautiful when we relinquish our ridiculous standards of what +is right and wrong, just as the firmament became a thousand times more +wonderful and beautiful when Galileo discovered that the earth moved. +Had Kant lived before the astronomer he would have been a great +metaphysician, but he would not have written the celebrated passage +"Two things fill the soul with undying and ever-increasing admiration, +the night with its heaven of stars above us and in our hearts the +moral law." The only fault I find with this passage is that I read the +word "law" where I expected to read the word "idea," for the word +"law" seems to imply a Standard, and Kant knew there is none. Is the +fault with the translator or with Kant, who did not pick his words +carefully? The metaphysician spent ten years thinking out the +"Critique of Pure Reason" and only six months writing it; no doubt his +text might be emendated with advantage. If there was a moral standard +the world within us would be as insignificant as the firmament was +when the earth was the center of the universe and all the stars were +little candles and Jehovah sat above them, a God who changed his mind +and repented, a whimsical, fanciful God who ordered the waters to rise +so that his creatures might be overwhelmed in the flood, all except +one family (I need not repeat here the story of Noah's Ark and the +doctrine of the Atonement) if there was one fixed standard of right +and wrong, applicable to everybody, black, white, yellow, and red men +alike, an eternal standard that circumstance could not change. Those +who believe in spite of every proof to the contrary that there is a +moral standard cannot appreciate the beautiful analogy which Kant +drew, the moral idea within the heart and the night with its heaven of +stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on +worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after +the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison +rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office +after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant +thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize +within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not +sufficient to lead my correspondent out of the narrow lanes of +conventions and prejudices into the open field of inquiry. Turning to +his letter, I read it again, misjudging him, perhaps ... but the +reader shall form his own estimate. +</p> + +<p> +"I honestly felt and feel a big difficulty in reading and thinking +over your 'Memoirs' for you are a propagandist whether you recognize +that as a conscious mission or not. There is in your book a +challenging standard of life which will not wave placidly by the side +of the standard which is generally looked up to as his regimental +colors by the average man. One must go down. And it was because I felt +the necessity of choosing that I wrote to you. +</p> + +<p> +"'Memoirs' is clearly to me a sincere book. You have built your life +on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that +sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for +instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward +for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say +that limitation has no other sanction than convention--race +inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it +so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is +the best? Men have been hunting the best all their history long by a +process of trial and error. Surely the build of things condemns the +murderer, the liar, the sensualist, and the coward! and how do you +come by 'natural goodness' if your moral is merely your customary? No, +with all respect for your immense ability and your cultured outlook, I +do not recognize the lawless variability of the right and the wrong +standard which you posit. How get you your evidence? From human +actions? But it is the most familiar of facts that men do things they +feel to be wrong. I have known a thief who stole every time in pangs +of conscience; not merely in the fear of detection. There is a higher +and a lower in morals, but the lower is recognized as a lower, and +does not appeal to a surface reading of the code of an aboriginal in +discussing morals. That, I think is only fair. Your artistic sense is +finely developed, but it is none the less firmly based, although there +are Victorian back parlors and paper roses. +</p> + +<p> +"You see you are a preacher, not merely an artist. Every glimpse of +the beautiful urges the beholder to imitation and <i>vice versa</i>. +And that is why your 'Memoirs' are not merely 'an exhibition' of the +immoral; they are 'an incitement' to the immoral. Don't you think so? +And thinking so would you not honestly admit, that society (in the +wide sense, of course--civilization) would relapse, go down, +deliquesce, if all of us were George Moores as depicted in your book?" +</p> + +<p> +His letter dropped from my hand, and I sat muttering, "How +superficially men think!" How little they trouble themselves to +discover the truth! While declaring that truth is all important, they +accept any prejudice and convention they happen to meet, fastening on +to it like barnacles. How disappointing is that passage about the +murderer, the sensualist, the liar, and the coward; but of what use +would it be to remind my correspondent of Judith who went into the +tent of Holofernes to lie with him, and after the love feast drove a +nail into the forehead of the sleeping man. She is in Scripture held +up to our admiration as a heroine, the saviour of our nation. +Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath, yet who regards Charlotte +Corday as anything else but a heroine? In Russia men know that the +fugitives lie hidden in the cave, yet they tell the Cossack soldiers +they have taken the path across the hill--would my correspondent +reprove them and call them liars? I am afraid he has a lot of leeway +to make up, and it is beyond my power to help him. +</p> + +<p> +Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther +Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any +book of mine in which I viewed life--I cannot bring myself to +transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold--I referred him to "Esther +Waters," saying that a critic had spoken of it as a beautiful +amplification of the beatitudes. Of the book he makes no mention in +his letter, but he writes: "There is a challenging standard of life in +your book which will not wave placidly by the side of the standard +which is generally looked up to as his regimental colors by the +average man." The idea besets him, and he refers to it again in the +last paragraph; he says: "You see, you are a preacher, not merely an +artist." And very likely he is right; there is a messianic aspect in +my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading +between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that +desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be +treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture +and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to +believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century +Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its +moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not dare to keep +Esther; but if she sent her servant away, she spoke kindly, giving her +enough money to see her through her trouble; there are good people +among Christians. The usual Christian attitude would be to tell Esther +that she must go into a reformatory after the birth of her child, for +the idea of punishment is never long out of the Christian's thoughts. +It is not necessary to recapitulate here how Esther, escaping from the +network of snares spread for her destruction, takes refuge in a +workhouse, and lives there till her child is reared; how she works +fifteen hours a day in a lodging house, sleeping in corners of +garrets, living upon insufficient food; or how, after years of +struggle, she meets William, now separated from his wife, and consents +to live with him that her child may have a father. For this second +"transgression," so said a clergyman in a review of the book, Esther +could not be regarded as a moral woman. His moral sense, dwarfed by +doctrine, did not enable him to see that the whole evil came out of +standard morality and the whole good out of the instinct incarnate in +her; and he must have read the book without perceiving its theme, the +revelation in the life of an outcast servant girl of the instinct on +which the whole world rests. +</p> + +<p> +Not until writing these lines did I ever think of "Esther Waters" as a +book of doctrine; but it is one, I see that now, and that there is a +messianic aspect in my writings. My correspondent did well to point +that out, and no blame attaches to him because he seems to fail to see +that I may be an admirable moralist while depreciating Christian +morality and advocating a return to Nature's. He belonged to the +traditions yesterday, today he is among those who are seekers, and +to-morrow I doubt not he will be among those prone to think that +perhaps Christianity is, after all, retrograde. His lips will curl +contemptuously to-morrow when he hears the cruelty of the circus +denounced by men who would, if they were allowed, relight the bon +fires of the Inquisition; ... he is a Protestant, I had forgotten. +Gladiators have begun to appear to us less cruel than monks, and +everybody who can think has begun to think that some return to pagan +morality is desirable. That is so; awaking out of the great slumber of +Christianity, we are all asking if the qualities which once we deemed +our exclusive possession have not been discovered among pagans--pride, +courage, and heroism. Our contention has become that no superiority is +claimed in any respect but one; it appears that it must be admitted +that Christians are more chaste than pagans, at all events that +chastity flourishes among Christian communities as it has never +flourished among pagan. The Christian's boast is that all sexual +indulgence outside of the marriage bed is looked upon as sinful, and +he would seem to think that if he proclaims this opinion loudly, its +proclamation makes amends for many transgressions of the ethical law. +All he understands is the law; nothing of the subtler idea that the +ethical impulse is always invading the ethical law finds a way into +his mind. Women are hurried from Regent Street to Vine Street, and his +conscience is soothed by these raids; the owners of the houses in +which these women live are fined, and he congratulates himself that +vice is not licensed in England, that, in fact, its existence is +unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not +discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of +degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these +reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human +grief, he mutters "how very sad!" +</p> + +<p> +But the assurance that the women are wretched and despised soothes his +conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish +prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It +would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of +men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish--you +would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was +once respected and honored, and the world was as beautiful then as +now, and as noble men lived in it. In many ways the world was more +moral than when your ideas began to prevail." He asks me to explain, +and I tell him that with the degradation of the courtesan the moral +standard has fallen, for as we degrade her we disgrace the act of +love. We have come to speak of it as part of our lower nature, +permissible, it is true, if certain conditions are complied with, but +always looked upon askance; and continuing the same strain of +argument, I tell him that the act of love was once deemed a sacred +rite, and that I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and +exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused +men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels +instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he +asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too +old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; +"a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort +necessary to understand me if I were to tell him, for instance, that +the desire of beauty is in itself a morality." It was, perhaps, the +only morality the Greeks knew, and upon the memory of Greece we have +been living ever since. In becoming <i>hetairae</i>, Aspasia, Lais, +Phryne, and Sappho became the distributors of that desire of beauty +necessary in a state which had already begun to dream the temples of +Minerva and Zeus. +</p> + +<p> +The words of Blake come into my mind, "the daring of the lion or the +submission of the ox." With these words I should have headed my letter +to the secretary of the charitable institution, and I should have told +him that many books which he would regard as licentious are looked +upon by me as sacred. "Mademoiselle de Maupin," "the golden book of +spirit and sense," Swinburne has called it, I have always looked upon +as a sacred book from the very beginning of my life. It cleansed me of +the belief that man has a lower nature, and I learned from it that the +spirit and the flesh are equal, "that earth is as beautiful as heaven, +and that perfection of form is virtue." "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was a +great purifying influence, a lustral water dashed by a sacred hand, +and the words are forever ringing in my ear, "by exaltation of the +spirit and the flesh thou shalt live." This book would be regarded by +my correspondent as he regards my "Memoirs," and its publication has +been interdicted in England. How could it be permitted to circulate in +a country in which the kingdom of heaven is (in theory) regarded as +more important than the kingdom of earth? A few pages back the idea +came up under my pen that the aim of practical morality was to render +illicit love as unattractive as possible, and I suppose, though he has +never thought the matter out, the Christian moralist would regard +Gautier as the most pernicious of writers, for his theme is always +praise of the visible world, of all that we can touch and see; and in +this book art and sex are not estranged. I have often wondered if the +estrangement of the twain so noticeable in English literature is not +the origin of this strange belief that bodily love is part of our +lower nature. Our appreciation of the mauve flush dying in the west +has been indefinitely heightened by descriptions seen in pictures and +read in poems, and I cannot but think that if the lover's exaltation +before the curve of his mistress's breast had not been forbidden, the +ugly thought that the lover's ardor is inferior to the poet's would +never have obtained credence. There is but one energy, and the vital +fluid, whether expended in love or in a poem, is the same. The poet +and the lover are creators, they participate and carry on the great +work begun billions of years ago when the great Breath breathing out +of chaos summoned the stars into being. But why do I address myself +like this to the average moralist? How little will he understand me! +In the Orelay adventure which horrified him there was an appreciation +of beauty which he has, I am afraid, rendered himself incapable of. +Myself and Doris were spiritual gainers by the Orelay adventure, +Doris's rendering of "The Moonlight Sonata," till she went to Orelay, +was merely brilliant and effective; and have not all the critics in +England agreed that the story in which I relate her contains some of +the best pages of prose I have written? But why talk of myself when +there is Wagner's experience to speak about? Did he not write to +Madame Wasendonck, "I owe you Tristan for all eternity"? She has not +left any written record of her debt to Wagner, perhaps because she +could not find words to give the reader any idea how great it was. +</p> + +<p> +Histories of human civilization there are in abundance, but I do not +know of any history of the human intelligence. But when this comes to +be written--if it ever should come to be written--the writer will +hesitate, at least I can imagine him hesitating, how much of the +genius of artists he would be justified in tracing back to sexual +impulses. Goethe, as my correspondent informs me, looked upon love of +woman as a means of increasing his aesthetic sensibilities, and my +correspondent seems to think that he did them wrong thereby, whereas I +think he honored them exceedingly. Balzac held the contrary belief, so +Gautier tells us, maintaining that great spiritual elation could be +gained by restraint, and when inquiry was made into his precise +beliefs on this point he confessed that he could not allow an author +more than half an hour once a year with his beloved; he placed no +restriction, however, on correspondence, "for that helped to form a +style." When Gautier mentioned the names of certain great men whose +lives offered a striking refutation of this theory, Balzac answered +they would have written better if they had lived chastely. Gautier +seems to have left the question there, and so will we, remarking only +that Balzac was prone to formulating laws out of his single +experience. I remember having written, or having heard somebody say, +"in other writers we discover this or that thing, but everything +exists in Balzac." And in his conversation with Gautier we do not find +him praising chastity as a virtue, but extolling the results that may +be gotten from chastity as a Yogi might. It is said that English +missionaries in India sometimes drive out in their pony chaises to +visit a holy man who has left his womenfolk, plentiful food, and a +luxurious dwelling for a cave in some lonely ravine. The pony chaise +only takes the parson to the mouth of the ravine, and leaving his wife +and children in charge of his servant, the parson ascends the rocky +way on foot, meeting, perchance, a fat peasant priest from Maynooth +bent on the same mission as himself--the conversion of the Yogi. It is +amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting +with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking +to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all +agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his +eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously +he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their +discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon +all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, if he +answered his visitors; "I dwell in solitude and in silence, and am +chaste, and live upon the rice that the pious leave on the rocks for +me, but I do not regard chastity and abstinence as possessed of any +inherent merits; as virtues, they are but a means to an end. How would +you impose chastity upon all men, since every man brings a different +idea into the world with him? There are men who would die if forced to +live chaste lives, and there are men who would choose death rather +than live unchaste, and many a woman if she were forced to live with +one husband would make him very unhappy, whereas if she lived with two +men she would make them both supremely happy. But the news has reached +me even here that in the West you seek a moral standard, and this +quest always fills me with wonder. There are priests among you, I can +see that, and soldiers, and fishermen, and artists and princes and +folk who labor in the fields--now do you expect all these men, living +in different conditions of life, to live under the same rule? I am +afraid that the East and the West will never understand each other. +The sun is setting, my time for speech is over," and the wise man, +rising from the stone on which he has been sitting, enters into the +cave, leaving the priest and the parson to descend the rocks together +in the twilight, their differences hushed for the moment, to break +forth again the next day. +</p> + +<p> +Schopenhauer has a fine phrase, one that has haunted my mind these +many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime +wisdom of the East like bullets fired against a cliff. +</p> + +<p> +How can it be otherwise? For when we were naked savages the Brahmans +were learned philosophers, and had seen as far into every mystery as +mortal eyes will ever see. We have progressed a little lately; our +universities, it is true, are a few hundred years old, but in +comparison with the East we are still savages; our culture is but +rudimentary, and my correspondent's letter is proof of it. It is +characteristic of the ideas that still flourish on the banks of the +Thames, ideas that have changed only a little since the +<i>Mayflower</i> sailed. It would have been better if Columbus had +delayed his discovery for, let us say, a thousand years. I am afraid +the <i>Mayflower</i> carried over a great many intellectual weeds +which have caught root and flourished exceedingly in your +States--Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A letter arrived +from Washington some two or three months ago. The writer was a lady +who used to write to me on all subjects under the sun; about fifteen +years ago we had ceased to write to each other, so she began her +letter, not unnaturally, by speaking of the surprise she guessed her +handwriting would cause me. She had broken the long silence, for she +had been reading "The Lake," and had been much interested in the book. +It would have been impolite to write to me without alluding to the +aesthetic pleasure the book had given her, but her interest was mainly +a religious one. About five years ago she had become a Roman Catholic, +she was writing a book on the subject of her conversion, and would +like to find out from me why I had made Father Gogarty's conversion +turn upon his love of woman, "for it seems to me clear, unless I have +misunderstood your book, that you intended to represent Gogarty as an +intellectual man." It is difficult to trace one's motives back, but I +remember the irritation her letter caused me, and how I felt it would +not be dignified for me to explain; my book was there for her to +interpret or misinterpret, as she pleased; added to which her +"conversion" to Rome was an annoying piece of news. Fifteen years ago +she was an intelligent woman and a beautiful woman, if photographs do +not lie, and it was disagreeable for me to think of her going on her +knees in a confessional, receiving the sacraments, wearing scapulars, +trying to persuade herself that she believed in the Pope's +indulgences. She must now be middle-aged, but the decay of physical +beauty is not so sad a spectacle as the mind's declension. "She began +to think," I said, "of another world only when she found herself +unable to enjoy this one any longer; weariness of this world produces +what the theologians call 'faith.' How often have we heard the phrase +'You will believe when you are dying'? She would have had," I said, +"Father Gogarty leave his church for doctrinal rather than natural +reasons, believing scrolls to be more intellectual than the instincts; +Father Gogarty poring over some early edition of the Scriptures in his +little house on the hilltop, reading by the light of the lamp at +midnight and deciding that he would go out of his parish because, +according to recent exegesis, a certain verset in the Gospel had been +added three hundred years after the death of Christ." I fell to +thinking how dry, common, and uninteresting the tale would be had it +been written on these doctrinal lines. Carlyle said that Cardinal +Newman had the brain of a half-grown rabbit, and he was right; Newman +never got further than a scroll, and man must think with his body, as +well as with his brain. To think well the whole man must think, and it +seems to me that Father Gogarty thought in this complete way. Rose +Leicester revealed to him the enchantment and the grace of life, and +his quest became life. Had it been Hose Leicester herself the story +would have merely been a sensual incident. The instinct to go rose up +within him, he could not tell how or whence it came, and he went as +the bird goes, finding his way toward a country where he had never +been, led as the bird is led by some nostalgic instinct. And I do not +doubt that he found life, whether in the form of political or literary +ambition or in some other woman who would remind him of the woman he +had lost; perhaps he found it in all these things, perhaps in none. +Told as I told it the story seems to me a true and human one, and one +that might easily occur in these modern days; much more easily than +the story my correspondent would have had me write. The story of a +priest abandoning his parish for theological reasons is not an +improbable one, but I think such a story would be more typical of the +sixteenth century, when men were more interested in the authenticity +of the Biblical texts than they are in the twentieth. The Bible has +been sifted again and again; its history is known, every word has been +weighed, and it is difficult to imagine the most scrupulous exegetist +throwing a search light into any unexplored corner. Even Catholic +scholarship, if Loisy can be regarded as a Catholic, has abandoned the +theory that the gospels were written by the Apostles. The earliest, +that of Mark, was written sixty years after the death of Christ, and +it is the only one for which any scholar claims the faintest +historical value. With this knowledge of history in our possession +belief has become in modern times merely a matter of temperament, +entirely dissociated from the intellect. Some painter once said that +Nature put him out. The theologian can say the same about the +intellect--it puts him out. Out of a great deal of temperament and a +minimum of intellect he gets a precipitate, if I may be permitted to +drop into the parlance of the chemist, for dregs would be an impolite +word to use, and the precipitate always delights in the fetich. There +will always be men and women, the cleric has discovered, who will +barter their souls for the sake of rosaries and scapulars and the +Pope's indulgences. The two great enemies of religion, as the clerics +know well, are the desire to live and the desire to know. We find this +in Genesis: God: i. e., the clerics, was angry because his creatures +ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of +the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of +the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of +the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was +written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men +from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so +anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this +tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the +ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics +were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent +herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit +of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected +were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great +feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always +ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great +depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the +tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter +fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it +has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no +conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The +origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the +glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... +The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another +instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now +directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of +knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among +themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may +always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups +to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were +infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this +fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the +earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken +when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have +involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the +Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done +all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful +that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been +written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as +heaven," and Gautier's phrase, <i>"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle +que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la +vertu,"</i> has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to +the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual +spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of +doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather +than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of +mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more +serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So +leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on. +</p> + +<p> +My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did +more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be +vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of +an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part +of the book which interested us the least was that very part which +would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am +alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's +room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted, +for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been +seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did +he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his +own imagination made visible by some prodigy to him. For a still +briefer space Rosette shared Albert's dream, and man and wife remained +faithful to each other. It is easy to imagine the vileness which a +prosecuting counsel could extract from these beautiful pages made +entirely of vision and ecstasy. How false and shameful is the whole +business. We are allowed to state that we prefer pagan morality to +Christian, but are interdicted from illustrating our beliefs by +incident. So long as we confine ourselves to theory we are unmolested. +But these are subtleties which do not trouble the minds of the members +of vigilance associations, the men and women who gather together in +back parlors with lead pencils to mark out passages which they +consider "un-Kur-istean" (a good strong accent on the second +syllable). Their thoughts pursue beaten tracks. Books like +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" they hold would act directly on the +temperament, and we know that they do not do this, we know that the +things of the intellect belong to the intellect and the things of the +flesh to the flesh. Were it otherwise Rose Leicester, the pretty +school mistress, might have been left out of my story entitled "The +Lake," and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will +be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second +correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have +chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His +choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still +Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with +the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of +an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have had an +inflamed young man curled up in an armchair reading eagerly, walking +up and down the room from time to time, unable to contain himself, and +eventually throwing the book aside, he would find his way down to the +lake. +</p> + +<p> +These two versions of "The Lake," as it might have been written by my +correspondents, will convince, I think, almost anyone, even them, that +the desire of life which set Father Gogarty free could have been +inspired only by a woman's personality. It was not necessary that he +should go after the woman herself--but that point has already been +explained. What concerns us now to understand is how the strange idea +could have come into men's minds that literature is a more potent +influence than life itself. The solving of this problem has beguiled +many an hour, but the solution seems as far away as ever, and I have +never got nearer than the supposition that perhaps this fear of +literature is a survival of the very legitimate fear that prevailed in +the Middle Ages against writing. In my childhood I remember hearing an +old woman say that writing was an invention of the devil, and what an +old woman believed forty years ago in outlying districts was almost +the universal opinion of the Middle Ages. Denunciations and burnings +of books were frequent, and ideas die slowly, finding a slow +extinction many generations after the reason for their existence has +ceased. In the famous trial of Gille de Rais we have it on record that +the Breton baron was asked by his ecclesiastical judges if pagan +literature had inspired the strange crimes of which he was accused, if +he had read of them in--I have forgotten the names of the Latin +authors mentioned, but I remember Gille de Rais' quite simple answer +that his own heart had inspired the crimes. Whereupon the judges not +unnaturally were shocked, for the conclusion was forced upon them that +if Gille's confession were true they were not trying a man who had +been perverted by outward influence but one who had been born +perverted. Who then was responsible for his crimes? Lunacy sometimes +in these modern days serves as a scapegoat, but the knowledge of +lunacy in the fifteenth century was not so complete as it is now and +the judges preferred to believe that Gille was lying. And about ten +years ago London found itself in the same moral quandary. Three or +four little boys were discovered to have planned the murder of one of +their comrades--sixpence, I think, was the object of the murder; not +one was over eight, yet they planned the crime skillfully and very +nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys +with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages +a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the +question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; +London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be +prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a +little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it +was a little earlier, I relate these things in the order in which they +come into my mind, the London Vigilance Association instituted a +prosecution against Mr. Henry Vizetelly, a man of letters and the +publisher of Zola's novels. With the exception of Mr. Robert Buchanan +and myself not a single man of letters could be found to speak in Mr. +Vizetelly's defense. Everybody urged some excuse, his wife was ill, +his children were at the seaside and he had to go down to see them, or +that he had never cared much about naturalistic literature; whereas, +if the prosecution had been directed against something romantic, +etc.--Stranger still is the fact that it was almost impossible to find +a counsel willing to defend Mr. Vizetelly. One man threw up the case, +giving as his reason that he would have to read the books, another +said that it would be impossible to adequately defend Mr. Vizetelly's +case because no one could say what one had a right to put into a book. +This remark seemed to me at the time contemptible, but there was more +in it than I thought, for will it be believed that when the case came +into court the judge ruled that the fact that standard writers had +availed themselves of a great deal of license could not be taken as a +proof that such license was permissible? Two wrongs do not make a +right he said. In these circumstances perhaps counsel was wise to tell +Mr. Vizetelly to plead guilty to having published an indecent libel; +but the advice seemed so cruel that, justly or unjustly, I suspect the +lawyer of a wish to escape the odium that would have attached to him +if he had defended a book accused of immorality. The old man was +heavily fined. On going out of court he set to work to have the books +revised, spending hundreds of pounds having the plates altered, but +the Vigilance Association attacked him again, and this time they +succeeded in killing him. Mr. Vizetelly was over seventy years of age +when he went to prison, and the shame, anxiety, and three months of +prison life killed him. Five years afterwards the Authors' Society, +who would not say a word in his favor, voted a great banquet for Zola +when he came to London. Zola received every homage that could be paid +to a man of letters. The Vigilance Association raised no protest, and +I do not blame them. None would have been heard. But while the +banquets were held and the speeches were published in the newspapers +some of the members of the Association must have meditated sadly on +the futility of their efforts and the death of Mr. Vizetelly. It +requires a heavy blow of a very heavy mallet to get anything into some +people's heads, and nothing short of the reception that was given to +Zola could have affected the minds of the Vigilance Association. The +significance of the judge's words that the fact that classical writers +had availed themselves of a certain license could not be taken as +proof that such license was permissible escaped them altogether, for +some time afterwards the question of immorality in literature arose +again--I have forgotten the circumstances of this case--but I remember +that Mr. Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if +Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr. +Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the +Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he +answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral +doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed +himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote +beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and +the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of +duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all +those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members +and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they +must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's +moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies +with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits." +Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr. +Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of +the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again +that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be +acquitted. We must consider the question impartially. It is true that +a magistrate may be found presiding at Bow Street who will refuse to +issue a warrant against the publishers, let us say of Byron, Sterne, +the Restoration, and the Elizabethan dramatists. The Association will +have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association +from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a +magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all +that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be +picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male +and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections in Bow +Street in a crowded court would prove quite a literary entertainment, +and if the magistrate refused to issue a warrant he could only do so +on the pretext that the book had been published a long while, a +pretext which can hardly be held to be more valid than the pretext put +forward by Mr. Coote for not prosecuting Shakespeare. Of one thing +only would I warn the Society which I seem to be taking under my wing, +and that is, even if it should succeed in interdicting two-thirds of +English literature its task will still be only half accomplished. The +newspaper question will still have to be faced. Books are relatively +expensive, but the newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and it +will be admitted that no author is as indecent as the common reporter. +The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some +celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in +the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful +Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the +outraged husband of--I will spare my reader. +</p> + +<p> +About fifteen years ago I was asked if I would care to go over to ---- +College to see the sports. We walked across the downs, and while +watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if +I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than +refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse +and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, +but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished +with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some +thirty or forty boys, of ages varying from twelve to eighteen, reading +the newspapers, reading the reports of the Oscar Wilde trial; each +daily paper contained three or four columns of it. I asked the head +master if it were right to allow the boys to read such reports and he +answered that lately the newspapers contained a great deal of +objectionable matter, "But how am I to keep the daily papers out of +the college?" Now I am not easily scandalized, but I could not help +feeling that a grave scandal was being committed in allowing these +boys to read the newspapers during the week of that trial. But if you +admit the newspapers one day how can you forbid them on another +occasion? And while appreciating the head master's difficulty I walked +out into the open air unable to take any further interest in the +sports. Nor has time obliterated anything of the shame I felt that +day. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to pose as a moralist, +but I cannot help thinking that while newspapers continue to be +published, the Vigilance Society need not trouble lest certain books +should fall into the hands of young people. My correspondent forgot +that thousands of newspapers are published to-day when he wrote to me +saying that my book roused sensuality. I am afraid I omitted the +passage in which these words occur, fearing to burden my article with +quotation. Here it is: +</p> + +<p> +"The perusal of the episodes (Doris' Orelay experiences) does +certainly not ennoble me, it rouses sensuality, it lowers woman from a +friend and helpmeet into a convenience and a minister to pleasure. I +am less able and less willing to think 'high' after your book; poetry +is distasteful, art is narrowed, I look out for the licentious, the +suggestive, the low, and the mean; and don't you? You seem in passage +after passage to be world-weary in a sense that no sane man ought to +be, sated, disgusted, tired of life--is it not so? You see I speak +from what I am sure you will regard as a narrow platform, my ideals +are certainly not yours but I am simply and frankly curious as to the +ultimates in your book and in yourself." +</p> + +<p> +Let us suppose now that the Vigilance Association after a sharp +crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all +reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the +newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all +reports of sexual crimes and misdemeanors. And having extended our +imagination so far we may presume as the sequence a world of such +highly developed moral susceptibilities that Miss Austen's novels are +beginning to cause uneasiness. Miss Austen's novels are still +permitted, but in current literature nothing is said that would lead +the reader to suppose that men and women are not of the same sex. But +men and women still continue to meet and hold conversation. Only some +advanced members of the Association are in favor of that complete +separation of the sexes which obtains in Ireland in the rural +districts. In the imaginary time of which I am writing the Association +has only obtained complete control over literature. The theaters are +either closed or given over to the representation of plays on +religious subjects; but private life has not been invaded by the +Puritan missionary, and waltz tunes are still heard and figures seen +whirling past lighted windows in Grosvenor Square and Fifth Avenue. +Mr. Coote has at this time become a moderate, he is no longer among +the progressives, and is in danger of losing his post, so I have no +difficulty in imagining what he would do in such a dilemma. He would +disguise himself as a waiter and at the next meeting of the Society +tell how he had until now showed some reluctance to--the sentence +would be a difficult one to finish, perhaps Mr. Coote would break off +and say--reluctance to put restraint on the action of men and women as +long as they kept within their own doors, but after what he has seen, +he finds himself obliged to pass from the moderates to the +progressives. What has Mr. Coote seen. How would he tell his tale? +</p> + +<p> +He would tell of the length and the breadth of the ball room, of the +parquet floor usually covered with an aubusson carpet but the carpet +had been lifted and the gilded furniture taken away; the windows and +the recesses had been filled with flowers, and to keep these fresh, +great blocks of ice had been placed in the niches. He would tell of +the lighting arrangements, for are not flowers and lights incentives +to immorality? But his descriptions of the roses and the lilies would +only lead up to his descriptions of the shameless animality that came +up the staircase between twelve and one. A half-naked lady, the +hostess, stood at the head of the stairs receiving her guests with +smiles and words of welcome. The dresses the women wore resembled the +dress worn by the hostess; young and old alike went about their +pleasure with necks and bosoms and arms uncovered, and he saw these +undressed creatures slip into the arms of men who whirled them round +and round; it was but a whirling of silk ankles and a shuffling of +glazed shoes; and every now and then the men and women looked into +each other's eyes, and the whole scene was reflected shamelessly in +tall mirrors. Notwithstanding the fact that most of Mr. Coote's time +was spent behind the buffet serving out ices, he nevertheless +contrived to find a spare moment for investigation. On the pretext of +seeking a lady who had dropped a handkerchief he had crossed the ball +room and was therefore in a position to give an accurate account of +the waltzes he had heard, dulcet, undulating, capricious measures, far +more provocative than Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" which Tolstoy has +denounced. The lady that Mr. Coote sought was not in the ball room, +and so he had an opportunity of investigating all the retiring rooms, +and I need not describe the pensive and shocked faces that listened to +his descriptions of the shady nooks. Sometimes it was a screen, +sometimes it was a palm that was employed to hide the couple from +observation. Mr. Coote at last discovered the owner of the +handkerchief in one of those shady nooks, she was there with a +gentleman.... Mr. Coote, of course, would refuse to relate what he +saw, he would hesitate, but the members of his Association would +insist upon knowing everything, and he would at last confess: "Well, +the gentleman had kissed the lady on the point of her shoulder." From +this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered +of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had +worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets, +chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not +acquainted with. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his +description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I +imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the +dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen +for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I +cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr. +Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the +conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their +pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex. +</p> + +<p> +We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved +by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that +dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half +a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a +woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's +"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have +prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war +cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what +is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long +consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance +Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as +completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go +by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one +night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we +are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and +the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book +rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring +day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring +days. Yet how infinitely more pernicious is their influence than any +book! What thoughts they put into the hearts of lads and lasses! and +perforce even the moralist has to accept the irrepressible feeling of +union and growth, the loosening of the earth about the hyacinth shoots +and the birds going about their amorous business, and the white clouds +floating up gladly through the blue air. Why, then, should he look +askance at my book, which is no more than memories of my spring days? +If the thing itself cannot be suppressed, why is it worth while to +interfere with the recollection? What strange twist in his mind leads +him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, +one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding +its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient +literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be +disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages +and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or +proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these +purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of +letters. Let us take a typical case, that of the late Lord ----. Forty +or fifty years ago he was one of the most strenuous advocates of +purity in literature, and more shops were raided at his instigation +than at any other; yet when he died his library was found to contain +the finest collection of impure literature in Europe, and his +executors were left wondering whether the prosecutions were prompted +by a desire to increase the value of his collection by the destruction +of rare books, copies of which were in his possession, or whether he +had been moved by conscientious scruples; a man might bamboozle +himself in this way: "I am a man of letters and possess these books +because they are rare, a curious corner of literature, but it would be +highly inexpedient for others to possess them." His conscience might +take a still more curious turn, leading to a dizzier height: "I am a +sinner; that, alas! is so; but I can prevent others from sinning +likewise." No doubt the greater part of the literature which the noble +lord collected with so much industry was of that frankly indecent kind +which is debarred from every library, Continental as well as English +and American. There is a literature which does not come within the +scope of the present inquiry, and there is what may perhaps be called +a border literature, books which are found in public libraries in the +German, the French, and the Italian texts. It seems pertinent to ask +why a little knowledge of French and German and Italian should procure +the right to read Brantôme's "Femmes Gallantes." It would be difficult +for anybody to say that this book is not frankly obscene, and yet in +the French text I suppose every library contains it. Casanova's +"Memoirs" is another book of the same kind; I am not aware of any +complete translation of Boccaccio's tales, but every library possesses +an edition in the original Italian. The only reason that can be put +forward for the suppression of a book is that it is harmful, and if +Brantôme, Casanova, and Boccaccio are harmful in English, they do harm +to those who can read them in the original texts. But perhaps I have +pointed out enough inconsistencies, and the reader, growing weary, may +say: "Are you so young, then, that you don't know that the world is a +mass of contradictions? that life is no more than a tale told by an +idiot full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?" Shakespeare did +no more than to put into eloquent language every man's belief, that we +are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is +mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of +the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book +morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, +and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back +than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the +English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years +at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of +letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame +of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet +now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be +drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other +writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of +these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings, +as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if +reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of +what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof +sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and +Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while +recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book, +etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my +story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an +authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in +England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in +Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book +had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to +publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I +answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three +weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral +book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes," +disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a +gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out +not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which, +being an expert, he felt sure that others would take exception. The +gentleman was kind enough to insist on submitting his marked copy to +me, and my wonderment increased as I turned over the pages, and it +reached a climax when I happened upon the following passage, which had +been marked to be omitted by the American printer. The passage was: +"... in her stage life Evelyn was an agent of the sensual passion, not +only with her voice, but in her arms, her neck, and hair, and in every +expression of her face; and it was the craving music that had thrown +her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her how much more would it +subjugate and hold within its persuasion the listener--the listener, +who perceived in the music nothing but its sensuality?" "But for what +reason," I asked the expert, "do you suggest the elimination of this +passage? This is the Puritan point of view. I thought that your +proposal was to draw my attention to the passages to which you thought +the Puritan would object." "Ah," he said, "that is how I began, but as +I got on with the work I thought it better to mark every passage that +might give offense." "And to whom would this passage give offense?" I +said. "Certainly not to any religious body?" "No," he answered, "not +to any religious body, but it would give offense to the subscribers to +the New Opera House. If parents read that the music of 'Tristan' threw +Evelyn Innes into the arms of Ulick Dean, they would not care to bring +their daughters to hear the opera, and might possibly discontinue +their subscriptions." Everybody will agree that "expert opinion" can +hardly go further, yet the folly which this "expert" was betrayed into +did not arise from any congenital stupidity; it is the mistake that +you and I, every one of us, would make when we seek the truth in our +casual experience instead of in our hearts. +</p> + +<p> +One would have thought that my pointing out the absurdity of this +expurgation of "Evelyn Innes" to the house of Appleton would have +saved it ever afterwards from similar folly, and forgetful that +experience is, as Coleridge describes it, only a lamp in a vessel's +stern which throws a light on the waters we have passed through, none +on those which lie before us, the publication of "The Lake" was issued +by Messrs. Appleton with my consent. The book, as the American public +already know, is free from all matter to which the most severe +moralist could take exception, yet the American edition did not +conform entirely with the English; a dedication written in French was +omitted, for what reason I do not know, but it was omitted. The matter +may seem a small one, and it may seem invidious to allude to it at +all, but on an occasion like the present nothing must be passed over. +The English proofs of the "Memoirs" were read, and the book was +accepted, but when it was set up in America it did not seem quite so +moral in the American type as it did in the English and difficulties +arose; these have been alluded to in the first paragraph of this +article, and perhaps wrongly I agreed that the two stories, "The +Lovers of Orelay" and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," should be left out. +On September 28th I wrote, suggesting that "In the Luxembourg Gardens" +might be retained, that it was only necessary to drop out a few +sentences to make it, as the expert would say, "acceptable to the +American public," but it never occurred to me that "The Lovers of +Orelay" could be published in any form except the form in which I +wrote it. This morning I received a letter from Mr. Sears. +</p> + +<p> +October 8, 1906. DEAR MR. MOORE: +</p> + +<p> +Your letter of September 28th has just arrived this morning. I hope +that by the time you receive this I shall have the open letter which +we are to print in "Memoirs of My Dead Life." The book is all ready, +waiting for it. As a matter of fact, we have not cut out either "In +the Luxembourg Gardens" or "The Lovers of Orelay." We simply have +taken out parts of each. Very truly yours, J. H. SEARS. +</p> + +<p> +"Simply have taken out parts of each!" My book, then, is a sort of +unfortunate animal, whose destiny was to be thrown on the American +vivisecting table and pieces taken out of it. Well, I raise no +objection. The promise that this preface will be published without +alteration soothes me (it is the anaesthetic), and after all, is it +not an honor to be Bowdlerized? Only the best are deemed dangerous.... +I am not aware that anybody ever took liberties with Miss Braddon's +texts. And the day of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one! Sooner or later +the original text is published. This is the rule, and I am confident I +shall not prove an exception to the rule. +</p> + +<p> +GEORGE MOORE. +</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h2> +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE +</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h2><a name="i">CHAPTER I</a></h2> + +<h3>SPRING IN LONDON</h3> + +<p> +As I sit at my window on Sunday morning, lazily watching the +sparrows--restless black dots that haunt the old tree at the corner of +King's Bench Walk--I begin to distinguish a faint green haze in the +branches of the old lime. Yes, there it is green in the branches; and +I'm moved by an impulse--the impulse of Spring is in my feet; +india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would +see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to +stop--pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs--to call a hansom, and +to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The +quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can +be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in a hansom, +one is alone with London. London is beautiful in that narrow street, +celebrated for licentious literature. The blue and white sky shows +above a seventeenth-century gable, and a few moments after we are in +Drury Lane. The fine weather has enticed the population out of grim +courts and alleys; skipping-ropes are whirling everywhere. The +children hardly escape being run over. Coster girls sit wrapped in +shawls, contentedly, like rabbits at the edge of a burrow; the men +smoke their pipes in sullen groups, their eyes on the closed doors of +the public house. At the corner of the great theatre a vendor of cheap +ices is rapidly absorbing the few spare pennies of the neighbourhood. +The hansom turns out of the lane into the great thoroughfare, a bright +glow like the sunset fills the roadway, and upon it a triangular block +of masonry and St. Giles's church rise, the spire aloft in the faint +blue and delicate air. Spires are so beautiful that we would fain +believe that they will outlast creeds; religion or no religion we must +have spires, and in town and country--spires showing between trees and +rising out of the city purlieus. +</p> + +<p> +The spring tide is rising; the almond trees are in bloom, that one +growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the +wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light +up--how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in +the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the +spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing +together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How +exciting! It melts on the lips in fond kisses, instilling a delicate +gluttony of life. It would be pleasant in these gardens walking +through shadowy alleys, lit here and there by a ray, to see girls +walking hand in hand, catching at branches, as girls do when dreaming +of lovers. But alas! the gardens are empty; only some daffodils! But +how beautiful is the curve of the flower when seen in profile, and +still more beautiful is the starry yellow when the flower is seen full +face. That antique flower carries my mind back--not to Greek times, +for the daffodil has lost something of its ancient loveliness; it is +more reminiscent of a Wedgwood than of a Greek vase. My nonsense +thoughts amuse me; I follow my thoughts as a child follows +butterflies; and all this ecstasy in and about me, is the joy of +health--my health and the health of the world. This April day has set +brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old +canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; +an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of--well, I do not know of +what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours +waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal does +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Here comes a boat! The canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has +interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the +last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, +the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at +the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me +of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first +wonder. We all remember the wonder with which we watched the first +barge, the wonder which the smoke coming out of the funnel excited. +When my father asked me why I'd like to go to Dublin better by canal +than by railroad, I couldn't tell him. Nor could I tell any one to-day +why I love a canal. One never loses one's fondness for canals. The +boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he +strains, sticking his toes into the path! +</p> + +<p> +There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always +women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining +light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round +Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets +full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank +historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away, +and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius. +Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach +to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is +peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original +marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and +mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image; +till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white +Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it +has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs +are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her +veiled face and read. I have only to fix my thoughts to +decipher--what? I know not. Something ... perhaps. But I cannot +control my thoughts. I am absorbed in turn by the beauty of the Marble +Arch and the perspective of the Bayswater Road, fading like an +apparition amid the romance of great trees. +</p> + +<p> +As I turn away, for the wind thrills and obliges me to walk rapidly, I +think how fortunate I am to experience these emotions in Hyde Park, +whereas my fellows have to go to Switzerland and to climb up Mont +Blanc, to feel half what I am feeling now, as I stand looking across +the level park watching the sunset, a dusky one. The last red bar of +light fades, and nothing remains but the grey park with the blue of +the suburb behind it, flowing away full of mist and people, dim and +mournful to the pallid lights of Kensington; and its crowds are like +strips of black tape scattered here and there. By the railings the +tape has been wound into a black ball, and, no doubt, the peg on which +it is wound is some preacher promising human nature deliverance from +evil if it will forego the spring time. But the spring time continues, +despite the preacher, over yonder, under branches swelling with leaf +and noisy with sparrows; the spring is there amid the boys and girls, +boys dressed in ill-fitting suits of broadcloth, daffodils in their +buttonholes; girls hardly less coarse, creatures made for work, +escaped for a while from the thraldom of the kitchen, now doing the +business of the world better than the preacher; poor servants of +sacred Spring. A woman in a close-fitting green cloth dress passes me +to meet a young man; a rich fur hangs from her shoulders; and they go +towards Park Lane, towards the wilful little houses with low balconies +and pendent flower-baskets swinging in the areas. Circumspect little +gardens! There is one, Greek as an eighteenth-century engraving, and +the woman in the close-fitting green cloth dress, rich fur hanging +from her shoulders, almost hiding the pleasant waist, enters one of +these. She is Park Lane. Park Lane supper parties and divorce are +written in her eyes and manner. The old beau, walking swiftly lest he +should catch cold, his moustache clearly dyed, his waist certainly +pinched by a belt, he, too, is Park Lane. And those two young men, +talking joyously--admirable specimens of Anglo-Saxons, slender feet, +varnished boots, health and abundant youth--they, too, are +characteristic of Park Lane. +</p> + +<p> +Park Lane dips in a narrow and old-fashioned way as it enters +Piccadilly. Piccadilly has not yet grown vulgar, only a little modern, +a little out of keeping with the beauty of the Green Park, of that +beautiful dell, about whose mounds I should like to see a comedy of +the Restoration acted. +</p> + +<p> +I used to stand here, at this very spot, twenty years ago, to watch +the moonlight between the trees, and the shadows of the trees floating +over that beautiful dell; I used to think of Wycherly's comedy, "Love +in St. James's Park," and I think of it still. In those days the +Argyle Rooms, Kate Hamilton's in Panton Street, and the Café de la +Régence were the fashion. But Paris drew me from these, towards other +pleasures, towards the Nouvelle Athènes and the Elysée Montmartre; and +when I returned to London after an absence of ten years I found a new +London, a less English London. Paris draws me still, and I shall be +there in three weeks, when the chestnuts are in bloom. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="ii">CHAPTER II</a></h2> + +<h3>FLOWERING NORMANDY</h3> + +<p> +On my arrival in Paris, though the hour was that stupid hour of seven +in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was +filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed +like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which +the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life +itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed +into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were +due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a +line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky, +one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound +except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the +fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails +only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange +crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I +remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere +could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in +the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral, +the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof +disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full +of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and +courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there +in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour +we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the +green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten +years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were +visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy +movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the +train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a +quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides +breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless +and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I +say of their beauty when the first faint lights appeared, when the +first rose clouds appeared above the hills? Orchard succeeded orchard, +and the farmhouses were all asleep. There is no such journey in the +world as the journey from Dieppe to Paris on a fine May morning. Never +shall I forget the first glimpse of Rouen Cathedral in the diamond +air, the branching river, and the tall ships anchored in the deep +current. I was dreaming of the cathedral when we had left Rouen far +behind us, and when I awoke from my dream we were in the midst of a +flat green country, the river winding about islands and through fields +in which stood solitary poplar-trees, formerly haunts of Corot and +Daubigny. I could see the spots where they had set their easels--that +slight rise with the solitary poplar for Corot, that rich river bank +and shady backwater for Daubigny. Soon after I saw the first weir, and +then the first hay-boat; and at every moment the river grew more +serene, more gracious, it passed its arms about a flat, green-wooded +island, on which there was a rookery; and sometimes we saw it ahead of +us, looping up the verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running +through it like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown +disappearing in fine muslin vapours, drawn about the low horizon. +</p> + +<p> +I did not weary of this landscape, and was sorry when the first villa +appeared. Another and then another showed between the chestnut-trees +in bloom; and there were often blue vases on the steps and sometimes +lanterns in metalwork hung from wooden balconies. The shutters were +not yet open, those heavy French shutters that we all know so well, +and that give the French houses such a look of comfort, of ease, of +long tradition. Suddenly the aspect of a street struck me as a place I +had known, and I said, "Is it possible that we are passing through +Asnières?" The name flitted past, and I was glad I had recognised +Asnières, for at the end of that very long road is the restaurant +where we used to dine, and between it and the bridge is the <i>bal</i> +where we used to dance. It was there I saw the beautiful Blanche +D'Antigny surrounded by her admirers. It was there she used to sit by +the side of the composer of the musical follies which she sang--in +those days I thought she sang enchantingly. Those were the days of +L'Oeil, Crevé, and Chilpéric. She once passed under the chestnut-trees +of that dusty little <i>bal de banlieue</i> with me by her side, proud +of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has +outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It +would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in +the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her +sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light +of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great +poets have voiced her woe and decadence. +</p> + +<p> +Not five minutes from that <i>bal</i> was the little house in which +Hervé lived, and to which he used to invite us to supper; and where, +after supper, he used to play to us the last music he had composed. We +listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken +all the tinkle out of it, and the poor <i>compositeur toqué</i> never +caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, +believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the +Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for +a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, +cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the great goddess of folly, +used to come down there to sing the songs which were intended to +revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and +Hervé's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly +did he seize the conductor's <i>bâton</i>; the days of their glory had +gone. Now Asnières itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen +another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled +down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor +scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages +came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense +and Blanche and Julia. +</p> + +<p> +But after all I am in Paris. Almost the same Paris; almost the same +George Moore, my senses awake as before to all enjoyment, my soul as +enwrapped as ever in the divine sensation of life. Once my youth moved +through thy whiteness, O City, and its dreams lay down to dreams in +the freedom of thy fields! Years come and years go, but every year I +see city and plain in the happy exaltation of Spring, and departing +before the cuckoo, while the blossom is still bright on the bough, it +has come to me to think that Paris and May are one. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="iii">CHAPTER III</a></h2> + +<h3>A WAITRESS</h3> + +<p> +Feeling that he would never see Scotland again, Stevenson wrote in a +preface to "Catriona":--"I see like a vision the youth of my father, +and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there +far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out +in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I +admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny." Does not this +sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile +emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it +reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however +vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be +remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget +the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler +phrase will form itself in our memories. The emotion that Stevenson +had to express transpires only in the words, "romance of destiny, +ultimate islands." Who does not feel his destiny to be a romance, and +who does not admire the ultimate island whither his destiny will cast +him? Giacomo Cenci, whom the Pope ordered to be flayed alive, no doubt +admired the romance of destiny that laid him on his ultimate island, a +raised plank, so that the executioner might conveniently roll up the +skin of his belly like an apron. And a hare that I once saw beating a +tambourine in Regent Street looked at me so wistfully that I am sure +it admired in some remote way the romance of destiny that had taken it +from the woodland and cast it upon its ultimate island--in this case a +barrow. But neither of these strange examples of the romance of +destiny seems to me more wonderful than the destiny of a wistful Irish +girl whom I saw serving drinks to students in a certain ultimate café +in the Latin Quarter; she, too, no doubt, admired the destiny which +had cast her out, ordaining that she should die amid tobacco smoke, +serving drinks to students, entertaining them with whatever +conversation they desired. +</p> + +<p> +Gervex, Mademoiselle D'Avary, and I had gone to this café after the +theatre for half an hour's distraction; I had thought that the place +seemed too rough for Mademoiselle D'Avary, but Gervex had said that we +should find a quiet corner, and we had happened to choose one in +charge of a thin, delicate girl, a girl touched with languor, +weakness, and a grace which interested and moved me; her cheeks were +thin, and the deep grey eyes were wistful as a drawing of Rossetti; +her waving brown hair fell over the temples, and was looped up low +over the neck after the Rossetti fashion. I had noticed how the two +women looked at each other, one woman healthful and rich, the other +poor and ailing; I had guessed the thought that passed across their +minds. Each had doubtless asked and wondered why life had come to them +so differently. But first I must tell who was Mademoiselle D'Avary, +and how I came to know her. I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated +cafe at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. +When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is +recorded that he said: "Now I've done with music, it has served its +turn, and I'm going to dine every day at Tortoni's." Even in my time +Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one +was there at five o'clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in +Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. +Tortoni was a sort of publication. At Tortoni I had discovered a young +man, one of my oldest friends, a painter of talent--he had a picture +in the Luxembourg--and a man who was beloved by women. Gervex, for it +was he, had seized me by the hand, and with voluble eagerness had told +me that I was the person he was seeking: he had heard of my coming and +had sought me in every cafe from the Madeleine to Tortoni. He had been +seeking me because he wished to ask me to dinner to meet Mademoiselle +D'Avary; we were to fetch her in the Rue des Capucines. I write the +name of the street, not because it matters to my little story in what +street she lived, but because the name is an evocation. Those who like +Paris like to hear the names of the streets, and the long staircase +turning closely up the painted walls, the brown painted doors on the +landings, and the bell rope, are evocative of Parisian life; and +Mademoiselle D'Avary is herself an evocation, for she was an actress +of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of +those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of +life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work +is done, <i>nous pouvons faire la fête ensemble</i>." But however +defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for +it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I +looked round the drawing-room admiring it--a drawing-room furnished +with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, <i>étagères</i> +covered with silver ornaments, three drawings by Boucher--Boucher in +three periods, a French Boucher, a Flemish Boucher, and an Italian +Boucher--that I must not think that any of these things were presents +from him, and from saying when she came into the room that the +bracelet on her arm was not from him. It had seemed to me in slightly +bad taste that he should remind her that he made no presents, for his +remark had clouded her joyousness; I could see that she was not so +happy at the thought of going out to dine with him as she had been. +</p> + +<p> +It was <i>chez Foyoz</i> that we dined, an old-fashioned restaurant +still free from the new taste that likes walls painted white and gold, +electric lamps and fiddlers. After dinner we had gone to see a play +next door at the Odéon, a play in which shepherds spoke to each other +about singing brooks, and stabbed each other for false women, a play +diversified with vintages, processions, wains, and songs. Nevertheless +it had not interested us. And during the <i>entr'actes</i> Gervex had +paid visits in various parts of the house, leaving Mademoiselle +D'Avary to make herself agreeable to me. I dearly love to walk by the +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers. After the +play he had said, "Allons boire un bock," and we had turned into a +students' café, a café furnished with tapestries and oak tables, and +old-time jugs and Medicis gowns, a café in which a student +occasionally caught up a tall bock in his teeth, emptied it at a gulp, +and after turning head over heels, walked out without having smiled. +Mademoiselle D'Avary's beauty and fashion had drawn the wild eyes of +all the students gathered there. She wore a flower-enwoven dress, and +from under the large hat her hair showed dark as night; and her +southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the +hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent +suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her +ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. +Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her +lips parted, the small teeth showing between the red lips. The +waitress sat, her thin arms leaning on the table, joining very +prettily in the conversation, betraying only in one glance that she +knew that she was only a failure and Mademoiselle D'Avary a success. +It was some time before the ear caught the slight accent; an accent +that was difficult to trace to any country. Once I heard a southern +intonation, and then a northern; finally I heard an unmistakable +English intonation, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"But you're English." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm Irish. I'm from Dublin." +</p> + +<p> +And thinking of a girl reared in its Dublin conventions, but whom the +romance of destiny had cast upon this ultimate café, I asked her how +she had found her way here; and she told me she had left Dublin when +she was sixteen; she had come to Paris six years ago to take a +situation as nursery governess. She used to go with the children into +the Luxembourg Gardens and talk to them in English. One day a student +had sat on the bench beside her. The rest of the story is easily +guessed. But he had no money to keep her, and she had to come to this +café to earn her living. +</p> + +<p> +"It doesn't suit me, but what am I to do? One must live, and the +tobacco smoke makes me cough." I sat looking at her, and she must have +guessed what was passing in my mind, for she told me that one lung was +gone; and we spoke of health, of the South, and she said that the +doctor had advised her to go away south. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing that Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary were engaged in +conversation, I leaned forward and devoted all my attention to this +wistful Irish girl, so interesting in her phthisis, in her red Medicis +gown, her thin arms showing in the long rucked sleeves. I had to offer +her drink; to do so was the custom of the place. She said that drink +harmed her, but she would get into trouble if she refused drink; +perhaps I would not mind paying for a piece of beef-steak instead. She +had been ordered raw steak! I have only to close my eyes to see her +going over to the corner of the cafe and cutting a piece and putting +it away. She said she would eat it before going to bed, and that would +be two hours hence, about three. While talking to her I thought of a +cottage in the South amid olive and orange trees, an open window full +of fragrant air, and this girl sitting by it. +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to take you south and attend upon you." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid you would grow weary of nursing me. And I should be able +to give you very little in return for your care. The doctor says I'm +not to love any one." + +We must have talked for some time, for it was like waking out of a +dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing +how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that +it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry +jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them +into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg +Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad +to find oneself alone on the pavement at midnight. Instead of going +back to the café I wandered on, thinking of the girl I had seen, and +of her certain death, for she could not live many months in that café. +We all want to think at midnight, under the moon, when the city looks +like a black Italian engraving, and poems come to us as we watch a +swirling river. Not only the idea of a poem came to me that night, but +on the Pont Neuf the words began to sing together, and I jotted down +the first lines before going to bed. Next morning I continued my poem, +and all day was passed in this little composition. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + We are alone! Listen, a little while,<br> + And hear the reason why your weary smile<br> + And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet,<br> + And how my love of you is more complete<br> + Than any love of any lover. They<br> + Have only been attracted by the grey<br> + Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim<br> + And delicate form, or some such other whim,<br> + The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I<br> + For other reason. Listen whilst I try<br> + To say. I joy to see the sunset slope<br> + Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope,<br> + Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm<br> + Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm,<br> + In mildly modulated phrases; thus<br> + Your life shall fade like a voluptuous<br> + Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die<br> + Like some soft evening's sad serenity....<br> + I would possess your dying hours; indeed<br> + My love is worthy of the gift, I plead<br> + For them. Although I never loved as yet,<br> + Methinks that I might love you; I would get<br> + From out the knowledge that the time was brief,<br> + That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief,<br> + And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm<br> + Beyond all other loves, for now the arm<br> + Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims<br> + You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames<br> + Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet<br> + To see you fading like a violet,<br> + Or some sweet thought, would be a very strange<br> + And costly pleasure, far beyond the range<br> + Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I<br> + Will chose a country spot where fields of rye<br> + And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains,<br> + Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes,<br> + To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where<br> + The porch and windows are festooned with fair<br> + Green leaves of eglantine, and look upon<br> + A shady garden where we'll walk alone<br> + In the autumn summer evenings; each will see<br> + Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree,<br> + The garden's length, is far, and you will rest<br> + From time to time, leaning upon my breast<br> + Your languid lily face, then later still<br> + Unto the sofa by the window-sill<br> + Your wasted body I shall carry, so<br> + That you may drink the last left lingering glow<br> + Of evening, when the air is filled with scent<br> + Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent<br> + The while with many griefs. Like some blue day<br> + That grows more lovely as it fades away,<br> + Gaining that calm serenity and height<br> + Of colour wanted, as the solemn night<br> + Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep<br> + For ever and for ever; I shall weep<br> + A day and night large tears upon your face,<br> + Laying you then beneath a rose-red place<br> + Where I may muse and dedicate and dream<br> + Volumes of poesy of you; and deem<br> + It happiness to know that you are far<br> + From any base desires as that fair star<br> + Set in the evening magnitude of heaven.<br> + Death takes but little, yea, your death has given<br> + Me that deep peace and immaculate possession<br> + Which man may never find in earthly passion. +</p> + +<p> +Good poetry of course not, but good verse, well turned every line +except the penultimate. The elision is not a happy one, and the mere +suppression of the "and" does not produce a satisfying line. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + Death takes but little, Death I thank for giving<br> + Me a remembrance, and a pure possession<br> + Of unrequited love. +</p> + +<p> +And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the café near +the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the +girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, +fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the +soul of a poet is not the soul of Florence Nightingale. I was sorry +for this wistful Irish girl, and was hastening to her, I knew not why; +not to show her the poem--the very thought was intolerable. Often did +I stop on the way to ask myself why I was going, and on what errand. +Without discovering an answer in my heart I hastened on, feeling, I +suppose, in some blind way that my quest was in my own heart. I would +know if it were capable of making a sacrifice; and sitting down at one +of her tables I waited, but she did not come, and I asked the student +by me if he knew the girl generally in charge of these tables. He said +he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a +transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He +described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and +passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things +began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying, +"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could +not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking +of her. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little +Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate +café. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the +romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once, +should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten +her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe +and dedicate to her nameless memory. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="iv">CHAPTER IV</a></h2> + +<h3>THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN</h3> + +<p> +Octave Barrès liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us +who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and +little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one +never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming +into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never +seen before on the easel. +</p> + +<p> +"It was in the back room turned to the wall," he said. "I took it out, +thinking that the Russian prince who ordered the Pegasus decoration +might buy it," and he turned away, not liking to hear my praise of it; +for it neither pleases a painter to hear his early works praised nor +abused. "I painted it before I knew how to paint," and standing before +me, his palette in his hand, he expounded his new aestheticism: that +up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all painting had been +done first in monochrome and then glazed, and what we know as solid +painting had been invented by Greuze. One day in the Louvre he had +perceived something in Delacroix, something not wholly satisfactory; +this something had set him thinking. It was Rubens, however, who had +revealed the secret! It was Rubens who had taught him how to paint! He +admitted that there was danger in retracing one's steps, in beginning +one's education over again; but what help was there for it, since +painting was not taught in the schools. +</p> + +<p> +I had heard all he had to say before, and could not change my belief +that every man must live in the ideas of his time, be they good or +bad. It is easy to say that we must only adopt Rubens's method and +jealously guard against any infringement on our personality; but in +art our personality is determined by the methods we employ, and +Octave's portrait interested me more than the Pegasus decoration, or +the three pink Venuses holding a basket of flowers above their heads. +The portrait was crude and violent, but so was the man that had +painted it; he had painted it when he was a disciple of Manet's, and +the methods of Manet were in agreement with my friend's temperament. +We are all impressionists to-day; we are eager to note down what we +feel and see; and the carefully prepared rhetorical manner of Rubens +was as incompatible with Octave's temperament as the manner of John +Milton is with mine. There was a thought of Goya in the background, in +the contrast between the grey and the black, and there was something +of Manet's simplifications in the face, but these echoes were faint, +nor did they matter, for they were of our time. In looking at his +model he had seen and felt something; he had noted this harshly, +crudely, but he noted it; and to do this, is after all the main thing. +His sitter had inspired him. The word "inspired" offended him; I +withdrew it; I said that he had been fortunate in his model, and he +admitted that: to see that thin, olive-complexioned girl with fine +delicate features and blue-black hair lying close about her head like +feathers--she wore her hair as a blackbird wears his wing--compelled +one to paint; and after admiring the face I admired the black silk +dress he had painted her in, a black silk dress covered with black +lace. She wore grey pearls in her ears, and pearls upon her neck. +</p> + +<p> +I was interested in the quality of the painting, so different from +Octave's present painting, but I was more interested in the woman +herself. The picture revealed to me something in human nature that I +had never seen before, something that I had never thought of. The soul +in this picture was so intense that I forgot the painting, and began +to think of her. She was unlike any one I had ever met in Octave +Barrès's studio; a studio beloved of women; the women one met there +seemed to be of all sorts, but in truth they were all of a sort. They +began to arrive about four o'clock in the afternoon, and they stayed +on until they were sent away. He allowed them to play the piano and +sing to him; he allowed them, as he would phrase it, to +<i>grouiller</i> about the place, and they talked of the painters they +had sat to, of their gowns, and they showed us their shoes and their +garters. He heeded them hardly at all, walking to and fro thinking of +his painting, of his archaic painting. I often wondered if his +appearance counted for anything in his renunciation of modern methods, +and certainly his appearance was a link of association; he did not +look like a modern man, but like a sixteenth-century baron; his beard +and his broken nose and his hierarchial air contributed to the +resemblance; the jersey he wore reminded one of a cuirass, a coat of +mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively +to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of +which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and +the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the +middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. +Octave was always, as he would phrase it, <i>dans une dèche +épouvantable</i>, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the +stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as +the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, +mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and +many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode +away. +</p> + +<p> +But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that +cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might +have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual +women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a +Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken +out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus +might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's +mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her +history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly +endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was +saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to +propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his +present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, +"and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to +sit. A <i>concierge's</i> daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" +My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know +her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where +he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where +Alphonsine's was. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going +back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier +Bréda on her holiday. <i>Sacré nom!</i> Half-past five, and I haven't +washed my brushes yet!" +</p> + +<p> +In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Bréda +for a holiday, he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." +</p> + +<p> +But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he +must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and +swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes +he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the +lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a +<i>peignoir</i>, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a +polished <i>parquet</i> floor. We at last returned to the carriage, +but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He +scribbled notes in the lodges of the <i>concierges</i>, and between +whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This +delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was +the daughter of a <i>concierge</i> on the Boulevard Extérieur. She had +run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysée Montmartre. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + Sa jupe avait des trous,<br> + Elle aimait des voyous,<br> + Ils ont des yeux si doux. +</p> + +<p> +But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built +her a palace in the Champs Elysées; but the Russian prince and his +palace bored her. +</p> + +<p> +The stopping of the carriage interrupted Octave's narrative. "Here we +are," he said, seizing a bell hanging on a jangling wire, and the +green door in the crumbling wall opened, and I saw an undersized +woman--I saw Alphonsine! And her portrait, a life-sized caricature +drawn by Octave, faced me from the white-washed wall of the hen-coop. +He had drawn her two cats purring about her legs, and had written +under it, "Ils viennent après le mou." Her garden was a gravelled +space; I think there was one tree in it. A tent had been stretched +from wall to wall; and a seedy-looking waiter laid the tables (there +were two), placing bottles of wine in front of each knife and fork, +and bread in long sticks at regular intervals. He was constantly +disturbed by the ringing of the bell, and had to run to the door to +admit the company. Here and there I recognised faces that I had +already seen in the studio; Clementine, who last year was studying the +part of Elsa and this year was singing, "La femme de feu, la cui, la +cui, la cuisinière," in a <i>café chantant</i>; and Margaret Byron, +who had just retreated from Russia--a disastrous campaign hers was +said to have been. The greater number were <i>hors concours</i>, for +Alphonsine's was to the aged courtesan what Chelsea Hospital is to the +aged soldier. It was a sort of human garden full of the sound and +colour of October. +</p> + +<p> +I scrutinised the crowd. How could any one of these women interest the +woman whose portrait I had seen in Barrès's studio? That one, for +instance, whom I saw every morning in the Rue des Martyres, in a +greasy <i>peignoir</i>, going marketing, a basket on her arm. Search +as I would I could not find a friend for Marie among the women nor a +lover among the men--neither of those two stout middle-aged men with +large whiskers, who had probably once been stockbrokers, nor the +withered journalist whom I heard speaking to Octave about a duel he +had fought recently; nor the little sandy Scotchman whose French was +not understood by the women and whose English was nearly +unintelligible to me; nor the man who looked like a head-waiter--Alphonsine's +lover; he had been a waiter, and he told you with the air +of Napoleon describing Waterloo that he had "created" a certain +fashionable café on the Boulevard. I could not attribute any one of +these men to Marie; and Octave spoke of her with indifference; +she had interested him to paint, and now he hoped she would get the +Russian to buy her picture. +</p> + +<p> +"But she's not here," I said. +</p> + +<p> +"She'll be here presently," Octave answered, and he went on talking to +Clementine, a fair pretty woman whom one saw every night at the <i>Rat +Mort</i>. It was when the soup-plates were being taken away that I saw +a young woman dressed in black coming across the garden. +</p> + +<p> +It was she, Marie Pellegrin. +</p> + +<p> +She wore a dress similar to the one she wore in her portrait, a black +silk covered with lace, and her black hair was swathed about her +shapely little head. She was her portrait and something more. Her +smile was her own, a sad little smile that seemed to come out of a +depth of her being, and her voice was a little musical voice, +irresponsible as a bird's, and during dinner I noticed how she broke +into speech abruptly as a bird breaks into song, and she stopped as +abruptly. I never saw a woman so like herself, and sometimes her +beauty brought a little mist into my eyes, and I lost sight of her or +very nearly, and I went on eating mechanically. Dinner seemed to end +suddenly, and before I knew that it was over we were getting up from +table. +</p> + +<p> +As we went towards the house where coffee was being served, Marie +asked me if I played cards, but I excused myself, saying that I would +prefer to sit and look at her; and just then a thin woman with red +hair, who had arrived at the same time as Marie and who had sat next +her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was +Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever +Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as <i>La Glue</i>, her +real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, +but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red +hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of +<i>des petits verres de cognac</i>. Her sketch-book was being passed +round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear +stays and was dressed in old grey woollen. She lit cigarette after +cigarette, and leaned over Marie with her arm about her shoulder, +advising her what cards to play. The game was baccarat, and in a +little while I saw that Marie was losing a great deal of money, and a +little later I saw <i>La Glue</i> trying to persuade her away from the +card-table. +</p> + +<p> +"One more deal." That deal lost her the last louis she had placed on +the table. "Some one will have to pay my cab," she said. +</p> + +<p> +We were going to the Elysée Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a +couple of louis, <i>pour passer sa soirée</i>, and we all went away in +carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the +plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was +in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high +steps leading from the street to the <i>bal</i>. +</p> + +<p> +"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysée +for many a month." +</p> + +<p> +"You'll soon be back again?" +</p> + +<p> +"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to +Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysée," +and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which +she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said, +"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like, +rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric +lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played +upon an <i>estrade</i>, and everyone whirled his partner as if she +were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle," +she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when +her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn +together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie +Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began +to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting +under her tree, she and <i>La Glue</i> together, their friends about +them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little +procession suddenly formed under the trees and came towards her, and +Marie was presented with a great basket of flowers, and all her +company with bouquets; and a little cheer went up from different parts +of the <i>bal</i>, "Vive Marie Pellegrin, la reine de l'Elysée." +</p> + +<p> +The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two +women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them +I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in +Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night +at the Elysée. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its +height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a +little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to +ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The +falling fire changed again and again. And Marie stood on a chair and +watched till the last sparks vanished. +</p> + +<p> +"Doesn't she look like my picture now?" said Octave. +</p> + +<p> +"You seemed to have divined her soul." +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I'm not a psychologist; I +am a painter. But I must get a word with her," and with a carelessness +that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called +her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the +<i>bal</i> together. I could not understand his indifference to her +charm, and asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a +little while they returned. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll do my best," I heard her say; and she ran back to join her +companions. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysée?" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le +Russe." +</p> + +<p> +We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said +anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and +presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia. + +"I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to +paint." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you think she'll go to Russia?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and +I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of +the art of painting; the art is forgotten. The old masters did +perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days +Rubens finished his <i>grisaille</i>, and the glazing was done with +certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more +depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much +paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's +none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it +doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and +Cézanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt." +</p> + +<p> +I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying +many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and +this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was +glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted. +</p> + +<p> +"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope +he'll buy the portrait." +</p> + +<p> +"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it." +</p> + +<p> +"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the +woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the +day after to-morrow?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," I said, "I'll come." +</p> + +<p> +"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture." +</p> + +<p> +Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian +had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely +settled yet. +</p> + +<p> +Marie had gone to St. Petersburg with the prince, and this was the +last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed +without something happening to remind me of her. One day a books of +travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to +a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts, where he +had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The +gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the +reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, +betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one +of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell +of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew +melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original +instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He +disappeared, and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan +came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed +himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any +knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor +did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of +Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, +returned for her holiday to the Quartier Bréda? + +A few days afterwards I heard in Barrès's studio that she had escaped +from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine's to dinner, hoping +to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except +Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of +her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was +nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; +no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little +higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the +Elysée Montmartre. The number I could inquire out, she said, and I +went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing +the café and then the <i>brasserie</i> and a little higher up the +fruit-seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one +notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. +The first house we stopped at happened to be the right one, and the +<i>concierge</i> said, "The fourth floor." As I went upstairs I +thought of <i>La Glue</i>, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and +it was she who answered the bell and asked me into an unfurnished +drawing-room, and we stood by the chimneypiece. +</p> + +<p> +"She's talking of going to the Elysée to-night. Won't you come in? +She'd like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know +them. Clementine, Margaret Byron?" And she mentioned some other names +that I did not remember, and opening a door she cried: "Marie, here's +a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine's. You know, dear, the +Englishman, Octave Barrès's friend." +</p> + +<p> +She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while. +</p> + +<p> +"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Dès qu'on est malade--" +</p> + +<p> +I don't think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear +her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for +cards. +</p> + +<p> +"You didn't play that night at Alphonsine's when I lost all my money. +You preferred to look at Victorine's drawings. She has done some +better ones. Go and look at them, and let's finish our game. Then I'll +talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine's? They say I'm very +ill, don't they? But now that I've come back I'll soon get well. I'm +always well at Montmartre, amn't I, Victorine?" "Nous ne sommes pas +installés encore," Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, +and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there +were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery +among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the +games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate +and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small +beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features +about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above +all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and +then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in +her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself--her soul; and +Marie's soul rose up like a water-flower in her eyes, and then the +soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, <i>une grue</i>, +playing cards with five others from Alphonsine's, losing her money and +her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful Empire table +that her prince had given her, and Bijou, Clementine's little dog, +slept on an embroidered cushion. Bijou was one of those dear little +Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King +Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky +coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard +Clementine's voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a +great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been +fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and <i>La +Glue</i> told Clementine that she was not wanted, that <i>elle ferait +bien de débarrasser les planches</i>, that was the expression she +used. I heard further accusations, and among them the plaintive voice +of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught +each other by the hair, and tore at each other's faces, and Marie +raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell +back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down +to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then +everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each +other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them +quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bijou jumped from her +chair and followed her mistress. +</p> + +<p> +"Help me to look," Marie said; and looking I saw her faint hands +seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a +bracelet and some pearls, as well as all her money. Marie fell back +among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow +of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon +soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had +been paid her by a <i>fournisseur</i> in the <i>Quartier</i>, who had +given her two thousand francs for her <i>garniture de cheminée</i>. A +few francs were found among the bed-clothes, and these few francs, she +said, were sufficient <i>pour passer sa soirée</i>, and she begged me +to go the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised +for ten o'clock. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall be at the Elysée by eleven. <i>Au revoir, au revoir!</i> Let +me rest a little now. I shall see you to-night. You know where I +always sit, in the left-hand corner; they always keep those seats for +me." +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm +and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable +life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying +here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept +contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid +the bedclothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the +Elysée! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of +her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if +he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If +she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes on the +streets. And this decadence--was it her fault? Octave would say: +"Qu'est ce que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ou moins fichue +... si je pouvais réussir un peu dans ce sacré métier!" This was how +he talked, but he thought more profoundly in his painting; his picture +of her was something more than mere sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +She was going to the Elysée to-night. It was just six o'clock, so she +wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten away to the dressmaker at once; +it might be wiser not--she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the +Elysée she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until +three in the morning. But I had promised: she wouldn't forgive me if I +didn't, and I went. +</p> + +<p> +The dressmaker said that Madame Pellegrin would have her dress by +nine, and at half-past ten I was at the Elysée waiting for her. +</p> + +<p> +How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the +unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the +quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the +human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs +and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that +Marie's friends spent their evening in the left-hand corner; but they +did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money +they were spending was stolen money. +</p> + +<p> +I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had +not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she +had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, +for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the afternoon sitting to +him. +</p> + +<p> +We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, +when we heard footsteps on the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +"Only some women," he said; "I've a mind not to open the door." +</p> + +<p> +"But do," I said, feeling sure the women were Marie's friends bringing +news of her. And it was so. She had been found dead on her balcony +dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker. +</p> + +<p> +I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some +ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. "Even Octave," I +said, "refrains, <i>on ne blague pas la mort</i>." +</p> + +<p> +"But what was she doing on the balcony?" he asked. "What I don't +understand is the balcony." +</p> + +<p> +We all stood looking at her picture, trying to read the face. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about +eleven." +</p> + +<p> +It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to +explain the picture. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="v">CHAPTER V</a></h2> + +<h3>LA BUTTE</h3> + +<p> +To-morrow I shall drive to breakfast, seeing Paris continuously +unfolding, prospect after prospect, green swards, white buildings, +villas engarlanded; to-day I drive to breakfast through the white +torridities of Rue Blanche. The back of the coachman grows drowsier, +and would have rounded off into sleep long ago had it not been for the +great paving stones that swing the vehicle from side to side, and we +have to climb the Rue Lepic, and the poor little fainting animal will +never be able to draw me to the Butte. So I dismiss my carriage, half +out of pity, half out of a wish to study the Rue Lepic, so typical is +it of the upper lower classes. In the Rue Blanche there are +<i>portes-cochères</i>, but in Rue Lepic there are narrow doors, +partially grated, open on narrow passages at the end of which, +squeezed between the wall and the stairs, are small rooms where +<i>concierges</i> sit, eternally <i>en camisole</i>, amid vegetables +and sewing. The wooden blinds are flung back on the faded yellow +walls, revealing a portion of white bed-curtain and a heavy +middle-aged woman, <i>en camisole</i>, passing between the cooking +stove, in which a rabbit in a tin pail lies steeping, and the men +sitting at their trades in the windows. The smell of leather follows +me for several steps; a few doors farther a girl sits trimming a +bonnet, her mother beside her. The girl looks up, pale with the +exhausting heat. At the corner of the next street there is the +<i>marchand de vins</i>, and opposite the dirty little +<i>charbonnier</i>, and standing about a little hole which he calls +his <i>boutique</i> a group of women in discoloured <i>peignoirs</i> +and heavy carpet slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere +traces of meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented +wretch common in our London streets--the man with bare feet, the +furtive and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, +tattered shirt about his consumptive chest. +</p> + +<p> +The asphalt is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, +my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer +neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow +has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the +street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above +the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill +is now a mute ornament, a sign for the <i>Bal du Moulin de la +Galette</i>. +</p> + +<p> +As I ascend the street grows whiter, and at the Butte it is empty of +everything except the white rays of noon. There are some dusty +streets, and silhouetting against the dim sky a dilapidated façade of +some broken pillars. Some stand in the midst of ruined gardens, +circled by high walls crumbling and white, and looking through a +broken gateway I see a fountain splashing, but nowhere the inhabitants +that correspond to these houses--only a workwoman, a grisette, a child +crying in the dust. The Butte Montmartre is full of suggestion; grand +folk must at some time have lived there. Could it be that this place +was once country? To-day it is full of romantic idleness and +abandonment. +</p> + +<p> +On my left an iron gateway, swinging on rusty hinges, leads on to a +large terrace, at the end of which is a row of houses. It is in one of +these houses that my friend lives, and as I pull the bell I think that +the pleasure of seeing him is worth the ascent, and my thoughts float +back over the long time I have known Paul. We have known each other +always, since we began to write. But Paul is not at home. The servant +comes to the door with a baby in her arms, another baby! and tells me +that Monsieur et Madame are gone out for the day. No breakfast, no +smoke, no talk about literature, only a long walk back--cabs are not +found at these heights--a long walk back through the roasting sun. And +it is no consolation to be told that I should have written and warned +them I was coming. +</p> + +<p> +But I must rest, and ask leave to do so, and the servant brings me in +some claret and a siphon. The study is better to sit in than the front +room, for in the front room, although the shutters are closed, the +white rays pierce through the chinks, and lie like sword-blades along +the floor. The study is pleasant and the wine refreshing. The house +seems built on the sheer hillside. Fifty feet--more than that--a +hundred feet under me there are gardens, gardens caught somehow in the +hollow of the hill, and planted with trees, tall trees, for swings +hang out of them, otherwise I should not know they were tall. From +this window they look like shrubs, and beyond the houses that surround +these gardens Paris spreads out over the plain, an endless tide of +bricks and stone, splashed with white when the sun shines on some +railway station or great boulevard: a dim reddish mass, like a +gigantic brickfield, and far away a line of hills, and above the plain +a sky as pale and faint as the blue ash of a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +I can never look upon this city without strong emotion; it has been +all my life to me. I came here in my youth, I relinquished myself to +Paris, never extending once my adventure beyond Bas Meudon, Ville +d'Avray, Fontainebleau--and Paris has made me. How much of my mind do +I owe to Paris? And by thus acquiring a fatherland more ideal than the +one birth had arrogantly imposed, because deliberately chosen, I have +doubled my span of life. Do I not exist in two countries? Have I not +furnished myself with two sets of thoughts and sensations? Ah! the +delicate delight of owning <i>un pays ami</i>--a country where you may +go when you are weary to madness of the routine of life, sure of +finding there all the sensations of home, plus those of irresponsible +caprice. The pleasure of a literature that is yours without being +wholly your own, a literature that is like an exquisite mistress, in +whom you find consolation for all the commonplaces of life! The +comparison is perfect, for although I know these French folk better +than all else in the world, they must ever remain my pleasure, and not +my work in life. It is strange that this should be so, for in truth I +know them strangely well. I can see them living their lives from hour +to hour; I know what they would say on any given occasion. +</p> + +<p> +There is Paul. I understand nothing more completely than that man's +mind. I know its habitual colour and every varying shade, and yet I +may not make him the hero of a novel when I lay the scene in +Montmartre, though I know it so well. I know when he dresses, how long +he takes to dress, and what he wears. I know the breakfast he eats, +and the streets down which he passes--their shape, their colour, their +smell. I know exactly how life has come to him, how it has affected +him. The day I met him in London! Paul in London! He was there to meet +<i>une petite fermière</i> with whom he had become infatuated when he +went to Normandy to finish his novel. Paul is <i>foncièrement bon; he +married her</i>, and this is their abode. There is the <i>salle-à-manger</i>, +furnished with a nice sideboard in oak, and six chairs to match; on the +left is their bedroom, and there is the baby's cot, a present from +<i>le grand, le cher et illustre maître</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Paul and Mrs. Paul get up at twelve, and they loiter over breakfast; +some friends come in and they loiter over les <i>petits verres</i>. +About four Paul begins to write his article, which he finishes or +nearly finishes before dinner. They loiter over dinner until it is +time for Paul to take his article to the newspaper. He loiters in the +printing office or the cafe until his proof is ready, and when that is +corrected he loiters in the many cafés of the Faubourg Montmartre, +smoking interminable cigars, finding his way back to the Butte between +three and four in the morning. Paul is fat and of an equable +temperament. He believes in naturalism all the day, particularly after +a breakfast over <i>les petits verres</i>. He never said an unkind +word to any one, and I am sure never thought one. He used to be fond +of grisettes, but since he married he has thought of no one but his +wife. <i>Il écrit des choses raides</i>, but no woman ever had a +better husband. And now you know him as well as I do. Here are his own +books, "The End of Lucie Pellegrin," the story that I have just +finished writing: I think I must explain how it was that I have come +to rewrite one of Paul's stories, the best he ever wrote. I remember +asking him why he called her Lucie, and he was surprised to hear her +name was Marie; he never knew her, he had never been to Alphonsine's, +and he had told the story as he had picked it up from the women who +turned into the Rat Mort at midnight for a <i>soupe à l'oignon</i>. He +said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I +could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in +the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had +never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have +done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a +miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully +shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the +blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so +why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my +friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on +her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that +every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism. +</p> + +<p> +I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the +author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Céard, Maupassant, Hennique, +etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who +tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les +Moralités Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by +Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I +suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their +authors do not visit here. +</p> + +<p> +And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation +except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists +than Paul. I am the youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the +symbolists. The naturalists affected the art of painting, the +symbolists the art of music; and since the symbolists there has been +no artistic manifestation--the game is played out. When Huysmans and +Paul and myself are dead, it will be as impossible to write a +naturalistic novel as to revive the megatherium. Where is Hennique? +When Monet is dead it will be as impossible to paint an +impressionistic picture as to revive the ichthyosaurus. A little world +of ideas goes by every five-and-twenty years, and the next that +emerges will be incomprehensible to me, as incomprehensible as Monet +was to Corot.... Was the young generation knocking at the door of the +Opéra Comique last night? If the music was the young generation, I am +sorry for it. It was the second time I had gone. I had been to hear +the music, and I left exasperated after the third act. A friend was +with me and he left, but for different reasons; he suffered in his +ears; it was my intelligence that suffered. Why did the flute play the +chromatic scale when the boy said, "Il faut que cela soit un grand +navire," and why were all the cellos in motion when the girl answered, +"Cela ou bien tout autre chose?" I suffered because of the divorce of +the orchestra and singers, uniting perhaps at the end of the scene. It +was speaking through music, no more, monotonous as the Sahara, league +after league, and I lost amid sands. A chord is heard in "Lohengrin" +to sustain Elsa's voice, and it performs its purpose; a motive is +heard to attract attention to a certain part of the story, and it +fills its purpose, when Ortrud shrieks out the motive of the secret, +and in its simplest form, at the church door, the method may be +criticised as crude, but the crudest melodrama is better than this +desert wandering. While I ponder on the music of the younger +generation, remembering the perplexity it had caused me, I hear a +vagrant singing on the other side of the terrace: +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<img src="images/mmdl092.gif" alt=""> +</p> + +<p> +and I say: "I hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one +who possibly has no <i>trou</i> wherein to lay his head." <i>Et moi +aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y +reste, car mon trou est</i>--Richard Wagner. My <i>trou</i> is the +Ring--the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of +Liszt and Wagner and Strauss was to write music. However long Wotan +might ponder on Mother Earth the moment comes when the violins begin +to sing; ah! how the spring uncloses in the orchestra, and the lovers +fly to the woods!... +</p> + +<p> +The vagrant continued his wail, and forgetful of Paul, forgetful of +all things but the philosophy of the minstrel of the Butte, I picked +my way down the tortuous streets repeating: +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<img src="images/mmdl093.gif" alt=""> +</p> + + +<h2><a name="vi">CHAPTER VI</a></h2> + +<h3>SPENT LOVES</h3> + +<p> +I am going to see dear and affectionate friends. The train would take +me to them, that droll little <i>chemin de fer de ceinture</i>, and it +seems a pity to miss the Gare St. Lazare, its Sunday morning tumult of +Parisians starting with their mistresses and their wives for a +favourite suburb. I never run up these wide stairways leading to the +great wide galleries full of bookstalls (charming yellow notes), and +pierced with little <i>guichets</i> painted round with blue, without +experiencing a sensation of happy lightness--a light-headedness that I +associate with the month of May in Paris. But the tramway that passes +through the Place de la Concorde goes as far as Passy, and though I +love the droll little <i>chemin de fer de ceinture</i> I love this +tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the +garden of the Champs Elysées, through miles of chestnut bloom, the +roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet +overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, +cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little +steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I +love this sprightly little river better than the melancholy Thames, +along whose banks saturnine immoralities flourish like bulrushes! +Behold the white architecture, the pillars, the balustraded steps, the +domes in the blue air, the monumented swards! Paris, like all pagan +cities, is full of statues. A little later we roll past gardens, +gaiety is in the air.... And then the streets of Passy begin to +appear, mean streets, like London streets. I like them not; but the +railway station is compensation; the little railway station like a +house of cards under toy trees, and the train steaming out into the +fanciful country. The bright wood along which it speeds is like the +season's millinery. +</p> + +<p> +It is pleasant to notice everything in Paris, the flymen asleep on +their box-seats, the little horses dozing beneath the chestnut trees, +the bloused workmen leaning over a green-painted table in an arbour, +drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre, the villas of Auteuil, rich +woodwork, rich iron railings, and the summer hush about villas +engarlanded. Auteuil is so French, its symbolism enchants me. Auteuil +is like a flower, its petals opening out to the kiss of the air, its +roots feeling for way among the rich earth. Ah, the land of France, +its vineyards and orchards, its earthly life! Thoughts come unbidden, +my thoughts sing together, and I hardly knowing what they are singing. +My thoughts are singing like the sun; do not ask me their meaning; +they mean as much and as little as the sun that I am part of--the +sun of France that I shall enjoy for thirty days. May takes me to dear +and affectionate friends who await me at Auteuil, and June takes me +away from them. There is the villa! And there amid the engarlanding +trees my friend, dressed in pale yellow, sits in front of his easel. +How the sunlight plays through the foliage, leaping through the rich, +long grass; and amid the rhododendrons in bloom sits a little girl of +four, his model, her frock and cap impossibly white under the great, +gaudy greenery. +</p> + +<p> +Year after year the same affectionate welcome, the same spontaneous +welcome in this garden of rhododendrons and chestnut bloom. I would +linger in the garden, but I may not, for breakfast is ready <i>et il +ne faut pas faire manquer la messe à Madame. La messe</i>! How gentle +the word is, much gentler than our word, mass, and it shocks us hardly +at all to see an old lady going away in her carriage <i>pour entendre +la messe</i>. Religion purged of faith is a pleasant, almost a pretty +thing. Some fruits are better dried than fresh; religion is such a +one, and religion, when nothing is left of it but the pleasant, +familiar habit, may be defended, for were it not for our habits life +would be unrecorded, it would be all on the flat, as we would say if +we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are +our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what +we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to +think the matter out--here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and +how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only +goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent +of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who +said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds +us of the beautiful goodness that floats over his face, a light from +Paradise. But why from Paradise? Paradise is an ugly ecclesiastical +invention, and angels are an ugly Hebrew invention. It is unpardonable +to think of angels in Auteuil; an angel is a prig compared to the dear +doctor, and an angel has wings. Well, so had this admirable chicken, a +bird that was grown for the use of the table, produced like a +vegetable. A dear bird that was never allowed to run about and weary +itself as our helpless English chicken is; it lived to get fat without +acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon +in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it +was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only +stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour +came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge +or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards +its predestined end--a delicious repast! What better end, what greater +glory than to be a fat chicken? The carcasses of sheep that hang in +butchers' shops are beginning to horrify the conscience of Europe. To +cut a sheep's throat is an offensive act, but to clip out a bird's +tongue with a long pair of scissors made for the purpose is genteel. +It is true that it beats its wings for a few moments, but we must not +allow ourselves to be disturbed by a mere flutter of feathers. Man is +merciful, and saved it from life. It grew like an asparagus! And +talking of asparagus, here are some from Argenteuil thick as umbrellas +and so succulent! A word about the wine. French red wines in England +always seem to taste like ink, but in France they taste of the sun. +Melons are better in June--that one comes, no doubt, from Algeria. It +is, however, the kind I like best, the rich, red melon that one eats +only in France; a thing of the moment, unrememberable; but the chicken +will never be forgotten; twenty years hence I shall be talking of a +chicken, that in becoming a fat chicken acquired twenty years of +immortality--which of us will acquire as many? +</p> + +<p> +As we rise from table the doctor calls me into his studio: for he +would give me an excellent cigar before he bids me good-bye, and +having lighted it I follow my friend to the studio at the end of the +garden, to that airy drawing-room which he has furnished in pale +yellow and dark blue. On the walls are examples of the great modern +masters--Manet and Monet. That view of a plain by Monet--is it not +facile? It flows like a Japanese water-colour: the low horizon +evaporating in the low light, the spire of the town visible in the +haze. And look at the celebrated "Leçon de Danse" by Degas--that +dancer descending the spiral staircase, only her legs are visible, the +staircase cutting the picture in twain. On the right is the dancing +class and the dancing master; something has gone wrong, and he holds +out his hands in entreaty; a group of dancers are seated on chairs in +the foreground, and their mothers are covering their shoulders with +shawls--good mothers anxious for their daughters' welfare, for their +advancement in life. +</p> + +<p> +This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that +plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait +by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature. +Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with +a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied +with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I +turned into the Salle Carrée for relaxation, and there wandered about, +waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and +I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I +delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this +year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells +of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of +the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she +is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion +that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at +you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her +eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling +her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful +tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white, +faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes +through the yellow. She wears a fur jacket, but the fur was no trouble +to Rembrandt; he did not strive for realism. It is fur, that is +sufficient. Grey pearls hang in her ears, there is a brooch upon her +breast, and a hand at the bottom of the picture passing out of the +frame, and that hand reminds one, as the chin does, of the old story +that God took a little clay and made man out of it. That chin and that +hand and arm are moulded without display of knowledge, as Nature +moulds. The picture seems as if it had been breathed upon the canvas. +Did not a great poet once say that God breathed into Adam? and here it +is even so. +</p> + +<p> +The other pictures seem dry, insignificant; the Mona Liza, celebrated +in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared +with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the +ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; +that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem +but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe +or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, +an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle +or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a +sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention +rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive +her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose +passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil paint, +that arid glazing of <i>terre verte</i>, and has come into her +possession of eternal life, into the immortality of Pater's prose. +Degas is wilting already; year after year he will wither, until one +day some great prose writer will arise and transfer his spirit into +its proper medium--literature. The Mona Liza and the "Leçon de Danse" +are intellectual pictures; they were painted with the brains rather +than with the temperaments; and what is any intellect compared with a +gift like Manet's! Leonardo made roads; Degas makes witticisms. +Yesterday I heard one that delighted me far more than any road would, +for I have given up bicycling. Somebody was saying he did not like +Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to +show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it, he +would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel he would +say with a sigh 'That is my fault!'" +</p> + +<p> +My reverie is broken by the piano; my friend is playing, and it is +pleasant to listen to music in this airy studio. But there are women I +must see, women whom I see every time I go to Paris, and too much time +has been spent in the studio--I must go. +</p> + +<p> +But where shall I go? My thoughts strike through the little streets of +Passy, measuring the distance between Passy and the Arc de Triomphe. +For a moment I think that I might sit under the trees and watch the +people returning from the races. Were she not dead I might stop at her +little house in the fortifications among the lilac trees. There is her +portrait by Manet on the wall, the very toque she used to wear. How +wonderful the touch is; the beads--how well they are rendered! And +while thinking of the extraordinary handicraft I remember his studio, +and the tall fair woman like a tea-rose coming into it: Mary Laurant! +The daughter of a peasant, and the mistress of all the great +men--perhaps I should have said of all the distinguished men. I used +to call her <i>toute la lyre</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The last time I saw her we talked about Manet. She said that every +year she took the first lilac to lay upon his grave. Is there one of +her many lovers who brings flowers to her grave? What was so +rememberable about her was her pleasure in life, and her desire to get +all the pleasure, and her consciousness of her desire to enjoy every +moment of her life. Evans, the great dentist, settled two thousand a +year upon her, and how angry he was one night on meeting Manet on the +staircase! In order to rid herself of her lover she invited him to +dinner, intending to plead a sick headache after dinner.... She must +go and lie down. But as soon as her guest was gone she took off the +<i>peignoir</i> which hid her ball dress and signed to Manet, who was +waiting at the street corner, with her handkerchief. But as they went +downstairs together whom should they meet but the dentist <i>qui a +oublié ses carnets</i>. And he was so disappointed at meeting his +beautiful but deceitful mistress that he didn't visit her again for +three or four days. His anger mattered very little to Mary. Someone +else settled two thousand a year more upon her; and having four +thousand a year or thereabouts, she dedicated herself to the love and +conversation of those who wrote books and music and painted pictures. +</p> + +<p> +We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the +imagination, at least the imagination stimulates the senses, acting as +a sort of adjuvant. The barmaid falls in love with No. 1 because he +wipes a glass better than No. 2, and Mary fell in love with Coppée on +account of his sonnet "Le Lys," and she grew indifferent when he wrote +poems like "La Nourrice" or "Le petit épicier de Montrouge qui cassait +le sucre avec mélancolie." And it was at this time when their love +story was at wane that I became a competitor. But one day Madame +Albazi came to Manet's studio, a splendid creature in a carriage drawn +by Russian horses from the Steppes, so she said; but who can tell +whether a horse comes from the Steppes or from the horse-dealers? Nor +does it matter when the lady is extraordinarily attractive, when she +inspires the thought--a mistress for Attila! That is not exactly how +Manet saw her: but she looks like that in his pastel. In it she holds +a tortoiseshell fan widespread across her bosom, and it was on one of +the sticks of the fan that he signed his name. A great painter always +knows where to sign his pictures, and he never signs twice in the same +place. The merit of these Russians is that they never leave one in +doubt. She could not sit that day, she was going to the Bois, and +asked me and a young man who happened to be in Manet's studio at the +time to go there with her, and we went there drawn by the Russian +horses, the young man and I wondering all the while which was going to +be the countess's lover; we played hard for her; but that day I was +wiser than he; I let him talk and recite poetry and jingle out all the +aphorisms that he had been collecting for years, feeling his +witticisms were in vain, for she was dark as a raven and I was as gold +as a sunflower. It was at the corner of the Rue Pontière that we got +rid of him. Some days afterwards she sat to Manet. The pastel now +hangs in the room of a friend of mine; I bought it for him. +</p> + +<p> +The picture of a woman one knows is never so agreeable a companion as +the picture of a woman one has never seen. One's memory and the +painter's vision are in conflict, and I like to think better of the +long delicate nose, and the sparkling eyes, and a mouth like red +fruit. The pastel once belonged to me; it used to hang in my rooms; +for with that grace of mind which never left him, Manet said one day, +"I always promised you a picture," and searching among the pastels +that lined the wall he turned to me saying, "Now I think that this +comes to you by right." When I left Paris hurriedly, and left my +things to be sold, the countess came to the sale and bought her +picture, and then she sold it years afterwards to a picture-dealer, +tempted by the price that Manet's pictures were fetching. Hearing that +it was for sale, I bought it, as I have said, for a friend. And now I +have told the whole story, forgetting nothing except that it was years +afterwards, when I had written "Les Confessions d'un jeune Anglais" in +the <i>Revue Indépendante</i>, that Mary Laurant asked me--oh! she was +very enterprising; she sent the editor of the <i>Revue</i> to me; an +appointment was made. She was wonderful in the garden. She said the +moment I arrived, "Now, my dear ----, you must go," and we walked +about, I listening to her aphorisms. Mary was beautiful, but she liked +one to love her for her wit, to admire her wit; and when I asked her +why she did not leave Evans, the great dentist, she said, "That would +be a base thing to do. I content myself by deceiving him," and +then--this confidence seemed to have a particular significance--"I am +not a woman," she said, "that is made love to in a garden." Her garden +was a nook at the fortifications, hidden among lilac bushes. She +wished to show me her house, and we talked for a long time in her +boudoir. But I knew she was Mallarmé's mistress at the time, so +nothing came of this <i>caprice littéraire</i>. +</p> + +<p> +My thoughts run upon women, and why not? On what would you have them +run? on copper mines? Woman is the legitimate subject of all men's +thoughts. We pretend to be interested in other things. In the +smoking-rooms I have listened to men talking about hunting, and I have +said to myself, "Your interest is a pretence: of what woman are you +thinking?" We forget women for a little while when we are thinking +about art, but only for a while. The legitimate occupation of man's +mind is woman; and listening to my friend who is playing music--music +I do not care to hear, Brahms--I fall to thinking which of the women I +have known in years past would interest me most to visit. +</p> + +<p> +In the spring weather the walk from Passy to the Champs Elysées would +be pleasant and not too far; I like to see the swards and the poplars +and the villas, the tall iron railings, and the flower vases hidden in +bouquets of trees. These things are Paris; the mind of the country, +that mind which comes out of a long past, and which may be defined as +a sort of ancestral beauty and energy is manifested everywhere in +Paris; and a more beautiful day for seeing the tall, white houses and +the villas and the trees and the swards can hardly be imagined. I +should be interested in all these things, but my real interest would +be in one little hillside, a line of houses, eight or nine, close by +the Arc de Triomphe, the most ordinary in the avenue. She liked the +ordinary, and I have often wondered what was the link of association? +Was it no more than her blonde hair drawn up from the neck, her +fragrant skin, or her perverse subtle senses? It was something more, +but you must not ask me to explain further. I like to remember the +rustle of a flowered dress she wore as she moved, drifting like a +perfume, passing from her frivolous bedroom into the drawing-room. A +room without taste, stiff and middle-class, notwithstanding the crowns +placed over the tall portraits. I see a picture of two children; but +she is the fairer, and in her pale eyes and thinly-curved lips there +is a mixture of yearning and restlessness. As the child was, so is the +woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom +with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. +The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her +slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes +are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one +and cotillon favours for the other. +</p> + +<p> +We often sat on her bedroom balcony reading, talking, or watching the +sky growing pale beyond Mount Valerian, the shadow drifting and +defining and shaping the hill. In hours like the present, dreaming in +a studio, we remember those who deceived us, those who made us suffer, +and in these hours faces, fragments of faces, rise out of a past, the +line of a bent neck, the whiteness of a hand, and the eyes. I remember +her eyes; one day in an orchard, in the lush and luxuriance of June, +her husband was walking in front with a friend, and I was pleading. +"Well," she said, raising her eyes, "you can kiss me now." But her +husband was in front, and he was a thick-set man, and there was a +stream, and I foresaw a struggle--and an unpleasant one: confess and +be done with it!--I didn't dare to kiss her, and I don't think she +ever forgave me that lack of courage. All this is twenty years ago, +and is it not silly to spend the afternoon thinking of such rubbish? +But it is of such rubbish that our lives are made. Shall I go to her +now and see her in her decadence? Grey hair has not begun to appear +yet in the blonde, it will never turn grey, but she was shrivelling a +little the last time I saw her. And next year she will be older. At +her age a year counts for double. Others are more worthy of a visit. +If I do not go to her this year, shall I go next? +</p> + +<p> +In imagination I go past her house, thinking of a man she used to talk +about, "the man she left her 'ome for"; that is how the London street +girl would word it. He had been the centre of a disgraceful scandal in +his old age, a sordid but characteristic end for the Don Juan of the +nineteenth century. Perhaps she loved the big, bearded man whose +photograph she had once shown me. He killed himself for not having +enough money to live as he wished to live. That was her explanation. I +think there was some blackmail; she had to pay some money to the dead +man's relations for letters. These sensual American women are like +orchids, and who would hesitate between an orchid and a rose? It was +twenty years ago since she turned round on me in the gloom of her +brougham unexpectedly, and it was as if some sensual spirit had come +out of a world of perfume and lace. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +In imagination I have descended the Champs Elysées, and have crossed +the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine is flowing past just as it +flowed when the workmen were building Notre Dame, just as it will flow +a thousand years hence. A thousand years hence men will stand watching +its current, thinking of little blonde women, and the shudder they can +send through the flesh; they can, but not twenty years afterwards. The +Reverend Donne has it that certain ghosts do not raise the hair but +the flesh; mine do no more than to set me thinking that rivers were +not created to bear ships to the sea, but to set our memories flowing. +Full many a time have I crossed the Pont Neuf on my way to see another +woman--an American! The time comes when desire wilts and dies, but the +sexual interest never dies, and we take pleasure in thinking in middle +life of those we enjoyed in youth. She, of whom I am thinking, lives +far away in the Latin Quarter, in an ill-paven street. How it used to +throw my carriage from side to side! I have been there so often that I +know all the shops, and where the shops end, and there is a +whitewashed wall opposite her house; the street bends there. The +<i>concierge</i> is the same, a little thicker, a little heavier; she +always used to have a baby in her arms, now there are no more babies; +her children, I suppose, have grown up and have gone away. There used +to be a darkness at the foot of the stairs, and I used to slip on +those stairs, so great was my haste; the very tinkle of the bell I +remember, and the trepidation with which I waited. +</p> + +<p> +Her rooms looked as if they had never been sat in; even the studio was +formal, and the richly-bound volumes on the tables looked as if they +had never been opened. She only kept one servant, a little, redheaded +girl, and seeing this girl back again after an absence of many years, +I spoke to Lizzie of the old days. Lizzie told me her servant's story. +She had gone away to be married, and after ten years of misfortune she +had returned to her old mistress, this demure, discreet and sly New +Englander, who concealed a fierce sensuality under a homely +appearance. Lizzie must have had many lovers, but I knew nothing of +her except her sensuality, for she had to let me into that secret. +</p> + +<p> +She was a religious woman, a devout Protestant, and thinking of her my +thoughts are carried across the sea, and I am in the National Gallery +looking at Van Eyke's picture, studying the grave sensuality of the +man's face--he speaks with uplifted hand like one in a pulpit, and the +gesture and expression tell us as plainly as if we heard him that he +is admonishing his wife (he is given to admonition), informing her +that her condition--her new pregnancy--is an act of the Divine Will. +She listens, but how curiously! with a sort of partial comprehension +afloat upon her face, more of the guinea-pig than of the rabbit type. +The twain are sharply differentiated, and one of the objects of the +painter seems to have been to show us how far one human being may be +removed from another. The husband is painfully clear to himself, the +wife is happily unconscious of herself. Now everything in the picture +suggests order; the man's face tells a mind the same from day to day, +from year to year, the same passions, the same prayers; his apparel, +the wide-brimmed hat, the cloak falling in long straight folds, the +peaked shoon, are an habitual part of him. We see little of the room, +but every one remembers the chandelier hanging from the ceiling +reflected in the mirror opposite. These reflections have lasted for +three hundred years; they are the same to-day as the day they were +painted, and so is the man; he lives again, he is a type that Nature +never wearies of reproducing, for I suppose he is essential to life. +This sober Flemish interior expresses my mistress's character almost +as well as her own apartment used to do. I always experienced a chill, +a sense of formality, when the door was opened, and while I stood +waiting for her in the prim drawing-room. Every chair was in its +appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the +tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung +about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage +there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting +for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable +to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me +as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten +emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same +olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's, +and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not +detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech +Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival +of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the <i>Mayflower</i> and +settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was <i>le grave +Puritan du tableau</i>. The reader will notice that I write <i>le +grave Puritan</i>, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was +nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with +her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain +cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside. She never +relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we +always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions +and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells +us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs +and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, +and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles +away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and +real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day; +she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the +homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years +ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation +is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during +these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the +changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her +figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a +good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have +thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year +she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me +disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has +loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially +when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly +young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said. She asked me my age; +the question was unpleasant, and before I was aware of it I had told +her a lie, and I hate those who force me to tell lies. The interview +grew painful, and to bring it to a close she asked me if I would care +to see her husband. +</p> + +<p> +We found the old man alone in his studio, looking at an engraving +under the light of the lamp, much more like a picture than any of his +paintings. She asked him if he remembered me, and he got up muttering +something, and to help him I mentioned that I had been one of his +pupils. The dear old man said of course he remembered, and that he +would like to show me his pictures, but Lizzie said--I suppose it was +nervousness that made her say it, but it was a strangely tactless +remark--"I don't think, dear, that Mr. ---- cares for your pictures." +However celebrated one may be, it is always mortifying to hear that +some one, however humble the person may be, does not care for one's +art. But I saved the situation, and I think my remarks were judicious +and witty. It is not always that one thinks of the right words at the +right moment, but it would be hard to improve on the admonition that +she did me a wrong, that, like every one who liked art, I had changed +my opinion many times, but after many wanderings had come back to the +truth, and in order to deceive the old man I spoke of Ingres. I had +never failed in that love, and how could I love Ingres without loving +him? The contrary was the truth, but the old man's answer was very +sweet. Forgetful of his own high position, he answered, "We may both +like Ingres, but it is not probable that we like the same Ingres." I +said I did not know any Ingres I did not admire, and asked him which +he admired, and we had a pleasant conversation about the Apotheosis of +Homer, and the pictures in the Musée de Montauban. Then the old man +said, "I must show Mr. ---- my pictures." No doubt he had been +thinking of them all through the conversation about the Musée de +Montauban. "I must show you my Virgin," and he explained that the face +of the Infant Jesus was not yet finished. +</p> + +<p> +It was wonderful to see this old man, who must have been nearly +eighty, taking the same interest in his pictures as he took fifty +years ago. Some stupid reader will think, perchance, that it mattered +that I had once loved his wife. But how could such a thing matter? +Think for a moment, dear reader, for all readers are dear, even the +stupidest, and you will see that you are still entangled in +conventions and prejudices. Perhaps, dear reader, you think she and I +should have dropped on our knees and confessed. Had we done so, he +would have thought us two rude people, and nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +What will happen to her when he dies? Will she return to Boston? Shall +I ever see her again? Last year I vowed that I would not, and I think +it would please her as well if I stayed away.... And she is right, for +so long as I am not by her she is with me. But in the same room, amid +the familiar furniture, we are divided by the insuperable past, and to +retain her I must send her away. The idea is an amusing one; I think I +have read it somewhere, it seems to me like something I have read. Did +I ever read of a man who sent his mistress away so that his possession +might be more complete? Whether I did or didn't matters little, the +idea is true to me to-day--in order to possess her I must never see +her again. A pretty adventure it would be, nevertheless, to spend a +week paying visits to those whom I loved about that time; and I can +imagine a sort of Beau Brummel of the emotions going every year to +Paris to spend a day with each of his mistresses. +</p> + +<p> +There were others about that time. There was Madame ----. The name is +in itself beautiful, characteristically French, and it takes me back +to the middle centuries, to the middle of France. I always imagined +that tall woman, who thought so quickly and spoke so sincerely, +dealing out her soul rapidly, as one might cards, must have been born +near Tours. She was so French that she must have come from the very +heart of France; she was French as the wine of France; as Balzac, who +also came from Tours; and her voice, and her thoughts, and her words +transported one; by her side one was really in France; and, as her +lover, one lived through every circumstance of a French love story. +She lived in what is called in Paris an hotel; it had its own +<i>concierge</i>, and it was nice to hear the man say, "Oui, monsieur, +Madame la Marquise est chez elle," to walk across a courtyard and wait +in a boudoir stretched with blue silk, to sit under a Louis XVI. rock +crystal chandelier. She said one day, "I'm afraid you're thinking of +me a great deal," and she leaned her hands on the back of the chair, +making it easy for me to take them. She said her hands had not done +any kitchen work for five hundred years, and at the time that seemed a +very witty thing to say. The drawing-room opened onto a conservatory +twenty feet high; it nearly filled the garden, and the marquise used +to receive her visitors there. I do not remember who was the +marquise's lover when the last fête was given, nor what play was +acted; only that the ordinary guests lingered over their light +refreshments, scenting the supper, and that to get rid of them we had +to bid the marquise ostentatiously goodnight. Creeping round by the +back of the house, we gained the bedrooms by the servants' staircase, +and hid there until the ordinary guests in decency could delay no +longer. As soon as the last one was gone the stage was removed, and +the supper tables were laid out. Shall I ever forget the moment when +the glass roof of the conservatory began to turn blue, and the +shrilling of awakening sparrows! How haggard we all were, but we +remained till eight in the morning. That fête was paid for with the +last remnant of the poor marquise's fortune. Afterwards she was very +poor, and Suzanne, her daughter, went on the stage and discovered a +certain talent for acting which has been her fortune to this day. I +will go to the Vaudeville to-night to see her; we might arrange to go +together to see her mother's grave. To visit the grave, and to strew +azaleas upon it, would be a pretty piece of sentimental mockery. But +for my adventure there should be seven visits; Madame ---- would make +a fourth; I hear that she is losing her sight, and lives in a chateau +about fifty miles from Paris, a chateau built in the time of Louis +XIII., with high-pitched roofs and many shutters, and formal gardens +with balustrades and fish-ponds, yes <i>et des charmilles--charmilles</i>--what +is that in English?--avenues of clipped limes. To walk in an avenue +of clipped limes with a woman who is nearly blind, and talk to her of the +past, would be indeed an adventure far "beyond the range of formal man's +emotion." +</p> + +<p> +Madame ---- interrupted our love story. She would be another--that +would be five--and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I +must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a +straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last +notes trickle out--somebody has been playing the prelude to +"Tristan"--I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on +art and women--and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow +will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again +meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied with +what I once heard dear old M'Cormac, Bishop of Galway, describe in his +sermon as 'the degrading passion of "loave."'" +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="vii">CHAPTER VII</a></h2> + +<h3>NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE</h3> + +<p> +The day dies in sultry languor. A warm night breathes upon the town, +and in the exhaustion of light and hush of sound, life strikes sharply +on the ear and brain. +</p> + +<p> +It was early in the evening when I returned home, and, sitting in the +window, I read till surprised by the dusk; and when my eyes could no +longer follow the printed page, holding the book between finger and +thumb, my face resting on the other hand, I looked out on the garden, +allowing my heart to fill with dreams. The book that had interested me +dealt with the complex technique of the art of the Low Countries--a +book written by a painter. It has awakened in me memories of all +kinds, heartrending struggles, youthful passion, bitter +disappointments; it has called into mind a multitude of thoughts and +things, and, wearied with admiring many pictures and arguing with +myself, I am now glad to exchange my book for the gentle +hallucinations of the twilight. +</p> + +<p> +I see a line of leafage drawn across the Thames, but the line dips, +revealing a slip of grey water with no gleam upon it. Warehouses and a +factory chimney rise ghostly and grey, and so cold is that grey tint +that it might be obtained with black and white; hardly is the warmth +of umber needed. Behind the warehouses and the factory chimney the sky +is murky and motionless, but higher up it is creamy white, and there +is some cloud movement. Four lamps, two on either side of the factory +chimney, look across the river; one constantly goes out--always the +same lamp--and a moment after it springs into its place again. Across +my window a beautiful branch waves like a feather fan. It is the only +part of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost +imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, +and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the +gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a +man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying +branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his +mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers +of Temple Gardens the pigeons have gone to sleep. I can see the cots +under the conical caps of slate. +</p> + +<p> +The gross, jaded, uncouth present has slipped from me as a garment +might, and I see the past like a little show, struggles and +heartbreakings of long ago, and watch it with the same indifferent +curiosity as I would the regulated mimicry of a stage play. Pictures +from the past come and go without an effort of will; many are habitual +memories, but the one before me rises for the first time--for fifteen +years it has lain submerged, and now like a water weed or flower it +rises--the Countess Ninon de Calvador's boudoir! Her boudoir or her +drawing-room, be that as it may, the room into which I was ushered +many years ago when I went to see her. I was then a young man, very +thin, with sloping shoulders, and that pale gold hair that Manet used +to like to paint. I had come with a great bouquet for Ninon, for it +was <i>son jour de fête</i>, and was surprised and somewhat +disappointed to meet a large brunette with many creases in her neck, a +loose and unstayed bosom; one could hardly imagine Ninon dressed +otherwise than in a <i>peignoir</i>--a blue <i>peignoir</i> seemed +inevitable. She was sitting by a dark, broad-shouldered young man when +I came in; they were sitting close together; he rose out of a corner +and showed me an impressionistic picture of a railway station. He was +one of the many young men who at that time thought the substitution of +dots of pink and yellow for the grey and slate and square brushwork of +Bastien Lepage was the certain way to paint well. I learned +afterwards, during the course of the evening, that he was looked at +askance, for even in Montmartre it was regarded as a dishonour to +allow the lady with whom you lived to pay for your dinner. Villiers de +L'Isle Adam, who had once been Ninon's lover, answered the reproaches +levelled against him for having accepted too largely of her +hospitality with, "Que de bruit pour quelques côtelettes!" and his +transgressions were forgiven him for the sake of the <i>mot</i> which +seemed to summarise the moral endeavour and difficulties of the entire +quarter. When Villiers was her lover Villiers was middle-aged, and +Ninon was a young woman; but when I knew her she was interested in the +young generation, yet she kept friends with all her old lovers, never +denying them her board. How funny was the impressionist's indignation +against Villiers! He charged him with having squandered a great part +of Ninon's fortune, but Villiers's answer to the young man was, "He +talks like the <i>concierge</i> in my story of 'Les Demoiselles de +Bienfillatre.'" +</p> + +<p> +Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's +temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room +testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had +been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand +francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for +it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open +house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in +Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but +when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all +hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the +<i>ratés</i> she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in +Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysées? Any friend could introduce +another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a +restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another +unless the newcomer was a <i>raté</i>--in other words, unless he had +written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not +appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the +taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there. +</p> + +<p> +The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my +expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew +there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked +about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the +companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches +and strutted across the swards. I came upon a badger and her brood, +and at my approach they disappeared into an enormous excavation, and +behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated +hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. +"That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the +different parts--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we +were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until +suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that +had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the +ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta and her admirers had to +leave the piano, and they came from the house glad to breathe the +evening air. How dear to me are flowered gowns and evening skies and +women with scarfs about their shoulders. Ah! what a beautiful evening +it was! And how well do I remember the poet comparing the darkening +sky to a blue veil with the moon like a gold beetle upon it. One of +the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice +streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of +the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes +grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen +faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had +only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a +cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare +had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could not tell. It was +whispered that she was the wife of a rich <i>commerçant</i> at Tours. +This added to the mystery, and later in the evening the lady told me +she had never been in artistic society before, and begged me to point +out to her the celebrities present, and to tell her why they were +celebrated. +</p> + +<p> +"Who is he--that one slouching towards the pond, that one wearing grey +trousers and a black jacket?--oh!" +</p> + +<p> +My companion's exclamation was caused by a new sight of Verlaine; at +that moment he had lifted off his hat (the evening was still warm), +and the great bald skull, hanging like a cliff over the shaggy +eyebrows, shaggy as furze bushes, frightened her. The poet continued +his walk round the pond, and, turning suddenly towards us, he stopped +to speak to me. I was but a pretext; he clearly wished to speak to my +companion. But how strangely did he suit his conversation to her, yet +how characteristic of his genius were the words I heard as I turned +away, thinking to leave them together--"If I were in love with a young +girl or with a young man?" My companion ran forward quickly and seized +my arm. "You must not leave me with him," she said. On account of his +genius Verlaine was a little slow to see things outside of +himself--all that was within him was clear, all without him obscure; +so we had some difficulty in getting rid of him, and as soon as he was +out of hearing my companion inquired eagerly who he was, and I was +astonished at the perception she showed. "Is he a priest? I mean, was +he ever a priest?" "A sort of cross between a thieves' kitchen and a +presbytery. He is the poet Verlaine. The singer of the sweetest verses +in the French language--a sort of ambling song like a robin's. You +have heard the robin singing on a coral hedge in autumn-tide; the +robin confesses his little soul from the topmost twig; his song is but +a tracery of his soul, and so is Verlaine's. His gift is a vision of +his own soul, and he makes a tracery as you might of a drawing with a +lead pencil, never troubling himself to inquire if what he traces is +good or ill. He knows that society regards him as an outcast, but +society's point of view is not the only one, that he knows too, and +also, though he be a lecher, a crapulous and bestial fellow at times, +at other times he is a poet, a visionary, the only poet that +Catholicism has produced since Dante. Huysmans, the apologist of +Gilles de Rais,--there he is over yonder, talking to the impressionist +painter, that small thin man with hair growing thickly, low down on +his forehead--Huysmans somewhere in his description of the trial of +the fifteenth-century monster, the prototype, so it is said, of the +nursery tale of Blue Beard, speaks of the white soul of the Middle +Ages; he must have had Verlaine on his mind, for Verlaine has spoken +of himself as a mediaeval Catholic, that is to say a Catholic in whom +sinning and repentance alternates regularly as night and day. Verlaine +has not cut the throats of so many little boys as Gilles de Rais, but +Gilles de Rais always declared himself to be a good Catholic. Verlaine +abandons himself to the Church as a child to a fairy tale; he does +trouble to argue whether the Conception of the Virgin was Immaculate; +the mediaeval sculptors have represented her attired very prettily in +cloaks with long folds, they have put graceful crowns upon her head, +and Verlaine likes these things; they inspire him to write, he feels +that belief in the Church is part of himself, and his poetical genius +is to tell his own story; he is one of the great soul-tellers. From a +literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of +faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma +shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate +himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas--the curse +of modern literature--and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living +his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have +freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get +the real taste of life--the aroma as from a wine that has been many +years in bottle. And Verlaine is aware that this is so. Sometimes he +thinks he might have written a little more poetry, and he sighs, but +he quickly recovers. 'After all, I have written a good many volumes.' +'And what would art be without life, without love?' He has a verse on +that subject; I wish I could remember it for you. His verse is always +so winsome, so delicate, slender as the birch tree, elegiac like it; a +birch bending over a lake's edge reminds me of Verlaine. He is a lake +poet, but the lake is in a suburb not far from a casino. What makes me +speak about the lake is that for a long time I thought these verses, +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + Ton âme est un lac d'amour<br> + Dont mes pensêes sont les cygnes.<br> + Vois comme ils font le tour.... +</p> + +<p> +were Verlaine's, but they are much less original; their beauty, for +they are beautiful, is conventional; numbers of poets might have +written them, whereas nobody but Verlaine could have written any of +his, really his own, poetry. His desires go sometimes as high as the +crucifix; very often they are in the gutter, hardly poetry at all, +having hardly any beauty except that of truth, and of course the +beauty of a versification that haunts in his ear, for he hears a song +in French verse that no French poet has ever heard before, and a song +so fluent, ranging from the ecstasy of the nightingale to the robin's +little homily. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + Oui, c'était par un soir joyeux de cabaret,<br> + Un de ces soirs plutôt trop chauds où l'on dirait<br> + Que le gaz du plafond conspire à notre perte<br> + Avec le vin du zinc, saveur naïve et verte.<br> + On s'amusait beaucoup dans la boutique et on<br> + Entendait des soupirs voisins d'accordéon<br> + Que ponctuaient des pieds frappant presque en cadence.<br> + Quand la porte s'ouvrit de la salle de danse<br> + Vomissant tout un flot dont toi, vers où j'étais,<br> + Et de ta voix fait que soudain je me tais,<br> + S'il te plaît de me donner un ordre péremptoire.<br> + Tu t'écrias 'Dieu, qu'il fait chaud! Patron, à boire!' +</p> + +<p> +"She was from Picardy; and he tells of her horrible accent, and in +elegy number five he continues the confession, telling how his well +beloved used to get drunk. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Tu fis le saut de ... Seine et, depuis morte-vive,<br> + Tu gardes le vertige et le goût du néant." +</p> + +<p> +"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we +stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, +cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking +at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I +said: +</p> + +<p> +"Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed +of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. +It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all +written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." +</p> + +<p> +"In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the <i>commerçant's</i> +wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went +towards her pocket. +</p> + +<p> +"No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of +vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three +years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and +renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil +somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these +hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will +not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a +caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with +these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine +preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he +drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing +beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling +in love with drabs." +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouvé l'ange<br> + Qu'il eût fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi!<br> + L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy,<br> + Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle;<br> + Elle ne m'adressa guère qu'une parole<br> + Et c'était d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait,<br> + En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre,<br> + Une troisième, recemment chanteuse au Havre,<br> + Affectait de dandinement des matelots<br> + Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots,<br> + Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacrédié, quel dommage<br> + La quatrième était sage comme une image,<br> + Châtain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois:<br> + Le diantre soit de ses sacrés signes de croix!<br> + Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma mémoire<br> + Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire<br> + Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'îlot"<br> + Tantôt bien, tantôt moins, le clair café falot<br> + Les terasses l'été, l'hiver les brasseries<br> + Et par degrés l'humble trottoir en théories<br> + En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants<br> + Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants<br> + <i>Qutorum ego parva pars erim</i>, me disais-je.<br> + Mais toutes, comme la première du cortège,<br> + Dès avant la bougie éteinte et le rideau<br> + Tiré, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau." +</p> + +<p> +"In the verses I have just quoted, you remember, he says that the +fourth was chaste as an image, her hair was pale brown, she had +scarcely any bosom, and prayed to God sometimes. He always hated piety +when it interfered with his pleasure, and in the next verse he says, +'The devil take those sacred signs of the Cross!'" +</p> + +<p> +"But do you know any of these women?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, yes; we all know the terrible Sara. She beats him." +</p> + +<p> +The <i>commerçante's</i> wife asked if she were here. +</p> + +<p> +"He wanted to bring her here, in fact he did bring her once, only she +was so drunk that she could not get beyond the threshold, and Ninon's +lover, the painter you saw painting the steam engines, was charged to +explain to the poet that Sara's intemperance rendered her impossible +in respectable society. 'I know Sara has her faults,' he murmured in +reply to all argument, and it was impossible to make him see that +others did not see Sara with his eyes. 'I know she has her faults,' he +repeated, 'and so have others. We all have our faults.' And it was a +long time before he could be induced to come back: hunger has brought +him." +</p> + +<p> +"And who is that hollow-chested man? How pathetic he looks with his +goat-like beard." +</p> + +<p> +"That is the celebrated Cabaner. He will tell you, if you speak to +him, that his father was a man like Napoleon, only more so. He is the +author of many aphorisms; 'that three military bands would be +necessary to give the impression of silence in music' is one. He comes +every night to the Nouvelle Athènes, and is a sort of rallying-point; +he will tell you that his ballad of 'The Salt Herring' is written in a +way that perhaps Wagner would not, but which Liszt certainly would +understand." +</p> + +<p> +"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his +music, I suppose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la +Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five +francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of +art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you +should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain, +and he broke off the head of the Vénus de Milo, saying that now she no +longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could +henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid +recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness, +his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his +music accompanies his own verses." +</p> + +<p> +"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?" +</p> + +<p> +"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the +last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is +the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam." +</p> + +<p> +And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all +I knew about Villiers. +</p> + +<p> +"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a +raté," I said. +</p> + +<p> +But the woman was not so simple as I had imagined, and one or two +questions she put to me led me to tell her that Villiers's genius only +appeared in streaks, like gold in quartz. +</p> + +<p> +"The comparison is an old one, but there is no better one to explain +Villiers, for when he is not inspired his writing is very like +quartz." +</p> + +<p> +"His great name----" +</p> + +<p> +"His name is part of his genius. He chose it, and it has influenced +his writings. Have I not heard him say, 'Car je porte en moi les +richesses stériles d'un grand nombre de rois oubliés.'" +</p> + +<p> +"But is he a legitimate descendant?" +</p> + +<p> +"Legitimate in the sense that he desired the name more than any of +those who ever bore it legitimately." +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Villiers passed by me, and I introduced him to her, and +very soon he began to tell us that his <i>Eve</i> had just been +published, and the success of it was great. +</p> + +<p> +"On m'a dit hier de passer à la caisse ... l'edition était épuisée, +vous voyez--il paraît, la fortune est venue ... même à moi." +</p> + +<p> +But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon +as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his +stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately +in the <i>brasseries</i> about a man in quest of a quiet village where +he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he +written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I +liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away +from us, and I had to tell my companion the story. +</p> + +<p> +"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in +his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less +of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the +café--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, +recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest +in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that +touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will +find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of +from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst +of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees +at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and +gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins. +</p> + +<p> +"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning +on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The +point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, +how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced +he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the +manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So +they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and +tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise +the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the café, but when +morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some +night to the Nouvelle Athènes to hear him; leaning across the table he +will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the +house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the +staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in +bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He +dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the +sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man +piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside +hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a +dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle +Athènes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow +night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too +bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it." +</p> + +<p> +The <i>commerçant's</i> wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she +came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot +remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think +of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in +which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the +years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue +eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of +sensual Christ? He, too, was after the <i>commerçant's</i> wife. And +didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure +yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or.<br> + Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore." +</p> + +<p> +The <i>commerçant's</i> wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by +the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew +nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here +and there? +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite<br> + Elle effleurait la Marguerite." +</p> + +<p> +The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires +him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. +Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt +Herring." +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty,<br> + A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed,<br> + And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy.<br> + He placed the ladder high, high, high,<br> + Against the wall white, white, white.<br> + He went up the ladder high, high, high,<br> + Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed<br> + Against the wall--toc! toc! toc!<br> + He tied to the nail a string long, long, long,<br> + And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry,<br> + And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy,<br> + He got down from the ladder high, high, high,<br> + And went away, away, away.<br> + Since then at the end of the string long, long, long,<br> + A salt herring dry, dry, dry,<br> + Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly.<br> + Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple,<br> + To make all serious men mad, mad, mad,<br> + And to amuse children, little, little, little." +</p> + +<p> +This was the libretto on which Cabaner wrote music "that Wagner would +not understand, but which Liszt certainly would." Dear, dear Cabaner, +how well I can see thee with thy goat-like beard, and the ape in the +tree interrupting thee; he was not like Liszt, he chattered all night. +Poor ape, he broke his chain earlier in the evening, and it was found +impossible to persuade him to come down. The brute seemed somehow +determined that we should not hear Cabaner. Soon after the cocks began +answering each other, though it was but midnight; and so loud was +their shrilling that I awoke, surprised to find myself sitting at my +window in King's Bench Walk. A moment ago I was in Madame Ninon de +Calvador's garden, and every whit as much as I am now in King's Bench +Walk. Madame Ninon de Calvador--what has become of her? +</p> + +<p> +Is the rest of her story unknown? As I sit looking into the darkness, +a memory suddenly springs upon me. Villiers, who came in when dinner +was half over, brought a young man with him. Fumbling at his shirt +collar, apologising for being late, assuring us that he had dined, he +introduced his friend to the company as a young man of genius, of +extraordinary genius. Don't I remember Villiers's nervous, hysterical +voice! Don't I remember the journalist's voice when he asked Ninon's +lover if he sold his pictures, creating at once a bad impression? By +some accident a plate was given to him, out of which one of the cats +had been fed. The plate might have been given to any one else: +Villiers would not have minded, and as for Cabaner, he never knew what +he was eating; but it was given to the journalist. Now I remember the +young man misconducted himself badly; he struck the table with his +fist, and said, "Et bien, je casse tout." Yes, it was he who wrote the +article entitled "Ninon's Table d'hôte" in the <i>Gil Blas</i>, and +from it she learned for the first time how the world viewed her +hospitality, how misinterpreted were her efforts to benefit the arts +and the artists. Somebody told me this story: who I cannot tell; it is +all so long ago. But it seems to me that I remember hearing that it +was this article that killed her. +</p> + +<p> +The passing of things is always a moving subject for meditation, and +it is strange how accident will bring back a scene, explicit in every +detail--a tree taking shape upon the dawning sky, the hairy ugliness +of the ape in its branches, and along the grey grass a waddling squad +of the ducks betaking themselves to the pond, a poet talking to a +<i>commerçant's</i> wife, Madame de Calvador leaning on a lover's arm. +</p> + +<p> +Had I a palette I could match the blue of the <i>peignoir</i> with the +faint grey sky. I could make a picture out of that dusky suburb. Had I +a pen I could write verses about these people of old time, but the +picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream, and the +verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the +meditation, which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. +Better to sit by my window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the +memory. The mood has nearly passed, the desire of action is +approaching.... I would give much for another memory, but memory may +not be beckoned, and my mind is dark now, dark as that garden; the +swaying, fan-like bough by my window is nearly one mass of green; the +last sparrow has fallen asleep. I hear nothing.... I hear a horse +trotting in the Strand. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="viii">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2> + +<h3>THE LOVERS OF ORELAY</h3> + +<p> +I had come a thousand miles--rather more, nearly fifteen hundred--in +the hope of picking up the thread of a love story that had got +entangled some years before and had been broken off abruptly. A +strange misadventure our love story had been; for Doris had given a +great deal of herself while denying me much, so much that at last, in +despair, I fled from a one-sided love affair; too one-sided to be +borne any longer, at least by me. And it was difficult to fly from her +pretty, inveigling face, delightful and winsome as the faces one finds +on the panels of the early German masters. One may look for her face +and find it on an oak panel in the Frankfort Gallery, painted in pale +tints, the cheeks faintly touched with carmine. In the background of +these pictures there are all sorts of curious things; very often a +gold bower with roses clambering up everywhere. Who was that master +who painted cunning virgins in rose bowers? The master of Cologne, was +it not? I have forgotten. No matter. Doris's hair was darker than the +hair of those virgins, a rich gold hair, a mane of hair growing as +luxuriously as the meadows in June. And the golden note was continued +everywhere, in the eyebrows, in the pupils of the eyes, in the +freckles along her little nose so firmly and beautifully modelled +about the nostrils; never was there a more lovely or affectionate +mouth, weak and beautiful as a flower; and the long hands were curved +like lilies. +</p> + +<p> +There is her portrait, dear reader, prettily and truthfully and +faithfully painted by me, the portrait of a girl I left one afternoon +in London more than seventeen years ago, and whom I had lost sight of, +I feared for ever. Thought of her? Yes, I thought of her occasionally. +Time went by, and I wondered if she were married. What her husband was +like, and why I never wrote. It were surely unkind not to write.... +Reader, you know those little regrets. Perhaps life would be all on +the flat without regret. Regret is like a mountaintop from which we +survey our dead life, a mountaintop on which we pause and ponder, and +very often looking into the twilight we ask ourselves whether it would +be well to send a letter or some token. Now we had agreed upon one +which should be used in case of an estrangement--a few bars of +Schumann's melody, "The Nut Bush," should be sent, and the one who +received it should at once hurry to the side of the other and all +difference should be healed. But this token was never sent by me, +perhaps because I did not know how to scribble the musical phrase: +pride perhaps kept her from sending it; in any case five years are a +long while, and she seemed to have died out of my life altogether; but +one day the sight of a woman who had known her, brought her before my +eyes, and I asked if Doris married. The woman could not tell me; she +had not seen her for many years; they, too, were estranged, and I went +home saying to myself: "Doris must be married. What sort of a husband +has she chosen? Is she happy? Has she a baby? Oh, shameful thought!" +</p> + +<p> +Do you remember, dear reader, how Balzac, when he had come to the last +page of "Massimilla Doni," declares that he dare not tell you the end +of this adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for the worshippers +of the ideal: "Massimilla Doni was expecting." Then in a passage that +is pleasanter to think about than to read--for Balzac when he spoke +about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the +passage is altogether grammatical--he tells how the ideas of all the +great artists, painters, and sculptors--the ideas they have wrought on +panels and in stone--escaped from their niches and their frames--all +these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept. It +would be as disgraceful for Doris to be "expecting" as it was for +Massimilla Doni, and I like to think of all the peris, the nymphs, the +sylphs, the fairies of ancient legend, all her kinsfolk gathering +about her bed, deploring her condition, regarding her as lost to +them--were such a thing to happen I should certainly kneel there in +spirit with them. And feeling just as Balzac did about Massimilla +Doni, that it was a sacrilege that Doris should be "expecting" or even +married, I wrote, omitting, however, to tell her why I had suddenly +resolved to break silence; I sent her a little note, only a few words, +that I was sorry not to have heard of her for so long a time; but +though we had been estranged she had not been forgotten; a little +commonplace note, relieved perhaps by a touch of wistfulness, of +regret. And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask +for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat +disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to +her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would +be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and +I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long +telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had +come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said, +"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the +least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was +better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing." +The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full +of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black +misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her +health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in +this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that +if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak +to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it +was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long +estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied +the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could +it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if---- +</p> + +<p> +At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer +to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should +undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I +muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a +phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own +reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more +aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you +would not have me consider it good news, would you?" +</p> + +<p> +Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's +intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering +by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that +vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to +have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a +law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are +not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were +possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a +thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be +pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much. She had said +she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old +times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a +pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was +propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle +of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a +conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or +three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything +whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met +myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not +remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy +similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes +of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand +miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in +either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden +fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had +discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey, +for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the +train. +</p> + +<p> +When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the +train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had +rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of +some financial embarrassments. During those eight years I thought +often of Italy and the south of France, but the train journey of +sixteen or seventeen or eighteen hours to the Italian frontier always +seemed so much like what purgatory must be, that the heaven of Italy +on the other side never tempted me sufficiently to undertake it. A +companion would be of no use; one cannot talk for fifteen or sixteen +hours, and while debating with myself whether I should go to Plessy, I +often glanced down the long perspective of hours. Everything, pleasure +and pain alike, are greater in imagination than in reality--there is +always a reaction, and having anticipated more than mortal weariness, +I was surprised to find that the first two hours in the train passed +very pleasantly. It seemed that I had only been in the train quite a +little while when it stopped, yet Laroche is more than an hour from +Paris, quite a countryside station, and it seems strange that the +<i>Côte d'Azur</i> should stop there. That was the grand name of the +train that I was travelling by. Think of any English company running a +train and calling it "The Azure Shore"! Think of going to Euston or to +Charing Cross, saying you are going by "The Azure Shore"! So long as +the name of this train endures, it is impossible to doubt that the +French mind is more picturesque than the English, and one no longer +wonders why the French school of painting, etc. +</p> + +<p> +A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just +before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the +train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in +the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of +glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought +a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many +various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the +bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I +began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed +to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The +directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should +exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to +examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that +would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter +to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like +ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The +French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune +no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on +how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way +of remedying abuses. +</p> + +<p> +I don't think we stopped again till we got to Lyons, and all the way +there I sat at the window looking at the landscape--the long, long +plain that the French peasant cultivates unceasingly. Out of that long +plain came all the money that was lost in Panama, and all the money +invested in Russian bonds--fine milliards came out of the French +peasants' stockings. We passed through La Beauce. I believe it was +there that Zola went to study the French peasant before he wrote "La +Terre." Huysmans, with that benevolent malice so characteristic of +him, used to say that Zola's investigation was limited to going out +once for a drive in a carriage with Madame Zola. The primitive man +that had risen out of some jungle of my being did not view this +immense and highly cultivated plain sympathetically. It seemed to him +to differ little from the town, so utterly was nature dominated by man +and portioned out. On a subject like this one can meditate for a long +time, and I meditated till my meditation was broken by the stopping of +the train. We were at Lyons. The tall white-painted houses reminded me +of Paris--Lyons, as seen from the windows of <i>La Côte d'Azur</i> at +the end of a grey December day might be Paris. The climate seemed the +same; the sky was as sloppy and as grey. At last the train stopped at +a place from which I could look down a side street, and I decided that +Lyons wore a more provincial look than Paris, and I thought of the +great silk trade and the dull minds of the merchants ... their dinner +parties, etc. I noticed everything there was to notice in order to +pass the time; but there was so little of interest that I wrote out a +telegram and ran with it to the office, for Doris did not know what +train I was coming by, and it is pleasant to be met at a station, to +meet one familiar face, not to find oneself amid a crowd of strangers. +Very nearly did I miss the train; my foot was on the footboard when +the guard blew his whistle. "Just fancy if I had missed the train," I +said, and settling myself in my seat I added, "now, let us study the +landscape; such an opportunity as this may never occur again." +</p> + +<p> +The long plain cultivated with tedious regularity that we had been +passing through before we came to Lyons, flowed on field after field; +it seemed as if we should never reach the end of it, and looking on +those same fields, for they were the same, I said to myself: "If I +were an economist that plain would interest me, but since I got +Doris's letter I am primitive man, and he abhors the brown and the +waving field, and 'the spirit in his feet' leads him to some grassy +glen where he follows his flocks, listening to the song of the wilding +bee that sings as it labours amid the gorse. What a soulless race that +plain must breed," I thought; "what soulless days are lived there; +peasants going forth at dusk to plough, and turning home at dusk to +eat, procreate and sleep." At last a river appeared flowing amid +sparse and stunted trees and reeds, a great wide sluggish river with +low banks, flowing so slowly that it hardly seemed to flow at all. +Rooks flew past, but they are hardly wilding birds; a crow--yes, we +saw one; and I thought of a heron rising slowly out of one of the +reedy islands; maybe an otter or two survives the persecution of the +peasant, and I liked to think of a poacher picking up a rabbit here +and there; hares must have almost disappeared, even the flock and the +shepherd. France is not as picturesque a country as England; only +Normandy seems to have pasturage, there alone the shepherd survives +along the banks of the Seine. Picardy, though a swamp, never conveys +an idea of the wild; and the middle of France, which I looked at then +for the first time, shocked me, for primitive man, as I have said, was +uppermost in me, and I turned away from the long plain, "Dreary," I +said, "uneventful as a boarding-house." +</p> + +<p> +But it is a long plain that has no hill in it, and when I looked out +again a whole range showed so picturesquely that I could not refrain, +but turned to a travelling companion to ask its name. It was the +Esterelles; and never shall I forget the picturesqueness of one +moment--the jagged end of the Esterelles projecting over the valley, +showing against what remained of the sunset, one or two bars of dusky +red, disappearing rapidly amid heavy clouds massing themselves as if +for a storm, and soon after night closed over the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +"Henceforth," I said, "I shall have to look to my own thoughts for +amusement," and in my circumstances there was nothing reasonable for me +to think of but Doris. Some time before midnight I should catch sight +of her on the platform. It seemed to me wonderful that it should be +so, and I must have been dreaming, for the voice of the guard, crying +out that dinner was served awoke me with a start. +</p> + +<p> +It is said to be the habit of my countrymen never to get into +conversation with strangers in the train, but I doubt if that be so. +Everything depends on the tact of him who first breaks silence; if his +manner inspires confidence in his fellow-traveller he will receive +such answers as will carry the conversation on for a minute or two, +and in that time both will have come to a conclusion whether the +conversation should be continued or dropped. A pleasant little book +might be written about train acquaintances. If I were writing such a +book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with +whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should +have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette +of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the +quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection +in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting +people I met at dinner on board <i>La Côte d'Azur</i>, though some +readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman +was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the +upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas +the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or +would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more, +being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he +took off his hat I could see that he had come from the +tropics--Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less +stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look +like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the +desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained +by his long residence among the Arabs. He had lived in the desert +since he was fourteen. "Almost a Saharian," I said to him. And during +dinner, and long after dinner we sat talking of the difference between +the Oriental races and the European; of the various Arab +<i>patois</i>. He spoke the Tunisean <i>patois</i> and wrote the +language of the Koran, which is understood all over the Sahara and the +Soudan, as well as in Mecca. What interested me, perhaps even more +than the language question, was the wilding's enterprise in attempting +to cultivate the desert. He had already enlarged his estate by the +discovery of two ancient Roman wells, and he had no doubt that all +that part of the desert lying between the three oases could be brought +into cultivation. In ancient times there were not three oases but one; +the wells had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of acres had +been laid waste by the Numidians in order, I think he told me, to save +themselves from the Saracens who were following them. He spent eight +months of every year in his oasis, and begged of me, as soon as I had +wearied of Cannes, to take the boat from Marseilles--I suppose it was +from Marseilles--and spend some time with him in the wild. +</p> + +<p> +"Visitors," he said, "are rare. You'll be very welcome. The railway +will take you within a hundred miles; the last hundred miles will be +accomplished on the back of a dromedary; I shall send you a fleet one +and an escort." +</p> + +<p> +"Splendid," I answered. "I see myself arriving sitting high up on the +hump gathering dates--I suppose there are date palms where you are? +Yes?--and wearing a turban and a bournous." +</p> + +<p> +"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise +he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only +shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. +When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out +for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father +had brought home from the East. Nothing else would have satisfied me; +my father led the pony, and I have always thought this fantasy +exceedingly characteristic; it must be so, for it awoke in me twenty +years afterwards; and fanciful and absurd as it may appear, I +certainly should have liked to have worn my travelling companion's +bournous in the train if only for a few minutes. All this is twelve +years ago, and I have not yet gone to visit him in his oasis, but how +many times have I done so in my imagination, seeing myself arriving on +the back of a dromedary crying out, "Allah! Allah! And Mohammed is his +prophet!" But though one can go on thinking year after year about a +bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; +and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my +friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as +Fromentin says, <i>chez lui</i>, I was glad to say good-bye to my +friends at Marseilles. +</p> + +<p> +I was still quite far from the end of my journey, and so weary of talk +that at first I was doubtful whether or not it would be worth while to +engage again in conversation, but a pleasant gentleman had got into my +carriage, and he required little encouragement to tell me his story. +His beginnings were very humble, but he was now a rich merchant. It is +always interesting to hear how the office boy gets his first chance; +the first steps are the interesting ones, and I should be able to tell +his story here if we had not been interrupted in the middle of it by +his little girl. She had wearied of her mother, who was in the next +carriage, and had come in to sit on her father's knee. Her hair hung +about her shoulders just as Doris's had done five years ago, taking +the date from the day that I journeyed in quest of the golden fleece. +She was a winsome child, with a little fluttering smile about her lips +and a curious intelligence in her eyes. She admitted that she was +tired, but had not been ill, and her father told me that long train +journeys produced the same effect on her as a sea journey. She spoke +with a pretty abruptness, and went away suddenly, I thought for good, +but she returned half an hour afterwards looking a little faint, I +thought, green about the mouth, and smiling less frequently. One +cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these +people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in +about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should +have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey +dragged itself out very wearily. +</p> + +<p> +Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting +for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not +even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and +the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I +congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the +telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel +than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same +pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in +Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to +tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little +paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile +inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform +talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There +was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink. +"She is going to tell me that I cannot come to her hotel. Why did I +send that telegram from Lyons?" Had it not been for that telegram I +could have gone straight to her hotel. It was just the telegram that +had brought her to the station, and she had come to tell me that it +was impossible for me to stay at her hotel. +</p> + +<p> +After thirty hours of travel it mattered little which hotel I stayed +at, but to-morrow and the next day, the long week we were to spend +together passed before my eyes, the tedium of the afternoons, the +irritation and emptiness of Platonic evenings--"Heavens! what have I +let myself in for," I thought, and my mind went back over the long +journey and the prospect of returning <i>bredouille</i>, as the +sportsmen say. But to argue about details with a woman, to get angry, +is a thing that no one versed in the arts of love ever does. We are in +the hands of women always; it is they who decide, and our best plan is +to accept the different hotel without betraying disappointment, or as +little as possible. But we had not seen each other for so long that we +could not part at once. Doris said that I must come to her hotel and +eat some supper. No; I had dined on board the train, and all she could +persuade me to have was a cup of chocolate. Over that cup of chocolate +we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon +looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling +very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my +heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however, +and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come +quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning +when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves +symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight +flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to +jump out of bed at once and to throw open <i>les croisées</i>. And +what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim, +alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as +the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere. +And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous +gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer +wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I +think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the +morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the +sea. +</p> + +<p> +Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I +breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees; +remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is +this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed +more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted +among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see +when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, +nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the +golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to +pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so +much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell +we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never +grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at +last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly +happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more +than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so +surprised as I did that morning. The <i>valet de chambre</i> brought +in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of +him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find +the sunlight a bewitchment. But who would not be bewitched by the +pretty sunlight that finds its way into the gardens of Plessy? I knew +I was going to walk with Doris by a sea blue as any drop-curtain, and +for a moment Doris seemed to be but a figure on a drop-curtain. Am I +very cynical? But are we not all figures on drop-curtains, and is not +everything comic opera, and "La Belle Hélène" perhaps the only true +reality? Amused by the idea of Jason or Paris or Menelaus in Plessy, I +asked Doris what music was played by the local orchestra, and she told +me it played "The March of Aïda" every evening. "Oh, the cornet," I +said, and I understood that the mission of Plessy was to redeem one +from the coil of one's daily existence, from Hebrew literature and its +concomitants, bishops, vicars, and curates--all these, especially +bishops, are regarded as being serious; whereas French novels and +their concomitants, pretty girls, are supposed to represent the +trivial side of life. A girl becomes serious only when she is engaged +to be married; the hiring of the house in which the family is reared +is regarded as serious; in fact all prejudices are serious; every +deflection from the normal, from the herd, is looked upon as trivial; +and I suppose that this is right: the world could not do without the +herd nor could the herd do without us--the eccentrics who go to Plessy +in quest of a golden fleece instead of putting stoves in the parish +churches (stoves and organs are always regarded as too devilishly +serious for words). +</p> + +<p> +Once I had a long conversation with my archbishop concerning the Book +of Daniel, and were I to write out his lordship's erudition I might +even be deemed sufficiently serious for a review in the <i>Church +Gazette</i>. But looking back on this interview and judging it with +all the impartiality of which my nature is capable, I cannot in truth +say that I regard it as more serious than pretty Doris's fluent +conversation, or the melancholy aspect of his lordship's cathedral as +more serious than the pretty Southern sunlight glancing along the +seashore, lighting up the painted houses, and causing Doris to open +her parasol. What a splendid article I might write on the trivial side +of seriousness, but discussion is always trivial; I shall be much more +serious in trying to recall the graceful movement of the opening of +her parasol, and how prettily it enframed her face. True that almost +every face is pretty against the distended silk full of sunlight and +shadow, but Doris's, I swear to you, was as pretty as any medieval +virgin despite its modernness. Memline himself never designed a more +appealing little face. Think of the enchantment of such a face after a +long journey, by the sea that the Romans and the Greeks used to cross +in galleys, that I used to read about when I was a boy. There it was, +and on the other side the shore on which Carthage used to stand; there +it was, a blue bay with long red hills reaching out, reminding me of +hills I had seen somewhere, I think in a battle piece by Salvator +Rosa. It seemed to me that I had seen those hills before--no, not in a +picture; had I dreamed them, or was there some remembrance of a +previous existence struggling in my brain? There was a memory +somewhere, a broken memory, and I sought for the lost thread as well +as I could, for Doris rarely ceased talking. +</p> + +<p> +"And there is the restaurant," she said, flinging up her parasol, +"built at the end of those rocks." +</p> + +<p> +We were the first swallows to arrive; the flocks would not be here for +about three weeks. So we had the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter +and doubtless the cook; and they gave us all their attention. Would we +have breakfast in the glass pavilion? How shall I otherwise describe +it, for it seemed to be all glass? The scent of the sea came through +the window, and the air was like a cordial--it intoxicated; and +looking across the bay one seemed to be looking on the very thing that +Whistler had sought for in his Nocturnes, and that Steer had nearly +caught in that picture of children paddling, that dim, optimistic blue +that allures and puts the world behind one, the dream of the +opium-eater, the phrase of the syrens in "Tannhäuser," the phrase +which begins like a barcarolle; but the accompaniment tears underneath +until we thrill with expectation. +</p> + +<p> +As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost +insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing +even if I did not succeed in winning her. +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you, +but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was +doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said: +"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem, +as it were, to have come into my inheritance." +</p> + +<p> +"Your inheritance! Am I not----" +</p> + +<p> +"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful +inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my +arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked +across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness +blowing across the bay. +</p> + +<p> +"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue." +</p> + +<p> +"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in +reality red." +</p> + +<p> +"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white +sides of villas." +</p> + +<p> +"Peeping through olive trees." +</p> + +<p> +"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive +begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when +we passed through Avignon." +</p> + +<p> +"You'll see very few trees here; only olives and ilex." +</p> + +<p> +"The ilex I know, and there is no more beautiful tree than the ilex." +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Were not the crocuses that grew<br> + Under that ilex tree,<br> + As beautiful in scent and hue<br> + As ever fed the bee?" +</p> + +<p> +"Whose verses are those?" +</p> + +<p> +"Shelley's. I know no others. Are the lines very wonderful? They seem +no more than a statement, yet they hang about my memory. I am glad I +shall see the ilex tree." +</p> + +<p> +"And the eucalyptus--plenty of eucalyptus trees." +</p> + +<p> +"That was the scent that followed us this morning as we came through +the gardens." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, as we passed from our hotel one hung over the garden wall, and +the wind carried its scent after us." +</p> + +<p> +The arrival of the waiter with <i>hors d'oeuvres</i> distracted our +attention from the olive tree to its fruit, I rarely touch olives, but +that morning I ate many. Should we have mutton cutlets or lamb? Doris +said the Southern mutton was detestable. "Then we'll have lamb." An +idea came into my head, and it was this, that I had been mistaken +about Doris's beauty. Hers was not like any face that one may find in +a panel by Memline. She was like something, but I could not lay my +thoughts on what she was like. +</p> + +<p> +"A sail would spoil the beauty of the bay," I said when the waiter +brought in the coffee, and left us--we hoped for the last time. Taking +hands and going to the window we sat looking across the sailless bay. +"How is it that no ships come here? Is the bay looked upon as a mere +ornament and reserved exclusively for the appreciation of visitors? +Those hills, too, look as if they had been designed in a like +intent.... How much more beautiful the bay is without a sail--why I +cannot tell, but----" +</p> + +<p> +"But what?" +</p> + +<p> +"A great galley rowed by fifty men would look well in this bay.... The +bay is antiquity, and those hills; all the morning while talking to +you a memory or a shadow of a memory has fretted in my mind like a fly +on a pane. Now I know why I have been expecting a nymph to rise out of +those waves during breakfast. For a thousand years men believed that +nymphs came up on those rocks, and that satyrs and their progeny might +be met in the woods and on the hillsides. Only a thin varnish has been +passed over these beliefs. One has only to come here to look down into +that blue sea-water to believe that nymphs swim about those rocks; and +when we go for a drive among those hillsides we'll keep a sharp +lookout for satyrs. Now I know why I like this country. It is heathen. +Those mountains--how different from the shambling Irish hills from +whence I have come! And you, Doris, you might have been dug up +yesterday, though you are but two-and-twenty. You are a thing of +yester age, not a bit like the little Memline head which I imagined +you to be like when I was coming here in the train, nor like anything +done by the Nuremberg painters. You are a Tanagra figure, and one of +the finest. In you I read all the winsomeness of antiquity. But I must +look at the bay now, for I may never see anything like it again; never +have I seen anything like it before. Forgive me, remember that three +days ago I was in Ireland, the day before yesterday I was in England, +yesterday I was in Paris. I have come out of the greyness of the +North. When I left Paris all was grey, and when the train passed +through Lyons a grey night was gathering; now I see no cloud at all: +the change is so wonderful. You cannot appreciate my admiration. You +have been looking at the bay for the last three weeks, and <i>La côte +d'azur</i> has become nothing to you now but palms and promenades. To +me it is still quite different. I shall always see you beautiful, +whereas Plessy may lose her beauty in a few days. Let me enjoy it +while I may." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps I shall not outlast Plessy." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, you will. Do you know, Doris, that you don't look a day older +since the first time I saw you walking across the room to the piano in +your white dress, your gold hair hanging down over your shoulders. It +has darkened a little, that is all." +</p> + +<p> +"It is provoking you should see me when I am thin. I wish you had seen +me last year when I came from the rest cure. I went up more than a +stone in weight. Every one said that I didn't look more than sixteen. +I know I didn't, for all the women were jealous of me." +</p> + +<p> +As I sat watching the dissolving line of the horizon, lost in a dream, +I heard my companion say: +</p> + +<p> +"Of what are you thinking?" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm thinking of something that happened long ago in that very bay." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me about it;" and her hand sought mine for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +"Would you like to hear it? I'd like to tell it, but it's a long, long +story, and to remember it would be an effort. The colour of the sea +and the sky is enough; the warmth of the sunlight penetrates me; I +feel like a plant; the only difference between me and one of those +palm trees----" +</p> + +<p> +"I am sure those poor palms are shivering. There is not enough heat +here for them; they come from the south, and you come from the north." +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose that is so. They grow, but they don't flourish here. +However, my mood is not philanthropic; I cannot pity even a palm tree +at the present moment. See how my cigar smoke curls and goes out! It +is strange, Doris, that I should meet you here, for some years ago it +was arranged that I should come here----" +</p> + +<p> +"With a woman?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? Our lives are woven along +and across with women. Some men find the reality of their lives in +women, others, as we were saying just now, in bishops." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me about the woman who asked you to come here? Did you love her? +And what prevented you from coming here with her?" +</p> + +<p> +"It is one of the oddest stories--odd only because it is like myself. +Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each +spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, +such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a +long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with +her, and her letter was most welcome, for I had no plans for that +evening. I do not know if you know that curious dread of life which +steals through the twilight; it had just laid its finger on my +shoulder when the bell rang, and I said: 'My visitor is welcome, +whoever she or he may be.' The visitor would have only spent a few +minutes perhaps with me, but Gertrude's letter--that was her name--was +a promise of a long and pleasant evening, for it was more than a mere +invitation to dinner. She wrote: 'I have not asked any one to meet +you, but you will not mind dining alone with me. I hope you will be +able to come, for I want to consult you on a matter about which I +think you will be able to advise me.' As I dressed I wondered what she +could have to propose, and with my curiosity enkindled I walked to her +house. The evening was fine--I remember it--and she did not live far +from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and +I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had +never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to +her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be +Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of +forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners +still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French +gowns and underwear that cost a little fortune made her a woman that +one would still take a pleasure in making love to. It would be +pleasant to be her lover for many reasons. There were disadvantages, +however, for Gertrude, though never vulgar herself, liked vulgar +things. Her friends were vulgar; her flat, for she had just left her +husband, was opulent, overdecorated; the windows were too heavily +curtained, the electric light seemed to be always turned on, and as +for the pictures--well, we won't talk of them; Gertrude was the only +one worth looking at. And she was rather like a Salon picture, a +Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as +vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white +dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't +you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour +of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her +bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought +that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my +hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been +doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I +have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or +intentional." +</p> + +<p> +"Probably a little of both," Doris said. +</p> + +<p> +"I see you understand. You always understand." +</p> + +<p> +"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her +bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,' +and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company +and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two +men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking +to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist." +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I think I can. You have not changed; I have not forgotten you +though we have not seen each other for five years; and now go on, tell +me about Gertrude." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, sitting beside her on the sofa----" +</p> + +<p> +"Under the shaded electric light," interrupted Doris. +</p> + +<p> +"I tried to discover--not the reason of this invitation to dinner; of +course it was natural that old friends should dine together, but she +had said in her letter that she wished to talk to me about some matter +on which she thought I could advise her. The servant would come in a +moment to announce that dinner was ready, and if Gertrude did not tell +me at once I might, if the story were a long one, have to wait till +dinner was over; her reluctance to confide in me seemed to point to +pecuniary help. Was it possible that Gertrude was going to ask me to +lend her money! If so, the loan would be a heavy one, more than I +could afford to lend. That is the advantage of knowing rich people; +when they ask for money they ask for more than one can afford to lend, +and one can say with truth: 'Were I to lend you five hundred pounds, +I should not be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.' Her +reluctance to confide in me seemed incomprehensible, unless indeed she +wanted to borrow money. But Gertrude was not that kind, and she was a +rich woman. At last, just before the servant came into the room, she +turned round saying that she had sent for me because she wished to +speak to me about a yacht. Imagine my surprise. To speak to me about a +yacht! If it had been about the picture. +</p> + +<p> +"The door opened, the servant announced that dinner was ready, and we +had to talk in French during dinner, for her news was that she had +hired a yacht for the winter in order that she might visit Greece and +the Greek Islands. But she did not dare to travel in Greece alone for +six months, and it was difficult to find a man who was free and whom +one could trust. She thought she could trust me, and remembering that +I had once liked her, it had occurred to her to ask me if I would like +to go with her. I shall never forget how Gertrude confided her plan to +me, the charming modesty with which she murmured: 'Perhaps you do +still, and you will not bore me by claiming rights over me. I don't +mind your making love to me, but I don't like rights. You know what I +mean. When we return to England you will not pursue me. You know what +I have suffered from such pursuits; you know all about it?' Is it not +curious how a woman will sometimes paint her portrait in a single +phrase; not paint, but indicate in half-a-dozen lines her whole moral +nature? Gertrude exists in the words I have quoted just as God made +her. And now I have to tell you about the pursuit. When Gertrude +mentioned it I had forgotten it; a blankness came into my face, and +she said: 'Don't you remember?' 'Of course, of course,' I said, and +this is the story within the story. +</p> + +<p> +"One day after lunch Gertrude, getting up, walked unconsciously +towards me, and quite naturally I took her in my arms, and when I had +told her how much I liked her, and the pleasure I took in her company, +she promised to meet me at a hotel in Lincoln. We were to meet there +in a fortnight's time; but two days before she sent for me, and told +me that she would have to send me away. I really did like Gertrude, +and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to +tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust +things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of +it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But +Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to +give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes--they +seemed like genuine tears--and it was difficult to believe that she +had taken all this trouble merely to arrive at this inexplicable and +most disagreeable end. Months passed without my hearing anything of +Gertrude, till one day she sent me a little present, and in response +to a letter she invited me to come to see her in the country. And, +walking through some beautiful woods, she told me the reason why she +had not gone to Lincoln. A Pole whom she had met at the gambling +tables at Monte Carlo was pursuing her, threatening her that if he saw +her with any other man he would murder her and her lover. This at +first seemed an incredible tale, but when she entered into details, +there could be no doubt that she was telling the truth, for had she +not on one occasion very nearly lost her life through this man? They +were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up +in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had +pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the +trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' +she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if +things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But +things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. 'What +you tell me is terrible'; and we talked for a long time, walking about +the woods, fearing that the Pole might spring from behind every bush, +the pistol in his hand. But he did not appear; she evidently knew +where he was, or had made some compact with him. Nevertheless, at the +close of the day, I drove through the summer evening not having got +anything from Gertrude except a promise that if she should find +herself free, she would send for me. Weeks and months went by during +which I saw Gertrude occasionally; you see love stories, once they get +entangled, remain entangled; that is what makes me fear that we shall +never be able to pick the knot that you have tied our love story into. +Misadventure followed misadventure. It seems to me that I behaved very +stupidly on many occasions; it would take too long to tell you +how--when I met her at the theatre I did not do exactly what I should +have done; and on another occasion when I met her driving in a suburb, +I did not stop her cab, and so on and so on until, resolved to bring +matters to a crisis, Gertrude had sent me an invitation to dinner, and +her plan was the charming one which I have told you, that we should +spend six months sailing about the Greek Islands in a yacht. We left +the dining-room and returned to the drawing-room, she telling me that +the yacht had been paid for--the schooner, the captain, the crew, +everything for six months; but I not unnaturally pointed out to her +that I could not accept her hospitality for so long a time, and the +greater part of the evening was spent in trying to persuade her to +allow me to pay--Gertrude was the richer--at least a third of the +upkeep of the yacht must come out of my pocket. +</p> + +<p> +"The prospect of a six months' cruise among the Greek Islands kindled +my imagination, and while listening to Gertrude I was often in spirit +far away, landing perchance at Cyprus, exalted at the prospect of +visiting the Cyprians' temple; or perchance standing with Gertrude on +the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the +sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a +wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water +parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined +how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, +a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. +'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as +I walked home, and the title of the book was an inspiration, 'An +Unsentimental Journey.' It was Gertrude's own words that had suggested +it. Had she not said that she did not mind my making love to her, but +she did not like rights? She couldn't complain if I wrote a book, and +I imagined how every evening when the lover left her, the chronicler +would sit for an hour recording his impressions. Very often he would +continue writing until the pencil dropped from his hand, till he fell +asleep in the chair. An immediate note-taking would be necessary, so +fugitive are impressions, and an analysis of his feelings, their +waxing and their waning; he would observe himself as an astronomer +observes the course of a somewhat erratic star, and his descriptions +of himself and of her would be interwoven with descriptions of the +seas across which Menelaus had gone after Helen's beauty--beauty, the +noblest of men's quests. +</p> + +<p> +"For once Nature seemed to me to put into the hands of the artist a +subject perfect in its every part; the end especially delighted me, +and I imagined our good-byes at Plymouth or Portsmouth or Hull, +wherever we might land. 'Well, Gertrude, goodbye. We have spent a very +pleasant six months together; I shall never forget our excursion. But +this is not a rupture; I may hope to see you some time during the +season? You will allow me to call about tea-time?' And she would +answer: 'Yes, you may call. You have been very nice.' Each would turn +away sighing, conscious of a little melancholy in the heart, for all +partings are sad; but at the bottom of the heart there would be a +sense of relief, of gladness--that gladness which the bird feels when +it leaves its roost: there is nothing more delicious perhaps than the +first beat of the wings. I forget now whether I looked forward most to +the lady or to the book.... If the winds had been more propitious, I +might have written a book that would have compared favourably with the +eighteenth-century literature, for the eighteenth century was cynical +in love; while making love to a woman, a gallant would often consider +a plan for her subsequent humiliation. Gouncourt----" +</p> + +<p> +"But, dear one, finish about the yacht." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, it seemed quite decided that Gertrude and I were to go to +Marseilles to meet the schooner; but the voyage from the Bay of Biscay +is a stormy and a tedious one; the weather was rough all the way, and +she took a long time to get to Gibraltar. She passed the strait +signalling to Lloyd's; we got a telegram; everything was ready; I had +ordered yachting clothes, shoes, and quantities of things; but after +that telegram no news came, and one evening Gertrude told me she was +beginning to feel anxious; the yacht ought to have arrived at +Marseilles. Three or four days passed, and then we read in the +paper--the <i>Evening Standard</i>, I think it was--the +<i>Ring-Dove</i>, a large schooner, had sunk off the coast while +making for the Bay of Plessy. Had she passed that point over yonder, +no doubt she would have been saved; all hands were lost, the captain, +seven men, and my book." +</p> + +<p> +"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were +you never her lover?" +</p> + +<p> +"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in +love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores +her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms." +</p> + +<p> +At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the +sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months' +cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I +loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that +my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and +taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't +know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had +anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing +questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in +love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though +not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that +since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once +incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a +<i>liaison</i> that had lasted many years and had come to an end at +last. Fearing that Doris would ask if it had come to an end through +weariness, it seemed well to add that the lady had a daughter growing +up, and it was for the girl's sake we had agreed to bring our love +story to a close. We had, however, promised to remain friends. +</p> + +<p> +Doris's silence embarrassed me a little, for she didn't ask any +questions about the lady and her daughter; and it was impossible to +tell from her manner whether she believed that this lady comprised the +whole of my love life for the last five years, and if she thought I +had really broken with her. For a moment or two I did not dare to look +at Doris, and then I felt that her disbelief mattered little, so long +as it did not enter as an influencing factor into the present +situation. Under a sky as blue and amid nature poetical as a +drop-curtain, one's moral nature dozes. No doubt that was it. There is +an English church at Plessy, but really! Dear little town, town of my +heart, where the local orchestra plays "The March of Aida" and "La +Belle Hélène"! If I could inoculate you, reader, with the sentiment of +the delicious pastoral you would understand why, all the time I was at +Plessy, I looked upon myself as a hero of legend, whether of the +Argonauts or the siege of Troy matters little. Returning from Mount +Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest +of women with the apple, I said: +</p> + +<p> +"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have +you been in love?" +</p> + +<p> +"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married." +</p> + +<p> +"And you are still engaged?" +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that +it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, +but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice. +</p> + +<p> +"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and +dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a +little mouse about?" +</p> + +<p> +"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what +happened." +</p> + +<p> +"Really?" +</p> + +<p> +"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered." +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall +understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as +you say, your story will ... I must hear it." +</p> + +<p> +"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered +horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over +it all again?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love +story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it. Tell it, and +in telling, the bitterness will pass from you. Who was this man? How +did you meet him?" +</p> + +<p> +"He was a friend of Albert's. Albert introduced him." +</p> + +<p> +"Albert is the man you are engaged to? The old story, the very oldest. +Why should it always be the friend? There are so many other men, but +it is always the friend who attracts." And I told Doris the story of a +friend who had once robbed me, and my story had the effect of drying +her tears. But they began again as soon as she tried to tell her own +story. There could be no doubt that she had suffered. Things are +interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; +Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it +may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert +was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have +suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed +with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she +should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories +happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the +old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and +this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my +eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of +mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that +it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. When +I turned to Doris I could see she was wholly immersed in her own +sorrow, and it took all my art to persuade her to tell it, or it +seemed as if all my art of persuasion were necessary. +</p> + +<p> +"As soon as you knew you loved him, you resolved to see him no more?" +</p> + +<p> +Doris nodded. +</p> + +<p> +"You sent him away before you yielded to him?" +</p> + +<p> +She nodded, and looking at me her eyes filled with tears, but which +only seemed to make them still more beautiful, she told me that they +had both felt that it was impossible to deceive Albert. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +All love stories are alike in this; they all contain what the +reviewers call "sordid details." But if Tristan had not taken +advantage of King Mark's absence on a hunting expedition, the world +would have been the poorer of a great love story; and what, after all, +does King Mark's happiness matter to us--a poor passing thing, whose +life was only useful in this, that it gave us an immortal love story? +And if Wagner had not loved Madame Wasendonck, and if Madame +Wasendonck had not been unfaithful to her husband, we should not have +had "Tristan." Who then would, for the sake of Wasendonck's honour, +destroy the score of "Tristan"? Nor is the story of "Tristan" the only +one, nor the most famous. There is also the story of Helen. If +Menelaus's wife had not been unfaithful to him, the world would have +been the poorer of the greatest of all poems, the "Iliad" and the +"Odyssey." Dear me, when one thinks of it, one must admit that art +owes a great deal to adultery. Children are born of the marriage, +stories of the adulterous bed, and the world needs both--stories as +well as children. Even my little tale would not exist if Doris had +been a prudent maiden, nor would it have interested me to listen to +her that day by the sea if she had naught to tell me but her +unswerving love for Albert. Her story is not what the world calls a +great story, and it would be absurd to pretend that if a shorthand +writer had taken it down his report would compare with the stories of +Isolde and Helen, but I heard it from her lips, and her tears and her +beauty replaced the language of Wagner and of Homer; and so well did +they do this that I am not sure that the emotion I experienced in +listening to her was less than that which I have experienced before a +work of art. +</p> + +<p> +"Do you know," she began, "perhaps you don't, perhaps you've never +loved enough to know the anxiety one may feel for the absent. We had +been together all day once, and when we bade each other good-bye we +agreed that we should not see each other for two days, till Thursday; +but that night in bed an extraordinary desire took hold of me to know +what had become of him. I felt I must hear from him; one word would be +enough. But we had promised. It was stupid, it was madness, yet I had +to take down the telephone, and when I got into communication what do +you think the answer was?--'Thank God you telephoned! I've been +walking about the room nearly out of my mind, feeling that I should go +mad if the miracle did not happen.'" +</p> + +<p> +"If you loved Ralph better than Albert----" +</p> + +<p> +"Why didn't I give up Albert? Albert's life would have been broken and +ruined if I had done that. You see he has loved me so many years that +his life has become centred in me. He is not one of those men who like +many women. Outside of his work nothing exists but me. He doesn't care +much for reading, but he reads the books I like. I don't know that he +cares much about music for its own sake, but he likes to hear me sing +just because it is me. He never notices other women; I don't think +that he knows what they wear, but he likes my dresses, not because +they are in good taste, but because I wear them. One can't sacrifice a +man like that. What would one think of oneself? One would die of +remorse. So there was nothing to be done but for Ralph to go away. It +nearly killed me." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid I can give you no such love; my affection for you will +prove very tepid after such violent emotions." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want such emotions again; I could not bear them, they would +kill me; even a part would kill me. Two months after Ralph left I was +but a little shadow. I was thinner than I am now, I was worn to a +thread, I could hardly keep body and skirt together." +</p> + +<p> +We laughed at Doris's little joke; and we watched it curling and going +out like a wreath of cigarette smoke. +</p> + +<p> +"But did you get no happiness at all out of this great love?" +</p> + +<p> +"We were happy only a very little while." +</p> + +<p> +"How long?" +</p> + +<p> +Doris reflected. +</p> + +<p> +"We had about six weeks of what I should call real happiness, the time +while Albert was away. When he came back the misery and remorse began +again. I had to see him--not Albert, the other--every day; and Albert +began to notice that I was different. We used to go out together, we +three, and at last the sham became too great and Albert said he could +not stand it any longer. 'I prefer you should go out with him alone, +and if it be for your happiness I'll give you up.'" +</p> + +<p> +"So you nearly died of love! Well, now you must live for love, liking +things as they go by. Life is beautiful at the moment, sad when we +look back, fearful when we look forward; but I suppose it's hopeless +to expect a little Christian like you to live without drawing +conclusions, liking things as they go by as the nymphs do. Dry those +tears; forget that man. You tell me it is over and done. Remember +nothing except that the sky and the sea are blue, that it is a luxury +to feel alive here by the sea-shore. My happiness would be to make you +happy, to see you put the past out of your mind, to close your eyes to +the future. That will be easy to do by this beautiful sea-shore, under +those blue skies with flowers everywhere and drives among the +mountains awaiting us. We create our own worlds. Chance has left you +here and sent me to you. I want you to eat a great deal and to sleep +and to get fatter and to dream and to read Theocritus, so that when we +go to the mountains we shall be transported into antiquity. You must +forget Albert and him who made you unhappy--he allowed you to look +back and forwards." +</p> + +<p> +"I think I deserve some happiness; you see I have sacrificed so much." +</p> + +<p> +At these words my hopes rose--shall I say like a balloon out of which +a great weight of ballast has been thrown?--and so high did they go +that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. +"She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. +Her words could bear no other interpretation; she had spoken without +thought, and instinctively. Albert was away; why should she not take +this happiness which I offered her? Would she understand that distance +made a difference, that it was one thing to deceive Albert if he were +with her, and another when she was a thousand miles away? It was as if +we were in a foreign country; we were under palm trees, we were by the +Mediterranean. With Albert a thousand miles away it would be so easy +for her to love me. She had said there was no question of her marrying +any one but Albert--and to be unfaithful is not to be inconstant. +These were the arguments which I would use if I found that I had +misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it +would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, +feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being +able to think of anything more plausible: +</p> + +<p> +"You spoke, didn't you, of going for a drive?" +</p> + +<p> +"We were speaking of happiness--but if you'd like to go for a drive. +There's no happiness like driving." +</p> + +<p> +"Isn't there?" +</p> + +<p> +She pinched my arm, and with a choking sensation in the throat I asked +her if I should send for a carriage. +</p> + +<p> +"There will be time for a short drive before the sun setting. You said +you admired the hills--one day we will go to a hill town. There is a +beautiful one--Florac is the name of it--but we must start early in +the morning. To-day there will be only time to drive as far as the +point you have been admiring all the morning. The road winds through +the rocks, and you want to see the ilex trees." +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, I want to see you." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you're looking at me. Come, don't be disagreeable." +</p> + +<p> +"Disagreeable, Doris! I never felt more kindly in my life. I'm still +absorbed in the strange piece of luck which has brought us together, +and in such a well-chosen spot; no other would have pleased me as +much." +</p> + +<p> +"Now why do you like the landscape? Tell me." +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot think of the landscape now, Doris: I'm thinking of you, of +what you said just now." +</p> + +<p> +"What did I say?" +</p> + +<p> +"You said--I tried to remember the words at the time, but I have +forgotten them, so many thoughts have passed through my mind +since--you said--how did you word it?--after having suffered as much +as you did, some share of happiness----" +</p> + +<p> +"No, I didn't say that; I said, having sacrificed so much, I thought I +deserved a little happiness." +</p> + +<p> +"So she knew what she was saying," I said to myself. "Her words were +not casual," but not daring to ask her if she intended to make me her +happiness, I spoke about the landscape. "You ask me why I like the +landscape? Because it carries me back into past times when men +believed in nymphs and in satyrs. I have always thought it must be a +wonderful thing to believe in the dryad. Do you know that men +wandering in the woods sometimes used to catch sight of a white breast +between the leaves, and henceforth they could love no mortal woman? +The beautiful name of their malady was nympholepsy. A disease that +every one would like to catch." +</p> + +<p> +"But if you were to catch it you wouldn't be able to love me, so I'll +not bring you to the mountains. Some peasant girl----" +</p> + +<p> +"Fie! Doris, I have never liked peasant girls." +</p> + +<p> +"Your antiquity is eighteenth-century antiquity. There are many +alcoves in it." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know that the alcove was an invention of the eighteenth +century. There were alcoves at all times. But, Doris, good heavens! +what are those trees? Never did I see anything so ghastly; they are +like ghosts. Not only have they no leaves, but they have no bark nor +any twigs; nothing but great white trunks and branches." +</p> + +<p> +"I think they are called plantains." +</p> + +<p> +"That won't do, you are only guessing; I must ask the coachman." +</p> + +<p> +"I think, sir, they are called plantains." +</p> + +<p> +"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people." +</p> + +<p> +"Sont des plantains, Monsieur." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields, +and Doris murmured: +</p> + +<p> +"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the +folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch." +</p> + +<p> +I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you +had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months +of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those +fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that +interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by +her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she +were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were +robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of +it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of +things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself +on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit +the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our +talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another. +</p> + +<p> +Lovers are divided into two kinds, the babbling and the silent. +</p> + +<p> +We meet specimens of the silent kind on a Thames back-water--the punt +drawn up under the shady bank with the twain lying side by side, their +arms about each other all the afternoon. When evening comes, and it is +time to return home, her fellow gets out the sculls, and they part +saying: "Well, dear, next Sunday, at the same time." "Yes, at the same +time next Sunday." +</p> + +<p> +We were of the babbling kind, as the small part of our conversation +that appears in this story shows. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, my dear, remember that we are in an open carriage." +</p> + +<p> +"What do those folks matter to us?" +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, if I don't like it?" +</p> + +<p> +To justify my desire of her lips I began to compare her beauty with +that of a Greek head on a vase, saying that hers was a cameo-like +beauty, as dainty as any Tanagra figure. +</p> + +<p> +"And to see you and not to claim you, not to hold your face in my +hands just as one holds a vase, is----" +</p> + +<p> +"Is what?" +</p> + +<p> +"A kind of misery. What else shall I say? Fancy my disappointment if, +on digging among these mountains, I were to find a beautiful vase, and +some one were to say: 'You can look at it but not touch it.'" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you love me as well as that?" she answered, somewhat moved, for my +words expressed a genuine emotion. +</p> + +<p> +"I do indeed, Doris." +</p> + +<p> +"We might get out here. I want you to see the view from the hilltop." +</p> + +<p> +And, telling the driver that he need not follow us, to stay there and +rest his panting horse, we walked on. Whether Doris was thinking of +the view I know not; I only know that I thought only of kissing Doris. +To do so would be pleasant--in a way--even on this cold hillside, and +I noticed that the road bent round the shoulder of the mount. We soon +reached the hilltop, and we could see the road enter the village in +the dip between the hills, a double line of houses--not much +more--facing the sea, a village where we might go to have breakfast; +we might never go there; however that might be, we certainly should +remember that village and the road streaming out of it on the other +side towards the hills. Now and then we lost sight of the road; it +doubled round some rock or was hidden behind a group of trees; and +then we caught sight of it a little farther on, ascending the hills in +front of us, and no doubt on the other side it entered another +village, and so on around the coast of Italy. Even with the thought of +Doris's kisses in my mind, I could admire the road and the curves of +the bay. I felt in my pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil. The +colour was as beautiful as a Brabizon; there were many tints of blue, +no doubt, but the twilight had gathered the sea and sky into one tone, +or what seemed to be one tone. +</p> + +<p> +"You wanted to see olive trees--those are olives." +</p> + +<p> +"So those are olives! Do I at last look upon olives?" +</p> + +<p> +"Are you disappointed?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes and no. The white gnarled trunk makes even the young trees seem +old. The olive is like an old man with skimpy legs. It seems to me a +pathetic tree. One does not like to say it is ugly; it is not ugly, +but it would be puzzling to say wherein lies its charm, for it throws +no shade, and is so grey--nothing is so grey as the olive. I like the +ilex better." +</p> + +<p> +Where the road dipped there was a group of ilex trees, and it was in +their shade that I kissed Doris, and the beauty of the trees helps me +to appreciate the sentiment of those kisses. And I remember that road +and those ilex trees as I might remember a passage in Theocritus. +Doris--her very name suggests antiquity, and it was well that she was +kissed by me for the first time under ilex trees; true that I had +kissed her before, but that earlier love story has not found a +chronicler, and probably it never will. I like to think that the +beauty of the ilex is answerable, perhaps, for Doris's kisses--in a +measure. Her dainty grace, her Tanagra beauty, seemed to harmonise +with that of the ilex, for there is an antique beauty in this tree +that we find in none other. Theocritus must have composed many a poem +beneath it. It is the only tree that the ancient world could have +cared to notice; and if it were possible to carve statues of trees, I +am sure that the ilex is the tree sculptors would choose. The beech +and the birch, all the other trees, only began to be beautiful when +men invented painting. No other tree shapes itself out so beautifully +as the ilex, lifting itself up to the sky so abundantly and with such +dignity--a very queen in a velvet gown is the ilex tree; and we stood +looking at the group, admiring its glossy thickness, till suddenly the +ilex tree went out of my mind, and I thought of the lonely night that +awaited me. +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, dear, it is more than flesh and blood can bear. My folly lay +in sending the telegram. Had I not sent it you wouldn't have known by +what train I was coming; you would have been fast asleep in your bed, +and I should have gone straight to your hotel." +</p> + +<p> +"But, darling, you wouldn't compromise me. Every one would know that +we stayed at the same hotel." +</p> + +<p> +"Dearest, it might happen by accident, and were it to happen by +accident what could you do?" +</p> + +<p> +"All I can say is that it would be a most unfortunate accident." +</p> + +<p> +"Then I have come a thousand miles for nothing. This is worse than the +time in London when I left you for your strictness. Can nothing be +done?" +</p> + +<p> +"Am I not devoted to you? We have spent the whole day together. Now I +don't think it's at all nice of you to reproach me with having brought +you on a fool's errand." +</p> + +<p> +"I didn't say that," and we quarrelled a little until we reached the +carriage. Doris was angry, and when she spoke again it was to say: +</p> + +<p> +"If you are not satisfied, you can go back. I'm sorry. I think it's +most unreasonable that you should ask me to compromise myself." +</p> + +<p> +"And I think it's unkind of you to suggest that I should go back, for +how can I go back?" +</p> + +<p> +She did not ask me why--she was too angry at the moment--and it was +well she did not, for I should have been embarrassed to tell her that +I was fairly caught. +</p> + +<p> +I had come a thousand miles to see her, and I could not say I was +going to take the <i>Côte d'azur</i> back again, because she would not +let me stay at her hotel; to do so would be too childish, too futile. +The misery of the journey back would be unendurable. There was nothing +to do but to wait, and hope that life, which is always full of +accidents, would favour us. Better think no more about it. For it is +thinking that makes one miserable. +</p> + +<p> +There were many little things which helped to pass the time away. +Doris went every evening to a certain shop to fetch two eggs that had +been laid that morning. It was necessary for her health that she +should eat eggs beaten up with milk between the first and second +breakfast. We went there, and it was amusing to pick my way through +the streets, carrying her eggs back to the hotel for her. She knew a +few people--strange folk, I thought them--elderly spinsters living +<i>en pension</i> at different hotels. We dined with her friends, and +after dinner Doris sang, and when she had played many things that she +used to play to me in the old days, it was time for her to go to bed, +for she rarely slept after six o'clock, so she said. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night. Ah, no, the hour is ill," I murmured to myself as I +wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything +that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to +say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at +night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's +head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain +argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more +Christian spirit--all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads +and satyrs and fauns frightened her. In the heat of the moment one +says more than one intends, though it is quite true that, as a rule, +it is well to insist that there is no such thing as our lower nature, +that everything about us is divine. So constituted are we that the +mind accepts the convention, and what we have to do is to keep to the +convention, just as in opera. Singing appears natural so long as the +characters do not speak. Once they speak they cannot go back to music; +the convention has been broken. As in Art so it is in Life. Tell a +woman that she is a nymph, and she must not expect any more from you +than she would from a faun, that all you know is the joy of the +sunlight, that you have no dreams beyond the worship of the perfect +circle of her breast, and the desire to gather grapes for her, and she +will give herself to you unconscious of sin. I must have fallen asleep +thinking of these things, and I must have slept soundly, for I +remembered nothing until the servant came in with my bath, and I saw +again the pretty sunlight flickering along the wall-paper. Before +parting the previous night, Doris and I had arranged that I was to +call an hour earlier than usual at the hotel; I was to be there at +half-past ten. She had promised to be ready. We were going to drive to +Florac, to one of the hill towns, and it would take two hours to get +there. We were going to breakfast there, and while I dressed, and in +the carriage going there, I cherished the hope that perhaps I might be +able to persuade Doris to breakfast in a private room, though feeling +all the while that it would be difficult to do so, for the public room +would be empty, and crowds of waiters would gather about us like +rooks, each trying to entice us towards his table. +</p> + +<p> +The village of Florac is high up among the hills, built along certain +ledges of rock overlooking the valley, and going south in the train +one catches sight of many towns, like it built among mountain +declivities, hanging out like nests over the edge of precipices, +showing against a red background, crowning the rocky hill. No doubt +these mediaeval towns were built in these strange places because of +the security that summit gives against raiders. One can think of no +other reason, for it is hard to believe that in the fifteenth century +men were so captivated with the picturesque that for the sake of it +they would drag every necessary of life up these hills, several +hundred feet above the plain, probably by difficult paths--the +excellent road that wound along the edge of the hills, now to the +right, now to the left, looping itself round every sudden ascent like +a grey ribbon round a hat, did not exist when Florac was built. On the +left the ground shelves away into the valley, down towards the sea, +and olives were growing down all these hillsides. Above us were olive +trees, with here and there an orange orchard, and the golden fruit +shining among the dark leaves continued to interest me. Every now and +again some sudden aspect interrupted our conversation; the bay as it +swept round the carved mountains, looking in the distance more than +ever like an old Italian picture of a time before painters began to +think about values and truth of effect, when the minds of men were +concerned with beauty; as mine was, for every time I looked at Doris +it occurred to me that I had never seen anything prettier, and not +only her face but her talk still continued to enchant me. She was +always so eager to tell me things, that she must interrupt, and these +interruptions were pleasant. I identified them with her, and so +closely that I can remember how our talk began when we got out of the +suburbs. By the last villa there was a eucalyptus tree growing; the +sun was shining, and Doris had asked me to hold her parasol for her; +but the road zigzagged so constantly that I never shifted the parasol +in time, and a ray would catch her just in the face, adding perhaps to +the freckles--there were just a few down that little nose which was +always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our +talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those +little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only +from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest +us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear +Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I +have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember +suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, +that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch +and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in +the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down +the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where +one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going +to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I +should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I +agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is +only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... +</p> + +<p> +"But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." +</p> + +<p> +"I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am +amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is +amused, whether somebody is making love to her." +</p> + +<p> +"Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to +anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, +the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, +only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the +sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been +there." +</p> + +<p> +"Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up +two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The +seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who +suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb +the Matterhorn." +</p> + +<p> +"The Matterhorn!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, +glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him +saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and +would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he +answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arrêter pour +vous expliquer les trois passés.'" +</p> + +<p> +Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years +ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the +<i>fussent</i> and the <i>eussent, été</i>, and when our language of +the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we +had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days +in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not sure at all that mountain air would not do me good. Plessy +lies very low and is very relaxing." +</p> + +<p> +"Very." +</p> + +<p> +But though I convinced her that it would have been better if she had +gone at once to stop at Florac, I could do nothing to persuade her to +pass three days with me in the inn there. As we drove up through the +town the only hope that remained in my mind was that I might induce +her to take breakfast in a private room. But the <i>salle du +restaurant</i> was fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, it contained a +hundred tables, maybe more, the floor was polished oak, and the +ceilings were painted and gilded, and there were fifty waiters waiting +for the swallows that would soon arrive from the north; we were the +van birds. +</p> + +<p> +"Shall we breakfast in a private room?" I whispered humbly. +</p> + +<p> +"Good heavens! no! I wouldn't dare to go into a private room before +all these waiters." +</p> + +<p> +My heart sank again, and when Doris said, "Where shall we sit?" I +answered, "Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter." +</p> + +<p> +It had taken two hours for the horses to crawl up to the mountain +town, and as I had no early breakfast I was ravenously hungry. A box +of sardines and a plate of butter, and the prospect of an omelette and +a steak, put all thoughts of Doris for the moment out of my head, and +that was a good thing. We babbled on, and it was impossible to say +which was the more interested, which enjoyed talking most; and the +pleasure which each took in talking and hearing the other talk became +noticeable. +</p> + +<p> +"I didn't interrupt you just now, I thought it would be cruel, for you +were enjoying yourself so much," said Doris, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I promise not to interrupt the next time--you were in the midst +of one of your stories." +</p> + +<p> +It was not long before she was telling me another story, for Doris was +full of stories. She observed life as it went by, and could recall +what she had seen. Our talk had gone back to years before, to the +evening when I first saw her cross the drawing-room in a white dress, +her gold hair hanging over her shoulders; and in that moment, as she +crossed the room, I had noticed a look of recognition in her eyes; the +look was purely instinctive; she was not aware of it herself, but I +could not help understanding it as a look whereby she recognised me as +one of her kin. I had often spoken to her of that look, and we liked +speaking about it, and about the time when we became friends in Paris. +She had written asking me to go to see her and her mother. I had found +them in a strange little hotel, just starting for some distant suburb, +going there to buy presents from an old couple, dealers in china and +glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy +her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of +those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save +twopence on a vase. +</p> + +<p> +"It took us two hours to get to that old, forgotten quarter, to the +old quaint street where they lived. They were old-world Jews who read +the Talmud, and seemed to be quite isolated, out of touch with the +modern world. It was like going back to the Middle Ages; this queer +old couple moving like goblins among the china and glass. Do you ever +see them now? Are they dead?" +</p> + +<p> +"Let me tell you," cried Doris, "what happened. The old man died two +years ago, and his wife, who had lived with him for forty years, could +not bear to live alone, so what do you think she did? She sent for her +brother-in-law----" +</p> + +<p> +"To marry him?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, not to marry him, but to talk to him about her husband. You see +this couple had lived together for so many years that she had become +ingrained, as it were, in the personality of her late husband, her +habits had become his habits, his thoughts had become hers. The story +really is very funny," and Doris burst out laughing, and for some time +she could not speak with laughing. "I am sorry for the poor man," she +said at last. +</p> + +<p> +"For whom? For the brother-in-law?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes; you see he is dyspeptic, and he can't eat the dishes at all that +his brother used to like, but the wife can't and won't cook anything +else." +</p> + +<p> +"In other words," I said, "the souvenir of brother Isaac is poisoning +brother Jacob." +</p> + +<p> +"That is it." +</p> + +<p> +"What a strange place this world is!" And then my mind drifted back +suddenly. "O Doris, I'm so unhappy--this place--I wish I had never +come." +</p> + +<p> +"Now, now, have a little patience. Everything comes right in the end." +</p> + +<p> +"We shall never be alone." + +"Yes, we shall. Why do you think that?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because I can't think of anything else." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you must think of something else. We're going to the factory +where they make perfume, and I'm going to buy a great many bottles of +scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy +the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a +church here." +</p> + +<p> +On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed +Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the +superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few +old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did +not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear +that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease +absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of +alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what +perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris +decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of +that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she +always used it. +</p> + +<p> +"And you like it, don't you dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, but what does it matter what I like?" +</p> + +<p> +"Now, don't be cross. Don't look so sad." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase +of heliotrope is really too cynical." +</p> + +<p> +"Cynical! Why is it cynical?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving +among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour +as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?" +</p> + +<p> +"But, dear one----" +</p> + +<p> +I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the +carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm +calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the +driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing +chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his +horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one +is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were +passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back +to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, +for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after +her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said: +</p> + +<p> +"You don't mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a +visit to pay." +</p> + +<p> +In the three weeks' time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, +Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who +lived in the different hotels <i>en pension</i>, and who would go away +as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another "resort" where the +season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and +bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs +and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had +explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once. +</p> + +<p> +"But as we're going to spend the evening with them, I don't see the +necessity----" +</p> + +<p> +"Of course not, dear, but don't you remember you promised to go to see +the Formans with me?" +</p> + +<p> +Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been +able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to +Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her +daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to +dinner, "One of the family is enough." What her mother's age could be +I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But +after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so +old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those +who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is +generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to +narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions +age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see +from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her +life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those +daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living +with their mothers on small incomes. "The daughter's tragedy is +written all over her face," I said, and while speaking to her I +scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that +tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are +heroines--the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, +grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her +manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the +life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked +old-fashioned--why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black +lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung +from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of +bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me +farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed +to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a +rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, +before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and +her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her +politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished +speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind +was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most +trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and +sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her +ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking +of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it +wonderful that her mother had read--shall we say, "The Three +Musketeers?" three times. She was interested in all her mother's +characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her +mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she +pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to +understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a +colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be +forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, +philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to +this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I +have no right to grumble." +</p> + +<p> +I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, +I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who +accepts her daughter's sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter +that has been sacrificed. From the daughter's appearance I had +imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, +lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered +with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature +is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, +two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a +more subtle rhythm. But though Nature's rhythm is irregular, its +irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear +that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I +recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and +that Nature's combination was more harmonious than mine. The first +thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the +daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five +years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been +overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have +grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt +somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her +love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up +hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma--that +short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything +else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small +beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face--forgetful of her +daughter's sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their +shins over the fire: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn't marry +Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well." +</p> + +<p> +My interest in these two women who had lived side by side all their +lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if +Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house +by her mother's side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I +waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for +as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had +lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and +planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her +high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so +energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even +her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss +Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer +heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had +gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks +there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman +explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, +"Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go +home again"; and they had come home after six days in the hill +village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her +mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: "I +always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here +until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come +down to mamma's balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go +away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. +I don't think mamma was ever afraid of anything." Her voice seemed to +me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, "I don't think mamma was +ever afraid of anything," and I said, "She is proud of her ideal, and +it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not +for her at least," and noticing that the three women were talking +together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to +studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived. +</p> + +<p> +On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits--two +engravings--and I did not need to look at the date to know that they +had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other +her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in +my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a +small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa +covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More +characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music +rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her +stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same +old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little. +</p> + +<p> +Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be +regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to +the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back +again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans +had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please +them. "They don't know anything about singing," she whispered to me; +"but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little +to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for +them to hear me sing," and she went to the piano and sang song after +song. +</p> + +<p> +"It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a +middle-aged woman," Mrs. Forman said, "and I hope you will come to see +us again, both of you." +</p> + +<p> +"What should bring me to see them again?" I asked myself as I tried to +get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making +impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to +England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to +Plessy again she would rush to see them. "Why should she go on like +that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this +world?" I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should +accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss +Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and +Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would +come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to +send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and +she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she +consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. +"No," she said, "I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this +evening to try on mamma's dress, and mamma is very particular about +her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown +had to go back--you must excuse me." +</p> + +<p> +"Good-bye, dear, good-bye," I heard Doris crying, and I said to +myself, "How kind she is!" +</p> + +<p> +"Now, my dear, aren't you glad that you came to see them? Aren't they +nice? Isn't she good? And you like goodness." +</p> + +<p> +"Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. +Don't you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon +your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your +face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems +to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my +love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, +years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become +of the two blind women you used to help?" +</p> + +<p> +"So you haven't forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful +that a blind woman should be able to get her living." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any +one should be able to earn his living." +</p> + +<p> +"You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not +realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs." +</p> + +<p> +"But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough +money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, +knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever +it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the +dark." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you remember her story?" +</p> + +<p> +"I think so. She was once rich, wasn't she? In fairly easy +circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit +by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told +it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part +of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even +then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox +and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to +England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop +in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And +where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind +woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don't +understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work +every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who +led her about? +</p> + +<p> +"How well you remember, dear." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a +sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind +woman's life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never +happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a +hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman's life. +Now don't tell me; it's all coming back to me. Something about a +student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and +they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each +other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. +This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with +serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to +read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty +story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud +to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference." +</p> + +<p> +"You're quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it +was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn't he?" +</p> + +<p> +Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. "No +sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst +kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a +long time. The friend upstairs didn't dare to come down to tell her. +But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It's +extraordinary how tragedy follows some." +</p> + +<p> +"Isn't it?" +</p> + +<p> +"And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But +she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people +who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no +interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable +are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money's worth. I +only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her +truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything +from her!" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn't she?" Doris nodded. +"And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three +or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman +with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think I said like red velvet, dear." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, it doesn't sound like a woman's description of another woman, +but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that +that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have +love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn't +realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the +blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things +from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, +something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love +than anybody else. She wouldn't know if he were a man of forty or one +of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps." +</p> + +<p> +"I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man +and a middle-aged. There was little she didn't know." +</p> + +<p> +"I daresay you're quite right. But still everything must have been +more intense and vague. When the blind woman's lover is not speaking +to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home +she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. +She doesn't know what eyes are, but she imagines them like--what? +anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no +eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes +like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think +of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front +of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice +to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that +these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a +difficult thing to do in any circumstances--but in hers! And when her +voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her +one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the +one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn't +know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when +she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching +recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils +might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think there was any reason. She lost her pupils in the +ordinary way; she was unlucky. As you were just saying, it was more +difficult for her to earn her living than for those who could see, and +Judith is no longer as young as she was; she isn't old, she is still a +handsome woman, but in a few years.... If old-age pensions are to be +granted to people, they surely ought to be granted to blind women." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I remember; the sentiment of the whole story is in my mind; only +I am a little confused about the facts. I remember you wrote a lot of +letters--how was it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I just felt that the thing to do was to get an annuity for +Judith; I could not afford to give her one myself; so after a great +deal of trouble I got into communication with a rich woman who was +interested in the blind and wanted to found one." +</p> + +<p> +"You are quite right, that was it. You must have written dozens of +letters." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, indeed, and all to no purpose. Judith knew the trouble I was +taking, but she couldn't bear with her loneliness any longer; the +dread of the long evenings by herself began to prey upon her nerves, +and she went off to Peckham to marry a blind man--quite an elderly +man; he was over sixty. They had known each other for some time, and +he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty +pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than +the annuity." +</p> + +<p> +"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The +charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she +regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from +somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel +herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages." +</p> + +<p> +"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its +goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't +even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to +live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to +live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they +are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I +mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if +she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!" +</p> + +<p> +"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write +them." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach; +only Turgenieff could write them. But here we are at the Dog's Home." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't talk like that--it's unkind." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't mean to be unkind, but I have to try to realise things before +I can appreciate them." +</p> + +<p> +It seemed not a little incongruous that these two little spinsters +should pay for our dinners, and I tried to induce Doris to agree to +some modification in the present arrangements, but she said it was +their wish to entertain us. +</p> + +<p> +The evening I spent in that hotel hearing Doris sing, and myself +talking literature to a company of about a dozen spinsters, all plain +and elderly, all trying to live upon incomes varying from a hundred +and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, comes up before my mind, every +incident. Life is full of incidents, only our intelligence is not +always sufficiently trained to perceive them; and the incident I am +about to mention was important in the life I am describing. Miss Tubbs +had asked me what wine I would drink. And in a moment of inadvertence +I said "Vin Ordinaire," forgetting that the two shillings the wine +would cost would probably mean that Miss Tubbs would very likely have +to go without her cup of tea at five o'clock next day in order that +her expenditure should not exceed her limit, and I thought how +difficult life must be on these slippery rocks, incomes of one hundred +and fifty a year. Poor little gentlefolk, roving about from one +boarding-house to another, always in search of the cheapest, sometimes +getting into boarding-houses where the cheapness of the food +necessitates sending for the doctor, so the gain on one side is a loss +on the other. Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, +the pence and threepenny bits of human life! +</p> + +<p> +That Doris's singing should have provoked remarks painfully +inadequate, mattered little. Inadequate remarks about singing and +about the other arts are as common in London drawing-rooms as in +hotels and boarding-houses (all hotels are boarding-houses; there is +really no difference), and the company I found in these winter resorts +would have interested me at any other time. I can be interested in the +woman who collects stamps, in the gentle soul who keeps a botany book +in which all kinds of quaint entries are found, in the lady who writes +for the papers, and the one who is supposed to have a past. Wherever +human beings collect there is always to be found somebody of interest, +but when one's interest is centred in a lady, everybody else becomes +an enemy; and I looked upon all these harmless spinsters as my +enemies, and their proposals for excursions, and luncheons, and +dinners caused me much misgiving, not only because they separated me +from Doris, but because I felt that any incident, the proposed picnic, +might prove a shipwrecking reef. One cannot predict what will happen. +Life is so full of incidents; a woman's jealous tongue or the arrival +of some acquaintance might bring about a catastrophe. A love affair +hangs upon a gossamer thread, you know, and that is why I tried to +persuade Doris away from her friends. +</p> + +<p> +She was very kind and good and didn't inflict the society of these +people too much upon me. Perhaps she was conscious of the danger +herself, and we only visited the boarding-houses in the evening. But +these visits grew intolerable. The society of Miss Tubbs and Miss +Whitworth jarred the impressions of a long day spent in the open air, +in a landscape where once the temples of the gods had been, where men +had once lived who had seen, or at all events believed, in the fauns +and the dryads, in the grotto where the siren swims. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon I said to Doris: "I'm afraid I can't go to see Miss +Tubbs this evening. Can't we devise something else? Another dinner in +a boarding-house would lead me to suicide, I think." +</p> + +<p> +"You would like to drown yourself in that bay and join the nymphs. Do +you think they would prove kinder than I?" +</p> + +<p> +I did not answer Doris. I suddenly seemed to despair; the exquisite +tenderness of the sky, and the inveigling curves of the bay seemed to +become detestable to me, theatrical, absurd. "Good God!" I thought: "I +shall never win her love. All my journey is in vain, and all this +love-making." The scene before me was the most beautiful in shape and +colour I had ever seen; but I am in no mood to describe the +Leonardo-like mountains enframing the azure bay. The reader must +imagine us leaning over a low wall watching the sea water gurgling +among the rocks. We had come to see some gardens. The waiter at my +hotel had told me of some, the property of a gentleman kind enough to +throw them open to the public twice a week; and I had taken his +advice, though gardens find little favour with me--now and again an +old English garden, but the well-kept horticultural is my abhorrence. +But one cannot tell a coachman to drive along the road, one must tell +him to go somewhere, so we had come to see what was to be seen. And +all was as I had imagined it, only worse; the tall wrought-iron gate +was twenty feet high, there was a naked pavilion behind it, and a +woman seated at a table with a cash-box in front of her. This woman +took a franc apiece, and told us that the money was to be devoted to a +charitable purpose; we were then free to wander down a gravel walk +twenty feet wide branching to the right and the left, along a line of +closely clipped shrubs, with a bunch of tall grasses here and a +foreign fir there; gardens that a painter would turn from in horror. I +said to Doris: +</p> + +<p> +"This is as tedious as a play at the <i>Comédie</i>, as tiresome as a +tragedy by Racine, and very like one. Let us seek out one of the +external walks overlooking the sea; even there I'm afraid the +knowledge that these shrubs are behind us will spoil our pleasure." +</p> + +<p> +Doris laughed; that was one of her charms, she could be amused; and it +was in this mood that we sat down on a seat placed in a low wall +overlooking the bay, looking at each other, basking in the rays of the +afternoon sun, and there we sat for some little while indolent as +lizards. Pointing to one at a little distance I said: +</p> + +<p> +"It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not +sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake +all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I +was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. +Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one +doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy." +</p> + +<p> +"But why, dear, do you allow yourself to be unhappy? Look at that +lizard. Isn't he nice? Isn't he satisfied? He desires nothing but what +he has got, light and warmth." +</p> + +<p> +"And, Doris, would you like me to be as content as that lizard--to +desire nothing more than light and warmth?" +</p> + +<p> +Doris looked at me, and thinking her eyes more beautiful even than the +sunlight, I said: +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "'And the sunlight clasps the earth,<br> + And the moonbeams kiss the sea,<br> + But what are all those kissings worth,<br> + If thou kiss not me?' +</p> + +<p> +"That is the eternal song of the spheres and of the flowers. If I don't +become part of the great harmony, I must die." +</p> + +<p> +"But you do kiss me," Doris answered wilfully, "when the evening turns +cold and the coachman puts up the hood of the carriage." +</p> + +<p> +"Wilful Doris! Pretty puss cat!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not a puss cat; I'm not playing with you, dear. I do assure you I +feel the strain of these days; but what am I to do? You wouldn't have +me tell you to stay at my hotel and to compromise myself before all +these people?" +</p> + +<p> +"These people! Those boarding-houses are driving me mad! That Miss +Forman!" +</p> + +<p> +"I thought you liked her. You said she is good, 'a simple, kind +person, without pretensions.' And that is enough, according to +yesterday's creed. You were never nicer than you were yesterday +speaking of her (I remember your words): you said the flesh fades, the +intellect withers, only the heart remembers. Do you recant all this?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, I recant nothing; only yesterday's truth is not to-day's. One day +we are attracted by goodness, another day by beauty; and beauty has +been calling me day after day: at first the call was heard far away +like a horn in the woods, but now the call has become more imperative, +and all the landscape is musical. Yesterday standing by those ancient +ruins, it seemed to me as if I had been transported out of my present +nature back to my original nature of two thousand years ago. The sight +of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I +say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never +wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never +appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to +appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that +has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me. +That hat I would put away----" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you like my hat?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two +thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the +nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes." +</p> + +<p> +"Why should you not see her, dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their +inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me. +I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am +saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me +of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite +clear to me." +</p> + +<p> +"But you do possess me, dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that +will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live, +but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the +squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard. If some way is not +found out of this horrible dilemma, I shall remember you as a +collector remembers a vase which a workman handed to him and which +slipped and was broken, or like a vase that was stolen from him; I +cannot find a perfect simile, at least not at this moment; my speech +is imperfect, but you will understand." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I understand, I think I understand." +</p> + +<p> +"If I do not get you, it will seem to me that I have lived in vain." +</p> + +<p> +"But, dear one, things are not so bad as that. We need not be in Paris +for some days yet, and though I cannot ask you to my hotel, there is +no reason why----" +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, do not raise up false hopes." +</p> + +<p> +"I was only going to say, dear, that it does not seem to be necessary +that we should go straight back to Paris." +</p> + +<p> +"You mean that we might stop somewhere at some old Roman town, at +Arles in an eighteenth-century house. O Doris, how enchanting this +would be! I hardly dare to think lest----" +</p> + +<p> +"Lest what, dear? Lest I should deceive you?" +</p> + +<p> +There was a delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot +be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired +by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the +eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the +nineteenth, and had reproduced its spirit. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it not strange that, in the midst of reality, artistic conceptions +always hang about me; but shall I ever possess you, Doris? Is it my +delicious fate to spend three days with you in an old Roman town?" +</p> + +<p> +"There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Where shall it be?" +</p> + +<p> +"Any town would be sufficient with you, Doris; but let us think of +some beautiful place"; and looking across the bay into the sunset, I +recalled as many names as I could; many of those old Roman towns rose +up before my eyes, classic remains mingling with mediaeval towers, +cathedral spires rising over walls on which Roman sentries had once +paced. We could only spend our honeymoon in a town with a beautiful +name--a beautiful name was essential--a name that it would be a +delight to remember for ever after; the name would have to express by +some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be +expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking +doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was +too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after +all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were +rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among +these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening +and the next we studied <i>L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer</i>. +"Armance," I said, interrupting Doris, who was telling me that we +should lose our tickets by the <i>Côte d'Azur</i>. For in Doris's +opinion it was necessary that we should leave Plessy by the <i>Côte +d'Azur</i>. Her friends would certainly come to the station to see her +off. "That is a matter of no moment," I said. "At Marseilles we can +catch an express train, which will be nearly as good. There are two +excellent trains; either will do, if you have decided to spend three +days at Armance." +</p> + +<p> +She asked me if Armance were a village or a town, and I answered, +"What matter?"--for everywhere in France there are good beds and good +food and good wine--ay, and omelettes. We should do very well in any +village in the south of France for three days. But suddenly two names +caught my eye, Orelay and Verlancourt, and we agreed that we preferred +either of these names to Armance. +</p> + +<p> +"Which name shall give shelter to two unfortunate lovers flying in +search of solitude?" +</p> + +<p> +"Orelay is a beautiful name." +</p> + +<p> +"Orelay it shall be," I said. "We shall be able to get there from +Marseilles in a few hours." +</p> + +<p> +"You see, dear, it would be impossible for me to travel all the way to +Paris--a journey of at least twenty-four hours would kill me, and I'm +not strong; nothing tires me more than railway traveling. We must stop +somewhere. Why not at Orelay?" +</p> + +<p> +As this history can have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I +must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify +herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human +than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not +unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would +strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, +no more: where there is no subterfuge there is no life. +</p> + +<p> +This story will be read, no doubt, by the young and the old, the wise +and the foolish, by the temperate and the intemperate, but the subject +matter is so common to all men that it will interest every one, even +ecclesiastics, every one except certain gentlemen residing chiefly in +Constantinople, whose hostility to the lover on his errand is so well +known, and so easily understandable, that I must renounce all hope of +numbering them among the admirers of my own or Doris's frailty. But +happily these gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected +that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of +certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary +falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting +abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few +critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged +men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an interest in +a love story; in these modern days when the novel wanders even as far +as the nuns in their cells (I have good authority for making this +statement), perhaps I may be able to count upon an aged Mother Abbess +to be, outwardly perhaps a disapproving, but at heart a sympathetic +reader. Indeed, I count upon the ascetic more than upon any other +class for appreciation, for the imagination of those who have had no +experience in love adventures will enkindle, and they will appreciate +perhaps more intensely than any other the mental trouble that a +journey to Orelay with Doris would entail. +</p> + +<p> +It would take nearly five hours according to the time table to get +from Marseilles to Orelay; and these five hours would wear themselves +wearily away in conversation with Doris, in talking to her of every +subject except the subject uppermost in my mind. I should have kept a +notebook, just as I had arranged to do when I thought I was going on +the yachting excursion among the Greek Islands with Gertrude; but, +having no notes, I can only appeal to the reader's imagination. I must +ask him to remember the week of cruel abstinence I had been through, +and to take it into his consideration. My dear, dear reader, I am sure +you can see me if you try (in your mind's eye, of course) walking +about the corridors, seeking the guard, asking every one I meet: +</p> + +<p> +"How far away are we now from Orelay?" +</p> + +<p> +"Orelay? Nearly two hours from Orelay." +</p> + +<p> +Our heavy luggage had been sent on before, but we had a number of +dressing cases and bags with us, and there might not be time to remove +all these. The guard, who had promised to take them out of the +carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be, he +was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times up and +down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader, can you +not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of +catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not +stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young +lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last +moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw +myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake +of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is +an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and +every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of +the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes +closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to +Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I? +</p> + +<p> +And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same +interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often +as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between +us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our +lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an +excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day. And as I write +the sad thought floats past that such expectations will never be my +lot again. The delights of the moment are perhaps behind me, but why +should I feel sad for that? Life is always beautiful, in age as well +as in youth; the old have a joy that the youths do not +know--recollection. It is through memory we know ourselves; without +memory it might be said we have hardly lived at all, or only like +animals. +</p> + +<p> +This is a point on which I would speak seriously to every reader, +especially to my young readers; for it is of the utmost importance +that every one should select adventures that not only please them at +the moment, but can be looked back upon with admiration, and for which +one can offer up a mute thanksgiving. My life would not have been +complete, a corner-stone would have been lacking if Doris had not come +to Orelay with me. Without her I should not have known the joy that +perfect beauty gives; that beauty which haunted in antiquity would +never have been known to me. But without more, as the lawyers say, we +will return to Doris. I asked her if she had been asleep? No, she had +not slept, only it rested her to keep her eyes closed, the sunlight +fatigued her. I did not like to hear her talk of fatigue, and to hide +from her what was passing in my mind I tried to invent some +conversation. Orelay--what a lovely name it was! Did she think the +town would vindicate or belie its name? She smiled faintly and said +she would not feel fatigued as soon as she got out of the train, and +there was some consolation in the thought that her health would not +allow her to get farther that day than Orelay. +</p> + +<p> +We decided to stay at the Hôtel des Valois. One of the passengers had +spoken to me of this hotel; he had never stayed there himself, but he +believed it to be an excellent hotel. But it was not his +recommendation that influenced me, it was the name--the Hôtel des +Valois. How splendid! And when we got out at Orelay I asked the +porters and the station-master if they could recommend a hotel. No, +but they agreed that the Hôtel des Valois was as good as any other. We +drove there wondering what it would be like. Everything had turned out +well up to the present, but everything would go for naught if the +Hôtel des Valois should prove unworthy of its name. And the first +sight of it was certainly disappointing. Its courtyard was +insignificant, only saved by a beautiful ilex tree growing in one +corner. The next moment I noticed that the porch of the hotel was +pretty and refined--a curious porch it was, giving the hotel for a +moment the look of an eighteenth-century English country house. There +were numerous windows with small panes, and one divined the hall +beyond the porch. The hall delighted us, and I said to Doris as we +passed through that the hotel must have been a nobleman's house some +long while ago, when Orelay had a society of its own, perhaps a +language, for in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century Provençal +or some other dialect must have been written or spoken at Orelay. We +admired the galleries overlooking the hall, and the staircase leading +to them. We seemed to have been transported into the eighteenth +century; the atmosphere was that of a Boucher, a provincial Boucher +perhaps, but an eighteenth-century artist for all that. The doves that +crowd round Aphrodite seemed to have led us right; and we foresaw a +large quiet bedroom with an Aubusson carpet in the middle of a parquet +floor, writing-tables in the corners of the room or in the +silken-curtained windows. +</p> + +<p> +This was the kind of room I had imagined--one as large as a +drawing-room, and furnished like a drawing-room, with sofas and +arm-chairs that we could draw around the fire, and myself and Doris +sitting there talking. Love is composed in a large measure of desire +of intimacy, and if the affection that birds experience in making +their nest be not imitated, love descends to the base satisfaction of +animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as +soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better +than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of +the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were +offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined +the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French +words <i>chambre meublée</i> will convey an idea of the rooms we were +shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into the +corner, an eider-down on top, a tall dusty window facing the bed, with +skimpy red curtains and a vacant fireplace? There were, no doubt, a +few chairs--but what chairs! +</p> + +<p> +The scene was at once tragic and comic. It was of vital importance to +myself and Doris to find a room such as I have attempted to describe, +and it was of equal indifference to the waiter whether we did or +didn't. The appearance of each contributed to the character of the +scene. Doris's appearance I have tried to make clear to the reader; +mine must be imagined; it only remains for me to tell what the waiter +was like; an old man, short and thick, slow on the feet from long +service, enveloped in an enormous apron; one only saw the ends of his +trousers and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever +seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his +head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a +pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and +restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a +thick provincial accent--that alone amused me. +</p> + +<p> +"Have you no other rooms?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nous n'avons que cela." +</p> + +<p> +I quote his words in the language in which they were spoken, for I +remember how brutal they seemed, and how entirely in keeping with the +character of the room. No doubt the words will seem flat and tame to +the reader, but they never can seem that to me. "<i>Nous n'avons que +cela</i>" will always be to me as pregnant with meaning as the famous +<i>to be or not to be</i>. For it really amounted to that. I can see +Doris standing by me, charming, graceful as a little Tanagra +statuette, seemingly not aware of the degradation that the possession +of her love would mean in such a room as that which we stood in; and I +think I can honestly say that I wished we had never come to Orelay, +that we had gone straight on to Paris. It were better even to +sacrifice her love than that it should be degraded by vulgar +circumstances; and, instead of a holy rite, my honeymoon had come to +seem to me what the black mass must seem to the devout Christian. +</p> + +<p> +"The rooms will look better," Doris said, "when fires have been +lighted, and when our bags are unpacked. A skirt thrown over the arm +of a chair furnishes a room." +</p> + +<p> +Taking her hands in mine I kissed them, and was almost consoled; but +at that moment my eyes fell upon the beds, and I said: +</p> + +<p> +"Those beds! O Doris, those beds! yours is no better than mine." Women +are always satisfied, or they are kind, or they are wise; and accept +the inevitable without a murmur. +</p> + +<p> +"Dearest, ask the waiter to bring us some hot water." +</p> + +<p> +I did so, and while he was away I paced the room, unable to think of +anything but the high bed; it was impossible to put out of my sight +the ridiculous spectacle of a couple in a nightgown and pyjama suit +climbing into it. The vision of myself and Doris lying under that +eider-down, facing that tall window, with nothing to shut out the +light but those vulgar lace curtains, pursued me, and I paced the room +till the pink waiter returned with two jugs; and then, feeling very +miserable, I began to unpack my bag without getting further than the +removal of the brushes and comb; Doris unpacked a few things, and she +washed her hands, and I thought I might wash mine; but before I had +finished washing them I left the dreadful basin, and going to Doris +with dripping hands I said: +</p> + +<p> +"There is very little difference in the rooms. Perhaps you would like +to sleep in mine?" +</p> + +<p> +"I can see no difference. I think I'll remain where I am." +</p> + +<p> +Which room she slept in may seem insignificant to the reader, but this +is not so, for had we changed rooms this story would never have been +written. I can see myself even now walking to and fro like a caged +animal vainly seeking for a way of escape, till suddenly--my adventure +reminds me very much of the beginning of many romantic novels--the +tapestry that the wind had blown aside, the discovery of the secret +door--suddenly I discovered a door in the wall paper; it was +unlatched, and pushing through it I descended two steps, and lo! I was +in the room of my heart's desire; a large, richly-coloured saloon with +beautifully proportioned windows and red silk damask curtains hanging +from carved cornices, and all the old gilding still upon them. And the +silk fell into such graceful folds that the proportions of the windows +were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine +romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the +curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the +marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to +examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value +... it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago. +</p> + +<p> +"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and +seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom +likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, +it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, +"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But +the curtains hung well from <i>les ciels de lit</i> (one cannot say +<i>cieux de lit</i>, I suppose)--the English word is, I think, +"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I +muttered, "but <i>à la rigueur ça peut marcher</i>." But pursuing my +quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two +windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have +satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable +Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various +perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed +should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my +head: +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Madame, shall we undress you for the fight?<br> + The wars are naked that you make to-night." +</p> + +<p> +And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with +a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a +crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.... He rarely painted +bedrooms. I do not remember any at this moment; but I remember many by +Fragonard, and Fragonard would have said: "I have no fault to find +with that bed." The carpet was not Aubusson, but it was nevertheless a +finely-designed carpet, and its colour was harmonious; the sofa was +shapely enough, and the Louis XVI. arm-chairs were filled with deep +cushions. I turned to the toilet-table fearing it might prove an +incongruity, but it was in perfect keeping with the room, and I began +at once to look forward to seeing it laid out with all the manifold +ivories and silver of Doris's dressing-case. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine my flight, dear reader, if you can, back to Doris, whom I had +left trying to make the best of that miserable square room; more like +a prison cell than a bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +"What is the matter, dearest?" she asked. +</p> + +<p> +But without answering her I said, "Give me your hand," and led her as +a prince leads his betrothed, in a fairy tale, through the +richly-coloured salon, lingering a moment for her to admire it, and +then I took her through my room, the double-bedded room, saying: "All +this is nothing; wait till you see your room." And Doris paused +overcome by the beauty of the bed, of the curtains falling from the +tester gracefully as laburnum or acacia branches in June. +</p> + +<p> +"The rooms are beautiful, but a little cheerless." +</p> + +<p> +"Doris, Doris, you don't deserve to lie there! The windows of course +must be opened, fresh air must be let in, and fires must be lighted. +But think of you and me sitting here side by side talking before our +bedtime." +</p> + +<p> +Fires were lighted quickly, servants came in bearing candelabra in +their hands, and among them, and with Doris by my side, I imagined +myself a prince, for who is a prince but he who possesses the most +desirable thing in the world, who finds himself in the most delectable +circumstances? And what circumstance is more delightful than sitting +in a great shadowy bedroom, watching the logs burning, shedding their +grateful heat through the room, for the logs that were brought to us, +as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in +Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense +and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very +soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had +said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; +and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room +back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a +flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing tables, filled +with pigments and powders and glasses. +</p> + +<p> +There was one of those tables in the room, and I drew it from the +corner and raised its lid, the lid with the looking-glass in it. And I +liked the unpacking of her dressing-case, the discovery of a multitude +of things for bodily use, the various sponges; the flat sponge for the +face, the round sponge for the body, and the little sponges; all the +scissors and the powder for the nails, and the scents, the soft silks, +the lace scarfs, and the long silk nightgown soon to droop over her +shoulders. My description by no means exhausts the many things she +produced from her dressing-case and bags, nor would the most complete +catalogue convey an impression of Doris's cleanliness of her little +body! One would have to see her arranging her things, with her long +curved hands and almond nails carefully cut--they were her immediate +care, and many powders and ointments and polishers were called into +requisition. Some reader will cry that all this is most unimportant, +but he is either hypocritical or stupid, for it is only with scent and +silk and artifices that we raise love from an instinct to a passion. +</p> + +<p> +"I am longing," said Doris, "to see that beautiful red drawing-room +with all the candelabra lighted and half a dozen logs blazing on the +hearth. It is extraordinary how cold it is." +</p> + +<p> +To procure an impartial mind, bodily ease is necessary, and we sat on +either side of a splendid fire warming our toes. At the bottom of his +heart every Christian feels, though he may not care to admit it in +these modern days, that every attempt to make love a beautiful and +pleasurable thing is a return to paganism. In his eyes the only excuse +for man's love of woman is that without it the world would come to an +end. Why he should consider the end of the world a misfortune I have +never been able to find out, for if his creed be a true one the +principal use of this world is to supply Hell with fuel. He is never +weary of telling us that very few indeed may hope to get to Heaven. +</p> + +<p> +"But France is not a Christian country, and yet you see the high bed +has not become extinct," said Doris. +</p> + +<p> +Doris, who was doubtless feeling a little tired, sat looking into the +fire. Her attitude encouraged reverie; dream linked into dream till at +last the chain of dreams was broken by the entrance of the pink waiter +bringing in our dinner. In the afternoon I had called him an imbecile, +which made him very angry, and he had explained that he was not an +imbecile, but if I hurried him he lost his head altogether. Of course +one is sorry for speaking rudely to a waiter; it is a shocking thing +to do, and nothing but the appearance of the bedroom we were shown +into would excuse me. His garrulousness, which was an irritation in +the afternoon, was an amusement as he laid the cloth and told me the +bill of fare; moreover, I had to consult him about the wine, and I +liked to hear him telling me in his strong Southern accent of a +certain wine of the country, as good as Pomard and as strong, and +which would be known all over the world, only it did not bear +transportation. Remembering how tired we were, and the verse-- +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Quand on boit du Pomard on devient bon on aime,<br> + On devient aussi bon que le Pomard lui-même--" +</p> + +<p> +we drank, hoping that the wine would awaken us. But the effect of that +strong Southern wine seemed to be more lethargic than exhilarating, +and when dinner was over and we had returned to our seats by the +fireside we were too weary to talk, and too nervous. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning, the coffee and the rolls and butter were ready +before Doris, and the vexation of seeing the breakfast growing cold +was recompensed by the pleasure of teasing her, urging her to pass her +arms into her dressing-gown, to come as she was, it did not matter +what she had on underneath. The waiter did not count; he was not a +man, he was a waiter, a pink creature, pinker than anything in the +world, except a baby's bottom, and looking very like that. +</p> + +<p> +"Hasten, dear, hasten!" and I went back to the salon and engaged in +chatter with the old provincial, my English accent contrasting +strangely with his. It was the first time I had heard the Southern +accent. At Plessy I had heard all accents, Swiss, German, Italian; +there was plenty of Parisian accent there, and I had told a Parisian +flower-woman, whose husband was a Savoyard, that I declined to believe +any more in the Southern accent <i>"C'est une blague qu'on m'a +faite"</i>; but at Orelay I had discovered the true accent, and I +listened to the old man for the sake of hearing it. He was asking me +for my appreciation of the wine we had drunk last night when Doris +entered in a foamy white dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +"You liked the wine, dear, didn't you? He wants to know if we will +have the same wine for twelve-o'clock breakfast." +</p> + +<p> +"Dear me, it's eleven o'clock now," Doris answered, and she looked at +the waiter. +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur and Madame will go for a little walk; perhaps you would like +to breakfast at one?" +</p> + +<p> +We agreed that we could not breakfast before one, and our waiter +suggested a visit to the cathedral--it would fill up the time +pleasantly and profitably; but Doris, when she had had her coffee, +wanted to sit on my knee and to talk to me; and then there was a +piano, and she wanted to play me some things, or rather I wanted to +hear her. But the piano was a poor one; the notes did not come back, +she said, and we talked for some hours without perceiving that the +time was passing. After lunch the waiter again inquired if we intended +to go for a little walk; there were vespers about four in the +cathedral. +</p> + +<p> +"It would do Monsieur and Madame good." +</p> + +<p> +"The walk or the cathedral?" we inquired, and, a little embarrassed, +the old fellow began to tell us that he had not been to the cathedral +for some years, but the last time he was there he had been much +impressed by the darkness. It was all he could do to find his way from +pillar to pillar; he had nearly fallen over the few kneeling women who +crouched there listening to the clergy intoning Latin verses. +According to his account there were no windows anywhere except high up +in the dome. And leaning his hands on the table, looking like all the +waiters that ever existed or that will ever exist, his <i>tablier</i>, +reaching nearly to his chin, upheld by strings passed over the +shoulders, he told us that it was impossible to see what was happening +in the chancel; but there had seemed to be a great number of clergy +seated in the darkness at the back, for one heard voices behind the +tall pieces of furniture singing Latin verses; one only heard the +terminations of the words, an "us" and a "noster," and words ending in +"e," and the organ always coming in a little late. +</p> + +<p> +"My good man," I said, "your description leaves nothing to be desired. +Why should I go to the cathedral unless to verify your impressions? I +am sure the service is exactly as you describe it, and I would not for +the world destroy the picture you have evoked of those forgotten +priests intoning their vespers in the middle of the granite church +behind a three-branched candlestick." +</p> + +<p> +The poor man left the room very much disconcerted, feeling, Doris +said, as if he had lost one of the forks. +</p> + +<p> +"Thank Heaven that matter is done with--a great weight is off my +mind." +</p> + +<p> +"But there is the museum. You would like to see that?" said Doris, and +a change came into my face. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, Doris, the waiter has told us that there is a celebrated study +by David in the museum, 'The Nymph of Orelay.'" +</p> + +<p> +"But, dear one, am I not your nymph of Orelay?" and Doris slipped on +her knees and put her arms about me. "Will I not do as well as the +painted creature in the museum?" +</p> + +<p> +"Far better," I said, "far better. Now we are free, Doris, freed from +the cathedral and from the museum. All the day belongs to us, and +to-morrow we may pass as we like." +</p> + +<p> +"And so we will," Doris said meditatively; and so we did, dear reader, +and I consider the time was well spent, for by so doing we avoided +catching cold, a thing easy to do when a mistral is blowing. It was +not until the following evening we remembered that time was always on +the wing, that our little bags would have to be packed. Next morning +we were going. +</p> + +<p> +"Going away by the train," Doris said regretfully. "Would we were +going away in a carriage! We shall leave Orelay knowing nothing of it +but this suite of apartments." +</p> + +<p> +"There is no reason why we should not drive," and I stopped packing my +bag, and stood looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder if we should have stayed three days if we had not discovered +these rooms? Dear one, I think I should not have meant so much to you +in those humbler rooms: you attach much importance to these cornices +and hangings." +</p> + +<p> +"I should have loved you always, Doris, but I think I can love you +better here," and with our bags in our hands we wandered from the +bedroom into the drawing-room and stood admiring its bygone splendour. +"Doris, dear, you must play me 'The Nut Bush.' I want to hear it on +that old piano. Tinkle it, dear, tinkle it, and don't play 'The Nut +Bush' too sentimentally, nor yet too gaily." +</p> + +<p> +"Which way will you have it?" she asked; "'a true love's truth or a +light love's art'?" +</p> + +<p> +"I would have it dainty and fantastic as Schumann wrote it, 'only the +song of a secret bird.'" +</p> + +<p> +"With a pathos of loneliness in it?" +</p> + +<p> +"That is it," I cried, "that is the right time to play it in, without +stress on either side.... No, you mustn't leave the piano, Doris. +Sing me some songs. Go on singing Schumann or Schubert; there are no +other songs. Let me hear you sing 'The Moonlight' or 'The +Lotus-flower.' Schumann and Schubert were the singing birds of the +fifties; I love their romantic sentimentalities, orange gardens, south +winds, a lake with a pinnace upon it, and a nightingale singing in a +dark wood by a lonely shore; that is how they felt, how they dreamed." + +And resigning herself to my humour, she sang song after song till at +last, awaking from a long reverie of music and old association of +memories, I said, "Play me a waltz, Doris; I would hear an old-time +waltz played in this room; its romantic flourishes will evoke the +departed spirits." And very soon, sitting in my chair with half-closed +eyes, it seemed to me that I saw crinolines faintly gliding over the +floor, and white-stockinged feet, sloping shoulders and glistening +necks with chignons--swan-like women, and long-whiskered cavaliers +wearing peg-top trousers and braided coats dancing or talking with +them.... The music suddenly stopped and Doris said: +</p> + +<p> +"If we are to catch our train we must go on with our packing." +</p> + +<p> +"You mustn't talk to me of trains," and overcome with a Schumann-like +longing and melancholy I took her in my arms, overcome by her beauty. +She was perfection. No Chelsea or Dresden figure was ever more dainty, +gayer, or brighter. She was Schumann and Dresden, but a Dresden of an +earlier period than Schumann; but why compare her to anything? She was +Doris, the very embodiment of her name. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Doris, why are we leaving here? Why can't we remain here for +ever?" +</p> + +<p> +"It is strange," she said; "I feel the charm of those old stately +rooms as much as you do. But, dearest, we have missed the train." +</p> + +<p> +The pink waiter came up, I promised to hasten, but my love of Doris +delayed us unduly, and we arrived at the station only to hear that the +train had gone away some ten minutes before. The train that had left +was the only good train in the day, and missing it had given us +another twenty-four hours in Orelay; but Doris was superstitious. "Our +three days are done," she said; "if we don't go today we shall go +to-morrow, and to go on the fourth day would be unlucky. What shall we +do all day? The spell has been broken. We have left our hotel. Let us +take a carriage," she pleaded, "and drive to the next station. The sun +is shining, and the country is beautiful; we saw it from the railway, +a strange red country grey with olives, olive orchards extending to +the very foot of the mountains, and mingling with the pine trees +descending the slopes." +</p> + +<p> +"The slopes!" I said, "the precipitous sides of that high rock! Shall +I ever forget it, beginning like the tail of a lion and rising up to +the sky, towering above the level landscape like a sphinx." +</p> + +<p> +"The drive would be delightful!" +</p> + +<p> +"And it would be a continuation of the romance of the old Empire +drawing-room. A post-chaise would be the thing if we could discover +one." +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes Nature seems to conspire to carry out an idea, and though no +veritable post-chaise of old time was discovered in the coach-house +behind the courtyard in which the ilex trees flourished, we happened +to catch sight of a carriage some twenty-five or thirty years old, a +cumbersome old thing hung upon C springs, of the security of which the +coachman seemed doubtful. He spoke disparagingly, telling us that the +proprietor had been trying to sell it, but no one would buy it, so +heavy was it on the horses' backs, so out of fashion one was ashamed +to go out in it. The coachman's notions of beauty did not concern us, +but Doris dreaded lest one of the wheels should come off; however, on +examination it was found to be roadworthy, and I said to Doris as I +helped her into it: +</p> + +<p> +"If it be no post-chaise, at all events ladies wearing crinolines have +sat inside it, that is certain, and gentlemen wearing peg-top trousers +with braid upon them. Good God, Doris, if you were to wear a crinoline +I should love you beyond hope of repentance. Don't I remember when I +was a boy every one wore white stockings; I had only heard of black +ones, and I always hoped to meet a lady wearing black stockings... now +my hope is to meet one wearing white." +</p> + +<p> +"We might have searched the town for a crinoline and a pair of white +stockings." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, and I might have discovered a black silk stock. I wonder how I +should have looked in it. Doris," I said, "we have missed the best +part of our adventure. We forgot to dress for the part we are playing, +the lovers of Orelay." +</p> + +<p> +Who will disagree with me when I say that no adventure is complete +unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, +high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress +himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some +strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of +these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and +believe it to be natural--the comedy that Doris and I played in the +old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, where we hoped to +breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +We could hardly speak for excitement. Doris thought of how she would +look in a crinoline, and I remembered the illustrations in an early +edition of Balzac of which I am the happy possessor. How nice the men +looked in the light trousers and the black stockings of the period; +and crossing my legs I followed with interest the line of my calf. +Somebody did that in "Les Illusions Perdues." She and I lay back +thinking which story in "The Human Comedy" was the most applicable to +our case; and the only one we could think of was when Madame Bargeton, +a provincial blue-stocking, left Angoulême for Paris with Lucien de +Rubempré. There were no railways in the forties; they must have +travelled in a post-chaise. Yes, I remember their journey, faintly it +is true, but I remember it. Madame Bargeton was a woman of +five-and-thirty at least, and Doris was much younger. Lucien was only +one-and-twenty, and even at that time I was more than that. The names +of these people and of the people they met at the theatre and in the +Tuileries Gardens--Rastignac, Madame d'Espard, the Duchess of +Chaulieu, Madame de Rochefide, and Canalis--carried my mind back from +crinolines and white stockings, from peg-top trousers and braided +coats, to the slim trousers that were almost breeches and to the +high-breasted gowns of the Restoration. Our mothers and fathers wore +the crinolines and the peg-top trousers, and our grandfathers the +tight trousers and the black silk stocks. The remembrance of these +costumes filled me with a tenderness and a melancholy I could not +subdue, and I could see that Doris was thinking of the same subject as +myself. +</p> + +<p> +We were thinking of that subject which interested men before history +began, the mutability of human things, the vanishing of generations. +Young as she was, Doris was thinking of death; nor is it the least +extraordinary she should, for as soon as any one has reached the age +of reflection the thought of death may come upon him at any moment, +though he be in the middle of a ballroom or lying in the arms of his +mistress. If the scene be a ballroom he has only to look outside, and +the night will remind him that in a few years he will enter the +eternal night; or if the scene be a bedroom the beautiful face of his +mistress may perchance remind him of another whose face was equally +beautiful and who is now under the earth; lesser things will suffice +to recall his thoughts from life to death, a rose petal falling on a +marble table, a dead bird in the path as he walks in his garden. And +after the thought of death the most familiar thought is the decay of +the bodily vesture. The first grey hair may seem to us an amusing +accident, but very few years will pass before another and yet another +appear, and if these do not succeed in reminding us that decay has +begun, a black speck on a tooth cannot fail to do so; and when we go +to the dentist to have it stopped we have begun to repair artificially +the falling structure. The activity of youth soon passes, and its +slenderness. I remember still the shock I felt on hearing an athlete +say that he could no longer run races of a hundred yards; he was half +a second or a quarter of a second slower than he was last year. I +looked at him saying, "But you are only one-and-twenty," and he +answered, "Yes, that is it." A football player I believe is out of +date at eight-and-twenty. Out of date! What a pathos there is in the +words--out of date! <i>Suranné</i>, as the French say. How are we to +render it in English? By the beautiful but artificial word +"yester-year"? Yester-year perhaps, for a sorrow clings about it; it +conveys a sense of autumn, of "the long decline of roses." There is +something ghostlike in the out-of-date. The landscape about Plessy had +transported us back into antiquity, making us dream of nymphs and +dryads, but the gilt cornices and damask hangings and the salon at +Orelay had made us dream of a generation ago, of the youth of our +parents. Ancient conveys no personal meaning, but the out-of-date +transports us, as it were, to the stern of the vessel, throws us into +a mournful attitude; we lean our heads upon our hands and, looking +back, we see the white wake of the vessel with shores sinking in the +horizon and the crests of the mountains passing away into the clouds. +</p> + +<p> +While musing on these abstract questions raised by my remark that we +had not managed our adventure properly, since we had forgotten to +provide ourselves with proper costumes, the present suddenly thrust +itself upon me. +</p> + +<p> +"Good God!" I said to Doris, "let us look back, for we shall never see +Orelay again!" and she from one window, and I from the other, saw the +spires of Orelay for the last time. We could not tear ourselves away, +but fortunately the road turned; Orelay was blotted out from our sight +for ever, and we sank back to remember that a certain portion of our +lives was over and done, a beautiful part of our lives had been thrown +into the void, into the great rubble-heap of emotions that had been +lived through, that are no more. +</p> + +<p> +"Of what are you thinking, dear? You have been far away. This is the +first time we have been separated, and we are not yet five miles from +Orelay." +</p> + +<p> +"Five miles! Ah, if it were only five!" +</p> + +<p> +We did not speak for a long time, and watching the midday sun, I +thought that peradventure it was not farther from us than yesterday. +Were I to say so to Doris she would answer, "It will be the same in +Paris," but if she did it would be the first falsehood she had told +me, for we both knew that things are never the same; things +change--for better or worse, but they change. +</p> + +<p> +This last sentence seems to me somewhat trite, and if I were to +continue this story any further my pen would run into many other +superficial and facile observations, for my mind is no longer +engrossed with the story. I no longer remember it; I do not mean that +I do not remember whether we got to Verlancourt, whether we had +breakfast, or whether we drove all the way to Paris with relays of +horses. I am of course quite certain about the facts: we breakfasted +at Verlancourt, and after breakfast we asked the coachman whether he +would care to go on to Paris with us; he raised his eyes--"The +carriage is a very old one, surely, Monsieur----" Doris and I laughed, +for, truth to tell, we had been so abominably shaken that we were glad +to exchange the picturesque old coach of our fathers' generation for +the train. +</p> + +<p> +These stories are memories, not inventions, and an account of the days +I spent in Paris would interest nobody; all the details are forgotten, +and invention and remembrance do not agree any better than the goat +and the cabbage. So, omitting all that does not interest me--and if it +does not interest me how can it interest the reader?--I will tell +merely that my adventure with Doris was barren of scandal or +unpleasant consequences. Her mother, a dear unsuspicious +woman--whether her credulity was the depth of folly or the depth of +wisdom I know not; there are many such mothers, my blessing be upon +them!--took charge of her daughter, and Doris and her mother returned +to England. I am afraid that when I confess that I did not speak to +Doris of marriage I shall forfeit the good opinion of my reader, who +will, of course, think that a love story with such an agreeable +creature as Doris merited a lifetime of devotion; but I pray the +reader to discover an excuse for me in the fact that Doris had told me +when we were at Plessy that there was no question of her marrying any +one but Albert. Had she not sacrificed the great love of her life in +order that she might remain constant to Albert? Is it to be expected, +then, that having done that, she would put Albert aside and throw her +lot in with mine? She might have done this; men and women act +inconsequently. Having on one occasion refused to drop the mutton chop +for the shadow, on the next occasion they would drop it for the shadow +of the shadow; but Doris was made of sterner stuff, and some months +afterwards she wrote me a steady, sensible little letter telling me +that she was going to be married, and that it seemed to her quite +natural that she should marry Albert. Years have passed away, and +nothing has happened to lead me to believe that she has not proved a +true and loving wife. Albert has always told me that he found all the +qualities in her which he had foreseen from the first time he looked +upon her pretty, sparkling face. Frown not, reader; accuse me not of +superficial cynicism! Albert is part of the world's inheritance. You +may be Albert yourself--every one has been or will be Albert; Albert +is in us all, just as I am in you all. Doris, too, is in you, dear +lady who sit reading my book--Doris my three-days mistress at Orelay, +and Doris the faithful spouse of Albert for twenty years in a lonely +London suburb. +</p> + +<p> +Study and boudoir would like to know if Doris had any children. About +two years afterwards I heard that she was "expecting." The word came +up spontaneously in my mind, perhaps because I had written it in the +beginning of the story. Reader, do you remember in "Massimilla Doni" +how Balzac, when he came to the last pages, declares that he dare not +tell you the end of the adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for +the worshippers of the ideal--<i>Massimilla Doni</i> was "expecting." +I have not read the story for many years, but the memory of it shines +in my mind bright--well, as the morning star; and I looked up this +last paragraph when I began to write this story, but had to excuse +myself for not translating it, my pretext being that I was baffled by +certain grammatical obscurities, or what seemed to me such. I seemed +to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that +"<i>les peuplades de cent cathédrales gothiques</i>" (which might be +rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals), +"<i>tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir à +vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques filles +incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent!</i>" What puzzles me is why statues should break their +forms (<i>form</i> I suppose should be translated by +<i>mould</i>)--break their moulds--the expression seems very +inadequate--break their moulds "in order to go to you, great +imaginative artists." How could they break their moulds or their forms +to go to the imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift +of the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if +he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas +and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of +<i>Massimilla</i> to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little +tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage: +</p> + +<p> +"Les péris, les ondines, les fées, les sylphides du vieux temps, les +muses de la Grèce, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le +Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le +premier mit au bas des tableaux d'église, et que Raphaël a faits si +divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gèle +a Dresde, les délicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'église de +San-Michele à Florence, les choeurs célestes du tombeau de Saint Sébald +à Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent +cathédrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur +forme pour venir à vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques +filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent." +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="ix">CHAPTER IX</a></h2> + +<h3>IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS</h3> + +<p> +There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I +remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of +Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool +in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, +of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the +foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the +picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my +copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been +promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has +abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some +Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a +sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, +and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking +of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it. +</p> + +<p> +After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half +satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that +awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the +Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for +breakfast in a queer little café; the meal cost us about a shilling. +On my return from this café soon after twelve--I had breakfasted early +that morning--I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could +not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and +the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw +myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in +the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, +smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself. +</p> + +<p> +Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, +whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards--the Rue de Rivoli, +the Rue de la Paix--knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April +playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great +stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts +embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city +that lies far away behind the Hôtel de Ville and behind the Boulevard +St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely +visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; +but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sévigné, and did not care +whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the +Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel +interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old +French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty +tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the +high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I +tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one +forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always +seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful +domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, +like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries +to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. +One cannot view it--I cannot, at least--without thinking of the great +monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have +learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his +"Étude de Catherine de Médicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and +I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de +Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte +Bouverand de la Loyère, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coëtlogon, +La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other +names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. +I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in +the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious +and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the +names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain +that others bearing equally noble names lived there. +</p> + +<p> +Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth +century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the +Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his +house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most +interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind +to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient +to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion +that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such +sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame +together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the +historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the +sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that +Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this +somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I +looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight +flickered. +</p> + +<p> +But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the +beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, +tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young +blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I +could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and +single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the +sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are +statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single +figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every +thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of +statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; +no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always +reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was +the only world. +</p> + +<p> +When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight +than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately +flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone +basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these +gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills +where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his +arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these +gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, +after admiring Frémiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, +appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved +to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, +idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've +been working all day." +</p> + +<p> +"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might +interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could +not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came +every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread +from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny +little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, +seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin +Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing +the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The +strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their +charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the +beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench +eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?--a model no doubt come from a +studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an <i>exalté</i> or a +<i>fumist</i>; a very innocent <i>fumist</i> if he were one, not one +of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know +that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the +frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met +an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, +playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty +April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, +telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to +dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first +opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the +life of the Quarter, in <i>le bal Bullier</i>, in my stories of +grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every +student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long +frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his +slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a +week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the +boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes +were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes +Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I +thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, +and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband +still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and +then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her +movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for +her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost +disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her +eyebrows were black, and they nearly met. +</p> + +<p> +The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner--we had come by +chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother +was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked +very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She +had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her +face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner +her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent +and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk." +</p> + +<p> +"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that +lovely two-step?" +</p> + +<p> +Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, +but she had not played many bars before her daughter said: +</p> + +<p> +"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us." +</p> + +<p> +I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; +an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not +want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any +opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn +Cake Walk," I said: +</p> + +<p> +"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?" +</p> + +<p> +The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague +expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it +was indifference or stupidity. +</p> + +<p> +"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She +plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate +and----" +</p> + +<p> +"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play +something for me. +</p> + +<p> +"I haven't got my keys--they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me +alone; I'm thinking of other things." +</p> + +<p> +Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred +looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the +illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about +foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a +small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much +better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not +know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else +why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met +some nice Englishmen, but Yankees--oh! Yankees! There was one at +Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are +they not? There was one at Cannes. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I +am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was +given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be +upon me if I gave it away." +</p> + +<p> +"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her." +</p> + +<p> +"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always +get sick of me if they see me two days running." +</p> + +<p> +"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true." +</p> + +<p> +Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully +than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and +a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked +less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I +could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was +searching for an excuse to send her to bed. +</p> + +<p> +"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?" +</p> + +<p> +"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it." +</p> + +<p> +Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" +but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and +had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face +appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said: +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!" +</p> + +<p> +She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper: +</p> + +<p> +"Not a word. He's my fiancé, and mother doesn't know he's here. She +does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank +you; you played that sonata very nicely." +</p> + +<p> +"Won't you play, my dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day." +</p> + +<p> +And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room +to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when +she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened. +</p> + +<p> +"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiancé, +and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell +mamma. He said <i>'Foi de gentilhomme,</i>' so I suppose it's all +right." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not have your fiancé in here? I'm going to bed." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my +bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't +matter what people say." +</p> + +<p> +A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my +shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me +through the open door she said: +</p> + +<p> +"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I +know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the +world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre +with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?" +</p> + +<p> +"I never split on any one." +</p> + +<p> +"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without +leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. +Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to +her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner." +</p> + +<p> +Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Entré!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for +you in the salon." +</p> + +<p> +When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married +Donald, or said she had. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to +go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we +might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting +to-day?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never +seen Madame de Sévigné's house." +</p> + +<p> +"Who is she?" +</p> + +<p> +"The woman who wrote the famous letters." +</p> + +<p> +"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books." +</p> + +<p> +"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the +morning." +</p> + +<p> +There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out +with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human +that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I +told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sévigné's house. The reader +doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sévigné's +house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her +remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris +wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's +memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it +without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I +felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when +we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent +the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for +her. Madame de Sévigné and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated +ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity +of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that +evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat +in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April +sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these +things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my +mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just +when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens +with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet +we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows +how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the +gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, +thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, +and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and +statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to +find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little +mamma suspected anything. +</p> + +<p> +"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I +think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit." +</p> + +<p> +As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past +life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but +since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He +had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a +merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and +just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a +purse of five pounds. +</p> + +<p> +She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her +attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the +painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to +remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like +his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, +laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young +naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey +sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred +said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. +"He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: +I hate a little man." +</p> + +<p> +We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation +occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and +I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called +away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me +that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for +she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to +wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the +sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had +posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; +sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore +open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried +to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought +rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could +not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is +antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early +in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed +here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, +notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we +are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. +To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each +other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of +the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the +river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for +her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take +an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these +floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries--how could it be +otherwise since I was there with Mildred?--and I began to argue that +it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind +to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying +like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence. +</p> + +<p> +"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the +knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater +length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to +the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?" +</p> + +<p> +"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A +short tibia is not pretty." +</p> + +<p> +A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that +we are going to Italy next week?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, you told me." +</p> + +<p> +Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the +statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. +She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same +square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the +square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, +he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days +before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had +become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in +putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice. +</p> + +<p> +"But you like Donald much better than Toby?" +</p> + +<p> +"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all +about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do +look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made +Rodin put a woman in that position." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. +Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the +statue was "La Danaide." +</p> + +<p> +"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his +sculpture may be sometimes called <i>l'article de Paris</i>. It is +occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great +exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the +back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the +same." +</p> + +<p> +"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. +Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about +lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of +these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all +these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no +change." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you think so? I wonder." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you doubt it?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my +life." +</p> + +<p> +"Not even Donald?" +</p> + +<p> +"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after +we arrived?" +</p> + +<p> +"Your wedding night?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, my wedding night." +</p> + +<p> +We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl +was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she +did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, +she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an +exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and +her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her +instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught +sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little +dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only +floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of +a stream. +</p> + +<p> +"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be +good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has +been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you +to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma +will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my +nerves." +</p> + +<p> +"You play the violin, don't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think +was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if +this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or +to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the +hotel." +</p> + +<p> +"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would +amuse you." +</p> + +<p> +"I wish I were a grisette." +</p> + +<p> +"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have +to get on with my painting." +</p> + +<p> +That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the +morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and +as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away. +</p> + +<p> +"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, +and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told +you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here." + +"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in +yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to +everybody else as they are to you." +</p> + +<p> +"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the +first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was +because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that +you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--" +</p> + +<p> +My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark +was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before +I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you +said--" +</p> + +<p> +"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like +to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it +would not have mattered to you if I had." +</p> + +<p> +She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her +seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender +it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or +if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her +fiddle-case with her? +</p> + +<p> +"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play +now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it." +</p> + +<p> +These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew +that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing +might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should +sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How +pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight +flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water +dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. +Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case." +</p> + +<p> +"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I +thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow +morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma +would want to accompany me." +</p> + +<p> +"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!" +</p> + +<p> +"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to +anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with +hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end +of the alley reciting his verses. +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; +I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour +for playing until your remark about--" +</p> + +<p> +"About what?" +</p> + +<p> +"You know very well," she answered. +</p> + +<p> +The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. +The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the +translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts +into another age. I began to see a picture--myself, the poet, and +this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to +make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet +intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading +his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose +lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed +the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini +whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a +man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why +describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because +its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I +dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive +suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my +pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred +to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must +happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without +sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of +violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and +in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, +advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played +the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined +the others, playing as she danced. +</p> + +<p> +"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if +they'll let me." +</p> + +<p> +Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred +as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander +and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up +their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. +Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these +three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one +enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a +noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at +last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode +of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house +which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking +together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the +fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of +mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would +not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune +awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust +the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She +stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so +much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that +God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. +This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be +danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges." +</p> + +<p> +"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the +youngest sister. +</p> + +<p> +"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, +and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the +Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine--the true gavotte as it was +danced when Madame de Sévigné drove up in a painted coach drawn by six +horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon." +</p> + +<p> +This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to +the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the +fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves +along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte +tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the +sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between +the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the +fashion of the time--the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! +How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old +women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until +the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. +After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing +a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before--in +church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long +phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of +Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its +way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has +desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred +could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing +that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? +Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an +echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious +self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged +in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by +another. +</p> + +<p> +She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and +then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to +play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it +seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady +in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred +Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been +unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows +not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the +ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament--how well Mildred played +it!--followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul +upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in +elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet +saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is +different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but +just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are +deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as +shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things +exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that +hears? +</p> + +<p> +A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the +great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as +well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of +the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing +and returned to me. +</p> + +<p> +"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?" +</p> + +<p> +"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't +play the 'Impassionata.'" +</p> + +<p> +"Why aren't you always like this?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I +play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great +deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it." +</p> + +<p> +We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at +all, thinking of the music. +</p> + +<p> +"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. +Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall +meet again some day." +</p> + +<p> +"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and +you're not often in the mood." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better----" +</p> + +<p> +"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch +you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money." +</p> + +<p> +"And you'll fall in love with some one else?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this +week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I +like those collars; they have just come out--those turned-down ones. +Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about +three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move +their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour +she liked best--violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor +Donald! He's so handsome." +</p> + +<p> +After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before +we reached the hotel she who had played--I cannot say for certain what +she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was +not then fully awakened; could it have been?--the names of Bach and +Chopin come up in my mind--"I can't speak about music," she said, as +we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel +possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to +play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," +as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she +looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the +line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic +look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the +hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the +office I saw a Yank--oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather +boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But +presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and +put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So +I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did." +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of +her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose +individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived +many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to +me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing +anything to destroy the mystery. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="x">CHAPTER X</a></h2> + +<h3>A REMEMBRANCE</h3> + +<p> +It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the +first time--saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. +The next time was in her own home--a farm-house that had been rebuilt +and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy +thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of +harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be +coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted +with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the +parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his +pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down +their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was +effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned +eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day +I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to +study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the +value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of +interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she +passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere +belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had +wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The +Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared +that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest +of the family--another was invented which appealed more to their +imagination--but she held to the name she had given me, and during the +course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. +</p> + +<p> +There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these +people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we +seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly +there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth +was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw +and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds +when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl +and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was +aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, +and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred +yards--an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the +seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than +shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of +the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might +an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking +up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought +at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by +chance in London. +</p> + +<p> +Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had +left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was +the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, +walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came +upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part +and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; +life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become +distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was +surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had +appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an +age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and +effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years +older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought +each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became +companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I +liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in +the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded +poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an +old gipsy woman." +</p> + +<p> +"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet." +</p> + +<p> +She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. +"It is a regular show." +</p> + +<p> +"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I +like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to +Brighton." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk." +</p> + +<p> +"I think I like you equally well at all times." +</p> + +<p> +We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our +friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you +half as much when I knew you first?" +</p> + +<p> +"How was that? I was quite a young woman then." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that +time I was a mere boy--I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed +around me." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw +in me was a woman with a grown-up son." +</p> + +<p> +Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she +said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on +the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate +teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on +that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of +age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I +admired. +</p> + +<p> +One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown +paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old +<i>Athenaeums</i>. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I +could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the +<i>Athenaeum</i> in a house where never a book was read. I looked at +the dates--three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was +gathering some withering apples from the floor. +</p> + +<p> +"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the +<i>Athenaeum</i> here?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, they are my <i>Athenaeums</i>," she said. "I always used to read +the <i>Athenaeum</i> when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. +You must have heard of him--he wrote that famous book about the +Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used +to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built +over now." +</p> + +<p> +This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us +closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the +odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her +girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her. +</p> + +<p> +"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you +then I should have asked you to marry me." +</p> + +<p> +"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read +books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of +books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should +have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father +thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look +after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted +to help us." +</p> + +<p> +At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them +when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six +months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. +The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I +used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If +I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at +dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate +intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was +in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her +from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain +till this hour in the garden?" +</p> + +<p> +I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight +confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness +became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would +accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation +with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for +her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to +London. +</p> + +<p> +The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the +waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in +truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are +some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was +endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on +you over the brink of the grave. +</p> + +<p> +We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came +back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she +remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her +sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, +and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew +better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of +movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the +old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, +coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the +library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable +drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up +in pieces of paper. +</p> + +<p> +"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a +girl of fifteen." +</p> + +<p> +She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old +woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more +to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so +does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something +strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent +charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, +at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time +had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an +affection that formal man knows not of. +</p> + +<p> +I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. +Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought +it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent long +hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely on her +back, and we supplicated--I was the foremost among her +supplicators--that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and +fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and +to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one +of those who would do everything herself--who thought that if she did +not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of +her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, +everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to +make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work +where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it +became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our +friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, +and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that +with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the +present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I +spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, +looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be +saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to +her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting +through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the +fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in +in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her +husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw +the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, +soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been +married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used +all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I +remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, +Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the +little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet +the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful +with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking +out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, +with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who +was to die. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it then incurable?" +</p> + +<p> +"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only +stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, +and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end." +</p> + +<p> +"Then there is no hope?" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid not." +</p> + +<p> +"Can she live for five years?" +</p> + +<p> +"I should think it extremely improbable." +</p> + +<p> +"What length of life do you give her?" +</p> + +<p> +"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly +sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. +That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, +very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: +"Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my +work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters +telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death +grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in +person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter +came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the +winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another +month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at +once." +</p> + +<p> +It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the +Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its +jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station +shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and +beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for +the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and +welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping +in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How +is she?" +</p> + +<p> +"Very bad indeed, sir." +</p> + +<p> +She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we +waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what +remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these +lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into +disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great +our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other +things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not +escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we +commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will +not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over +Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." +Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is +dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts." +</p> + +<p> +One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my +return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, +and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." +I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came +downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before +she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before +sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor +arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little +child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was +given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were +glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing +grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she +was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were +collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains +undone! How will they get on without me!" +</p> + +<p> +I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and +expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving +wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of +sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when +they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And +during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her +dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not +be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but +it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the +price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered +with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed +with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember +the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of +the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral +procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on +a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line +and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on +my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old +church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn +village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees +showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were +discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's +arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the +grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the +altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked +unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, +impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into +that comfortless hole. +</p> + +<p> +The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the +deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable +and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those +who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology +to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered +to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely +disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young +corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, +larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we +approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded +pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at +the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that +anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to +cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, +dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its +way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had +loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a +shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the +pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered +that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her +he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely +personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the +world offering to its creatures. +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="xi">CHAPTER XI</a></h2> + +<h3>BRING IN THE LAMP</h3> + +<p> +For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the +landscape reminds me of a somnambulist--the same silence, the same +mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even +the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The +hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, +the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night +a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were +few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars +hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last +days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. +At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no +doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves +hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, +and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say +whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the +blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks +in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, +benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a +painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are +forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins +in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or +little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last +seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, +or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of +pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his +writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are +written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker +green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when +his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh +forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his +garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than +the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories +any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? +Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium +which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and +his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the +easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will +seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the +horse is pumping water--water is necessary; but art, even if his work +is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary +to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world +can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that +is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have +to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts +say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, +otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He +asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an +idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! +Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His +thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It +would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South +America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. +He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to +horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by +the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping +through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by +leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the +air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But +if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can +the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? +His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the +evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell +of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. +No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to +write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story +shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it +forming part of the procession of things? The best part of +story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of +church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long +tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the +homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps +the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage +enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire +lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch +of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in +his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze +of the flesh the spirit awakes. What--is the story coming now? Yes; it +is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take +shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he +sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young +men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to +the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a +waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him--a +waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since +forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he +able to remember that <i>coda</i>, and it comes with a scent of +violets in it--the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she +dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice +was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear <i>crêpe de +chime</i>, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill +about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after +marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of +the world, from America--Baltimore will do as well as any other, +perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion +whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by +mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her +come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street--Cathedral +Street--there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of +the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose +Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an +informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her +husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be +dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass +between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the +dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and +women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the +women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon +her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook +between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. +She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or +jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are +these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should +take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her +dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to +keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A +little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material +existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that +one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the +Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no +denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious +than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is +rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what +we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is +going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are +going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as +he passes the <i>concierge's</i> lodge, pitying the poor couple +asleep--what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience +the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, +words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his +writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song +moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume--the +handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a +rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her +tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him--where? No better place +for lovers than the garden of L'Église de la Trinité. His night passes +in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking +he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how +carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him +better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet +or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and +what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five +going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and +forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Église de la Trinité? He knows +she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at +ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the +nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another +occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the +prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of +existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. +He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have +done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the +gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in +black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover +going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, +hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to +breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common +pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on +the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of +the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her +that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is +whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going +to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been +there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place +where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be +again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they +go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding--like +gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining--all is +omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What +a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance +in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket--he must read +it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty +years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees +and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon--for +all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is +made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object +of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, +to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. +Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the +blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable +setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits--the dreamer +can see her on the warm grass--hidden as well as she can hide herself +behind some bushes, the black crêpe dress hiding her feet or +pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears +white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little +black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; +the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young +man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem +pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her +affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the +night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him +many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to +bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the +beauty of her blond hair. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Lady, unwreath thy hair,<br> + That is so long and fair.<br> + May flowers are not more sweet<br> + Than the shower of loosened hair<br> + That will fall around my feet.<br> + Lady, unwreath thy hair,<br> + That is so long and fair. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "The golden curls they paint,<br> + Round the forehead of a saint,<br> + Ne'er glittered half so bright<br> + As thy enchanted hair,<br> + Full of shadow, full of light.<br> + Lady, unwreath thy hair,<br> + That is so long and fair. +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Lady, unwreath thy hair,<br> + That is so long and fair,<br> + And weave a web of gold<br> + Of thy enchanted hair,<br> + Till all be in its hold.<br> + Lady, unwreath thy hair,<br> + That is so long and fair." +</p> + +<p> +"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by +'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a +web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'--do you mean unloose my hair?" +</p> + +<p class="ind"> + "Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds<br> + Qui sont si lourds et si longs. +</p> + +<p> +"How well it goes with French!" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you +know, I like it very much!" +</p> + +<p> +It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the +mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that +it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he +sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers +the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly +sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries +to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was +reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked +him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he +must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had +she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is +not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote +that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the +phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should +think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man +prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be +paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her +hair unwreathed. +</p> + +<p> +"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" +and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer +can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, +how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! +On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be +doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he +refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of +Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has +just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a +bench at a little distance. +</p> + +<p> +"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us." +</p> + +<p> +"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, +before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed." +</p> + +<p> +Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away +even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. +The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He +insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from +him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the +season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get +something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet. +</p> + +<p> +Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this +restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a <i>cabinet +particulier</i>, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, +would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over +with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear +reader, if you are expecting a <i>cabinet particulier</i> in this +story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page +at once--you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains +nothing that will shock your--shall I say your "prudish +susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured +American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the +great long <i>salle</i> lined with tables, and they were attended by +an army of waiters weary of their leisure. +</p> + +<p> +There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it +and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes +of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty +reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished +story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, +how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a +sensual <i>dénouement</i> be a better end than, let us say, that the +lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an +accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at +the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers +of Vincennes rushing into one of the <i>concierge's</i> lodges at the +gates of the villas. +</p> + +<p> +"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon." +</p> + +<p> +But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three +umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for +herself. +</p> + +<p> +"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes." +</p> + +<p> +"No more I do." +</p> + +<p> +"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that +Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)." +</p> + +<p> +"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go--it will be +rather fun." +</p> + +<p> +"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?" +</p> + +<p> +The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex +mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them +clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the +villa to the <i>perron</i>--an explicit word that the English language +lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at +Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both +a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? +A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their +host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered +sofas and chairs. +</p> + +<p> +A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller +could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller +would see at once that <i>le bon bourgeois et sa dame</i> and the +children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for +the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that +the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the +rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers +from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After +dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of +neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose +than that it was <i>la bourgeoise's</i> evening at home? The young +couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own +sweet selves. <i>Le bourgeois et sa dame</i> would watch them with +kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there +were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined +that they must depart, <i>le bourgeois</i> and <i>la bourgeoise</i> +would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no +possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little +situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage--on the +French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman +to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with +the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, +"did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in +allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished +story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had +acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not +being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say +how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous +thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The +situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not +happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that +the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their +adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made +to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or +the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already +taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end +of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between +us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a +big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It +would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' +invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an +impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun +again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the +train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did +not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all +with the <i>bourgeois et sa dame</i>, and the dear little widow might +never have known her fate--O happy fate!--until the time came for them +to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the +rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come +back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he +must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should +give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in +the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next +time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the +story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a +year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know +that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief +which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps +some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am +sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had +taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he +wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so +well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was +not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty +years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, +and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but +change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always +overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a +stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are +pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the +unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there +is no hope, not a particle. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my +feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there +no light? Bring in the lamp!" +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="xii">CHAPTER XII</a></h2> + +<h3>SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON</h3> + +<p> +Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? +Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or +ten at the Café Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on +the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on +the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the +tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps +spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we +will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the +reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the +unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives +resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom +and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely +thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we +are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are +together. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to +put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if +he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom +shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and +after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the +northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's +Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who +will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round +of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin +with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is +interesting company he seeks. +</p> + +<p> +It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how +different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was +Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins +about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that +evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had +enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences +refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and +the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass +the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was +to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in +St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had +fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been +divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along +the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or +seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of +landscape-gardening is more akin to the art of a musician than to that +of a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The +formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by +Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the +Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a +boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, +but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but +after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the +silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight +stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the +shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so +beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy +to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, +ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled +shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. +Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead--that was his fault; but +Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the +pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows +are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great +designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples--those +pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? +Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist +and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from +Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his +own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say. +</p> + +<p> +Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the +tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in +illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to +look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards +shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I +may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what +interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's +Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset--there is the lake, and, +led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of +Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts +occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of +the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little +life of the ponds--the ducks going hither and thither, every duck +intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely +fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more +beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of +the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage +hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the +ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century +couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was +to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies +are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, +too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main +business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all +returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was +surely because it was part of me--not that part known to my friends; +our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they +discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or +herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply +interested in the fact when attention was called to it.... +</p> + +<p> +I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying--solemnly silent +and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a +breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! +In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more +beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very +subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness +did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like +plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the +deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park +for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. +But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures +flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of +festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which +all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered +dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that +they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the +sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, +great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the +fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing +and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, +the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the +satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged +for a guitar. +</p> + +<p> +As the twilight gathered under the plane trees my vision became more +mixed and morbid, and I hardly knew if the picture I saw was the +picture in the Dulwich Gallery or the exquisite picture in the Louvre, +"Une Assemblée dans la Parc." We all know that picture, the gallants +and the ladies by the water-side, and the blue evening showing through +the tall trees. The picture before me was like that picture, only the +placing of the trees and the slope of the greensward did not admit of +so extended a composition. A rough tree-trunk, from which a great +branch had been broken or lopped off, stood out suddenly in very +nineteenth-century naturalness, awaking the ghost of a picture which I +recognised at once as Corot. Behind the tree a tender, evanescent sky, +pure and transparent as the very heart of a flower, rose up, filling +the park with romance, and as the sunset drooped upon the water, my +soul said, "The Lake!" Ah, the pensive shadow that falls from the +hills on either side of "The Lake," leaving the middle of the picture +suffused with a long stream of light, narrowing as it approached the +low horizon. But the line of the trees on the hither side of this +London lake was heavier than the spiritual trees in the picture +entitled "By the Water-side," and there was not anywhere the beauty of +the broken birch that leans over the lake in "Le Lac de Garde." Then I +thought of "The Ravine," for the darkening island reminded me of the +hillside in the picture. But the St. James's Park sky lacked the +refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, +low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the +right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the +difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is +anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity--self! Therefore +not quite so interesting as a good Corot. +</p> + +<p> +So did I chatter to myself as I walked toward the bridge, that dear +bridge, thrown straight as a plank across the lake, with numerous +water-fowl collected there, a black swan driving the ducks about, +snatching more than his due share of bread, and little children +staring stolidly, afraid of the swan, and constantly reproved by their +mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A +little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the +waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their +webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round +the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with +outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into +the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, which +the night instantly obliterated. +</p> + +<p> +An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. +One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise +after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we +like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all +our poets and priests. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding me +that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining alone I +should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had not +lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, and +meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the +absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting +with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it +would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the +dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one +appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young +man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we +went to a restaurant to talk art. +</p> + +<p> +"After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about +the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women +hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them +all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an +enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the +ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me +extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last +that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all +socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which +obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that +somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight +London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent +Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of +his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken +sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... +I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I +said: +</p> + +<p> +"He reminds me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping +sensualities of his phrase--his one phrase--how descriptive it is of +the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's +muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on +silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of +embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries of bronze lamps. Or, +maybe, the scene passes on a terrace overlooking a dark river. Behind +the domes and minarets a yellow moon dreams like an odalisque, her +hand on the circle of her breast; and through the torrid silence of +the garden, through the odour of over-ripe fruit and the falling sound +thereof, comes the melancholy warble of a fountain. Or is it the +sorrow of lilies rising through the languid air to the sky? The night +is blue and breathless; the spasms of the lightning are intermittent +among the minarets and the domes; the hot, fierce fever of the garden +waxes in the almond scent of peaches and the white odalisques +advancing, sleek oracles of mood.... He reminds me of the dark-eyed +Bohemian who comes into a tavern silently, and, standing in a corner, +plays long, wild, ravishing strains. I see him not, I hardly hear him; +my thoughts are far away; my soul slumbers, desiring nothing. I care +not to lift my head. Why should I break the spell of my meditations? +But I feel that his dark eyes are fixed upon me, and little by little, +in spite of my will, my senses awake; a strange germination is in +progress within me; thoughts and desires that I dread, of whose +existence in myself I was not aware, whose existence in myself I would +fain deny, come swiftly and come slowly, and settle and absorb and +become part of me.... Fear is upon me, but I may not pause; I am +hurried on; repudiation is impossible, supplication and the wringing +of hands are vain; God has abandoned me; my worst nature is uppermost. +I see it floating up from the depths of my being, a viscous scum. But +I can do nothing to check or control.... God has abandoned me.... I am +the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable +fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him +all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The +Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and +forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, +its mankind and its godkind--surely it is nearer to life! Or go into +the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! +We are nearer life lying by a shady brook, hearing the quail in the +meadows and the yellow-hammer in the thicket, than we are now, under +this oppressive sky. This street is like Klinsor's garden; here, too, +are flower-maidens--patchouli, jessamine, violet. Here is the +languorous atmosphere of "Parsifal." Come, let us go; let us seek the +country, the moon-haunted dells we shall see through Piccadilly +railings. Have you ever stood in the dip of Piccadilly and watched the +moonlight among the trees, and imagined a comedy by Wycherley acted +there, a goodly company of gallants and fine ladies seated under the +trees watching it? Every one has come there in painted sedan-chairs; +the bearers are gathered together at a little distance." +</p> + +<p> +"My dear friend, you're talking so much that you don't see those who +are passing us. That girl, she who has just turned to look back, +favours heliotrope; it is delicious still upon the air; she is as +pretty a girl as any that ever came in a sedan-chair to see a comedy +by Wycherley. The comedy varies very little: it is always the same +comedy, and it is always interesting. The circus in a sultry summer +night under a full moon is very like Klinsor's garden. Come, if you be +not <i>Parsifal</i>." +<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h2><a name="xiii">CHAPTER XIII</a></h2> + +<h3>RESURGAM</h3> + +<p> +I was in London when my brother wrote telling me that mother was ill. +She was not in any immediate danger, he said, but if a change for the +worse were to take place, and it were necessary for me to come over, +he would send a telegram. A few hours after a telegram was handed to +me. It contained four words: "<i>Come at once.--Maurice.</i>" "So +mother is dying," I muttered to myself, and I stood at gaze, +foreseeing myself taken into her room by a nurse and given a chair by +the bedside, foreseeing a hand lying outside the bed which I should +have to hold until I heard the death-rattle and saw her face become +quiet for ever. +</p> + +<p> +This was my first vision, but in the midst of my packing, I remembered +that mother might linger for days. The dear friend who lies in the +church-yard under the downs lingered for weeks; every day her husband +and her children saw her dying under their eyes: why should not this +misfortune be mine? I know not to what God, but I prayed all night in +the train, and on board the boat; I got into the train at the +Broadstone praying. It is impossible, at least for me, to find words +to express adequately the agony of mind I endured on that journey. +Words can only hint at it, but I think that any one possessed of any +experience of life, or who has any gift of imagination, will be able +to guess at the terror that haunted me--terror of what?--not so much +that my mother might die, nor hope that she might live, but just that +I might arrive in time to see her die. In this confession I am afraid +I shall seem hard and selfish to some; that will be because many +people lack imagination, or the leisure to try to understand that +there are not only many degrees of sensibility, but many kinds, and it +is doubtful if any reader can say with truth any more than that my +sensibility is not his or hers. It is my privilege to be sympathetic +with ideas I do not share, and in certain moods I approach those who +take a sad pleasure in last words, good-byes, and at looking on the +dead. In my present mood it seems to me that it is not unlikely that +my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in +imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can +be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of +what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our +perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. +There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we +should not be able to live at all. +</p> + +<p> +But to the journey. How shall I tell it? The third part must have been +the most painful, so clearly do I remember it: the curious agony of +mind caused by a sudden recognition of objects long forgotten--a tree +or a bit of bog-land. The familiar country, evocative of a great part +of my childhood, carried my thoughts hither and thither. My thoughts +ranged like the swallows; the birds had no doubt just arrived, and in +swift elliptical flights they hunted for gnats along the banks of the +old weedy canal. That weedy canal along which the train travelled took +my thoughts back to the very beginning of my life, when I stood at the +carriage window and plagued my father and mother with questions +regarding the life of the barges passing up and down. And it was the +sudden awakenings from these memories that were so terrible--the +sudden thrust of the thought that I was going westward to see my +mother die, and that nothing could save her from death or me from +seeing her die. Perhaps to find one's self suddenly deprived of all +will is the greatest suffering of all. How many times did I say to +myself, "Nothing can save me unless I get out at the next station," +and I imagined myself taking a car and driving away through the +country! But if I did such a thing I should be looked upon as a +madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think +how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were +selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it +all, must be perhaps the greatest part of their pain. +</p> + +<p> +The morning was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I used +to catch myself thinking out a picturesque expression to describe it. +It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked +so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast +feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton +made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to +provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on +instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself +plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility of keeping one's +thoughts fixed on any one subject for any considerable length of time. +At the end of these reflections I fell back, wondering, again asking +if I were really destined to watch by my mother's death-bed. That day +I seemed to become a sheer mentality, a sort of buzz of thought, and I +could think of myself only as of a fly climbing a glass dome. It +seemed to me that I was like a fly climbing and falling back, buzzing, +and climbing again. "Never," I said to myself, "have I been more than +a fly buzzing in a glass dome. And, good Lord, who made the glass +dome?" How often did I ask myself that question, and why it was made, +and if it were going to endure for ever! +</p> + +<p> +In such sore perplexity of mind questions from anybody would be +intolerable, and I shrank back into the corner of the carriage +whenever a passer-by reminded me, however vaguely, of anybody I had +ever known; the mental strain increased mile after mile, for the names +of the stations grew more familiar. I began to try to remember how +many there were before we arrived at Claremorris, the station at which +I was going to get out. Half an hour afterward the train slackened, +the porter cried out "Ballyhaunis." The next would be Claremorris, and +I watched every field, foreseeing the long road, myself on one side of +the car, the driver on the other; a two hours' drive in silence or in +talk--in talk, for I should have to tell him my errand.... He might be +able to tell me about my mother, if the news of her illness had got as +far as Claremorris. At the public-house where I went to get a car I +made inquiries, but nothing was known. My mother must have fallen ill +suddenly--of what? I had not heard she was ailing; I did not remember +her ever to have been ill. At that moment some trees reminded me that +we were close to Ballyglass, and my thoughts wandered away to the long +road on the other side of the hill, and I saw there (for do we not +often see things in memory as plainly as if they were before us?) the +two cream-coloured ponies, Ivory and Primrose, she used to drive, and +the phaeton, and myself in it, a little child in frocks, anxious, +above all things, to see the mail-coach go by. A great sight it was to +see it go by with mail-bags and luggage, the guard blowing a horn, the +horses trotting splendidly, the lengthy reins swinging, and the +driver, his head leaned a little on one side to save his hat from +being blown away--he used to wear a grey beaver hat. The great event +of that time was the day that we went to Ballyglass, not to see the +coach go by, but to get into it, for in those days the railway stopped +at Athenry. And that was the day I saw the canal, and heard with +astonishment that there was a time long ago, no doubt in my father's +youth, when people used to go to Dublin in a barge. Those memories +were like a stupor, and awaking suddenly I saw that more than two and +a half miles lay between me and my mother. In half an hour more I +should know whether she were alive or dead, and I watched the horse +trotting, interested in his shambling gait, or not at all interested +in it--I do not know which. On occasions of great nervous tension one +observes everything.... Everything I remembered best appeared with +mechanical regularity; now it was a wood, a while afterward somebody's +farmyard, later on a line of cottages, another wood, one of my own +gate lodges. An old sawyer lived in it now--looking after it for me; +and I hoped that the wheels of the car would not bring him out, for it +would distress me to see him. The firs in the low-lying land had grown +a little within the last thirty years, but not much. We came to the +bridge; we left it behind us; the gate lodge and the drive from it; +the plantation that I knew so well, the lilac bushes, the laburnums--good +Heavens! How terrible was all this resurrection! Mists hide the +mountains from us, the present hides the past; but there are times +when the present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared +away, and the past confronts us in naked outline, and that perhaps is +why it is so painful to me to return home. The little hill at the +beginning of the drive is but a little hill, but to me it is much +more, so intimately is it associated with all the pains and troubles +of childhood. All this park was once a fairyland to me; now it is but +a thin reality, a book which I have read, and the very thought of +which bores me, so well do I know it. There is the lilac bush! I used +to go there with my mother thirty years ago at this time of year, and +we used to come home with our hands full of bloom. Two more turnings +and we should be within sight of the house! This is how men feel when +condemned to death. I am sure of it. At the last hill the driver +allowed his horse to fall into a walk, but I begged of him to drive on +the horse, for I saw some peasants about the steps of the hall door; +they were waiting, no doubt, for news, or perhaps they had news. "We +have bad news for you," they cried in the wailing tones of the West. +</p> + +<p> +"Not altogether bad news," I said to myself; "my mother is dead, but I +have been saved the useless pain, the torture of spirit, I should have +endured if I had arrived in time." China roses used to grow over the +railings; very few blooms were left. I noticed just a few as I ran up +the high steps, asking myself why I could not put the past behind me. +If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but +never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I +opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and +painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that +corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying, +showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will +show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning +of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to +spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see +his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put +his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country, +and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How +the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning +my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which +the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear! +</p> + +<p> +In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was +there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died +that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of +our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness +unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is +why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a +little shocked at my own insensibility. This was stupid of me, for I +knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately +after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But +in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect; +one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable +as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister +could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's +goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It +even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she +might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the +specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had +blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have +submitted to an operation. +</p> + +<p> +While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk +of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A +Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her +husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I +at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her +suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the +butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready. How these incidents +jar our finer feelings! They seem to degrade life, and to such a point +that we are ashamed of living, and are tempted to regard life itself +as a disgrace. +</p> + +<p> +I foresaw that the same interruptions, the same devagations, would +happen among ourselves in the square Georgian house standing on a +hill-top overlooking a long winding lake, as had happened among my +friends in the Italian house under the downs amid bunches of evergreen +oaks. Nor had I to wait long for one of these unhappy devagations. My +sister had to tell me who was staying in the house: an aunt was there, +my mother's sister, and an uncle, my mother's brother, was coming over +next day. It is easy to guess how the very mention of these names +beguiled us from what should be the subject of our thought. And the +room itself supplied plenty of distractions: all the old furniture, +the colour of the walls, the very atmosphere of the room took my +thought back to my childhood. The sofa on which my sister was sitting +had been broken years ago, and I unwittingly remembered how it had +been broken. It had been taken away to a lumber-room; somebody had had +it mended. I began to wonder who had done this--mother, most likely; +she looked after every thing. I have said that I had just arrived +after a long journey. I had eaten nothing since the night before. My +sister spoke of lunch and we went into the dining-room, and in the +middle of the meal my brother came in looking so very solemn that I +began to wonder if he had assumed the expression he thought +appropriate to the occasion--I mean if he had involuntarily +exaggerated the expression of grief he would naturally wear. We are so +constituted that the true and the false overlap each other, and so +subtly that no analysis can determine where one ends and the other +begins. I remembered how the relatives and the friends on the day of +the funeral in Sussex arrived, each one with a very grave face, +perchance interrupting us in the middle of some trivial conversation; +if so, we instantly became grave and talked of the dead woman +sympathetically for a few minutes; then on the first opportunity, and +with a feeling of relief, we began to talk of indifferent things; and +with every fresh arrival the comedy was re-acted. Returning from the +past to the present, I listened to my brother, who was speaking of the +blunder that had been made: how a wrong doctor had come down owing +to--the fault was laid upon somebody, no matter upon whom; the subject +was a painful one and might well have been dropped, but he did not +dare to talk of anything but our mother, and we all strove to carry on +the conversation as long as possible. But my brother and I had not +seen each other for years; he had come back from India after a long +absence. Nor, I think, had I seen my sister since she was married, and +that was a long while ago; she had had children; I had not seen her +before in middle age. We were anxious to ask each other questions, to +hear each other's news, and we were anxious to see the landscape that +we had not seen, at least not together, for many years; and I remember +how we were tempted out of the house by the soft sunlight floating on +the lawn. The same gentle day full of mist and sunlight that I had +watched since early morning had been prolonged, and the evening +differed hardly from the morning; the exaltation in the air was a +little more intense. My mother died certainly on the most beautiful +day I had ever seen, the most winsome, the most white, the most +wanton, as full of love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a +spray of hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I wonder why +death should have come to any one on such a bridal-like day. That we +should expect Nature to prepare a decoration in accordance with our +moods is part of the old savagery. Through reason we know that Nature +cares for us not at all, that our sufferings concern her not in the +least, but our instincts conform to the time when the sun stood still +and angels were about. It was impossible for us not to wonder why the +black shadow of death should have fallen across the white radiant day. +I say "us," for my brother no doubt pondered the coincidence, though +he did not speak his thoughts to me. No one dares to speak such +thoughts; they are the foolish substance of ourselves which we try to +conceal from others, forgetting that we are all alike. The day moved +slowly from afternoon to evening, like a bride hidden within a white +veil, her hands and her veil filled with white blossom; but a black +bird, tiny like a humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, +and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister black speck that +had intruded itself upon it. No doubt I could think of something +better were I to set my mind upon doing so, but that is how I thought +the day I walked on the lawn with my brother, ashamed and yet +compelled to talk of what our lives had been during the years that +separated us. How could one be overpowered with grief amid so many +distracting circumstances? Everything I saw was at once new and old. I +had come among my brother and sister suddenly, not having seen them, +as I have said, for many years; this was our first meeting since +childhood, and we were assembled in the house where we had all been +born. The ivy grown all over one side of the house, the disappearance +of the laburnum, the gap in the woods--these things were new; but the +lake that I had not seen since a little child I did not need to look +at, so well did I know how every shore was bent, and the place of +every island. My first adventures began on that long yellow strand; I +did not need to turn my head to see it, for I knew that trees +intervened and I knew the twisting path through the wood. That yellow +strand speckled with tufts of rushes was my first playground. But when +my brother proposed that we should walk there, I found some excuse; +why go? The reality would destroy the dream. What reality could equal +my memory of the firs where the rabbits burrowed, of the drain where +we fished for minnows, of the long strand with the lake far away in +summertime? How well I remember that yellow sand, hard and level in +some places as the floor of a ball-room. The water there is so shallow +that our governess used to allow us to wander at will, to run on ahead +in pursuit of a sandpiper. The bird used to fly round with little +cries; and we often used to think it was wounded; perhaps it pretended +to be wounded in order to lead us away from its nest. We did not think +it possible to see the lake in any new aspect, yet there it lay as we +had never seen it before, so still, so soft, so grey, like a white +muslin scarf flowing out, winding past island and headland. The +silence was so intense that one thought of the fairy-books of long +ago, of sleeping woods and haunted castles; there were the castles on +islands lying in misted water, faint as dreams. Now and then a bird +uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall +larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft +murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. +Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island +seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror--a mirror that somebody had +breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about +the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear eternity murmuring its sad +monotony. +</p> + +<p> +The lake curves inland, forming a pleasant bay among the woods; there +is a sandy spit where some pines have found roothold, and they live on +somehow despite the harsh sallies of the wind in winter. Along the +shore dead reeds lie in rows three feet deep among the rushes; had +they been placed there by hand they could not have been placed with +more regularity; and there is an old cart-track, with hawthorns +growing out of a tumbled wall. The hillside is planted--beautiful +beeches and hollies at one end, and at the other some lawny +interspaces with tall larches swaying tasselled branches shedding +faint shadows. These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads +through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a +seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some +reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a +child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the +knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the +end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was +taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my +father was taken there. +</p> + +<p> +What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear +again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up +with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman +no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others +with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all +wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon +they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a +funeral! +</p> + +<p> +Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked +that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the +elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer +lingered there. And the interval between her death and her burial I +spent along the lake's shore. The same weather continued day after +day, and it is almost impossible to find words to express the beauty +of the grey reflection of the islands and the reeds, and the faint +evanescent shores floating away, disappearing in the sun-haze, and the +silence about the shores, a kind of enchanted silence, interrupted, as +I have said, only by the low gurgle of the water about the limestone +shingle. Now and then the song of a bird would break out, and all was +silence again.... "A silence that seems to come out of the very heart +of things!" I said, and I stopped to listen, like one at the world's +end; I walked on, wondering, through the rushes and tussocked grass +and juniper bushes which grew along the wilding shore, along the edge +of the wood. Coming from the town, I could not but admire the +emptiness of the country; hardly ever did I hear the sound of a human +voice or a footstep; only once did I meet some wood-gatherers, poor +women carrying bundles of faggots, bent under their loads. And +thinking that perchance I knew them--they were evidently from the +village; if so, I must have known them when I was a boy--I was +suddenly seized by an unaccountable dread or a shyness, occasioned no +doubt by the sense of the immense difference that time had effected in +us: they were the same, but I was different. The books I had pondered +and the pictures I had seen had estranged me from them, simple souls +that they were; and the consciousness of the injustice of the human +lot made it a pain to me to look into their eyes. So I was glad to be +able to pass behind some bushes, and to escape into the wood without +their perceiving me. +</p> + +<p> +And coming upon pleasant interspaces, pleasanter even than those that +lingered in my memory, I lay down, for, though the days were the first +days of May, the grass was long and warm and ready for the scythe, the +tasselled branches of the tall larches swung faintly in a delicious +breeze, and the words of the old Irish poet came into my mind, "The +wood was like a harp in the hands of a harper." To see the boughs, to +listen to them, seemed a sufficient delight, and I began to admire the +low sky full of cotton-like clouds, and the white flower that was +beginning to light up the little leaves of the hedgerow, and I suppose +it was the May-flower that drew down upon me a sudden thought of the +beloved girl lost to me for ever. My mother's death had closed that +wound a little, but in a moment all my grief reappeared, the wound +gaped again, and it was impossible to stanch the bleeding. +</p> + +<p> +A man cannot lament two women at the same time, and only a month ago +the most beautiful thing that had ever appeared in my life, an idea +which I knew from the first I was destined to follow, had appeared to +me, had stayed with me for a while, and had passed from me. All the +partial loves of my youth seemed to find expression at last in a +passion that would know no change. Who shall explain the mystery of +love that time cannot change? Fate is the only word that conveys any +idea of it, for of what use to say that her hair was blond and thick, +that her eyes were grey and blue? I had known many women before her, +and many had hair and eyes as fine and as deep as hers. But never one +but she had had the indispensable quality of making me feel I was more +intensely alive when she was by me than I was when she was away. It +is that tingle of life that we are always seeking, and that perhaps we +must lose in order to retain. On such a day, under the swaying +branches of the larches, the whiteness of the lake curving so +beautifully amid low shores could not fail to remind me of her body, +and its mystery reminded me of her mystery; but the melancholy line of +mountains rippling down the southern sky was not like her at all. One +forgets what is unlike, caring only to dwell upon what is like.... +Thinking of her my senses grow dizzy, a sort of madness creeps up +behind the eyes. What an exquisite despair is this--that one shall +never possess that beautiful personality again, sweet-scented as the +May-time, that I shall never hold that dainty oval face in my hands +again, shall look into those beautiful eyes no more, that all the +intimacy of her person is now but a memory never to be renewed by +actual presence--in these moments of passionate memory one experiences +real grief, a pang that never has found expression perchance except in +Niobe; even that concentration of features is more an expression of +despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that +prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned +her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her +virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I +lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, +her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I +should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now, +intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking, +the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost +in losing her. +</p> + +<p> +We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the +pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of +our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best +thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if +her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be +beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be +loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of +her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him +for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to +him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was +thinking of myself when shame prevented me from going to meet the poor +wood-gatherers; they would not have thought at all of the injustice of +having been left to the labour of the fields while I had gone forth to +enjoy the world; they would have been interested to see me again, and +a few kind words would have made their load seem easier on their +backs. Called back by a sudden association of ideas, I began to +consider that shameful injustice is undoubtedly a part of our human +lot, for we may only grieve passionately for the casual, or what seems +the merely casual; perhaps because the ultimate law is hidden from us; +I am thinking now of her who comes suddenly into our lives tempting us +with colour, fugitive as that of a flower, luring us with light as +rapid as the light shed from the wings of a dove. Why, I asked myself, +as I lay under the larches, are we to mourn transitory delight so +intensely, why should it possess us more entirely than the sorrow that +we experience for her who endured the labour of child-bearing, who +nourished us perchance at her breast, whose devotion to us was +unceasing, and who grew kindlier and more divorced from every thought +of self as the years went by? From injustice there can be no escape, +not a particle. At best we can, indeed we must, acquiesce in the fact +that the only sorrow to be found in our hearts for aged persons is a +sort of gentle sorrow, such as the year itself administers to our +senses in autumn, when we come home with our hands full of the +beautiful single dahlias that the Dutchmen loved and painted, bound up +with sprays of reddening creepers; we come home along the sunny roads +over which the yellow beeches lean so pathetically, and we are sad for +the year, but we do not grieve passionately; our hearts do not break. +</p> + +<p> +Then again we cannot grieve as the conventions would have us +grieve--in strange dress; the very fact of wearing crepe and black +gloves alienates us from our real selves; we are no longer ourselves, +we are mummers engaged in the performance of a masque. I could have +mourned my mother better without crêpe. "There never has been invented +anything so horrible as the modern funeral," I cried out. A picture of +the hearse and the mutes rose up in my mind, and it was at that very +moment that the song of the bird broke out again, and just above my +head in the larches an ugly, shrilling song of about a dozen notes +with an accent on the two last, a stupid, tiresome stave that never +varied. "What bird can it be," I cried out, "that comes to interrupt +my meditations?" and getting up I tried to discover it amid the +branches of the tree under which I had been lying. It broke out again +in another tree a little farther away, and again in another. I +followed it, and it led me round the wood towards the hilltop to the +foot of the steps, two short flights; the second flight, or part of it +at least, has to be removed when the vault is opened. It consists, no +doubt, of a single chamber with shelves along either side; curiosity +leads few into vaults not more than a hundred years old; above the +vault is the monument, a very simple one, a sort of table built in, +and when my father was buried, a priest scrambled up or was lifted up +by the crowd, and he delivered a funeral oration from the top of it. +</p> + +<p> +That day the box edgings were trampled under foot, and all the flowers +in the beds. My mother, perhaps, cared little for flowers, or she did +not live here sufficiently long to see that this garden was carefully +tended; for years there were no children to come here for a walk, and +it was thought sufficient to keep in repair the boundary wall so that +cattle should not get in. No trees were cut here when the Woods were +thinned, and the pines and the yews have grown so thickly that the +place is overshadowed; and the sepulchral dark is never lifted even at +midday. At the back of the tomb, in the wood behind it, the headstones +of old graves show above the ground, though the earth has nearly +claimed them; only a few inches show above the dead leaves; all this +hillside must have been a graveyard once, hundreds of years ago, and +this ancient graveyard has never been forgotten by me, principally on +account of something that happened long ago when I was a little child. +The mystery of the wood used to appeal to my curiosity, but I never +dared to scramble over the low wall until one day, leaving my +governess, who was praying by the tomb, I discovered a gap through +which I could climb. My wanderings were suddenly brought to an end by +the appearance, or the fancied appearance, of somebody in a brown +dress--a woman I thought it must be; she seemed to float along the +ground, and I hurried back, falling and hurting myself severely in my +hurry to escape through the gap. So great was my fear that I spoke not +of my hurt to my governess, but of the being I had seen, beseeching of +her to come back; but she would not come back, and this fact impressed +me greatly. I said to myself, "If she didn't believe somebody was +there she'd come back." The fear endured for long afterwards; and I +used to beg of her not to cross the open space between the last shift +of the wood and the tomb itself. We can re-live in imagination an +emotion already experienced. Everything I had felt when I was a child +about the mysterious hollows in the beech wood behind the tomb and the +old stone there, and the being I had seen clothed in a brown cloak, I +could re-live again, but the wood enkindled no new emotion in me. +Everything seemed very trivial. The steps leading to the tomb, the +tomb itself, the boundary wall, and the enchanted wood was now no more +than a mere ordinary plantation. There were a few old stones showing +through the leaves, that is all. Marvels never cease; in youth one +finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner +life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I +should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down +to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery +also a dream, an imagination? Which is the truth--that experience robs +the earth of its mystery, or that we have changed so that the +evanescent emanations which we used suddenly to grow aware of, and +which sometimes used to take shape, are still there, only our eyes are +no longer capable of perceiving them? May not this be so?--for as one +sense develops, another declines. The mystic who lives on the hillside +in the edge of a cave, pondering eternal rather than ephemeral things, +obtains glimpses, just as the child does, of a life outside this life +of ours. Or do we think these things because man will not consent to +die like a plant? Wondering if a glimpse of another life had once been +vouchsafed to me when my senses were more finely wrought, I descended +the hillside; the bird, probably a chaffinch, repeated its cry without +any variation. I went down the hillside and lay in the shadow of the +tasselled larches, trying to convince myself that I had not hoped to +see the brown lady, if it were a lady I had seen, bending over the +stones of the old burial-ground. +</p> + +<p> + +One day the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of a mason's +hammer, and on making inquiry from a passing workman--his hodman +probably--I learned that on opening the vault it had been discovered +that there was not room for another coffin. But no enlargement of the +vault was necessary; a couple of more shelves was all that would be +wanted for many a year to come. His meaning was not to be +mistaken--when two more shelves had been added there would be room for +my brothers, myself, and my sister, but the next generation would have +to order that a further excavation be made in the hill or look out for +a new burial-ground. He stood looking at me, and I watched for a +moment a fine young man whose eyes were pale as the landscape, and I +wondered if he expected me to say that I was glad that things had +turned out very well.... The sound of the mason's hammer got upon my +nerves, and feeling the wood to be no longer a place for meditation, I +wandered round the shore as far as the old boat-house, wondering how +it was that the words of a simple peasant could have succeeded in +producing such a strange revulsion of feeling in me. No doubt it was +the intensity with which I realised the fact that we are never far +from death, none of us, that made it seem as if I were thinking on +this subject for the first time. As soon as we reach the age of +reflection the thought of death is never long out of our minds. It is +a subject on which we are always thinking. We go to bed thinking that +another day has gone, that we are another day nearer our graves. Any +incident suffices to remind us of death. That very morning I had seen +two old blue-bottles huddled together in the corner of a pane, and at +once remembered that a term of life is set out for all things--a few +months for the blue-bottle, a few years for me. One forgets how one +thought twenty years ago, but I am prone to think that even the young +meditate very often upon death; it must be so, for all their books +contain verses on the mutability of things, and as we advance in years +it would seem that we think more and more on this one subject, for +what is all modern literature but a reek of regret that we are but +bubbles on a stream? I thought that nothing that could be said on this +old subject could move me, but that boy from Derryanny had brought +home to me the thought that follows us from youth to age better than +literature could have done; he had exceeded all the poets, not by any +single phrase--it was more his attitude of mind towards death (towards +my death) that had startled me--and as I walked along the shore I +tried to remember his words. They were simple enough, no doubt, so +simple that I could not remember them, only that he had reminded me +that Michael Malia, that was the mason's name, had known me since I +was a little boy; I do not know how he got it out; I should not have +been able to express the idea myself, but without choosing his words, +without being aware of them, speaking unconsciously, just as he +breathed, he had told me that if my heart were set on any particular +place I had only to tell Michael Malia and he would keep it for me; +there would be a convenient place for me just above my grandfather +when they had got the new shelf up; he had heard we were both writers. +</p> + +<p> +That country boy took it out of me as perhaps no poet had ever done! I +shall never forget him as I saw him going away stolidly through the +green wood, his bag of lime on his back. +</p> + +<p> +And sitting down in front of the tranquil lake I said, "In twenty or +thirty years I shall certainly join the others in that horrible vault; +nothing can save me," and again the present slipped away from me and +my mind became again clear as glass; the present is only subconscious; +were it not so we could not live. I have said all this before; again I +seemed to myself like a fly crawling up a pane of glass, falling back, +buzzing, and crawling again. Every expedient that I explored proved +illusory, every one led to the same conclusion that the dead are +powerless. "The living do with us what they like," I muttered, and I +thought of all my Catholic relations, every one of whom believes in +the intervention of priests and holy water, the Immaculate Conception, +the Pope's Indulgences, and a host of other things which I could not +remember, so great was my anguish of mind at the thought that my poor +pagan body should be delivered helpless into their pious hands. I +remembered their faces, I could hear their voices--that of my dear +brother, whom I shall always think of as a strayed cardinal rather +than as a colonel; I could see his pale eyes moist with faith in the +intercession of the Virgin--one can always tell a Catholic at sight, +just as one can tell a consumptive. The curving lake, the pale +mountains, the low shores, the sunlight, and the haze contributed not +a little to frighten me; the country looked intensely Catholic at that +moment. My thoughts swerved, and I began to wonder if the face of a +country takes its character from the ideas of those living in it. "How +shall I escape from that vault?" I cried out suddenly. Michael Malia's +hodman had said that they might place me just above my grandfather, +and my grandfather was a man of letters, a historian whose histories I +had not read; and in the midst of the horror my probable burial +inspired in me, I found some amusement in the admission that I should +like the old gentleman whose portrait hung in the dining-room to have +read my novels. This being so, it was not improbable that he would +like me to read his histories, and I began to speculate on what the +author of a history of the French Revolution [<a href="#1">1</a>] would think of "Esther +Waters." The colour of the chocolate coat he wears in his picture +fixed itself in my mind's eye, and I began to compare it with the +colour of the brown garment worn by the ghost I had seen in the wood. +Good Heavens, if it were his ghost I had seen! +</p> + +<p class="ind"> +<a name="1">1.</a> Still unpublished. +</p> + +<p> +And listening to the lapping of the lake water I imagined a horrible +colloquy in that vault. It all came into my mind, his dialogue and my +dialogue. "Great God," I cried out, "something must be done to +escape!" and my eyes were strained out on the lake, upon the island on +which a Welshman had built a castle. I saw all the woods reaching down +to the water's edge, and the woods I did not see I remembered; all the +larch trees that grew on the hillsides came into my mind suddenly, and +I thought what a splendid pyre might be built out of them. No trees +had been cut for the last thirty years; I might live for another +thirty. What splendid timber there would then be to build a pyre for +me!--a pyre fifty feet high, saturated with scented oils, and me lying +on the top of it with all my books (they would make a nice pillow for +my head). The ancient heroes used to be laid with their arms beside +them; their horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be +free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My +pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen +for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body +would become a sort of beacon-fire--the beacon of the pagan future +awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be +anything too excessive--a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a +thousand larches and a few barrels of scented oil and the great feast: +for while I was roasting, my mourners should eat roast meat and drink +wine and wear gay dresses--the men as well as the women; and the +gayest music would be played. The "Marriage of Figaro" and some +Offenbach would be pleasing to my spirit, the ride of the Valkyrie +would be an appropriate piece; but I am improvising a selection, and +that is a thing that requires careful consideration. It would be a +fine thing indeed if such a funeral--I hate the word--such a burning +as this could be undertaken, and there is no reason why it should not +be, unless the law interdicts public burnings of human bodies. And +then my face clouded, and my soul too; I grew melancholy as the lake, +as the southern mountains that rippled down the sky plaintive as an +Irish melody, for the burning I had dreamed of so splendidly might +never take place. I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium +in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the +belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to +myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral +liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen," +and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin. +</p> + +<p> +It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my +interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed +as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who +would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should +catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of +so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological +reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a +fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the +Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in +the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor +would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there +would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up +whatever will I was minded to make. In order to secure the burial of +my body, my notion was to leave all my property, lands, money, +pictures, and furniture to my brother, Colonel Maurice Moore on the +condition that I should be burnt and the ashes disposed of without the +humiliation of Christian rites; that if the conditions that the +inheritance carried with it were so disagreeable to Colonel Maurice +Moore that he could not bring himself to see that the disposal of my +remains was carried out according to my wishes, my property, lands, +money, pictures, and furniture, should go to my brother Augustus +Moore; that in the event of his declining to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all my property should go to my +brother Julian Moore; that if he should refuse to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all the said property should go +to my friend Sir William Eden, who would, I felt sure, take a sad +pleasure in giving effect to the wishes of his old friend. A will +drawn up on these lines would secure me against all chance of being +buried with my ancestors in Kiltoon, and during the next two days I +pondered my own burning. My brother might think that he was put to a +good deal of expense, but he would not fail me. He had taken off my +hands the disagreeable task of seeing the undertakers and making +arrangements for the saying of Masses, etc., arrangements which would +be intensely disagreeable to me to make so. I had plenty of time to +think out the details of my burning; and I grew happy in the thought +that I had escaped from the disgrace of Christian burial--a disgrace +which was never, until the last two days, wholly realised by me, but +which was nevertheless always suspected. No doubt it was the dread of +Kiltoon that had inspired that thought of death from which in late +years I had never seemed able to escape. I am of the romantic +temperament, and it would be a pity to forgo the burning I had +imagined. I delighted in the vision that had come upon me of the +felling of the larch trees on the hillside and the building of the +pyre about the old castle. It would reach much higher; I imagined it +at least fifty feet high. I saw it flaming in imagination, and when +half of it was burnt, the mourners would have to take to the boats, so +intense would be the heat. What a splendid spectacle! Never did any +man imagine a more splendid funeral! It would be a pity if the law +obliged me to forgo it. But there was no use hoping that the law would +not; there was a law against the burning of human remains, and I might +have to fall back on the Public Crematorium: it only remained for me +to decide what I would wish to be done with the ashes. In a moment of +happy inspiration I conceived the idea of a Greek vase as the only +suitable repository for my ashes, and I began to remember all the +Greek vases I had seen: all are beautiful, even the Roman Greek; these +are sometimes clumsy and heavy, but the sculpture is finely designed +and executed. Any Greek vase I decided would satisfy me, provided, of +course, that the relief represented Bacchanals dancing, and nearly +every Greek vase is decorated in this way. The purchase of the vase +would be an additional expense; no doubt I was running my brother in +for a good deal of money; it is becoming more and more difficult to +buy original Greek sculpture! and in a moment of posthumous parsimony +my thoughts turned to a copy of a Greek vase in granite, granite being +more durable than marble, and I wanted the vase to last for a long +time. It was delightful to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and to +draw all that I remembered of the different vases I had seen, +different riots of lusty men carrying horns of wine, intermingled with +graceful girls dancing gracefully, youths playing on pipes, and amidst +them fauns, the lovely animality of the woods, of the landscape ages, +when men first began to milk their goats, and when one man out of the +tribe, more pensive, more meditative than the others, went down to the +river's bank and cut a reed and found music within it. The vase I +remembered best has upright handles springing from the necks of swans. +It stands about two feet high, perhaps a little more, and its cavity +should be capable of containing all that remains of me after my +burning. None would have thought, from the happy smile upon my lips, +that I was thinking of a Grecian urn and a little pile of white ashes. +"O death, where is thy sting?" I murmured, and the pencil dropped from +my hand, for my memory was more beautiful than anything I could +realise upon paper. I could only remember one side of a youth, that +side of him next to an impulsive maiden; her delight gives her wings; +his left arm is about her shoulder. She is more impulsive than he, and +I wondered at his wistfulness--whether he was thinking of another love +or a volume of poems that he loved better. Little by little many of +the figures in the dance were remembered, for the sculpture was so +well done that the years had only clouded my memory. The clouds +dispersed, and I saw this time one whole figure, that of a +dancing-girl; her right arm is extended, her left arm is bent, she +holds a scarf as she dances, and the muscles of the arms are placed so +well, and the breasts too, that one thinks that the girl must have +been before the sculptor as he worked. Ingres and Antiquity alone knew +how to simplify. There is little, but that little is so correct that +detail is unnecessary, and I exulted in remembrance of the dainty +design of the belly, half hidden, half revealed by little liquid +folds. "How exquisite," I said, "is that thigh! how well it advances! +And we poor moderns have lived upon that beauty now well-nigh two +thousand years? But how vainly we have attempted to imitate that +drapery flowing about the ankles, like foam breaking on the crest of a +wave." A slender youth stands next; his shoulders are raised, for the +pipes are to his lips, his feet are drawn close together, and by him a +satyr dances wildly, clashing cymbals as he dances. He is followed, I +think--it is difficult to say whether this be a recollection of +another vase or whether the figure is included in the same group--by a +faun tempting the teeth and claws of a panther with a bunch of grapes. +And it was this winsome faun that decided me to select this vase as +the repository of my ashes. And I determined to stipulate in my will +that this vase be chosen. But my will must not be too complicated, +otherwise it might be contested. All that is not common can easily be +argued to be madness by a loquacious lawyer before a stupid jury. Who +except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to +what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees +with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour +that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead +coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because +men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs +insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The +common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our +remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It +is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander +away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor +humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at +least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that +might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some +little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every +one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of +the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is +served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of +crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I +am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last +manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have +I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have +done in this order for my tomb. One trouble, however, still remained +upon my mind. Where should the vase be placed? Not in Westminster +Abbey. Fie upon all places of Christian burial! A museum inspires +lofty thoughts in a few; Gouncourt speaks of the icy admiration of +crowds. The vase might stand in the stone wall, and in the very corner +where I learned to spin my top? But sooner or later a housemaid would +break it. The house itself will become the property of another family, +and the stranger will look upon the vase with idle curiosity, or +perhaps think it depressing to have me in the hall. An order for my +removal to a garret might be made out. +</p> + +<p> +The disposal of the vase caused me a great deal of anxiety, and I +foresaw that unless I hit upon some idea whereby I could safeguard it +from injury for ever, my project would be deprived of half its value. +As I sat thinking I heard a noise of feet suddenly on the staircase. +"They are bringing down my mother's coffin," I said, and at that +moment the door was opened and I was told that the funeral procession +was waiting for me. My brother, and various relatives and friends, +were waiting in the hall; black gloves were on every hand, crepe +streamed from every hat, "All the paraphernalia of grief," I muttered; +"nothing is wanting." My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why +should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far +be it from me to criticise such a desire!" +</p> + +<p> +The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up +to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first +understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to +understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant +follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that +there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain +themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try +to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were +any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the +chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, +we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the +wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing +about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; +Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of +what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to +prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with +scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the +point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people, +I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But +Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against +violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the +Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed? +</p> + +<p> +Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they +chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking +that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very +moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of +the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase +containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it +would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless +depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made +without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel +of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods, +man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some +millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase +containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some +secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless +desert that the earth will then be). +</p> + +<p> +Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and +maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the +extinct sea of an extinct planet. Millions of years will pass away, +and the earth, after having lain dead for a long winter, as it does +now for a few weeks under frost and snow, will, with all other +revolving planets, become absorbed in the sun, and the sun itself will +become absorbed in greater suns, Sirius and his like. In the matters +of grave moment, millions of years are but seconds; billions convey +very little to our minds. At the end of, let us say, some billion +years the ultimate moment towards which everything from the beginning +has been moving will be reached; and from that moment the tide will +begin to flow out again, the eternal dispersal of things will begin +again; suns will be scattered abroad, and in tremendous sun-quakes +planets will be thrown off; in loud earth-quakes these planets will +throw off moons. Millions of years will pass away, the earth will +become cool, and out of the primal mud life will begin again in the +shape of plants, and then of fish, and then of animals. It is like +madness, but is it madder than Christian doctrine? and I believe that +billions of years hence, billions and billions of years hence, I shall +be sitting in the same room as I sit now, writing the same lines as I +am now writing: I believe that again, a few years later, my ashes will +swing in the moveless and silent depths of the Pacific Ocean, and that +the same figures, the same nymphs, and the same fauns will dance +around me again. +</p> + +<p> +THE END +</p> + +<p> + +</p> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 7789-h.htm or 7789-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/8/7789/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: Memoirs of My Dead Life + +Author: George Moore + +Posting Date: April 12, 2014 [EBook #7789] +Release Date: March, 2005 +First Posted: May 17, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + +BY + +GEORGE MOORE + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +I. SPRING IN LONDON + +II. FLOWERING NORMANDY + +III. A WAITRESS + +IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + +V. LA BUTTE + +VI. SPENT LOVES + +VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HOTE + +VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + +IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + +X. A REMEMBRANCE + +XI. BRING IN THE LAMP + +XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + +XIII. RESURGAM + + + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +[_The_ APOLOGIA _which follows needs, perhaps, a word of +explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful, +as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this +present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever +written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published. +When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of +Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East," +first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these +"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s +library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy +they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of +a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a +certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among +the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the +publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his_ Mayflower +_ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of +Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so +beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet +in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East" +that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted +the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake. +And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called +publishers, gave way on condition that this _APOLOGIA_ should +appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration +of an Ibsen comma, and if the _Mayflower_ "weeds" mere instrumental +in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew_.--THE +PUBLISHER.] + +Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader +will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that +one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me +personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm +he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were +omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg Gardens,"--Messrs. +Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the +other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was +not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a +certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question, +and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had +been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed +his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the +right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions +or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life" +and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they +depict him. + +"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly +imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to +put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental +grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are +concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the +ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run +continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which +may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You +range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander. + +"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak +of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but +interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last +analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call +illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I _do_ want to +know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do +you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned, +explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to +cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all +women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his +aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl +by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution +of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be +inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your +own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?" + + * * * * * + +The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on +the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever +this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much +a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to +think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he +would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart, +nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea. +"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not +say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of +the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I +imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he +shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with +nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along +which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing +table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my +real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself +in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I +was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these +questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of +view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather +like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began +my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the +same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even +suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have +written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying +the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that +I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads, +deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see +that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a +personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a +woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and +the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial. +Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching +of the roads, and the best way I can serve him is by drawing his +attention to the fallacy, which till now he has accepted as a truth, +that there is one immutable standard of conduct for all men and all +women." But the difficulty of writing a sufficient letter on a subject +so large and so intricate puzzled me and I sat smiling, for an odd +thought had dropped suddenly into my mind. My correspondent was a +Bible reader, no doubt, and it would be amusing to refer him to the +chapter in Genesis where God is angry with our first parents because +they had eaten of the tree of good and evil. "This passage" I said to +myself, "has never been properly understood. Why was God angry? For no +other reason except that they had set up a moral standard and could be +happy no longer, even in Paradise. According to this chapter the moral +standard is the origin of all our woe. God himself summoned our first +parents before him, and in what plight did they appear? We know how +ridiculous the diminutive fig leaf makes a statue seem in our museums; +think of the poor man and woman attired in fig leaves just plucked +from the trees! I experienced a thrill of satisfaction that I should +have been the first to understand a text that men have been studying +for thousands of years, turning each word over and over, worrying over +it, all in vain, yet through no fault of the scribe who certainly +underlined his intention. Could he have done it better than by +exhibiting our first parents covering themselves with fig leaves, and +telling how after getting a severe talking to from the Almighty they +escaped from Paradise pursued by an angel? The story can have no other +meaning, and that I am the first to expound it is due to no +superiority of intelligence, but because my mind is free. But I must +not appear to my correspondent as an exegetist. Turning to his letter +again I read: + +"I am sorely puzzled. Is your life all of a piece? Are your 'Memoirs' +a pose? I can't think the latter, for you seem sincere and frank to +the verge of brutality (or over). But what is your standard of +conduct? Is there a right and a wrong? Is everything open to any man? +Can you refer me now to any other book of yours in which you view life +steadily and view it whole from our standpoint? Forgive my intrusion. +You see I don't set myself as a judge, but you sweep away apparently +all my standards. And you take your reader so quietly and closely into +your confidence that you tempt a response. I see your many admirable +points, but your center of living is not mine, and I do want to know +as a matter of enormous human interest what your subsumptions are. I +cannot analyze or express myself with literary point as you do, but +you may see what I aim at. It is a bigger question to me than the +value or force of your book. It goes right to the core of the big +things, and I approach you as one man of limited outlook to another of +wider range." + +The reader will not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these +quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man +paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to +do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, +hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's +heart"--but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him +... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. +But if my view of him is right, my task is a more subtle one than +merely to point out that he will seek in vain for a moral standard +whether he seeks it in the book of Nature or in the book of God. I +should not move him by pointing out that in the Old Testament we are +told an eye for an eye is our due, and in the New the rede is to turn +the left cheek after receiving a blow on the right. Nor would he be +moved by referring him to the history of mankind, to the Boer War, for +instance, or the massacres which occur daily in Russia; everybody +knows more or less the history of mankind, and to know it at all is to +know that every virtue has at some time or other been a vice. But man +cannot live by negation alone, and to persuade my correspondent over +to our side it might be well to tell him that if there be no moral +standard he will nevertheless find a moral idea if he looks for it in +Nature. I reflected how I would tell him that he must not be +disappointed because the idea changes and adapts itself to +circumstance, and sometimes leaves us for long intervals; if he would +make progress he must learn to understand that the moral world only +becomes beautiful when we relinquish our ridiculous standards of what +is right and wrong, just as the firmament became a thousand times more +wonderful and beautiful when Galileo discovered that the earth moved. +Had Kant lived before the astronomer he would have been a great +metaphysician, but he would not have written the celebrated passage +"Two things fill the soul with undying and ever-increasing admiration, +the night with its heaven of stars above us and in our hearts the +moral law." The only fault I find with this passage is that I read the +word "law" where I expected to read the word "idea," for the word +"law" seems to imply a Standard, and Kant knew there is none. Is the +fault with the translator or with Kant, who did not pick his words +carefully? The metaphysician spent ten years thinking out the +"Critique of Pure Reason" and only six months writing it; no doubt his +text might be emendated with advantage. If there was a moral standard +the world within us would be as insignificant as the firmament was +when the earth was the center of the universe and all the stars were +little candles and Jehovah sat above them, a God who changed his mind +and repented, a whimsical, fanciful God who ordered the waters to rise +so that his creatures might be overwhelmed in the flood, all except +one family (I need not repeat here the story of Noah's Ark and the +doctrine of the Atonement) if there was one fixed standard of right +and wrong, applicable to everybody, black, white, yellow, and red men +alike, an eternal standard that circumstance could not change. Those +who believe in spite of every proof to the contrary that there is a +moral standard cannot appreciate the beautiful analogy which Kant +drew, the moral idea within the heart and the night with its heaven of +stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on +worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after +the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison +rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office +after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant +thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize +within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not +sufficient to lead my correspondent out of the narrow lanes of +conventions and prejudices into the open field of inquiry. Turning to +his letter, I read it again, misjudging him, perhaps ... but the +reader shall form his own estimate. + +"I honestly felt and feel a big difficulty in reading and thinking +over your 'Memoirs' for you are a propagandist whether you recognize +that as a conscious mission or not. There is in your book a +challenging standard of life which will not wave placidly by the side +of the standard which is generally looked up to as his regimental +colors by the average man. One must go down. And it was because I felt +the necessity of choosing that I wrote to you. + +"'Memoirs' is clearly to me a sincere book. You have built your life +on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that +sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for +instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward +for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say +that limitation has no other sanction than convention--race +inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it +so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is +the best? Men have been hunting the best all their history long by a +process of trial and error. Surely the build of things condemns the +murderer, the liar, the sensualist, and the coward! and how do you +come by 'natural goodness' if your moral is merely your customary? No, +with all respect for your immense ability and your cultured outlook, I +do not recognize the lawless variability of the right and the wrong +standard which you posit. How get you your evidence? From human +actions? But it is the most familiar of facts that men do things they +feel to be wrong. I have known a thief who stole every time in pangs +of conscience; not merely in the fear of detection. There is a higher +and a lower in morals, but the lower is recognized as a lower, and +does not appeal to a surface reading of the code of an aboriginal in +discussing morals. That, I think is only fair. Your artistic sense is +finely developed, but it is none the less firmly based, although there +are Victorian back parlors and paper roses. + +"You see you are a preacher, not merely an artist. Every glimpse of +the beautiful urges the beholder to imitation and _vice versa_. +And that is why your 'Memoirs' are not merely 'an exhibition' of the +immoral; they are 'an incitement' to the immoral. Don't you think so? +And thinking so would you not honestly admit, that society (in the +wide sense, of course--civilization) would relapse, go down, +deliquesce, if all of us were George Moores as depicted in your book?" + +His letter dropped from my hand, and I sat muttering, "How +superficially men think!" How little they trouble themselves to +discover the truth! While declaring that truth is all important, they +accept any prejudice and convention they happen to meet, fastening on +to it like barnacles. How disappointing is that passage about the +murderer, the sensualist, the liar, and the coward; but of what use +would it be to remind my correspondent of Judith who went into the +tent of Holofernes to lie with him, and after the love feast drove a +nail into the forehead of the sleeping man. She is in Scripture held +up to our admiration as a heroine, the saviour of our nation. +Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath, yet who regards Charlotte +Corday as anything else but a heroine? In Russia men know that the +fugitives lie hidden in the cave, yet they tell the Cossack soldiers +they have taken the path across the hill--would my correspondent +reprove them and call them liars? I am afraid he has a lot of leeway +to make up, and it is beyond my power to help him. + +Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther +Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any +book of mine in which I viewed life--I cannot bring myself to +transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold--I referred him to "Esther +Waters," saying that a critic had spoken of it as a beautiful +amplification of the beatitudes. Of the book he makes no mention in +his letter, but he writes: "There is a challenging standard of life in +your book which will not wave placidly by the side of the standard +which is generally looked up to as his regimental colors by the +average man." The idea besets him, and he refers to it again in the +last paragraph; he says: "You see, you are a preacher, not merely an +artist." And very likely he is right; there is a messianic aspect in +my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading +between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that +desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be +treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture +and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to +believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century +Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its +moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not dare to keep +Esther; but if she sent her servant away, she spoke kindly, giving her +enough money to see her through her trouble; there are good people +among Christians. The usual Christian attitude would be to tell Esther +that she must go into a reformatory after the birth of her child, for +the idea of punishment is never long out of the Christian's thoughts. +It is not necessary to recapitulate here how Esther, escaping from the +network of snares spread for her destruction, takes refuge in a +workhouse, and lives there till her child is reared; how she works +fifteen hours a day in a lodging house, sleeping in corners of +garrets, living upon insufficient food; or how, after years of +struggle, she meets William, now separated from his wife, and consents +to live with him that her child may have a father. For this second +"transgression," so said a clergyman in a review of the book, Esther +could not be regarded as a moral woman. His moral sense, dwarfed by +doctrine, did not enable him to see that the whole evil came out of +standard morality and the whole good out of the instinct incarnate in +her; and he must have read the book without perceiving its theme, the +revelation in the life of an outcast servant girl of the instinct on +which the whole world rests. + +Not until writing these lines did I ever think of "Esther Waters" as a +book of doctrine; but it is one, I see that now, and that there is a +messianic aspect in my writings. My correspondent did well to point +that out, and no blame attaches to him because he seems to fail to see +that I may be an admirable moralist while depreciating Christian +morality and advocating a return to Nature's. He belonged to the +traditions yesterday, today he is among those who are seekers, and +to-morrow I doubt not he will be among those prone to think that +perhaps Christianity is, after all, retrograde. His lips will curl +contemptuously to-morrow when he hears the cruelty of the circus +denounced by men who would, if they were allowed, relight the bon +fires of the Inquisition; ... he is a Protestant, I had forgotten. +Gladiators have begun to appear to us less cruel than monks, and +everybody who can think has begun to think that some return to pagan +morality is desirable. That is so; awaking out of the great slumber of +Christianity, we are all asking if the qualities which once we deemed +our exclusive possession have not been discovered among pagans--pride, +courage, and heroism. Our contention has become that no superiority is +claimed in any respect but one; it appears that it must be admitted +that Christians are more chaste than pagans, at all events that +chastity flourishes among Christian communities as it has never +flourished among pagan. The Christian's boast is that all sexual +indulgence outside of the marriage bed is looked upon as sinful, and +he would seem to think that if he proclaims this opinion loudly, its +proclamation makes amends for many transgressions of the ethical law. +All he understands is the law; nothing of the subtler idea that the +ethical impulse is always invading the ethical law finds a way into +his mind. Women are hurried from Regent Street to Vine Street, and his +conscience is soothed by these raids; the owners of the houses in +which these women live are fined, and he congratulates himself that +vice is not licensed in England, that, in fact, its existence is +unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not +discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of +degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these +reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human +grief, he mutters "how very sad!" + +But the assurance that the women are wretched and despised soothes his +conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish +prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It +would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of +men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish--you +would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was +once respected and honored, and the world was as beautiful then as +now, and as noble men lived in it. In many ways the world was more +moral than when your ideas began to prevail." He asks me to explain, +and I tell him that with the degradation of the courtesan the moral +standard has fallen, for as we degrade her we disgrace the act of +love. We have come to speak of it as part of our lower nature, +permissible, it is true, if certain conditions are complied with, but +always looked upon askance; and continuing the same strain of +argument, I tell him that the act of love was once deemed a sacred +rite, and that I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and +exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused +men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels +instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he +asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too +old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; +"a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort +necessary to understand me if I were to tell him, for instance, that +the desire of beauty is in itself a morality." It was, perhaps, the +only morality the Greeks knew, and upon the memory of Greece we have +been living ever since. In becoming _hetairae_, Aspasia, Lais, +Phryne, and Sappho became the distributors of that desire of beauty +necessary in a state which had already begun to dream the temples of +Minerva and Zeus. + +The words of Blake come into my mind, "the daring of the lion or the +submission of the ox." With these words I should have headed my letter +to the secretary of the charitable institution, and I should have told +him that many books which he would regard as licentious are looked +upon by me as sacred. "Mademoiselle de Maupin," "the golden book of +spirit and sense," Swinburne has called it, I have always looked upon +as a sacred book from the very beginning of my life. It cleansed me of +the belief that man has a lower nature, and I learned from it that the +spirit and the flesh are equal, "that earth is as beautiful as heaven, +and that perfection of form is virtue." "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was a +great purifying influence, a lustral water dashed by a sacred hand, +and the words are forever ringing in my ear, "by exaltation of the +spirit and the flesh thou shalt live." This book would be regarded by +my correspondent as he regards my "Memoirs," and its publication has +been interdicted in England. How could it be permitted to circulate in +a country in which the kingdom of heaven is (in theory) regarded as +more important than the kingdom of earth? A few pages back the idea +came up under my pen that the aim of practical morality was to render +illicit love as unattractive as possible, and I suppose, though he has +never thought the matter out, the Christian moralist would regard +Gautier as the most pernicious of writers, for his theme is always +praise of the visible world, of all that we can touch and see; and in +this book art and sex are not estranged. I have often wondered if the +estrangement of the twain so noticeable in English literature is not +the origin of this strange belief that bodily love is part of our +lower nature. Our appreciation of the mauve flush dying in the west +has been indefinitely heightened by descriptions seen in pictures and +read in poems, and I cannot but think that if the lover's exaltation +before the curve of his mistress's breast had not been forbidden, the +ugly thought that the lover's ardor is inferior to the poet's would +never have obtained credence. There is but one energy, and the vital +fluid, whether expended in love or in a poem, is the same. The poet +and the lover are creators, they participate and carry on the great +work begun billions of years ago when the great Breath breathing out +of chaos summoned the stars into being. But why do I address myself +like this to the average moralist? How little will he understand me! +In the Orelay adventure which horrified him there was an appreciation +of beauty which he has, I am afraid, rendered himself incapable of. +Myself and Doris were spiritual gainers by the Orelay adventure, +Doris's rendering of "The Moonlight Sonata," till she went to Orelay, +was merely brilliant and effective; and have not all the critics in +England agreed that the story in which I relate her contains some of +the best pages of prose I have written? But why talk of myself when +there is Wagner's experience to speak about? Did he not write to +Madame Wasendonck, "I owe you Tristan for all eternity"? She has not +left any written record of her debt to Wagner, perhaps because she +could not find words to give the reader any idea how great it was. + +Histories of human civilization there are in abundance, but I do not +know of any history of the human intelligence. But when this comes to +be written--if it ever should come to be written--the writer will +hesitate, at least I can imagine him hesitating, how much of the +genius of artists he would be justified in tracing back to sexual +impulses. Goethe, as my correspondent informs me, looked upon love of +woman as a means of increasing his aesthetic sensibilities, and my +correspondent seems to think that he did them wrong thereby, whereas I +think he honored them exceedingly. Balzac held the contrary belief, so +Gautier tells us, maintaining that great spiritual elation could be +gained by restraint, and when inquiry was made into his precise +beliefs on this point he confessed that he could not allow an author +more than half an hour once a year with his beloved; he placed no +restriction, however, on correspondence, "for that helped to form a +style." When Gautier mentioned the names of certain great men whose +lives offered a striking refutation of this theory, Balzac answered +they would have written better if they had lived chastely. Gautier +seems to have left the question there, and so will we, remarking only +that Balzac was prone to formulating laws out of his single +experience. I remember having written, or having heard somebody say, +"in other writers we discover this or that thing, but everything +exists in Balzac." And in his conversation with Gautier we do not find +him praising chastity as a virtue, but extolling the results that may +be gotten from chastity as a Yogi might. It is said that English +missionaries in India sometimes drive out in their pony chaises to +visit a holy man who has left his womenfolk, plentiful food, and a +luxurious dwelling for a cave in some lonely ravine. The pony chaise +only takes the parson to the mouth of the ravine, and leaving his wife +and children in charge of his servant, the parson ascends the rocky +way on foot, meeting, perchance, a fat peasant priest from Maynooth +bent on the same mission as himself--the conversion of the Yogi. It is +amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting +with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking +to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all +agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his +eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously +he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their +discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon +all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, if he +answered his visitors; "I dwell in solitude and in silence, and am +chaste, and live upon the rice that the pious leave on the rocks for +me, but I do not regard chastity and abstinence as possessed of any +inherent merits; as virtues, they are but a means to an end. How would +you impose chastity upon all men, since every man brings a different +idea into the world with him? There are men who would die if forced to +live chaste lives, and there are men who would choose death rather +than live unchaste, and many a woman if she were forced to live with +one husband would make him very unhappy, whereas if she lived with two +men she would make them both supremely happy. But the news has reached +me even here that in the West you seek a moral standard, and this +quest always fills me with wonder. There are priests among you, I can +see that, and soldiers, and fishermen, and artists and princes and +folk who labor in the fields--now do you expect all these men, living +in different conditions of life, to live under the same rule? I am +afraid that the East and the West will never understand each other. +The sun is setting, my time for speech is over," and the wise man, +rising from the stone on which he has been sitting, enters into the +cave, leaving the priest and the parson to descend the rocks together +in the twilight, their differences hushed for the moment, to break +forth again the next day. + +Schopenhauer has a fine phrase, one that has haunted my mind these +many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime +wisdom of the East like bullets fired against a cliff. + +How can it be otherwise? For when we were naked savages the Brahmans +were learned philosophers, and had seen as far into every mystery as +mortal eyes will ever see. We have progressed a little lately; our +universities, it is true, are a few hundred years old, but in +comparison with the East we are still savages; our culture is but +rudimentary, and my correspondent's letter is proof of it. It is +characteristic of the ideas that still flourish on the banks of the +Thames, ideas that have changed only a little since the +_Mayflower_ sailed. It would have been better if Columbus had +delayed his discovery for, let us say, a thousand years. I am afraid +the _Mayflower_ carried over a great many intellectual weeds +which have caught root and flourished exceedingly in your +States--Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A letter arrived +from Washington some two or three months ago. The writer was a lady +who used to write to me on all subjects under the sun; about fifteen +years ago we had ceased to write to each other, so she began her +letter, not unnaturally, by speaking of the surprise she guessed her +handwriting would cause me. She had broken the long silence, for she +had been reading "The Lake," and had been much interested in the book. +It would have been impolite to write to me without alluding to the +aesthetic pleasure the book had given her, but her interest was mainly +a religious one. About five years ago she had become a Roman Catholic, +she was writing a book on the subject of her conversion, and would +like to find out from me why I had made Father Gogarty's conversion +turn upon his love of woman, "for it seems to me clear, unless I have +misunderstood your book, that you intended to represent Gogarty as an +intellectual man." It is difficult to trace one's motives back, but I +remember the irritation her letter caused me, and how I felt it would +not be dignified for me to explain; my book was there for her to +interpret or misinterpret, as she pleased; added to which her +"conversion" to Rome was an annoying piece of news. Fifteen years ago +she was an intelligent woman and a beautiful woman, if photographs do +not lie, and it was disagreeable for me to think of her going on her +knees in a confessional, receiving the sacraments, wearing scapulars, +trying to persuade herself that she believed in the Pope's +indulgences. She must now be middle-aged, but the decay of physical +beauty is not so sad a spectacle as the mind's declension. "She began +to think," I said, "of another world only when she found herself +unable to enjoy this one any longer; weariness of this world produces +what the theologians call 'faith.' How often have we heard the phrase +'You will believe when you are dying'? She would have had," I said, +"Father Gogarty leave his church for doctrinal rather than natural +reasons, believing scrolls to be more intellectual than the instincts; +Father Gogarty poring over some early edition of the Scriptures in his +little house on the hilltop, reading by the light of the lamp at +midnight and deciding that he would go out of his parish because, +according to recent exegesis, a certain verset in the Gospel had been +added three hundred years after the death of Christ." I fell to +thinking how dry, common, and uninteresting the tale would be had it +been written on these doctrinal lines. Carlyle said that Cardinal +Newman had the brain of a half-grown rabbit, and he was right; Newman +never got further than a scroll, and man must think with his body, as +well as with his brain. To think well the whole man must think, and it +seems to me that Father Gogarty thought in this complete way. Rose +Leicester revealed to him the enchantment and the grace of life, and +his quest became life. Had it been Hose Leicester herself the story +would have merely been a sensual incident. The instinct to go rose up +within him, he could not tell how or whence it came, and he went as +the bird goes, finding his way toward a country where he had never +been, led as the bird is led by some nostalgic instinct. And I do not +doubt that he found life, whether in the form of political or literary +ambition or in some other woman who would remind him of the woman he +had lost; perhaps he found it in all these things, perhaps in none. +Told as I told it the story seems to me a true and human one, and one +that might easily occur in these modern days; much more easily than +the story my correspondent would have had me write. The story of a +priest abandoning his parish for theological reasons is not an +improbable one, but I think such a story would be more typical of the +sixteenth century, when men were more interested in the authenticity +of the Biblical texts than they are in the twentieth. The Bible has +been sifted again and again; its history is known, every word has been +weighed, and it is difficult to imagine the most scrupulous exegetist +throwing a search light into any unexplored corner. Even Catholic +scholarship, if Loisy can be regarded as a Catholic, has abandoned the +theory that the gospels were written by the Apostles. The earliest, +that of Mark, was written sixty years after the death of Christ, and +it is the only one for which any scholar claims the faintest +historical value. With this knowledge of history in our possession +belief has become in modern times merely a matter of temperament, +entirely dissociated from the intellect. Some painter once said that +Nature put him out. The theologian can say the same about the +intellect--it puts him out. Out of a great deal of temperament and a +minimum of intellect he gets a precipitate, if I may be permitted to +drop into the parlance of the chemist, for dregs would be an impolite +word to use, and the precipitate always delights in the fetich. There +will always be men and women, the cleric has discovered, who will +barter their souls for the sake of rosaries and scapulars and the +Pope's indulgences. The two great enemies of religion, as the clerics +know well, are the desire to live and the desire to know. We find this +in Genesis: God: i. e., the clerics, was angry because his creatures +ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of +the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of +the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of +the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was +written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men +from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so +anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this +tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the +ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics +were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent +herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit +of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected +were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great +feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always +ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great +depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the +tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter +fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it +has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no +conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The +origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the +glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... +The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another +instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now +directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of +knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among +themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may +always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups +to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were +infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this +fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the +earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken +when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have +involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the +Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done +all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful +that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been +written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as +heaven," and Gautier's phrase, _"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle +que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la +vertu,"_ has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to +the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual +spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of +doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather +than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of +mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more +serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So +leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on. + +My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did +more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be +vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of +an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part +of the book which interested us the least was that very part which +would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am +alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's +room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted, +for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been +seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did +he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his +own imagination made visible by some prodigy to him. For a still +briefer space Rosette shared Albert's dream, and man and wife remained +faithful to each other. It is easy to imagine the vileness which a +prosecuting counsel could extract from these beautiful pages made +entirely of vision and ecstasy. How false and shameful is the whole +business. We are allowed to state that we prefer pagan morality to +Christian, but are interdicted from illustrating our beliefs by +incident. So long as we confine ourselves to theory we are unmolested. +But these are subtleties which do not trouble the minds of the members +of vigilance associations, the men and women who gather together in +back parlors with lead pencils to mark out passages which they +consider "un-Kur-istean" (a good strong accent on the second +syllable). Their thoughts pursue beaten tracks. Books like +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" they hold would act directly on the +temperament, and we know that they do not do this, we know that the +things of the intellect belong to the intellect and the things of the +flesh to the flesh. Were it otherwise Rose Leicester, the pretty +school mistress, might have been left out of my story entitled "The +Lake," and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will +be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second +correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have +chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His +choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still +Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with +the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of +an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have had an +inflamed young man curled up in an armchair reading eagerly, walking +up and down the room from time to time, unable to contain himself, and +eventually throwing the book aside, he would find his way down to the +lake. + +These two versions of "The Lake," as it might have been written by my +correspondents, will convince, I think, almost anyone, even them, that +the desire of life which set Father Gogarty free could have been +inspired only by a woman's personality. It was not necessary that he +should go after the woman herself--but that point has already been +explained. What concerns us now to understand is how the strange idea +could have come into men's minds that literature is a more potent +influence than life itself. The solving of this problem has beguiled +many an hour, but the solution seems as far away as ever, and I have +never got nearer than the supposition that perhaps this fear of +literature is a survival of the very legitimate fear that prevailed in +the Middle Ages against writing. In my childhood I remember hearing an +old woman say that writing was an invention of the devil, and what an +old woman believed forty years ago in outlying districts was almost +the universal opinion of the Middle Ages. Denunciations and burnings +of books were frequent, and ideas die slowly, finding a slow +extinction many generations after the reason for their existence has +ceased. In the famous trial of Gille de Rais we have it on record that +the Breton baron was asked by his ecclesiastical judges if pagan +literature had inspired the strange crimes of which he was accused, if +he had read of them in--I have forgotten the names of the Latin +authors mentioned, but I remember Gille de Rais' quite simple answer +that his own heart had inspired the crimes. Whereupon the judges not +unnaturally were shocked, for the conclusion was forced upon them that +if Gille's confession were true they were not trying a man who had +been perverted by outward influence but one who had been born +perverted. Who then was responsible for his crimes? Lunacy sometimes +in these modern days serves as a scapegoat, but the knowledge of +lunacy in the fifteenth century was not so complete as it is now and +the judges preferred to believe that Gille was lying. And about ten +years ago London found itself in the same moral quandary. Three or +four little boys were discovered to have planned the murder of one of +their comrades--sixpence, I think, was the object of the murder; not +one was over eight, yet they planned the crime skillfully and very +nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys +with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages +a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the +question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; +London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be +prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a +little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it +was a little earlier, I relate these things in the order in which they +come into my mind, the London Vigilance Association instituted a +prosecution against Mr. Henry Vizetelly, a man of letters and the +publisher of Zola's novels. With the exception of Mr. Robert Buchanan +and myself not a single man of letters could be found to speak in Mr. +Vizetelly's defense. Everybody urged some excuse, his wife was ill, +his children were at the seaside and he had to go down to see them, or +that he had never cared much about naturalistic literature; whereas, +if the prosecution had been directed against something romantic, +etc.--Stranger still is the fact that it was almost impossible to find +a counsel willing to defend Mr. Vizetelly. One man threw up the case, +giving as his reason that he would have to read the books, another +said that it would be impossible to adequately defend Mr. Vizetelly's +case because no one could say what one had a right to put into a book. +This remark seemed to me at the time contemptible, but there was more +in it than I thought, for will it be believed that when the case came +into court the judge ruled that the fact that standard writers had +availed themselves of a great deal of license could not be taken as a +proof that such license was permissible? Two wrongs do not make a +right he said. In these circumstances perhaps counsel was wise to tell +Mr. Vizetelly to plead guilty to having published an indecent libel; +but the advice seemed so cruel that, justly or unjustly, I suspect the +lawyer of a wish to escape the odium that would have attached to him +if he had defended a book accused of immorality. The old man was +heavily fined. On going out of court he set to work to have the books +revised, spending hundreds of pounds having the plates altered, but +the Vigilance Association attacked him again, and this time they +succeeded in killing him. Mr. Vizetelly was over seventy years of age +when he went to prison, and the shame, anxiety, and three months of +prison life killed him. Five years afterwards the Authors' Society, +who would not say a word in his favor, voted a great banquet for Zola +when he came to London. Zola received every homage that could be paid +to a man of letters. The Vigilance Association raised no protest, and +I do not blame them. None would have been heard. But while the +banquets were held and the speeches were published in the newspapers +some of the members of the Association must have meditated sadly on +the futility of their efforts and the death of Mr. Vizetelly. It +requires a heavy blow of a very heavy mallet to get anything into some +people's heads, and nothing short of the reception that was given to +Zola could have affected the minds of the Vigilance Association. The +significance of the judge's words that the fact that classical writers +had availed themselves of a certain license could not be taken as +proof that such license was permissible escaped them altogether, for +some time afterwards the question of immorality in literature arose +again--I have forgotten the circumstances of this case--but I remember +that Mr. Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if +Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr. +Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the +Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he +answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral +doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed +himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote +beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and +the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of +duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all +those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members +and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they +must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's +moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies +with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits." +Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr. +Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of +the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again +that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be +acquitted. We must consider the question impartially. It is true that +a magistrate may be found presiding at Bow Street who will refuse to +issue a warrant against the publishers, let us say of Byron, Sterne, +the Restoration, and the Elizabethan dramatists. The Association will +have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association +from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a +magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all +that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be +picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male +and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections in Bow +Street in a crowded court would prove quite a literary entertainment, +and if the magistrate refused to issue a warrant he could only do so +on the pretext that the book had been published a long while, a +pretext which can hardly be held to be more valid than the pretext put +forward by Mr. Coote for not prosecuting Shakespeare. Of one thing +only would I warn the Society which I seem to be taking under my wing, +and that is, even if it should succeed in interdicting two-thirds of +English literature its task will still be only half accomplished. The +newspaper question will still have to be faced. Books are relatively +expensive, but the newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and it +will be admitted that no author is as indecent as the common reporter. +The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some +celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in +the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful +Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the +outraged husband of--I will spare my reader. + +About fifteen years ago I was asked if I would care to go over to ---- +College to see the sports. We walked across the downs, and while +watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if +I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than +refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse +and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, +but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished +with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some +thirty or forty boys, of ages varying from twelve to eighteen, reading +the newspapers, reading the reports of the Oscar Wilde trial; each +daily paper contained three or four columns of it. I asked the head +master if it were right to allow the boys to read such reports and he +answered that lately the newspapers contained a great deal of +objectionable matter, "But how am I to keep the daily papers out of +the college?" Now I am not easily scandalized, but I could not help +feeling that a grave scandal was being committed in allowing these +boys to read the newspapers during the week of that trial. But if you +admit the newspapers one day how can you forbid them on another +occasion? And while appreciating the head master's difficulty I walked +out into the open air unable to take any further interest in the +sports. Nor has time obliterated anything of the shame I felt that +day. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to pose as a moralist, +but I cannot help thinking that while newspapers continue to be +published, the Vigilance Society need not trouble lest certain books +should fall into the hands of young people. My correspondent forgot +that thousands of newspapers are published to-day when he wrote to me +saying that my book roused sensuality. I am afraid I omitted the +passage in which these words occur, fearing to burden my article with +quotation. Here it is: + +"The perusal of the episodes (Doris' Orelay experiences) does +certainly not ennoble me, it rouses sensuality, it lowers woman from a +friend and helpmeet into a convenience and a minister to pleasure. I +am less able and less willing to think 'high' after your book; poetry +is distasteful, art is narrowed, I look out for the licentious, the +suggestive, the low, and the mean; and don't you? You seem in passage +after passage to be world-weary in a sense that no sane man ought to +be, sated, disgusted, tired of life--is it not so? You see I speak +from what I am sure you will regard as a narrow platform, my ideals +are certainly not yours but I am simply and frankly curious as to the +ultimates in your book and in yourself." + +Let us suppose now that the Vigilance Association after a sharp +crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all +reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the +newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all +reports of sexual crimes and misdemeanors. And having extended our +imagination so far we may presume as the sequence a world of such +highly developed moral susceptibilities that Miss Austen's novels are +beginning to cause uneasiness. Miss Austen's novels are still +permitted, but in current literature nothing is said that would lead +the reader to suppose that men and women are not of the same sex. But +men and women still continue to meet and hold conversation. Only some +advanced members of the Association are in favor of that complete +separation of the sexes which obtains in Ireland in the rural +districts. In the imaginary time of which I am writing the Association +has only obtained complete control over literature. The theaters are +either closed or given over to the representation of plays on +religious subjects; but private life has not been invaded by the +Puritan missionary, and waltz tunes are still heard and figures seen +whirling past lighted windows in Grosvenor Square and Fifth Avenue. +Mr. Coote has at this time become a moderate, he is no longer among +the progressives, and is in danger of losing his post, so I have no +difficulty in imagining what he would do in such a dilemma. He would +disguise himself as a waiter and at the next meeting of the Society +tell how he had until now showed some reluctance to--the sentence +would be a difficult one to finish, perhaps Mr. Coote would break off +and say--reluctance to put restraint on the action of men and women as +long as they kept within their own doors, but after what he has seen, +he finds himself obliged to pass from the moderates to the +progressives. What has Mr. Coote seen. How would he tell his tale? + +He would tell of the length and the breadth of the ball room, of the +parquet floor usually covered with an aubusson carpet but the carpet +had been lifted and the gilded furniture taken away; the windows and +the recesses had been filled with flowers, and to keep these fresh, +great blocks of ice had been placed in the niches. He would tell of +the lighting arrangements, for are not flowers and lights incentives +to immorality? But his descriptions of the roses and the lilies would +only lead up to his descriptions of the shameless animality that came +up the staircase between twelve and one. A half-naked lady, the +hostess, stood at the head of the stairs receiving her guests with +smiles and words of welcome. The dresses the women wore resembled the +dress worn by the hostess; young and old alike went about their +pleasure with necks and bosoms and arms uncovered, and he saw these +undressed creatures slip into the arms of men who whirled them round +and round; it was but a whirling of silk ankles and a shuffling of +glazed shoes; and every now and then the men and women looked into +each other's eyes, and the whole scene was reflected shamelessly in +tall mirrors. Notwithstanding the fact that most of Mr. Coote's time +was spent behind the buffet serving out ices, he nevertheless +contrived to find a spare moment for investigation. On the pretext of +seeking a lady who had dropped a handkerchief he had crossed the ball +room and was therefore in a position to give an accurate account of +the waltzes he had heard, dulcet, undulating, capricious measures, far +more provocative than Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" which Tolstoy has +denounced. The lady that Mr. Coote sought was not in the ball room, +and so he had an opportunity of investigating all the retiring rooms, +and I need not describe the pensive and shocked faces that listened to +his descriptions of the shady nooks. Sometimes it was a screen, +sometimes it was a palm that was employed to hide the couple from +observation. Mr. Coote at last discovered the owner of the +handkerchief in one of those shady nooks, she was there with a +gentleman.... Mr. Coote, of course, would refuse to relate what he +saw, he would hesitate, but the members of his Association would +insist upon knowing everything, and he would at last confess: "Well, +the gentleman had kissed the lady on the point of her shoulder." From +this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered +of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had +worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets, +chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not +acquainted with. + +Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his +description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I +imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the +dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen +for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I +cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr. +Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the +conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their +pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex. + +We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved +by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that +dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half +a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a +woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's +"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have +prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war +cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what +is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long +consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance +Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as +completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go +by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one +night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we +are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and +the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book +rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring +day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring +days. Yet how infinitely more pernicious is their influence than any +book! What thoughts they put into the hearts of lads and lasses! and +perforce even the moralist has to accept the irrepressible feeling of +union and growth, the loosening of the earth about the hyacinth shoots +and the birds going about their amorous business, and the white clouds +floating up gladly through the blue air. Why, then, should he look +askance at my book, which is no more than memories of my spring days? +If the thing itself cannot be suppressed, why is it worth while to +interfere with the recollection? What strange twist in his mind leads +him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, +one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding +its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient +literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be +disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages +and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or +proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these +purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of +letters. Let us take a typical case, that of the late Lord ----. Forty +or fifty years ago he was one of the most strenuous advocates of +purity in literature, and more shops were raided at his instigation +than at any other; yet when he died his library was found to contain +the finest collection of impure literature in Europe, and his +executors were left wondering whether the prosecutions were prompted +by a desire to increase the value of his collection by the destruction +of rare books, copies of which were in his possession, or whether he +had been moved by conscientious scruples; a man might bamboozle +himself in this way: "I am a man of letters and possess these books +because they are rare, a curious corner of literature, but it would be +highly inexpedient for others to possess them." His conscience might +take a still more curious turn, leading to a dizzier height: "I am a +sinner; that, alas! is so; but I can prevent others from sinning +likewise." No doubt the greater part of the literature which the noble +lord collected with so much industry was of that frankly indecent kind +which is debarred from every library, Continental as well as English +and American. There is a literature which does not come within the +scope of the present inquiry, and there is what may perhaps be called +a border literature, books which are found in public libraries in the +German, the French, and the Italian texts. It seems pertinent to ask +why a little knowledge of French and German and Italian should procure +the right to read Brantome's "Femmes Gallantes." It would be difficult +for anybody to say that this book is not frankly obscene, and yet in +the French text I suppose every library contains it. Casanova's +"Memoirs" is another book of the same kind; I am not aware of any +complete translation of Boccaccio's tales, but every library possesses +an edition in the original Italian. The only reason that can be put +forward for the suppression of a book is that it is harmful, and if +Brantome, Casanova, and Boccaccio are harmful in English, they do harm +to those who can read them in the original texts. But perhaps I have +pointed out enough inconsistencies, and the reader, growing weary, may +say: "Are you so young, then, that you don't know that the world is a +mass of contradictions? that life is no more than a tale told by an +idiot full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?" Shakespeare did +no more than to put into eloquent language every man's belief, that we +are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is +mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of +the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book +morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, +and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back +than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the +English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years +at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of +letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame +of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet +now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be +drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other +writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of +these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings, +as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if +reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of +what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof +sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and +Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while +recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book, +etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my +story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an +authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in +England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in +Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book +had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to +publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I +answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three +weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral +book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes," +disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a +gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out +not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which, +being an expert, he felt sure that others would take exception. The +gentleman was kind enough to insist on submitting his marked copy to +me, and my wonderment increased as I turned over the pages, and it +reached a climax when I happened upon the following passage, which had +been marked to be omitted by the American printer. The passage was: +"... in her stage life Evelyn was an agent of the sensual passion, not +only with her voice, but in her arms, her neck, and hair, and in every +expression of her face; and it was the craving music that had thrown +her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her how much more would it +subjugate and hold within its persuasion the listener--the listener, +who perceived in the music nothing but its sensuality?" "But for what +reason," I asked the expert, "do you suggest the elimination of this +passage? This is the Puritan point of view. I thought that your +proposal was to draw my attention to the passages to which you thought +the Puritan would object." "Ah," he said, "that is how I began, but as +I got on with the work I thought it better to mark every passage that +might give offense." "And to whom would this passage give offense?" I +said. "Certainly not to any religious body?" "No," he answered, "not +to any religious body, but it would give offense to the subscribers to +the New Opera House. If parents read that the music of 'Tristan' threw +Evelyn Innes into the arms of Ulick Dean, they would not care to bring +their daughters to hear the opera, and might possibly discontinue +their subscriptions." Everybody will agree that "expert opinion" can +hardly go further, yet the folly which this "expert" was betrayed into +did not arise from any congenital stupidity; it is the mistake that +you and I, every one of us, would make when we seek the truth in our +casual experience instead of in our hearts. + +One would have thought that my pointing out the absurdity of this +expurgation of "Evelyn Innes" to the house of Appleton would have +saved it ever afterwards from similar folly, and forgetful that +experience is, as Coleridge describes it, only a lamp in a vessel's +stern which throws a light on the waters we have passed through, none +on those which lie before us, the publication of "The Lake" was issued +by Messrs. Appleton with my consent. The book, as the American public +already know, is free from all matter to which the most severe +moralist could take exception, yet the American edition did not +conform entirely with the English; a dedication written in French was +omitted, for what reason I do not know, but it was omitted. The matter +may seem a small one, and it may seem invidious to allude to it at +all, but on an occasion like the present nothing must be passed over. +The English proofs of the "Memoirs" were read, and the book was +accepted, but when it was set up in America it did not seem quite so +moral in the American type as it did in the English and difficulties +arose; these have been alluded to in the first paragraph of this +article, and perhaps wrongly I agreed that the two stories, "The +Lovers of Orelay" and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," should be left out. +On September 28th I wrote, suggesting that "In the Luxembourg Gardens" +might be retained, that it was only necessary to drop out a few +sentences to make it, as the expert would say, "acceptable to the +American public," but it never occurred to me that "The Lovers of +Orelay" could be published in any form except the form in which I +wrote it. This morning I received a letter from Mr. Sears. + +October 8, 1906. DEAR MR. MOORE: + +Your letter of September 28th has just arrived this morning. I hope +that by the time you receive this I shall have the open letter which +we are to print in "Memoirs of My Dead Life." The book is all ready, +waiting for it. As a matter of fact, we have not cut out either "In +the Luxembourg Gardens" or "The Lovers of Orelay." We simply have +taken out parts of each. Very truly yours, J. H. SEARS. + +"Simply have taken out parts of each!" My book, then, is a sort of +unfortunate animal, whose destiny was to be thrown on the American +vivisecting table and pieces taken out of it. Well, I raise no +objection. The promise that this preface will be published without +alteration soothes me (it is the anaesthetic), and after all, is it +not an honor to be Bowdlerized? Only the best are deemed dangerous.... +I am not aware that anybody ever took liberties with Miss Braddon's +texts. And the day of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one! Sooner or later +the original text is published. This is the rule, and I am confident I +shall not prove an exception to the rule. + +GEORGE MOORE. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRING IN LONDON + + +As I sit at my window on Sunday morning, lazily watching the +sparrows--restless black dots that haunt the old tree at the corner of +King's Bench Walk--I begin to distinguish a faint green haze in the +branches of the old lime. Yes, there it is green in the branches; and +I'm moved by an impulse--the impulse of Spring is in my feet; +india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would +see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to +stop--pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs--to call a hansom, and +to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The +quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can +be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in a hansom, +one is alone with London. London is beautiful in that narrow street, +celebrated for licentious literature. The blue and white sky shows +above a seventeenth-century gable, and a few moments after we are in +Drury Lane. The fine weather has enticed the population out of grim +courts and alleys; skipping-ropes are whirling everywhere. The +children hardly escape being run over. Coster girls sit wrapped in +shawls, contentedly, like rabbits at the edge of a burrow; the men +smoke their pipes in sullen groups, their eyes on the closed doors of +the public house. At the corner of the great theatre a vendor of cheap +ices is rapidly absorbing the few spare pennies of the neighbourhood. +The hansom turns out of the lane into the great thoroughfare, a bright +glow like the sunset fills the roadway, and upon it a triangular block +of masonry and St. Giles's church rise, the spire aloft in the faint +blue and delicate air. Spires are so beautiful that we would fain +believe that they will outlast creeds; religion or no religion we must +have spires, and in town and country--spires showing between trees and +rising out of the city purlieus. + +The spring tide is rising; the almond trees are in bloom, that one +growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the +wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light +up--how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in +the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the +spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing +together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How +exciting! It melts on the lips in fond kisses, instilling a delicate +gluttony of life. It would be pleasant in these gardens walking +through shadowy alleys, lit here and there by a ray, to see girls +walking hand in hand, catching at branches, as girls do when dreaming +of lovers. But alas! the gardens are empty; only some daffodils! But +how beautiful is the curve of the flower when seen in profile, and +still more beautiful is the starry yellow when the flower is seen full +face. That antique flower carries my mind back--not to Greek times, +for the daffodil has lost something of its ancient loveliness; it is +more reminiscent of a Wedgwood than of a Greek vase. My nonsense +thoughts amuse me; I follow my thoughts as a child follows +butterflies; and all this ecstasy in and about me, is the joy of +health--my health and the health of the world. This April day has set +brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old +canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; +an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of--well, I do not know of +what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours +waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal does +nothing. + +Here comes a boat! The canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has +interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the +last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, +the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at +the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me +of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first +wonder. We all remember the wonder with which we watched the first +barge, the wonder which the smoke coming out of the funnel excited. +When my father asked me why I'd like to go to Dublin better by canal +than by railroad, I couldn't tell him. Nor could I tell any one to-day +why I love a canal. One never loses one's fondness for canals. The +boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he +strains, sticking his toes into the path! + +There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always +women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining +light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round +Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets +full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank +historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away, +and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius. +Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach +to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is +peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original +marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and +mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image; +till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white +Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it +has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs +are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her +veiled face and read. I have only to fix my thoughts to +decipher--what? I know not. Something ... perhaps. But I cannot +control my thoughts. I am absorbed in turn by the beauty of the Marble +Arch and the perspective of the Bayswater Road, fading like an +apparition amid the romance of great trees. + +As I turn away, for the wind thrills and obliges me to walk rapidly, I +think how fortunate I am to experience these emotions in Hyde Park, +whereas my fellows have to go to Switzerland and to climb up Mont +Blanc, to feel half what I am feeling now, as I stand looking across +the level park watching the sunset, a dusky one. The last red bar of +light fades, and nothing remains but the grey park with the blue of +the suburb behind it, flowing away full of mist and people, dim and +mournful to the pallid lights of Kensington; and its crowds are like +strips of black tape scattered here and there. By the railings the +tape has been wound into a black ball, and, no doubt, the peg on which +it is wound is some preacher promising human nature deliverance from +evil if it will forego the spring time. But the spring time continues, +despite the preacher, over yonder, under branches swelling with leaf +and noisy with sparrows; the spring is there amid the boys and girls, +boys dressed in ill-fitting suits of broadcloth, daffodils in their +buttonholes; girls hardly less coarse, creatures made for work, +escaped for a while from the thraldom of the kitchen, now doing the +business of the world better than the preacher; poor servants of +sacred Spring. A woman in a close-fitting green cloth dress passes me +to meet a young man; a rich fur hangs from her shoulders; and they go +towards Park Lane, towards the wilful little houses with low balconies +and pendent flower-baskets swinging in the areas. Circumspect little +gardens! There is one, Greek as an eighteenth-century engraving, and +the woman in the close-fitting green cloth dress, rich fur hanging +from her shoulders, almost hiding the pleasant waist, enters one of +these. She is Park Lane. Park Lane supper parties and divorce are +written in her eyes and manner. The old beau, walking swiftly lest he +should catch cold, his moustache clearly dyed, his waist certainly +pinched by a belt, he, too, is Park Lane. And those two young men, +talking joyously--admirable specimens of Anglo-Saxons, slender feet, +varnished boots, health and abundant youth--they, too, are +characteristic of Park Lane. + +Park Lane dips in a narrow and old-fashioned way as it enters +Piccadilly. Piccadilly has not yet grown vulgar, only a little modern, +a little out of keeping with the beauty of the Green Park, of that +beautiful dell, about whose mounds I should like to see a comedy of +the Restoration acted. + +I used to stand here, at this very spot, twenty years ago, to watch +the moonlight between the trees, and the shadows of the trees floating +over that beautiful dell; I used to think of Wycherly's comedy, "Love +in St. James's Park," and I think of it still. In those days the +Argyle Rooms, Kate Hamilton's in Panton Street, and the Cafe de la +Regence were the fashion. But Paris drew me from these, towards other +pleasures, towards the Nouvelle Athenes and the Elysee Montmartre; and +when I returned to London after an absence of ten years I found a new +London, a less English London. Paris draws me still, and I shall be +there in three weeks, when the chestnuts are in bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FLOWERING NORMANDY + + +On my arrival in Paris, though the hour was that stupid hour of seven +in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was +filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed +like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which +the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life +itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed +into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were +due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a +line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky, +one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound +except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the +fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails +only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange +crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I +remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere +could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in +the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral, +the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof +disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full +of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and +courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there +in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour +we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the +green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten +years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were +visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy +movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the +train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a +quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides +breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless +and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I +say of their beauty when the first faint lights appeared, when the +first rose clouds appeared above the hills? Orchard succeeded orchard, +and the farmhouses were all asleep. There is no such journey in the +world as the journey from Dieppe to Paris on a fine May morning. Never +shall I forget the first glimpse of Rouen Cathedral in the diamond +air, the branching river, and the tall ships anchored in the deep +current. I was dreaming of the cathedral when we had left Rouen far +behind us, and when I awoke from my dream we were in the midst of a +flat green country, the river winding about islands and through fields +in which stood solitary poplar-trees, formerly haunts of Corot and +Daubigny. I could see the spots where they had set their easels--that +slight rise with the solitary poplar for Corot, that rich river bank +and shady backwater for Daubigny. Soon after I saw the first weir, and +then the first hay-boat; and at every moment the river grew more +serene, more gracious, it passed its arms about a flat, green-wooded +island, on which there was a rookery; and sometimes we saw it ahead of +us, looping up the verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running +through it like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown +disappearing in fine muslin vapours, drawn about the low horizon. + +I did not weary of this landscape, and was sorry when the first villa +appeared. Another and then another showed between the chestnut-trees +in bloom; and there were often blue vases on the steps and sometimes +lanterns in metalwork hung from wooden balconies. The shutters were +not yet open, those heavy French shutters that we all know so well, +and that give the French houses such a look of comfort, of ease, of +long tradition. Suddenly the aspect of a street struck me as a place I +had known, and I said, "Is it possible that we are passing through +Asnieres?" The name flitted past, and I was glad I had recognised +Asnieres, for at the end of that very long road is the restaurant +where we used to dine, and between it and the bridge is the _bal_ +where we used to dance. It was there I saw the beautiful Blanche +D'Antigny surrounded by her admirers. It was there she used to sit by +the side of the composer of the musical follies which she sang--in +those days I thought she sang enchantingly. Those were the days of +L'Oeil, Creve, and Chilperic. She once passed under the chestnut-trees +of that dusty little _bal de banlieue_ with me by her side, proud +of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has +outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It +would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in +the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her +sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light +of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great +poets have voiced her woe and decadence. + +Not five minutes from that _bal_ was the little house in which +Herve lived, and to which he used to invite us to supper; and where, +after supper, he used to play to us the last music he had composed. We +listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken +all the tinkle out of it, and the poor _compositeur toque_ never +caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, +believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the +Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for +a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, +cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the great goddess of folly, +used to come down there to sing the songs which were intended to +revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and +Herve's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly +did he seize the conductor's _baton_; the days of their glory had +gone. Now Asnieres itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen +another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled +down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor +scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages +came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense +and Blanche and Julia. + +But after all I am in Paris. Almost the same Paris; almost the same +George Moore, my senses awake as before to all enjoyment, my soul as +enwrapped as ever in the divine sensation of life. Once my youth moved +through thy whiteness, O City, and its dreams lay down to dreams in +the freedom of thy fields! Years come and years go, but every year I +see city and plain in the happy exaltation of Spring, and departing +before the cuckoo, while the blossom is still bright on the bough, it +has come to me to think that Paris and May are one. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WAITRESS + + +Feeling that he would never see Scotland again, Stevenson wrote in a +preface to "Catriona":--"I see like a vision the youth of my father, +and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there +far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out +in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I +admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny." Does not this +sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile +emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it +reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however +vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be +remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget +the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler +phrase will form itself in our memories. The emotion that Stevenson +had to express transpires only in the words, "romance of destiny, +ultimate islands." Who does not feel his destiny to be a romance, and +who does not admire the ultimate island whither his destiny will cast +him? Giacomo Cenci, whom the Pope ordered to be flayed alive, no doubt +admired the romance of destiny that laid him on his ultimate island, a +raised plank, so that the executioner might conveniently roll up the +skin of his belly like an apron. And a hare that I once saw beating a +tambourine in Regent Street looked at me so wistfully that I am sure +it admired in some remote way the romance of destiny that had taken it +from the woodland and cast it upon its ultimate island--in this case a +barrow. But neither of these strange examples of the romance of +destiny seems to me more wonderful than the destiny of a wistful Irish +girl whom I saw serving drinks to students in a certain ultimate cafe +in the Latin Quarter; she, too, no doubt, admired the destiny which +had cast her out, ordaining that she should die amid tobacco smoke, +serving drinks to students, entertaining them with whatever +conversation they desired. + +Gervex, Mademoiselle D'Avary, and I had gone to this cafe after the +theatre for half an hour's distraction; I had thought that the place +seemed too rough for Mademoiselle D'Avary, but Gervex had said that we +should find a quiet corner, and we had happened to choose one in +charge of a thin, delicate girl, a girl touched with languor, +weakness, and a grace which interested and moved me; her cheeks were +thin, and the deep grey eyes were wistful as a drawing of Rossetti; +her waving brown hair fell over the temples, and was looped up low +over the neck after the Rossetti fashion. I had noticed how the two +women looked at each other, one woman healthful and rich, the other +poor and ailing; I had guessed the thought that passed across their +minds. Each had doubtless asked and wondered why life had come to them +so differently. But first I must tell who was Mademoiselle D'Avary, +and how I came to know her. I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated +cafe at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. +When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is +recorded that he said: "Now I've done with music, it has served its +turn, and I'm going to dine every day at Tortoni's." Even in my time +Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one +was there at five o'clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in +Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. +Tortoni was a sort of publication. At Tortoni I had discovered a young +man, one of my oldest friends, a painter of talent--he had a picture +in the Luxembourg--and a man who was beloved by women. Gervex, for it +was he, had seized me by the hand, and with voluble eagerness had told +me that I was the person he was seeking: he had heard of my coming and +had sought me in every cafe from the Madeleine to Tortoni. He had been +seeking me because he wished to ask me to dinner to meet Mademoiselle +D'Avary; we were to fetch her in the Rue des Capucines. I write the +name of the street, not because it matters to my little story in what +street she lived, but because the name is an evocation. Those who like +Paris like to hear the names of the streets, and the long staircase +turning closely up the painted walls, the brown painted doors on the +landings, and the bell rope, are evocative of Parisian life; and +Mademoiselle D'Avary is herself an evocation, for she was an actress +of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of +those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of +life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work +is done, _nous pouvons faire la fete ensemble_." But however +defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for +it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I +looked round the drawing-room admiring it--a drawing-room furnished +with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, _etageres_ +covered with silver ornaments, three drawings by Boucher--Boucher in +three periods, a French Boucher, a Flemish Boucher, and an Italian +Boucher--that I must not think that any of these things were presents +from him, and from saying when she came into the room that the +bracelet on her arm was not from him. It had seemed to me in slightly +bad taste that he should remind her that he made no presents, for his +remark had clouded her joyousness; I could see that she was not so +happy at the thought of going out to dine with him as she had been. + +It was _chez Foyoz_ that we dined, an old-fashioned restaurant +still free from the new taste that likes walls painted white and gold, +electric lamps and fiddlers. After dinner we had gone to see a play +next door at the Odeon, a play in which shepherds spoke to each other +about singing brooks, and stabbed each other for false women, a play +diversified with vintages, processions, wains, and songs. Nevertheless +it had not interested us. And during the _entr'actes_ Gervex had +paid visits in various parts of the house, leaving Mademoiselle +D'Avary to make herself agreeable to me. I dearly love to walk by the +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers. After the +play he had said, "Allons boire un bock," and we had turned into a +students' cafe, a cafe furnished with tapestries and oak tables, and +old-time jugs and Medicis gowns, a cafe in which a student +occasionally caught up a tall bock in his teeth, emptied it at a gulp, +and after turning head over heels, walked out without having smiled. +Mademoiselle D'Avary's beauty and fashion had drawn the wild eyes of +all the students gathered there. She wore a flower-enwoven dress, and +from under the large hat her hair showed dark as night; and her +southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the +hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent +suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her +ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. +Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her +lips parted, the small teeth showing between the red lips. The +waitress sat, her thin arms leaning on the table, joining very +prettily in the conversation, betraying only in one glance that she +knew that she was only a failure and Mademoiselle D'Avary a success. +It was some time before the ear caught the slight accent; an accent +that was difficult to trace to any country. Once I heard a southern +intonation, and then a northern; finally I heard an unmistakable +English intonation, and said: + +"But you're English." + +"I'm Irish. I'm from Dublin." + +And thinking of a girl reared in its Dublin conventions, but whom the +romance of destiny had cast upon this ultimate cafe, I asked her how +she had found her way here; and she told me she had left Dublin when +she was sixteen; she had come to Paris six years ago to take a +situation as nursery governess. She used to go with the children into +the Luxembourg Gardens and talk to them in English. One day a student +had sat on the bench beside her. The rest of the story is easily +guessed. But he had no money to keep her, and she had to come to this +cafe to earn her living. + +"It doesn't suit me, but what am I to do? One must live, and the +tobacco smoke makes me cough." I sat looking at her, and she must have +guessed what was passing in my mind, for she told me that one lung was +gone; and we spoke of health, of the South, and she said that the +doctor had advised her to go away south. + +Seeing that Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary were engaged in +conversation, I leaned forward and devoted all my attention to this +wistful Irish girl, so interesting in her phthisis, in her red Medicis +gown, her thin arms showing in the long rucked sleeves. I had to offer +her drink; to do so was the custom of the place. She said that drink +harmed her, but she would get into trouble if she refused drink; +perhaps I would not mind paying for a piece of beef-steak instead. She +had been ordered raw steak! I have only to close my eyes to see her +going over to the corner of the cafe and cutting a piece and putting +it away. She said she would eat it before going to bed, and that would +be two hours hence, about three. While talking to her I thought of a +cottage in the South amid olive and orange trees, an open window full +of fragrant air, and this girl sitting by it. + +"I should like to take you south and attend upon you." + +"I'm afraid you would grow weary of nursing me. And I should be able +to give you very little in return for your care. The doctor says I'm +not to love any one." + +We must have talked for some time, for it was like waking out of a +dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing +how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that +it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry +jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them +into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg +Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad +to find oneself alone on the pavement at midnight. Instead of going +back to the cafe I wandered on, thinking of the girl I had seen, and +of her certain death, for she could not live many months in that cafe. +We all want to think at midnight, under the moon, when the city looks +like a black Italian engraving, and poems come to us as we watch a +swirling river. Not only the idea of a poem came to me that night, but +on the Pont Neuf the words began to sing together, and I jotted down +the first lines before going to bed. Next morning I continued my poem, +and all day was passed in this little composition. + + We are alone! Listen, a little while, + And hear the reason why your weary smile + And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet, + And how my love of you is more complete + Than any love of any lover. They + Have only been attracted by the grey + Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim + And delicate form, or some such other whim, + The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I + For other reason. Listen whilst I try + To say. I joy to see the sunset slope + Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, + Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm + Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, + In mildly modulated phrases; thus + Your life shall fade like a voluptuous + Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die + Like some soft evening's sad serenity.... + I would possess your dying hours; indeed + My love is worthy of the gift, I plead + For them. Although I never loved as yet, + Methinks that I might love you; I would get + From out the knowledge that the time was brief, + That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, + And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm + Beyond all other loves, for now the arm + Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims + You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames + Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet + To see you fading like a violet, + Or some sweet thought, would be a very strange + And costly pleasure, far beyond the range + Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I + Will chose a country spot where fields of rye + And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains, + Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, + To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where + The porch and windows are festooned with fair + Green leaves of eglantine, and look upon + A shady garden where we'll walk alone + In the autumn summer evenings; each will see + Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree, + The garden's length, is far, and you will rest + From time to time, leaning upon my breast + Your languid lily face, then later still + Unto the sofa by the window-sill + Your wasted body I shall carry, so + That you may drink the last left lingering glow + Of evening, when the air is filled with scent + Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent + The while with many griefs. Like some blue day + That grows more lovely as it fades away, + Gaining that calm serenity and height + Of colour wanted, as the solemn night + Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep + For ever and for ever; I shall weep + A day and night large tears upon your face, + Laying you then beneath a rose-red place + Where I may muse and dedicate and dream + Volumes of poesy of you; and deem + It happiness to know that you are far + From any base desires as that fair star + Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. + Death takes but little, yea, your death has given + Me that deep peace and immaculate possession + Which man may never find in earthly passion. + +Good poetry of course not, but good verse, well turned every line +except the penultimate. The elision is not a happy one, and the mere +suppression of the "and" does not produce a satisfying line. + + Death takes but little, Death I thank for giving + Me a remembrance, and a pure possession + Of unrequited love. + +And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the cafe near +the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the +girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, +fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the +soul of a poet is not the soul of Florence Nightingale. I was sorry +for this wistful Irish girl, and was hastening to her, I knew not why; +not to show her the poem--the very thought was intolerable. Often did +I stop on the way to ask myself why I was going, and on what errand. +Without discovering an answer in my heart I hastened on, feeling, I +suppose, in some blind way that my quest was in my own heart. I would +know if it were capable of making a sacrifice; and sitting down at one +of her tables I waited, but she did not come, and I asked the student +by me if he knew the girl generally in charge of these tables. He said +he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a +transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He +described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and +passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things +began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying, +"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could +not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking +of her. + +Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little +Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate +cafe. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the +romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once, +should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten +her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe +and dedicate to her nameless memory. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + + +Octave Barres liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us +who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and +little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one +never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming +into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never +seen before on the easel. + +"It was in the back room turned to the wall," he said. "I took it out, +thinking that the Russian prince who ordered the Pegasus decoration +might buy it," and he turned away, not liking to hear my praise of it; +for it neither pleases a painter to hear his early works praised nor +abused. "I painted it before I knew how to paint," and standing before +me, his palette in his hand, he expounded his new aestheticism: that +up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all painting had been +done first in monochrome and then glazed, and what we know as solid +painting had been invented by Greuze. One day in the Louvre he had +perceived something in Delacroix, something not wholly satisfactory; +this something had set him thinking. It was Rubens, however, who had +revealed the secret! It was Rubens who had taught him how to paint! He +admitted that there was danger in retracing one's steps, in beginning +one's education over again; but what help was there for it, since +painting was not taught in the schools. + +I had heard all he had to say before, and could not change my belief +that every man must live in the ideas of his time, be they good or +bad. It is easy to say that we must only adopt Rubens's method and +jealously guard against any infringement on our personality; but in +art our personality is determined by the methods we employ, and +Octave's portrait interested me more than the Pegasus decoration, or +the three pink Venuses holding a basket of flowers above their heads. +The portrait was crude and violent, but so was the man that had +painted it; he had painted it when he was a disciple of Manet's, and +the methods of Manet were in agreement with my friend's temperament. +We are all impressionists to-day; we are eager to note down what we +feel and see; and the carefully prepared rhetorical manner of Rubens +was as incompatible with Octave's temperament as the manner of John +Milton is with mine. There was a thought of Goya in the background, in +the contrast between the grey and the black, and there was something +of Manet's simplifications in the face, but these echoes were faint, +nor did they matter, for they were of our time. In looking at his +model he had seen and felt something; he had noted this harshly, +crudely, but he noted it; and to do this, is after all the main thing. +His sitter had inspired him. The word "inspired" offended him; I +withdrew it; I said that he had been fortunate in his model, and he +admitted that: to see that thin, olive-complexioned girl with fine +delicate features and blue-black hair lying close about her head like +feathers--she wore her hair as a blackbird wears his wing--compelled +one to paint; and after admiring the face I admired the black silk +dress he had painted her in, a black silk dress covered with black +lace. She wore grey pearls in her ears, and pearls upon her neck. + +I was interested in the quality of the painting, so different from +Octave's present painting, but I was more interested in the woman +herself. The picture revealed to me something in human nature that I +had never seen before, something that I had never thought of. The soul +in this picture was so intense that I forgot the painting, and began +to think of her. She was unlike any one I had ever met in Octave +Barres's studio; a studio beloved of women; the women one met there +seemed to be of all sorts, but in truth they were all of a sort. They +began to arrive about four o'clock in the afternoon, and they stayed +on until they were sent away. He allowed them to play the piano and +sing to him; he allowed them, as he would phrase it, to +_grouiller_ about the place, and they talked of the painters they +had sat to, of their gowns, and they showed us their shoes and their +garters. He heeded them hardly at all, walking to and fro thinking of +his painting, of his archaic painting. I often wondered if his +appearance counted for anything in his renunciation of modern methods, +and certainly his appearance was a link of association; he did not +look like a modern man, but like a sixteenth-century baron; his beard +and his broken nose and his hierarchial air contributed to the +resemblance; the jersey he wore reminded one of a cuirass, a coat of +mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively +to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of +which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and +the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the +middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. +Octave was always, as he would phrase it, _dans une deche +epouvantable_, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the +stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as +the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, +mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and +many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode +away. + +But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that +cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might +have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual +women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a +Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken +out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus +might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's +mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her +history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly +endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was +saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to +propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his +present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, +"and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." + +"Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to +sit. A _concierge's_ daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" +My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know +her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where +he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where +Alphonsine's was. + +"I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going +back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier +Breda on her holiday. _Sacre nom!_ Half-past five, and I haven't +washed my brushes yet!" + +In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Breda +for a holiday, he said: + +"I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." + +But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he +must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and +swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes +he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the +lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a +_peignoir_, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a +polished _parquet_ floor. We at last returned to the carriage, +but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He +scribbled notes in the lodges of the _concierges_, and between +whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This +delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was +the daughter of a _concierge_ on the Boulevard Exterieur. She had +run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysee Montmartre. + + Sa jupe avait des trous, + Elle aimait des voyous, + Ils ont des yeux si doux. + +But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built +her a palace in the Champs Elysees; but the Russian prince and his +palace bored her. + +The stopping of the carriage interrupted Octave's narrative. "Here we +are," he said, seizing a bell hanging on a jangling wire, and the +green door in the crumbling wall opened, and I saw an undersized +woman--I saw Alphonsine! And her portrait, a life-sized caricature +drawn by Octave, faced me from the white-washed wall of the hen-coop. +He had drawn her two cats purring about her legs, and had written +under it, "Ils viennent apres le mou." Her garden was a gravelled +space; I think there was one tree in it. A tent had been stretched +from wall to wall; and a seedy-looking waiter laid the tables (there +were two), placing bottles of wine in front of each knife and fork, +and bread in long sticks at regular intervals. He was constantly +disturbed by the ringing of the bell, and had to run to the door to +admit the company. Here and there I recognised faces that I had +already seen in the studio; Clementine, who last year was studying the +part of Elsa and this year was singing, "La femme de feu, la cui, la +cui, la cuisiniere," in a _cafe chantant_; and Margaret Byron, +who had just retreated from Russia--a disastrous campaign hers was +said to have been. The greater number were _hors concours_, for +Alphonsine's was to the aged courtesan what Chelsea Hospital is to the +aged soldier. It was a sort of human garden full of the sound and +colour of October. + +I scrutinised the crowd. How could any one of these women interest the +woman whose portrait I had seen in Barres's studio? That one, for +instance, whom I saw every morning in the Rue des Martyres, in a +greasy _peignoir_, going marketing, a basket on her arm. Search +as I would I could not find a friend for Marie among the women nor a +lover among the men--neither of those two stout middle-aged men with +large whiskers, who had probably once been stockbrokers, nor the +withered journalist whom I heard speaking to Octave about a duel he +had fought recently; nor the little sandy Scotchman whose French was +not understood by the women and whose English was nearly +unintelligible to me; nor the man who looked like a +head-waiter--Alphonsine's lover; he had been a waiter, and he told +you with the air of Napoleon describing Waterloo that he had "created" +a certain fashionable cafe on the Boulevard. I could not attribute +any one of these men to Marie; and Octave spoke of her with +indifference; she had interested him to paint, and now he hoped she +would get the Russian to buy her picture. + +"But she's not here," I said. + +"She'll be here presently," Octave answered, and he went on talking to +Clementine, a fair pretty woman whom one saw every night at the _Rat +Mort_. It was when the soup-plates were being taken away that I saw +a young woman dressed in black coming across the garden. + +It was she, Marie Pellegrin. + +She wore a dress similar to the one she wore in her portrait, a black +silk covered with lace, and her black hair was swathed about her +shapely little head. She was her portrait and something more. Her +smile was her own, a sad little smile that seemed to come out of a +depth of her being, and her voice was a little musical voice, +irresponsible as a bird's, and during dinner I noticed how she broke +into speech abruptly as a bird breaks into song, and she stopped as +abruptly. I never saw a woman so like herself, and sometimes her +beauty brought a little mist into my eyes, and I lost sight of her or +very nearly, and I went on eating mechanically. Dinner seemed to end +suddenly, and before I knew that it was over we were getting up from +table. + +As we went towards the house where coffee was being served, Marie +asked me if I played cards, but I excused myself, saying that I would +prefer to sit and look at her; and just then a thin woman with red +hair, who had arrived at the same time as Marie and who had sat next +her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was +Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever +Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as _La Glue_, her +real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, +but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red +hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of +_des petits verres de cognac_. Her sketch-book was being passed +round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear +stays and was dressed in old grey woollen. She lit cigarette after +cigarette, and leaned over Marie with her arm about her shoulder, +advising her what cards to play. The game was baccarat, and in a +little while I saw that Marie was losing a great deal of money, and a +little later I saw _La Glue_ trying to persuade her away from the +card-table. + +"One more deal." That deal lost her the last louis she had placed on +the table. "Some one will have to pay my cab," she said. + +We were going to the Elysee Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a +couple of louis, _pour passer sa soiree_, and we all went away in +carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the +plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was +in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high +steps leading from the street to the _bal_. + +"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysee +for many a month." + +"You'll soon be back again?" + +"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to +Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysee," +and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which +she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said, +"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like, +rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric +lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played +upon an _estrade_, and everyone whirled his partner as if she +were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle," +she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when +her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn +together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie +Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began +to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting +under her tree, she and _La Glue_ together, their friends about +them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little +procession suddenly formed under the trees and came towards her, and +Marie was presented with a great basket of flowers, and all her +company with bouquets; and a little cheer went up from different parts +of the _bal_, "Vive Marie Pellegrin, la reine de l'Elysee." + +The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two +women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them +I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in +Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night +at the Elysee. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its +height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a +little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to +ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The +falling fire changed again and again. And Marie stood on a chair and +watched till the last sparks vanished. + +"Doesn't she look like my picture now?" said Octave. + +"You seemed to have divined her soul." + +He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I'm not a psychologist; I +am a painter. But I must get a word with her," and with a carelessness +that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called +her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the +_bal_ together. I could not understand his indifference to her +charm, and asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a +little while they returned. + +"I'll do my best," I heard her say; and she ran back to join her +companions. + +"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysee?" + +"Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le +Russe." + +We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said +anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and +presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia. + +"I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to +paint." + +"Do you think she'll go to Russia?" + +"Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and +I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of +the art of painting; the art is forgotten. The old masters did +perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days +Rubens finished his _grisaille_, and the glazing was done with +certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more +depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much +paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's +none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it +doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and +Cezanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt." + +I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying +many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and +this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was +glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted. + +"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope +he'll buy the portrait." + +"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it." + +"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the +woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the +day after to-morrow?" + +"Yes," I said, "I'll come." + +"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture." + +Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian +had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely +settled yet. + +Marie had gone to St. Petersburg with the prince, and this was the +last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed +without something happening to remind me of her. One day a books of +travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to +a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts, where he +had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The +gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the +reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, +betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one +of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell +of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew +melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original +instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He +disappeared, and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan +came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed +himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any +knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor +did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of +Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, +returned for her holiday to the Quartier Breda? + +A few days afterwards I heard in Barres's studio that she had escaped +from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine's to dinner, hoping +to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except +Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of +her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was +nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; +no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little +higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the +Elysee Montmartre. The number I could inquire out, she said, and I +went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing +the cafe and then the _brasserie_ and a little higher up the +fruit-seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one +notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. +The first house we stopped at happened to be the right one, and the +_concierge_ said, "The fourth floor." As I went upstairs I +thought of _La Glue_, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and +it was she who answered the bell and asked me into an unfurnished +drawing-room, and we stood by the chimneypiece. + +"She's talking of going to the Elysee to-night. Won't you come in? +She'd like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know +them. Clementine, Margaret Byron?" And she mentioned some other names +that I did not remember, and opening a door she cried: "Marie, here's +a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine's. You know, dear, the +Englishman, Octave Barres's friend." + +She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while. + +"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Des qu'on est malade--" + +I don't think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear +her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for +cards. + +"You didn't play that night at Alphonsine's when I lost all my money. +You preferred to look at Victorine's drawings. She has done some +better ones. Go and look at them, and let's finish our game. Then I'll +talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine's? They say I'm very +ill, don't they? But now that I've come back I'll soon get well. I'm +always well at Montmartre, amn't I, Victorine?" "Nous ne sommes pas +installes encore," Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, +and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there +were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery +among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the +games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate +and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small +beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features +about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above +all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and +then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in +her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself--her soul; and +Marie's soul rose up like a water-flower in her eyes, and then the +soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, _une grue_, +playing cards with five others from Alphonsine's, losing her money and +her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful Empire table +that her prince had given her, and Bijou, Clementine's little dog, +slept on an embroidered cushion. Bijou was one of those dear little +Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King +Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky +coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard +Clementine's voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a +great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been +fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and _La +Glue_ told Clementine that she was not wanted, that _elle ferait +bien de debarrasser les planches_, that was the expression she +used. I heard further accusations, and among them the plaintive voice +of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught +each other by the hair, and tore at each other's faces, and Marie +raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell +back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down +to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then +everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each +other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them +quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bijou jumped from her +chair and followed her mistress. + +"Help me to look," Marie said; and looking I saw her faint hands +seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a +bracelet and some pearls, as well as all her money. Marie fell back +among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow +of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon +soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had +been paid her by a _fournisseur_ in the _Quartier_, who had +given her two thousand francs for her _garniture de cheminee_. A +few francs were found among the bed-clothes, and these few francs, she +said, were sufficient _pour passer sa soiree_, and she begged me +to go the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised +for ten o'clock. + +"I shall be at the Elysee by eleven. _Au revoir, au revoir!_ Let +me rest a little now. I shall see you to-night. You know where I +always sit, in the left-hand corner; they always keep those seats for +me." + +Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm +and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable +life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying +here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept +contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid +the bedclothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the +Elysee! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of +her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if +he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If +she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes on the +streets. And this decadence--was it her fault? Octave would say: +"Qu'est ce que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ou moins fichue +... si je pouvais reussir un peu dans ce sacre metier!" This was how +he talked, but he thought more profoundly in his painting; his picture +of her was something more than mere sarcasm. + +She was going to the Elysee to-night. It was just six o'clock, so she +wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten away to the dressmaker at once; +it might be wiser not--she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the +Elysee she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until +three in the morning. But I had promised: she wouldn't forgive me if I +didn't, and I went. + +The dressmaker said that Madame Pellegrin would have her dress by +nine, and at half-past ten I was at the Elysee waiting for her. + +How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the +unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the +quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the +human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs +and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that +Marie's friends spent their evening in the left-hand corner; but they +did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money +they were spending was stolen money. + +I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had +not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she +had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, +for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the afternoon sitting to +him. + +We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, +when we heard footsteps on the stairs. + +"Only some women," he said; "I've a mind not to open the door." + +"But do," I said, feeling sure the women were Marie's friends bringing +news of her. And it was so. She had been found dead on her balcony +dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker. + +I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some +ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. "Even Octave," I +said, "refrains, _on ne blague pas la mort_." + +"But what was she doing on the balcony?" he asked. "What I don't +understand is the balcony." + +We all stood looking at her picture, trying to read the face. + +"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about +eleven." + +It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to +explain the picture. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LA BUTTE + + +To-morrow I shall drive to breakfast, seeing Paris continuously +unfolding, prospect after prospect, green swards, white buildings, +villas engarlanded; to-day I drive to breakfast through the white +torridities of Rue Blanche. The back of the coachman grows drowsier, +and would have rounded off into sleep long ago had it not been for the +great paving stones that swing the vehicle from side to side, and we +have to climb the Rue Lepic, and the poor little fainting animal will +never be able to draw me to the Butte. So I dismiss my carriage, half +out of pity, half out of a wish to study the Rue Lepic, so typical is +it of the upper lower classes. In the Rue Blanche there are +_portes-cocheres_, but in Rue Lepic there are narrow doors, +partially grated, open on narrow passages at the end of which, +squeezed between the wall and the stairs, are small rooms where +_concierges_ sit, eternally _en camisole_, amid vegetables +and sewing. The wooden blinds are flung back on the faded yellow +walls, revealing a portion of white bed-curtain and a heavy +middle-aged woman, _en camisole_, passing between the cooking +stove, in which a rabbit in a tin pail lies steeping, and the men +sitting at their trades in the windows. The smell of leather follows +me for several steps; a few doors farther a girl sits trimming a +bonnet, her mother beside her. The girl looks up, pale with the +exhausting heat. At the corner of the next street there is the +_marchand de vins_, and opposite the dirty little _charbonnier_, +and standing about a little hole which he calls his _boutique_ +a group of women in discoloured _peignoirs_ and heavy carpet +slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of +meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch +common in our London streets--the man with bare feet, the furtive +and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, +tattered shirt about his consumptive chest. + +The asphalt is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, +my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer +neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow +has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the +street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above +the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill +is now a mute ornament, a sign for the _Bal du Moulin de la +Galette_. + +As I ascend the street grows whiter, and at the Butte it is empty of +everything except the white rays of noon. There are some dusty +streets, and silhouetting against the dim sky a dilapidated facade of +some broken pillars. Some stand in the midst of ruined gardens, +circled by high walls crumbling and white, and looking through a +broken gateway I see a fountain splashing, but nowhere the inhabitants +that correspond to these houses--only a workwoman, a grisette, a child +crying in the dust. The Butte Montmartre is full of suggestion; grand +folk must at some time have lived there. Could it be that this place +was once country? To-day it is full of romantic idleness and +abandonment. + +On my left an iron gateway, swinging on rusty hinges, leads on to a +large terrace, at the end of which is a row of houses. It is in one of +these houses that my friend lives, and as I pull the bell I think that +the pleasure of seeing him is worth the ascent, and my thoughts float +back over the long time I have known Paul. We have known each other +always, since we began to write. But Paul is not at home. The servant +comes to the door with a baby in her arms, another baby! and tells me +that Monsieur et Madame are gone out for the day. No breakfast, no +smoke, no talk about literature, only a long walk back--cabs are not +found at these heights--a long walk back through the roasting sun. And +it is no consolation to be told that I should have written and warned +them I was coming. + +But I must rest, and ask leave to do so, and the servant brings me in +some claret and a siphon. The study is better to sit in than the front +room, for in the front room, although the shutters are closed, the +white rays pierce through the chinks, and lie like sword-blades along +the floor. The study is pleasant and the wine refreshing. The house +seems built on the sheer hillside. Fifty feet--more than that--a +hundred feet under me there are gardens, gardens caught somehow in the +hollow of the hill, and planted with trees, tall trees, for swings +hang out of them, otherwise I should not know they were tall. From +this window they look like shrubs, and beyond the houses that surround +these gardens Paris spreads out over the plain, an endless tide of +bricks and stone, splashed with white when the sun shines on some +railway station or great boulevard: a dim reddish mass, like a +gigantic brickfield, and far away a line of hills, and above the plain +a sky as pale and faint as the blue ash of a cigarette. + +I can never look upon this city without strong emotion; it has been +all my life to me. I came here in my youth, I relinquished myself to +Paris, never extending once my adventure beyond Bas Meudon, Ville +d'Avray, Fontainebleau--and Paris has made me. How much of my mind do +I owe to Paris? And by thus acquiring a fatherland more ideal than the +one birth had arrogantly imposed, because deliberately chosen, I have +doubled my span of life. Do I not exist in two countries? Have I not +furnished myself with two sets of thoughts and sensations? Ah! the +delicate delight of owning _un pays ami_--a country where you may +go when you are weary to madness of the routine of life, sure of +finding there all the sensations of home, plus those of irresponsible +caprice. The pleasure of a literature that is yours without being +wholly your own, a literature that is like an exquisite mistress, in +whom you find consolation for all the commonplaces of life! The +comparison is perfect, for although I know these French folk better +than all else in the world, they must ever remain my pleasure, and not +my work in life. It is strange that this should be so, for in truth I +know them strangely well. I can see them living their lives from hour +to hour; I know what they would say on any given occasion. + +There is Paul. I understand nothing more completely than that man's +mind. I know its habitual colour and every varying shade, and yet I +may not make him the hero of a novel when I lay the scene in +Montmartre, though I know it so well. I know when he dresses, how long +he takes to dress, and what he wears. I know the breakfast he eats, +and the streets down which he passes--their shape, their colour, their +smell. I know exactly how life has come to him, how it has affected +him. The day I met him in London! Paul in London! He was there to meet +_une petite fermiere_ with whom he had become infatuated when he +went to Normandy to finish his novel. Paul is _foncierement bon; he +married her_, and this is their abode. There is the _salle-a-manger_, +furnished with a nice sideboard in oak, and six chairs to match; on the +left is their bedroom, and there is the baby's cot, a present from +_le grand, le cher et illustre maitre_. + +Paul and Mrs. Paul get up at twelve, and they loiter over breakfast; +some friends come in and they loiter over les _petits verres_. +About four Paul begins to write his article, which he finishes or +nearly finishes before dinner. They loiter over dinner until it is +time for Paul to take his article to the newspaper. He loiters in the +printing office or the cafe until his proof is ready, and when that is +corrected he loiters in the many cafes of the Faubourg Montmartre, +smoking interminable cigars, finding his way back to the Butte between +three and four in the morning. Paul is fat and of an equable +temperament. He believes in naturalism all the day, particularly after +a breakfast over _les petits verres_. He never said an unkind +word to any one, and I am sure never thought one. He used to be fond +of grisettes, but since he married he has thought of no one but his +wife. _Il ecrit des choses raides_, but no woman ever had a +better husband. And now you know him as well as I do. Here are his own +books, "The End of Lucie Pellegrin," the story that I have just +finished writing: I think I must explain how it was that I have come +to rewrite one of Paul's stories, the best he ever wrote. I remember +asking him why he called her Lucie, and he was surprised to hear her +name was Marie; he never knew her, he had never been to Alphonsine's, +and he had told the story as he had picked it up from the women who +turned into the Rat Mort at midnight for a _soupe a l'oignon_. He +said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I +could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in +the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had +never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have +done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a +miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully +shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the +blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so +why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my +friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on +her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that +every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism. + +I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the +author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Ceard, Maupassant, Hennique, +etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who +tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les +Moralites Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by +Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I +suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their +authors do not visit here. + +And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation +except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists +than Paul. I am the youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the +symbolists. The naturalists affected the art of painting, the +symbolists the art of music; and since the symbolists there has been +no artistic manifestation--the game is played out. When Huysmans and +Paul and myself are dead, it will be as impossible to write a +naturalistic novel as to revive the megatherium. Where is Hennique? +When Monet is dead it will be as impossible to paint an +impressionistic picture as to revive the ichthyosaurus. A little world +of ideas goes by every five-and-twenty years, and the next that +emerges will be incomprehensible to me, as incomprehensible as Monet +was to Corot.... Was the young generation knocking at the door of the +Opera Comique last night? If the music was the young generation, I am +sorry for it. It was the second time I had gone. I had been to hear +the music, and I left exasperated after the third act. A friend was +with me and he left, but for different reasons; he suffered in his +ears; it was my intelligence that suffered. Why did the flute play the +chromatic scale when the boy said, "Il faut que cela soit un grand +navire," and why were all the cellos in motion when the girl answered, +"Cela ou bien tout autre chose?" I suffered because of the divorce of +the orchestra and singers, uniting perhaps at the end of the scene. It +was speaking through music, no more, monotonous as the Sahara, league +after league, and I lost amid sands. A chord is heard in "Lohengrin" +to sustain Elsa's voice, and it performs its purpose; a motive is +heard to attract attention to a certain part of the story, and it +fills its purpose, when Ortrud shrieks out the motive of the secret, +and in its simplest form, at the church door, the method may be +criticised as crude, but the crudest melodrama is better than this +desert wandering. While I ponder on the music of the younger +generation, remembering the perplexity it had caused me, I hear a +vagrant singing on the other side of the terrace: + +[Illustration] + + Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + +and I say: "I hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one +who possibly has no _trou_ wherein to lay his head." _Et moi +aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y +reste, car mon trou est_--Richard Wagner. My _trou_ is the +Ring--the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of +Liszt and Wagner and Strauss was to write music. However long Wotan +might ponder on Mother Earth the moment comes when the violins begin +to sing; ah! how the spring uncloses in the orchestra, and the lovers +fly to the woods!... + +The vagrant continued his wail, and forgetful of Paul, forgetful of +all things but the philosophy of the minstrel of the Butte, I picked +my way down the tortuous streets repeating: + +[Illustration] + +Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SPENT LOVES + + +I am going to see dear and affectionate friends. The train would take +me to them, that droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_, and it +seems a pity to miss the Gare St. Lazare, its Sunday morning tumult of +Parisians starting with their mistresses and their wives for a +favourite suburb. I never run up these wide stairways leading to the +great wide galleries full of bookstalls (charming yellow notes), and +pierced with little _guichets_ painted round with blue, without +experiencing a sensation of happy lightness--a light-headedness that I +associate with the month of May in Paris. But the tramway that passes +through the Place de la Concorde goes as far as Passy, and though I +love the droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_ I love this +tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the +garden of the Champs Elysees, through miles of chestnut bloom, the +roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet +overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, +cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little +steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I +love this sprightly little river better than the melancholy Thames, +along whose banks saturnine immoralities flourish like bulrushes! +Behold the white architecture, the pillars, the balustraded steps, the +domes in the blue air, the monumented swards! Paris, like all pagan +cities, is full of statues. A little later we roll past gardens, +gaiety is in the air.... And then the streets of Passy begin to +appear, mean streets, like London streets. I like them not; but the +railway station is compensation; the little railway station like a +house of cards under toy trees, and the train steaming out into the +fanciful country. The bright wood along which it speeds is like the +season's millinery. + +It is pleasant to notice everything in Paris, the flymen asleep on +their box-seats, the little horses dozing beneath the chestnut trees, +the bloused workmen leaning over a green-painted table in an arbour, +drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre, the villas of Auteuil, rich +woodwork, rich iron railings, and the summer hush about villas +engarlanded. Auteuil is so French, its symbolism enchants me. Auteuil +is like a flower, its petals opening out to the kiss of the air, its +roots feeling for way among the rich earth. Ah, the land of France, +its vineyards and orchards, its earthly life! Thoughts come unbidden, +my thoughts sing together, and I hardly knowing what they are singing. +My thoughts are singing like the sun; do not ask me their meaning; +they mean as much and as little as the sun that I am part of--the +sun of France that I shall enjoy for thirty days. May takes me to dear +and affectionate friends who await me at Auteuil, and June takes me +away from them. There is the villa! And there amid the engarlanding +trees my friend, dressed in pale yellow, sits in front of his easel. +How the sunlight plays through the foliage, leaping through the rich, +long grass; and amid the rhododendrons in bloom sits a little girl of +four, his model, her frock and cap impossibly white under the great, +gaudy greenery. + +Year after year the same affectionate welcome, the same spontaneous +welcome in this garden of rhododendrons and chestnut bloom. I would +linger in the garden, but I may not, for breakfast is ready _et il +ne faut pas faire manquer la messe a Madame. La messe_! How gentle +the word is, much gentler than our word, mass, and it shocks us hardly +at all to see an old lady going away in her carriage _pour entendre +la messe_. Religion purged of faith is a pleasant, almost a pretty +thing. Some fruits are better dried than fresh; religion is such a +one, and religion, when nothing is left of it but the pleasant, +familiar habit, may be defended, for were it not for our habits life +would be unrecorded, it would be all on the flat, as we would say if +we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are +our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what +we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to +think the matter out--here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and +how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only +goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent +of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who +said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds +us of the beautiful goodness that floats over his face, a light from +Paradise. But why from Paradise? Paradise is an ugly ecclesiastical +invention, and angels are an ugly Hebrew invention. It is unpardonable +to think of angels in Auteuil; an angel is a prig compared to the dear +doctor, and an angel has wings. Well, so had this admirable chicken, a +bird that was grown for the use of the table, produced like a +vegetable. A dear bird that was never allowed to run about and weary +itself as our helpless English chicken is; it lived to get fat without +acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon +in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it +was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only +stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour +came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge +or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards +its predestined end--a delicious repast! What better end, what greater +glory than to be a fat chicken? The carcasses of sheep that hang in +butchers' shops are beginning to horrify the conscience of Europe. To +cut a sheep's throat is an offensive act, but to clip out a bird's +tongue with a long pair of scissors made for the purpose is genteel. +It is true that it beats its wings for a few moments, but we must not +allow ourselves to be disturbed by a mere flutter of feathers. Man is +merciful, and saved it from life. It grew like an asparagus! And +talking of asparagus, here are some from Argenteuil thick as umbrellas +and so succulent! A word about the wine. French red wines in England +always seem to taste like ink, but in France they taste of the sun. +Melons are better in June--that one comes, no doubt, from Algeria. It +is, however, the kind I like best, the rich, red melon that one eats +only in France; a thing of the moment, unrememberable; but the chicken +will never be forgotten; twenty years hence I shall be talking of a +chicken, that in becoming a fat chicken acquired twenty years of +immortality--which of us will acquire as many? + +As we rise from table the doctor calls me into his studio: for he +would give me an excellent cigar before he bids me good-bye, and +having lighted it I follow my friend to the studio at the end of the +garden, to that airy drawing-room which he has furnished in pale +yellow and dark blue. On the walls are examples of the great modern +masters--Manet and Monet. That view of a plain by Monet--is it not +facile? It flows like a Japanese water-colour: the low horizon +evaporating in the low light, the spire of the town visible in the +haze. And look at the celebrated "Lecon de Danse" by Degas--that +dancer descending the spiral staircase, only her legs are visible, the +staircase cutting the picture in twain. On the right is the dancing +class and the dancing master; something has gone wrong, and he holds +out his hands in entreaty; a group of dancers are seated on chairs in +the foreground, and their mothers are covering their shoulders with +shawls--good mothers anxious for their daughters' welfare, for their +advancement in life. + +This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that +plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait +by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature. +Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with +a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied +with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I +turned into the Salle Carree for relaxation, and there wandered about, +waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and +I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I +delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this +year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells +of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of +the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she +is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion +that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at +you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her +eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling +her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful +tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white, +faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes +through the yellow. She wears a fur jacket, but the fur was no trouble +to Rembrandt; he did not strive for realism. It is fur, that is +sufficient. Grey pearls hang in her ears, there is a brooch upon her +breast, and a hand at the bottom of the picture passing out of the +frame, and that hand reminds one, as the chin does, of the old story +that God took a little clay and made man out of it. That chin and that +hand and arm are moulded without display of knowledge, as Nature +moulds. The picture seems as if it had been breathed upon the canvas. +Did not a great poet once say that God breathed into Adam? and here it +is even so. + +The other pictures seem dry, insignificant; the Mona Liza, celebrated +in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared +with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the +ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; +that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem +but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe +or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, +an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle +or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a +sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention +rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive +her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose +passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil paint, +that arid glazing of _terre verte_, and has come into her +possession of eternal life, into the immortality of Pater's prose. +Degas is wilting already; year after year he will wither, until one +day some great prose writer will arise and transfer his spirit into +its proper medium--literature. The Mona Liza and the "Lecon de Danse" +are intellectual pictures; they were painted with the brains rather +than with the temperaments; and what is any intellect compared with a +gift like Manet's! Leonardo made roads; Degas makes witticisms. +Yesterday I heard one that delighted me far more than any road would, +for I have given up bicycling. Somebody was saying he did not like +Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to +show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it, he +would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel he would +say with a sigh 'That is my fault!'" + +My reverie is broken by the piano; my friend is playing, and it is +pleasant to listen to music in this airy studio. But there are women I +must see, women whom I see every time I go to Paris, and too much time +has been spent in the studio--I must go. + +But where shall I go? My thoughts strike through the little streets of +Passy, measuring the distance between Passy and the Arc de Triomphe. +For a moment I think that I might sit under the trees and watch the +people returning from the races. Were she not dead I might stop at her +little house in the fortifications among the lilac trees. There is her +portrait by Manet on the wall, the very toque she used to wear. How +wonderful the touch is; the beads--how well they are rendered! And +while thinking of the extraordinary handicraft I remember his studio, +and the tall fair woman like a tea-rose coming into it: Mary Laurant! +The daughter of a peasant, and the mistress of all the great +men--perhaps I should have said of all the distinguished men. I used +to call her _toute la lyre_. + +The last time I saw her we talked about Manet. She said that every +year she took the first lilac to lay upon his grave. Is there one of +her many lovers who brings flowers to her grave? What was so +rememberable about her was her pleasure in life, and her desire to get +all the pleasure, and her consciousness of her desire to enjoy every +moment of her life. Evans, the great dentist, settled two thousand a +year upon her, and how angry he was one night on meeting Manet on the +staircase! In order to rid herself of her lover she invited him to +dinner, intending to plead a sick headache after dinner.... She must +go and lie down. But as soon as her guest was gone she took off the +_peignoir_ which hid her ball dress and signed to Manet, who was +waiting at the street corner, with her handkerchief. But as they went +downstairs together whom should they meet but the dentist _qui a +oublie ses carnets_. And he was so disappointed at meeting his +beautiful but deceitful mistress that he didn't visit her again for +three or four days. His anger mattered very little to Mary. Someone +else settled two thousand a year more upon her; and having four +thousand a year or thereabouts, she dedicated herself to the love and +conversation of those who wrote books and music and painted pictures. + +We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the +imagination, at least the imagination stimulates the senses, acting as +a sort of adjuvant. The barmaid falls in love with No. 1 because he +wipes a glass better than No. 2, and Mary fell in love with Coppee on +account of his sonnet "Le Lys," and she grew indifferent when he wrote +poems like "La Nourrice" or "Le petit epicier de Montrouge qui cassait +le sucre avec melancolie." And it was at this time when their love +story was at wane that I became a competitor. But one day Madame +Albazi came to Manet's studio, a splendid creature in a carriage drawn +by Russian horses from the Steppes, so she said; but who can tell +whether a horse comes from the Steppes or from the horse-dealers? Nor +does it matter when the lady is extraordinarily attractive, when she +inspires the thought--a mistress for Attila! That is not exactly how +Manet saw her: but she looks like that in his pastel. In it she holds +a tortoiseshell fan widespread across her bosom, and it was on one of +the sticks of the fan that he signed his name. A great painter always +knows where to sign his pictures, and he never signs twice in the same +place. The merit of these Russians is that they never leave one in +doubt. She could not sit that day, she was going to the Bois, and +asked me and a young man who happened to be in Manet's studio at the +time to go there with her, and we went there drawn by the Russian +horses, the young man and I wondering all the while which was going to +be the countess's lover; we played hard for her; but that day I was +wiser than he; I let him talk and recite poetry and jingle out all the +aphorisms that he had been collecting for years, feeling his +witticisms were in vain, for she was dark as a raven and I was as gold +as a sunflower. It was at the corner of the Rue Pontiere that we got +rid of him. Some days afterwards she sat to Manet. The pastel now +hangs in the room of a friend of mine; I bought it for him. + +The picture of a woman one knows is never so agreeable a companion as +the picture of a woman one has never seen. One's memory and the +painter's vision are in conflict, and I like to think better of the +long delicate nose, and the sparkling eyes, and a mouth like red +fruit. The pastel once belonged to me; it used to hang in my rooms; +for with that grace of mind which never left him, Manet said one day, +"I always promised you a picture," and searching among the pastels +that lined the wall he turned to me saying, "Now I think that this +comes to you by right." When I left Paris hurriedly, and left my +things to be sold, the countess came to the sale and bought her +picture, and then she sold it years afterwards to a picture-dealer, +tempted by the price that Manet's pictures were fetching. Hearing that +it was for sale, I bought it, as I have said, for a friend. And now I +have told the whole story, forgetting nothing except that it was years +afterwards, when I had written "Les Confessions d'un jeune Anglais" in +the _Revue Independante_, that Mary Laurant asked me--oh! she was +very enterprising; she sent the editor of the _Revue_ to me; an +appointment was made. She was wonderful in the garden. She said the +moment I arrived, "Now, my dear ----, you must go," and we walked +about, I listening to her aphorisms. Mary was beautiful, but she liked +one to love her for her wit, to admire her wit; and when I asked her +why she did not leave Evans, the great dentist, she said, "That would +be a base thing to do. I content myself by deceiving him," and +then--this confidence seemed to have a particular significance--"I am +not a woman," she said, "that is made love to in a garden." Her garden +was a nook at the fortifications, hidden among lilac bushes. She +wished to show me her house, and we talked for a long time in her +boudoir. But I knew she was Mallarme's mistress at the time, so +nothing came of this _caprice litteraire_. + +My thoughts run upon women, and why not? On what would you have them +run? on copper mines? Woman is the legitimate subject of all men's +thoughts. We pretend to be interested in other things. In the +smoking-rooms I have listened to men talking about hunting, and I have +said to myself, "Your interest is a pretence: of what woman are you +thinking?" We forget women for a little while when we are thinking +about art, but only for a while. The legitimate occupation of man's +mind is woman; and listening to my friend who is playing music--music +I do not care to hear, Brahms--I fall to thinking which of the women I +have known in years past would interest me most to visit. + +In the spring weather the walk from Passy to the Champs Elysees would +be pleasant and not too far; I like to see the swards and the poplars +and the villas, the tall iron railings, and the flower vases hidden in +bouquets of trees. These things are Paris; the mind of the country, +that mind which comes out of a long past, and which may be defined as +a sort of ancestral beauty and energy is manifested everywhere in +Paris; and a more beautiful day for seeing the tall, white houses and +the villas and the trees and the swards can hardly be imagined. I +should be interested in all these things, but my real interest would +be in one little hillside, a line of houses, eight or nine, close by +the Arc de Triomphe, the most ordinary in the avenue. She liked the +ordinary, and I have often wondered what was the link of association? +Was it no more than her blonde hair drawn up from the neck, her +fragrant skin, or her perverse subtle senses? It was something more, +but you must not ask me to explain further. I like to remember the +rustle of a flowered dress she wore as she moved, drifting like a +perfume, passing from her frivolous bedroom into the drawing-room. A +room without taste, stiff and middle-class, notwithstanding the crowns +placed over the tall portraits. I see a picture of two children; but +she is the fairer, and in her pale eyes and thinly-curved lips there +is a mixture of yearning and restlessness. As the child was, so is the +woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom +with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. +The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her +slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes +are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one +and cotillon favours for the other. + +We often sat on her bedroom balcony reading, talking, or watching the +sky growing pale beyond Mount Valerian, the shadow drifting and +defining and shaping the hill. In hours like the present, dreaming in +a studio, we remember those who deceived us, those who made us suffer, +and in these hours faces, fragments of faces, rise out of a past, the +line of a bent neck, the whiteness of a hand, and the eyes. I remember +her eyes; one day in an orchard, in the lush and luxuriance of June, +her husband was walking in front with a friend, and I was pleading. +"Well," she said, raising her eyes, "you can kiss me now." But her +husband was in front, and he was a thick-set man, and there was a +stream, and I foresaw a struggle--and an unpleasant one: confess and +be done with it!--I didn't dare to kiss her, and I don't think she +ever forgave me that lack of courage. All this is twenty years ago, +and is it not silly to spend the afternoon thinking of such rubbish? +But it is of such rubbish that our lives are made. Shall I go to her +now and see her in her decadence? Grey hair has not begun to appear +yet in the blonde, it will never turn grey, but she was shrivelling a +little the last time I saw her. And next year she will be older. At +her age a year counts for double. Others are more worthy of a visit. +If I do not go to her this year, shall I go next? + +In imagination I go past her house, thinking of a man she used to talk +about, "the man she left her 'ome for"; that is how the London street +girl would word it. He had been the centre of a disgraceful scandal in +his old age, a sordid but characteristic end for the Don Juan of the +nineteenth century. Perhaps she loved the big, bearded man whose +photograph she had once shown me. He killed himself for not having +enough money to live as he wished to live. That was her explanation. I +think there was some blackmail; she had to pay some money to the dead +man's relations for letters. These sensual American women are like +orchids, and who would hesitate between an orchid and a rose? It was +twenty years ago since she turned round on me in the gloom of her +brougham unexpectedly, and it was as if some sensual spirit had come +out of a world of perfume and lace. + + * * * * * + +In imagination I have descended the Champs Elysees, and have crossed +the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine is flowing past just as it +flowed when the workmen were building Notre Dame, just as it will flow +a thousand years hence. A thousand years hence men will stand watching +its current, thinking of little blonde women, and the shudder they can +send through the flesh; they can, but not twenty years afterwards. The +Reverend Donne has it that certain ghosts do not raise the hair but +the flesh; mine do no more than to set me thinking that rivers were +not created to bear ships to the sea, but to set our memories flowing. +Full many a time have I crossed the Pont Neuf on my way to see another +woman--an American! The time comes when desire wilts and dies, but the +sexual interest never dies, and we take pleasure in thinking in middle +life of those we enjoyed in youth. She, of whom I am thinking, lives +far away in the Latin Quarter, in an ill-paven street. How it used to +throw my carriage from side to side! I have been there so often that I +know all the shops, and where the shops end, and there is a +whitewashed wall opposite her house; the street bends there. The +_concierge_ is the same, a little thicker, a little heavier; she +always used to have a baby in her arms, now there are no more babies; +her children, I suppose, have grown up and have gone away. There used +to be a darkness at the foot of the stairs, and I used to slip on +those stairs, so great was my haste; the very tinkle of the bell I +remember, and the trepidation with which I waited. + +Her rooms looked as if they had never been sat in; even the studio was +formal, and the richly-bound volumes on the tables looked as if they +had never been opened. She only kept one servant, a little, redheaded +girl, and seeing this girl back again after an absence of many years, +I spoke to Lizzie of the old days. Lizzie told me her servant's story. +She had gone away to be married, and after ten years of misfortune she +had returned to her old mistress, this demure, discreet and sly New +Englander, who concealed a fierce sensuality under a homely +appearance. Lizzie must have had many lovers, but I knew nothing of +her except her sensuality, for she had to let me into that secret. + +She was a religious woman, a devout Protestant, and thinking of her my +thoughts are carried across the sea, and I am in the National Gallery +looking at Van Eyke's picture, studying the grave sensuality of the +man's face--he speaks with uplifted hand like one in a pulpit, and the +gesture and expression tell us as plainly as if we heard him that he +is admonishing his wife (he is given to admonition), informing her +that her condition--her new pregnancy--is an act of the Divine Will. +She listens, but how curiously! with a sort of partial comprehension +afloat upon her face, more of the guinea-pig than of the rabbit type. +The twain are sharply differentiated, and one of the objects of the +painter seems to have been to show us how far one human being may be +removed from another. The husband is painfully clear to himself, the +wife is happily unconscious of herself. Now everything in the picture +suggests order; the man's face tells a mind the same from day to day, +from year to year, the same passions, the same prayers; his apparel, +the wide-brimmed hat, the cloak falling in long straight folds, the +peaked shoon, are an habitual part of him. We see little of the room, +but every one remembers the chandelier hanging from the ceiling +reflected in the mirror opposite. These reflections have lasted for +three hundred years; they are the same to-day as the day they were +painted, and so is the man; he lives again, he is a type that Nature +never wearies of reproducing, for I suppose he is essential to life. +This sober Flemish interior expresses my mistress's character almost +as well as her own apartment used to do. I always experienced a chill, +a sense of formality, when the door was opened, and while I stood +waiting for her in the prim drawing-room. Every chair was in its +appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the +tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung +about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage +there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting +for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable +to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me +as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten +emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same +olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's, +and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not +detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech +Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival +of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_ and +settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was _le grave +Puritan du tableau_. The reader will notice that I write _le +grave Puritan_, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was +nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with +her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain +cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside. She never +relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we +always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions +and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells +us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs +and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, +and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles +away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and +real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day; +she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the +homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years +ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation +is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during +these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the +changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her +figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a +good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have +thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year +she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me +disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has +loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially +when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly +young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said. She asked me my age; +the question was unpleasant, and before I was aware of it I had told +her a lie, and I hate those who force me to tell lies. The interview +grew painful, and to bring it to a close she asked me if I would care +to see her husband. + +We found the old man alone in his studio, looking at an engraving +under the light of the lamp, much more like a picture than any of his +paintings. She asked him if he remembered me, and he got up muttering +something, and to help him I mentioned that I had been one of his +pupils. The dear old man said of course he remembered, and that he +would like to show me his pictures, but Lizzie said--I suppose it was +nervousness that made her say it, but it was a strangely tactless +remark--"I don't think, dear, that Mr. ---- cares for your pictures." +However celebrated one may be, it is always mortifying to hear that +some one, however humble the person may be, does not care for one's +art. But I saved the situation, and I think my remarks were judicious +and witty. It is not always that one thinks of the right words at the +right moment, but it would be hard to improve on the admonition that +she did me a wrong, that, like every one who liked art, I had changed +my opinion many times, but after many wanderings had come back to the +truth, and in order to deceive the old man I spoke of Ingres. I had +never failed in that love, and how could I love Ingres without loving +him? The contrary was the truth, but the old man's answer was very +sweet. Forgetful of his own high position, he answered, "We may both +like Ingres, but it is not probable that we like the same Ingres." I +said I did not know any Ingres I did not admire, and asked him which +he admired, and we had a pleasant conversation about the Apotheosis of +Homer, and the pictures in the Musee de Montauban. Then the old man +said, "I must show Mr. ---- my pictures." No doubt he had been +thinking of them all through the conversation about the Musee de +Montauban. "I must show you my Virgin," and he explained that the face +of the Infant Jesus was not yet finished. + +It was wonderful to see this old man, who must have been nearly +eighty, taking the same interest in his pictures as he took fifty +years ago. Some stupid reader will think, perchance, that it mattered +that I had once loved his wife. But how could such a thing matter? +Think for a moment, dear reader, for all readers are dear, even the +stupidest, and you will see that you are still entangled in +conventions and prejudices. Perhaps, dear reader, you think she and I +should have dropped on our knees and confessed. Had we done so, he +would have thought us two rude people, and nothing more. + +What will happen to her when he dies? Will she return to Boston? Shall +I ever see her again? Last year I vowed that I would not, and I think +it would please her as well if I stayed away.... And she is right, for +so long as I am not by her she is with me. But in the same room, amid +the familiar furniture, we are divided by the insuperable past, and to +retain her I must send her away. The idea is an amusing one; I think I +have read it somewhere, it seems to me like something I have read. Did +I ever read of a man who sent his mistress away so that his possession +might be more complete? Whether I did or didn't matters little, the +idea is true to me to-day--in order to possess her I must never see +her again. A pretty adventure it would be, nevertheless, to spend a +week paying visits to those whom I loved about that time; and I can +imagine a sort of Beau Brummel of the emotions going every year to +Paris to spend a day with each of his mistresses. + +There were others about that time. There was Madame ----. The name is +in itself beautiful, characteristically French, and it takes me back +to the middle centuries, to the middle of France. I always imagined +that tall woman, who thought so quickly and spoke so sincerely, +dealing out her soul rapidly, as one might cards, must have been born +near Tours. She was so French that she must have come from the very +heart of France; she was French as the wine of France; as Balzac, who +also came from Tours; and her voice, and her thoughts, and her words +transported one; by her side one was really in France; and, as her +lover, one lived through every circumstance of a French love story. +She lived in what is called in Paris an hotel; it had its own +_concierge_, and it was nice to hear the man say, "Oui, monsieur, +Madame la Marquise est chez elle," to walk across a courtyard and wait +in a boudoir stretched with blue silk, to sit under a Louis XVI. rock +crystal chandelier. She said one day, "I'm afraid you're thinking of +me a great deal," and she leaned her hands on the back of the chair, +making it easy for me to take them. She said her hands had not done +any kitchen work for five hundred years, and at the time that seemed a +very witty thing to say. The drawing-room opened onto a conservatory +twenty feet high; it nearly filled the garden, and the marquise used +to receive her visitors there. I do not remember who was the +marquise's lover when the last fete was given, nor what play was +acted; only that the ordinary guests lingered over their light +refreshments, scenting the supper, and that to get rid of them we had +to bid the marquise ostentatiously goodnight. Creeping round by the +back of the house, we gained the bedrooms by the servants' staircase, +and hid there until the ordinary guests in decency could delay no +longer. As soon as the last one was gone the stage was removed, and +the supper tables were laid out. Shall I ever forget the moment when +the glass roof of the conservatory began to turn blue, and the +shrilling of awakening sparrows! How haggard we all were, but we +remained till eight in the morning. That fete was paid for with the +last remnant of the poor marquise's fortune. Afterwards she was very +poor, and Suzanne, her daughter, went on the stage and discovered a +certain talent for acting which has been her fortune to this day. I +will go to the Vaudeville to-night to see her; we might arrange to go +together to see her mother's grave. To visit the grave, and to strew +azaleas upon it, would be a pretty piece of sentimental mockery. But +for my adventure there should be seven visits; Madame ---- would make +a fourth; I hear that she is losing her sight, and lives in a chateau +about fifty miles from Paris, a chateau built in the time of Louis +XIII., with high-pitched roofs and many shutters, and formal gardens +with balustrades and fish-ponds, yes _et des charmilles--charmilles_--what +is that in English?--avenues of clipped limes. To walk in an avenue +of clipped limes with a woman who is nearly blind, and talk to her of the +past, would be indeed an adventure far "beyond the range of formal man's +emotion." + +Madame ---- interrupted our love story. She would be another--that +would be five--and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I +must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a +straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last +notes trickle out--somebody has been playing the prelude to +"Tristan"--I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on +art and women--and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow +will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again +meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied with +what I once heard dear old M'Cormac, Bishop of Galway, describe in his +sermon as 'the degrading passion of "loave."'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NINON'S TABLE D'HOTE + + +The day dies in sultry languor. A warm night breathes upon the town, +and in the exhaustion of light and hush of sound, life strikes sharply +on the ear and brain. + +It was early in the evening when I returned home, and, sitting in the +window, I read till surprised by the dusk; and when my eyes could no +longer follow the printed page, holding the book between finger and +thumb, my face resting on the other hand, I looked out on the garden, +allowing my heart to fill with dreams. The book that had interested me +dealt with the complex technique of the art of the Low Countries--a +book written by a painter. It has awakened in me memories of all +kinds, heartrending struggles, youthful passion, bitter +disappointments; it has called into mind a multitude of thoughts and +things, and, wearied with admiring many pictures and arguing with +myself, I am now glad to exchange my book for the gentle +hallucinations of the twilight. + +I see a line of leafage drawn across the Thames, but the line dips, +revealing a slip of grey water with no gleam upon it. Warehouses and a +factory chimney rise ghostly and grey, and so cold is that grey tint +that it might be obtained with black and white; hardly is the warmth +of umber needed. Behind the warehouses and the factory chimney the sky +is murky and motionless, but higher up it is creamy white, and there +is some cloud movement. Four lamps, two on either side of the factory +chimney, look across the river; one constantly goes out--always the +same lamp--and a moment after it springs into its place again. Across +my window a beautiful branch waves like a feather fan. It is the only +part of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost +imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, +and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the +gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a +man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying +branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his +mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers +of Temple Gardens the pigeons have gone to sleep. I can see the cots +under the conical caps of slate. + +The gross, jaded, uncouth present has slipped from me as a garment +might, and I see the past like a little show, struggles and +heartbreakings of long ago, and watch it with the same indifferent +curiosity as I would the regulated mimicry of a stage play. Pictures +from the past come and go without an effort of will; many are habitual +memories, but the one before me rises for the first time--for fifteen +years it has lain submerged, and now like a water weed or flower it +rises--the Countess Ninon de Calvador's boudoir! Her boudoir or her +drawing-room, be that as it may, the room into which I was ushered +many years ago when I went to see her. I was then a young man, very +thin, with sloping shoulders, and that pale gold hair that Manet +used to like to paint. I had come with a great bouquet for Ninon, +for it was _son jour de fete_, and was surprised and somewhat +disappointed to meet a large brunette with many creases in her neck, a +loose and unstayed bosom; one could hardly imagine Ninon dressed +otherwise than in a _peignoir_--a blue _peignoir_ seemed inevitable. +She was sitting by a dark, broad-shouldered young man when I came +in; they were sitting close together; he rose out of a corner and +showed me an impressionistic picture of a railway station. He was +one of the many young men who at that time thought the substitution of +dots of pink and yellow for the grey and slate and square brushwork of +Bastien Lepage was the certain way to paint well. I learned +afterwards, during the course of the evening, that he was looked at +askance, for even in Montmartre it was regarded as a dishonour to +allow the lady with whom you lived to pay for your dinner. Villiers de +L'Isle Adam, who had once been Ninon's lover, answered the reproaches +levelled against him for having accepted too largely of her +hospitality with, "Que de bruit pour quelques cotelettes!" and his +transgressions were forgiven him for the sake of the _mot_ which +seemed to summarise the moral endeavour and difficulties of the entire +quarter. When Villiers was her lover Villiers was middle-aged, and +Ninon was a young woman; but when I knew her she was interested in the +young generation, yet she kept friends with all her old lovers, never +denying them her board. How funny was the impressionist's indignation +against Villiers! He charged him with having squandered a great part +of Ninon's fortune, but Villiers's answer to the young man was, "He +talks like the _concierge_ in my story of 'Les Demoiselles de +Bienfillatre.'" + +Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's +temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room +testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had +been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand +francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for +it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open +house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in +Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but +when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all +hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the +_rates_ she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in +Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysees? Any friend could introduce +another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a +restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another +unless the newcomer was a _rate_--in other words, unless he had +written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not +appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the +taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there. + +The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my +expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew +there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked +about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the +companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches +and strutted across the swards. I came upon a badger and her brood, +and at my approach they disappeared into an enormous excavation, and +behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated +hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. +"That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the +different parts--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we +were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until +suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that +had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the +ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta and her admirers had to +leave the piano, and they came from the house glad to breathe the +evening air. How dear to me are flowered gowns and evening skies and +women with scarfs about their shoulders. Ah! what a beautiful evening +it was! And how well do I remember the poet comparing the darkening +sky to a blue veil with the moon like a gold beetle upon it. One of +the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice +streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of +the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes +grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen +faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had +only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a +cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare +had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could not tell. It was +whispered that she was the wife of a rich _commercant_ at Tours. +This added to the mystery, and later in the evening the lady told me +she had never been in artistic society before, and begged me to point +out to her the celebrities present, and to tell her why they were +celebrated. + +"Who is he--that one slouching towards the pond, that one wearing grey +trousers and a black jacket?--oh!" + +My companion's exclamation was caused by a new sight of Verlaine; at +that moment he had lifted off his hat (the evening was still warm), +and the great bald skull, hanging like a cliff over the shaggy +eyebrows, shaggy as furze bushes, frightened her. The poet continued +his walk round the pond, and, turning suddenly towards us, he stopped +to speak to me. I was but a pretext; he clearly wished to speak to my +companion. But how strangely did he suit his conversation to her, yet +how characteristic of his genius were the words I heard as I turned +away, thinking to leave them together--"If I were in love with a young +girl or with a young man?" My companion ran forward quickly and seized +my arm. "You must not leave me with him," she said. On account of his +genius Verlaine was a little slow to see things outside of +himself--all that was within him was clear, all without him obscure; +so we had some difficulty in getting rid of him, and as soon as he was +out of hearing my companion inquired eagerly who he was, and I was +astonished at the perception she showed. "Is he a priest? I mean, was +he ever a priest?" "A sort of cross between a thieves' kitchen and a +presbytery. He is the poet Verlaine. The singer of the sweetest verses +in the French language--a sort of ambling song like a robin's. You +have heard the robin singing on a coral hedge in autumn-tide; the +robin confesses his little soul from the topmost twig; his song is but +a tracery of his soul, and so is Verlaine's. His gift is a vision of +his own soul, and he makes a tracery as you might of a drawing with a +lead pencil, never troubling himself to inquire if what he traces is +good or ill. He knows that society regards him as an outcast, but +society's point of view is not the only one, that he knows too, and +also, though he be a lecher, a crapulous and bestial fellow at times, +at other times he is a poet, a visionary, the only poet that +Catholicism has produced since Dante. Huysmans, the apologist of +Gilles de Rais,--there he is over yonder, talking to the impressionist +painter, that small thin man with hair growing thickly, low down on +his forehead--Huysmans somewhere in his description of the trial of +the fifteenth-century monster, the prototype, so it is said, of the +nursery tale of Blue Beard, speaks of the white soul of the Middle +Ages; he must have had Verlaine on his mind, for Verlaine has spoken +of himself as a mediaeval Catholic, that is to say a Catholic in whom +sinning and repentance alternates regularly as night and day. Verlaine +has not cut the throats of so many little boys as Gilles de Rais, but +Gilles de Rais always declared himself to be a good Catholic. Verlaine +abandons himself to the Church as a child to a fairy tale; he does +trouble to argue whether the Conception of the Virgin was Immaculate; +the mediaeval sculptors have represented her attired very prettily in +cloaks with long folds, they have put graceful crowns upon her head, +and Verlaine likes these things; they inspire him to write, he feels +that belief in the Church is part of himself, and his poetical genius +is to tell his own story; he is one of the great soul-tellers. From a +literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of +faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma +shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate +himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas--the curse +of modern literature--and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living +his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have +freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get +the real taste of life--the aroma as from a wine that has been many +years in bottle. And Verlaine is aware that this is so. Sometimes he +thinks he might have written a little more poetry, and he sighs, but +he quickly recovers. 'After all, I have written a good many volumes.' +'And what would art be without life, without love?' He has a verse on +that subject; I wish I could remember it for you. His verse is always +so winsome, so delicate, slender as the birch tree, elegiac like it; a +birch bending over a lake's edge reminds me of Verlaine. He is a lake +poet, but the lake is in a suburb not far from a casino. What makes me +speak about the lake is that for a long time I thought these verses, + + Ton ame est un lac d'amour + Dont mes pensees sont les cygnes. + Vois comme ils font le tour.... + +were Verlaine's, but they are much less original; their beauty, for +they are beautiful, is conventional; numbers of poets might have +written them, whereas nobody but Verlaine could have written any of +his, really his own, poetry. His desires go sometimes as high as the +crucifix; very often they are in the gutter, hardly poetry at all, +having hardly any beauty except that of truth, and of course the +beauty of a versification that haunts in his ear, for he hears a song +in French verse that no French poet has ever heard before, and a song +so fluent, ranging from the ecstasy of the nightingale to the robin's +little homily. + + Oui, c'etait par un soir joyeux de cabaret, + Un de ces soirs plutot trop chauds ou l'on dirait + Que le gaz du plafond conspire a notre perte + Avec le vin du zinc, saveur naive et verte. + On s'amusait beaucoup dans la boutique et on + Entendait des soupirs voisins d'accordeon + Que ponctuaient des pieds frappant presque en cadence. + Quand la porte s'ouvrit de la salle de danse + Vomissant tout un flot dont toi, vers ou j'etais, + Et de ta voix fait que soudain je me tais, + S'il te plait de me donner un ordre peremptoire. + Tu t'ecrias 'Dieu, qu'il fait chaud! Patron, a boire!' + +"She was from Picardy; and he tells of her horrible accent, and in +elegy number five he continues the confession, telling how his well +beloved used to get drunk. + + "Tu fis le saut de ... Seine et, depuis morte-vive, + Tu gardes le vertige et le gout du neant." + +"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we +stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, +cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking +at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I +said: + +"Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed +of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. +It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all +written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." + +"In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the _commercant's_ +wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went +towards her pocket. + +"No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of +vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three +years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and +renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil +somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these +hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will +not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a +caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with +these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine +preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he +drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing +beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling +in love with drabs." + + Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouve l'ange + Qu'il eut fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi! + L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy, + Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle; + Elle ne m'adressa guere qu'une parole + Et c'etait d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait, + En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre, + Une troisieme, recemment chanteuse au Havre, + Affectait de dandinement des matelots + Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots, + Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacredie, quel dommage + La quatrieme etait sage comme une image, + Chatain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois: + Le diantre soit de ses sacres signes de croix! + Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma memoire + Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire + Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'ilot" + Tantot bien, tantot moins, le clair cafe falot + Les terasses l'ete, l'hiver les brasseries + Et par degres l'humble trottoir en theories + En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants + Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants + _Qutorum ego parva pars erim_, me disais-je. + Mais toutes, comme la premiere du cortege, + Des avant la bougie eteinte et le rideau + Tire, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau." + +"In the verses I have just quoted, you remember, he says that the +fourth was chaste as an image, her hair was pale brown, she had +scarcely any bosom, and prayed to God sometimes. He always hated piety +when it interfered with his pleasure, and in the next verse he says, +'The devil take those sacred signs of the Cross!'" + +"But do you know any of these women?" + +"Oh, yes; we all know the terrible Sara. She beats him." + +The _commercante's_ wife asked if she were here. + +"He wanted to bring her here, in fact he did bring her once, only she +was so drunk that she could not get beyond the threshold, and Ninon's +lover, the painter you saw painting the steam engines, was charged to +explain to the poet that Sara's intemperance rendered her impossible +in respectable society. 'I know Sara has her faults,' he murmured in +reply to all argument, and it was impossible to make him see that +others did not see Sara with his eyes. 'I know she has her faults,' he +repeated, 'and so have others. We all have our faults.' And it was a +long time before he could be induced to come back: hunger has brought +him." + +"And who is that hollow-chested man? How pathetic he looks with his +goat-like beard." + +"That is the celebrated Cabaner. He will tell you, if you speak to +him, that his father was a man like Napoleon, only more so. He is the +author of many aphorisms; 'that three military bands would be +necessary to give the impression of silence in music' is one. He comes +every night to the Nouvelle Athenes, and is a sort of rallying-point; +he will tell you that his ballad of 'The Salt Herring' is written in a +way that perhaps Wagner would not, but which Liszt certainly would +understand." + +"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his +music, I suppose?" + +"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la +Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five +francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of +art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you +should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain, +and he broke off the head of the Venus de Milo, saying that now she no +longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could +henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid +recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness, +his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his +music accompanies his own verses." + +"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?" + +"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the +last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is +the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam." + +And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all +I knew about Villiers. + +"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a +rate," I said. + +But the woman was not so simple as I had imagined, and one or two +questions she put to me led me to tell her that Villiers's genius only +appeared in streaks, like gold in quartz. + +"The comparison is an old one, but there is no better one to explain +Villiers, for when he is not inspired his writing is very like +quartz." + +"His great name----" + +"His name is part of his genius. He chose it, and it has influenced +his writings. Have I not heard him say, 'Car je porte en moi les +richesses steriles d'un grand nombre de rois oublies.'" + +"But is he a legitimate descendant?" + +"Legitimate in the sense that he desired the name more than any of +those who ever bore it legitimately." + +At that moment Villiers passed by me, and I introduced him to her, and +very soon he began to tell us that his _Eve_ had just been +published, and the success of it was great. + +"On m'a dit hier de passer a la caisse ... l'edition etait epuisee, +vous voyez--il parait, la fortune est venue ... meme a moi." + +But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon +as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his +stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately +in the _brasseries_ about a man in quest of a quiet village where +he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he +written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I +liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away +from us, and I had to tell my companion the story. + +"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in +his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less +of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the +cafe--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, +recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest +in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that +touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will +find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of +from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst +of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees +at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and +gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins. + +"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning +on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The +point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, +how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced +he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the +manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So +they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and +tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise +the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the cafe, but when +morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some +night to the Nouvelle Athenes to hear him; leaning across the table he +will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the +house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the +staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in +bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He +dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the +sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man +piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside +hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a +dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle +Athenes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow +night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too +bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it." + +The _commercant's_ wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she +came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot +remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think +of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in +which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the +years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue +eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of +sensual Christ? He, too, was after the _commercant's_ wife. And +didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure +yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. + + "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or. + Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore." + +The _commercant's_ wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by +the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew +nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here +and there? + + "Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite + Elle effleurait la Marguerite." + +The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires +him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. +Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt +Herring." + + "He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty, + A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed, + And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy. + He placed the ladder high, high, high, + Against the wall white, white, white. + He went up the ladder high, high, high, + Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed + Against the wall--toc! toc! toc! + He tied to the nail a string long, long, long, + And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry, + And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy, + He got down from the ladder high, high, high, + And went away, away, away. + Since then at the end of the string long, long, long, + A salt herring dry, dry, dry, + Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly. + Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple, + To make all serious men mad, mad, mad, + And to amuse children, little, little, little." + +This was the libretto on which Cabaner wrote music "that Wagner would +not understand, but which Liszt certainly would." Dear, dear Cabaner, +how well I can see thee with thy goat-like beard, and the ape in the +tree interrupting thee; he was not like Liszt, he chattered all night. +Poor ape, he broke his chain earlier in the evening, and it was found +impossible to persuade him to come down. The brute seemed somehow +determined that we should not hear Cabaner. Soon after the cocks began +answering each other, though it was but midnight; and so loud was +their shrilling that I awoke, surprised to find myself sitting at my +window in King's Bench Walk. A moment ago I was in Madame Ninon de +Calvador's garden, and every whit as much as I am now in King's Bench +Walk. Madame Ninon de Calvador--what has become of her? + +Is the rest of her story unknown? As I sit looking into the darkness, +a memory suddenly springs upon me. Villiers, who came in when dinner +was half over, brought a young man with him. Fumbling at his shirt +collar, apologising for being late, assuring us that he had dined, he +introduced his friend to the company as a young man of genius, of +extraordinary genius. Don't I remember Villiers's nervous, hysterical +voice! Don't I remember the journalist's voice when he asked Ninon's +lover if he sold his pictures, creating at once a bad impression? By +some accident a plate was given to him, out of which one of the cats +had been fed. The plate might have been given to any one else: +Villiers would not have minded, and as for Cabaner, he never knew what +he was eating; but it was given to the journalist. Now I remember the +young man misconducted himself badly; he struck the table with his +fist, and said, "Et bien, je casse tout." Yes, it was he who wrote the +article entitled "Ninon's Table d'hote" in the _Gil Blas_, and +from it she learned for the first time how the world viewed her +hospitality, how misinterpreted were her efforts to benefit the arts +and the artists. Somebody told me this story: who I cannot tell; it is +all so long ago. But it seems to me that I remember hearing that it +was this article that killed her. + +The passing of things is always a moving subject for meditation, and +it is strange how accident will bring back a scene, explicit in every +detail--a tree taking shape upon the dawning sky, the hairy ugliness +of the ape in its branches, and along the grey grass a waddling squad +of the ducks betaking themselves to the pond, a poet talking to a +_commercant's_ wife, Madame de Calvador leaning on a lover's arm. + +Had I a palette I could match the blue of the _peignoir_ with the +faint grey sky. I could make a picture out of that dusky suburb. Had I +a pen I could write verses about these people of old time, but the +picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream, and the +verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the +meditation, which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. +Better to sit by my window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the +memory. The mood has nearly passed, the desire of action is +approaching.... I would give much for another memory, but memory may +not be beckoned, and my mind is dark now, dark as that garden; the +swaying, fan-like bough by my window is nearly one mass of green; the +last sparrow has fallen asleep. I hear nothing.... I hear a horse +trotting in the Strand. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + + +I had come a thousand miles--rather more, nearly fifteen hundred--in +the hope of picking up the thread of a love story that had got +entangled some years before and had been broken off abruptly. A +strange misadventure our love story had been; for Doris had given a +great deal of herself while denying me much, so much that at last, in +despair, I fled from a one-sided love affair; too one-sided to be +borne any longer, at least by me. And it was difficult to fly from her +pretty, inveigling face, delightful and winsome as the faces one finds +on the panels of the early German masters. One may look for her face +and find it on an oak panel in the Frankfort Gallery, painted in pale +tints, the cheeks faintly touched with carmine. In the background of +these pictures there are all sorts of curious things; very often a +gold bower with roses clambering up everywhere. Who was that master +who painted cunning virgins in rose bowers? The master of Cologne, was +it not? I have forgotten. No matter. Doris's hair was darker than the +hair of those virgins, a rich gold hair, a mane of hair growing as +luxuriously as the meadows in June. And the golden note was continued +everywhere, in the eyebrows, in the pupils of the eyes, in the +freckles along her little nose so firmly and beautifully modelled +about the nostrils; never was there a more lovely or affectionate +mouth, weak and beautiful as a flower; and the long hands were curved +like lilies. + +There is her portrait, dear reader, prettily and truthfully and +faithfully painted by me, the portrait of a girl I left one afternoon +in London more than seventeen years ago, and whom I had lost sight of, +I feared for ever. Thought of her? Yes, I thought of her occasionally. +Time went by, and I wondered if she were married. What her husband was +like, and why I never wrote. It were surely unkind not to write.... +Reader, you know those little regrets. Perhaps life would be all on +the flat without regret. Regret is like a mountaintop from which we +survey our dead life, a mountaintop on which we pause and ponder, and +very often looking into the twilight we ask ourselves whether it would +be well to send a letter or some token. Now we had agreed upon one +which should be used in case of an estrangement--a few bars of +Schumann's melody, "The Nut Bush," should be sent, and the one who +received it should at once hurry to the side of the other and all +difference should be healed. But this token was never sent by me, +perhaps because I did not know how to scribble the musical phrase: +pride perhaps kept her from sending it; in any case five years are a +long while, and she seemed to have died out of my life altogether; but +one day the sight of a woman who had known her, brought her before my +eyes, and I asked if Doris married. The woman could not tell me; she +had not seen her for many years; they, too, were estranged, and I went +home saying to myself: "Doris must be married. What sort of a husband +has she chosen? Is she happy? Has she a baby? Oh, shameful thought!" + +Do you remember, dear reader, how Balzac, when he had come to the last +page of "Massimilla Doni," declares that he dare not tell you the end +of this adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for the worshippers +of the ideal: "Massimilla Doni was expecting." Then in a passage that +is pleasanter to think about than to read--for Balzac when he spoke +about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the +passage is altogether grammatical--he tells how the ideas of all the +great artists, painters, and sculptors--the ideas they have wrought on +panels and in stone--escaped from their niches and their frames--all +these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept. It +would be as disgraceful for Doris to be "expecting" as it was for +Massimilla Doni, and I like to think of all the peris, the nymphs, the +sylphs, the fairies of ancient legend, all her kinsfolk gathering +about her bed, deploring her condition, regarding her as lost to +them--were such a thing to happen I should certainly kneel there in +spirit with them. And feeling just as Balzac did about Massimilla +Doni, that it was a sacrilege that Doris should be "expecting" or even +married, I wrote, omitting, however, to tell her why I had suddenly +resolved to break silence; I sent her a little note, only a few words, +that I was sorry not to have heard of her for so long a time; but +though we had been estranged she had not been forgotten; a little +commonplace note, relieved perhaps by a touch of wistfulness, of +regret. And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask +for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat +disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to +her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would +be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and +I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long +telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had +come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said, +"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the +least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was +better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing." +The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full +of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black +misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her +health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in +this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that +if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak +to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it +was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long +estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied +the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could +it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if---- + +At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer +to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should +undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I +muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a +phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own +reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more +aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you +would not have me consider it good news, would you?" + +Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's +intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering +by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that +vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to +have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a +law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are +not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were +possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a +thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be +pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much. She had said +she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old +times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a +pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was +propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle +of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a +conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or +three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything +whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met +myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not +remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy +similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes +of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand +miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in +either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden +fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had +discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey, +for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the +train. + +When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the +train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had +rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of +some financial embarrassments. During those eight years I thought +often of Italy and the south of France, but the train journey of +sixteen or seventeen or eighteen hours to the Italian frontier always +seemed so much like what purgatory must be, that the heaven of Italy +on the other side never tempted me sufficiently to undertake it. A +companion would be of no use; one cannot talk for fifteen or sixteen +hours, and while debating with myself whether I should go to Plessy, I +often glanced down the long perspective of hours. Everything, pleasure +and pain alike, are greater in imagination than in reality--there is +always a reaction, and having anticipated more than mortal weariness, +I was surprised to find that the first two hours in the train passed +very pleasantly. It seemed that I had only been in the train quite a +little while when it stopped, yet Laroche is more than an hour from +Paris, quite a countryside station, and it seems strange that the +_Cote d'Azur_ should stop there. That was the grand name of the +train that I was travelling by. Think of any English company running a +train and calling it "The Azure Shore"! Think of going to Euston or to +Charing Cross, saying you are going by "The Azure Shore"! So long as +the name of this train endures, it is impossible to doubt that the +French mind is more picturesque than the English, and one no longer +wonders why the French school of painting, etc. + +A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just +before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the +train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in +the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of +glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought +a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many +various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the +bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I +began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed +to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The +directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should +exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to +examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that +would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter +to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like +ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The +French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune +no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on +how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way +of remedying abuses. + +I don't think we stopped again till we got to Lyons, and all the way +there I sat at the window looking at the landscape--the long, long +plain that the French peasant cultivates unceasingly. Out of that long +plain came all the money that was lost in Panama, and all the money +invested in Russian bonds--fine milliards came out of the French +peasants' stockings. We passed through La Beauce. I believe it was +there that Zola went to study the French peasant before he wrote "La +Terre." Huysmans, with that benevolent malice so characteristic of +him, used to say that Zola's investigation was limited to going out +once for a drive in a carriage with Madame Zola. The primitive man +that had risen out of some jungle of my being did not view this +immense and highly cultivated plain sympathetically. It seemed to him +to differ little from the town, so utterly was nature dominated by man +and portioned out. On a subject like this one can meditate for a long +time, and I meditated till my meditation was broken by the stopping of +the train. We were at Lyons. The tall white-painted houses reminded me +of Paris--Lyons, as seen from the windows of _La Cote d'Azur_ at +the end of a grey December day might be Paris. The climate seemed the +same; the sky was as sloppy and as grey. At last the train stopped at +a place from which I could look down a side street, and I decided that +Lyons wore a more provincial look than Paris, and I thought of the +great silk trade and the dull minds of the merchants ... their dinner +parties, etc. I noticed everything there was to notice in order to +pass the time; but there was so little of interest that I wrote out a +telegram and ran with it to the office, for Doris did not know what +train I was coming by, and it is pleasant to be met at a station, to +meet one familiar face, not to find oneself amid a crowd of strangers. +Very nearly did I miss the train; my foot was on the footboard when +the guard blew his whistle. "Just fancy if I had missed the train," I +said, and settling myself in my seat I added, "now, let us study the +landscape; such an opportunity as this may never occur again." + +The long plain cultivated with tedious regularity that we had been +passing through before we came to Lyons, flowed on field after field; +it seemed as if we should never reach the end of it, and looking on +those same fields, for they were the same, I said to myself: "If I +were an economist that plain would interest me, but since I got +Doris's letter I am primitive man, and he abhors the brown and the +waving field, and 'the spirit in his feet' leads him to some grassy +glen where he follows his flocks, listening to the song of the wilding +bee that sings as it labours amid the gorse. What a soulless race that +plain must breed," I thought; "what soulless days are lived there; +peasants going forth at dusk to plough, and turning home at dusk to +eat, procreate and sleep." At last a river appeared flowing amid +sparse and stunted trees and reeds, a great wide sluggish river with +low banks, flowing so slowly that it hardly seemed to flow at all. +Rooks flew past, but they are hardly wilding birds; a crow--yes, we +saw one; and I thought of a heron rising slowly out of one of the +reedy islands; maybe an otter or two survives the persecution of the +peasant, and I liked to think of a poacher picking up a rabbit here +and there; hares must have almost disappeared, even the flock and the +shepherd. France is not as picturesque a country as England; only +Normandy seems to have pasturage, there alone the shepherd survives +along the banks of the Seine. Picardy, though a swamp, never conveys +an idea of the wild; and the middle of France, which I looked at then +for the first time, shocked me, for primitive man, as I have said, was +uppermost in me, and I turned away from the long plain, "Dreary," I +said, "uneventful as a boarding-house." + +But it is a long plain that has no hill in it, and when I looked out +again a whole range showed so picturesquely that I could not refrain, +but turned to a travelling companion to ask its name. It was the +Esterelles; and never shall I forget the picturesqueness of one +moment--the jagged end of the Esterelles projecting over the valley, +showing against what remained of the sunset, one or two bars of dusky +red, disappearing rapidly amid heavy clouds massing themselves as if +for a storm, and soon after night closed over the landscape. + +"Henceforth," I said, "I shall have to look to my own thoughts for +amusement," and in my circumstances there was nothing reasonable for me +to think of but Doris. Some time before midnight I should catch sight +of her on the platform. It seemed to me wonderful that it should be +so, and I must have been dreaming, for the voice of the guard, crying +out that dinner was served awoke me with a start. + +It is said to be the habit of my countrymen never to get into +conversation with strangers in the train, but I doubt if that be so. +Everything depends on the tact of him who first breaks silence; if his +manner inspires confidence in his fellow-traveller he will receive +such answers as will carry the conversation on for a minute or two, +and in that time both will have come to a conclusion whether the +conversation should be continued or dropped. A pleasant little book +might be written about train acquaintances. If I were writing such a +book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with +whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should +have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette +of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the +quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection +in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting +people I met at dinner on board _La Cote d'Azur_, though some +readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman +was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the +upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas +the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or +would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more, +being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he +took off his hat I could see that he had come from the +tropics--Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less +stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look +like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the +desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained +by his long residence among the Arabs. He had lived in the desert +since he was fourteen. "Almost a Saharian," I said to him. And during +dinner, and long after dinner we sat talking of the difference +between the Oriental races and the European; of the various Arab +_patois_. He spoke the Tunisean _patois_ and wrote the language +of the Koran, which is understood all over the Sahara and the +Soudan, as well as in Mecca. What interested me, perhaps even more +than the language question, was the wilding's enterprise in attempting +to cultivate the desert. He had already enlarged his estate by the +discovery of two ancient Roman wells, and he had no doubt that all +that part of the desert lying between the three oases could be brought +into cultivation. In ancient times there were not three oases but one; +the wells had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of acres had +been laid waste by the Numidians in order, I think he told me, to save +themselves from the Saracens who were following them. He spent eight +months of every year in his oasis, and begged of me, as soon as I had +wearied of Cannes, to take the boat from Marseilles--I suppose it was +from Marseilles--and spend some time with him in the wild. + +"Visitors," he said, "are rare. You'll be very welcome. The railway +will take you within a hundred miles; the last hundred miles will be +accomplished on the back of a dromedary; I shall send you a fleet one +and an escort." + +"Splendid," I answered. "I see myself arriving sitting high up on the +hump gathering dates--I suppose there are date palms where you are? +Yes?--and wearing a turban and a bournous." + +"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise +he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only +shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. +When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out +for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father +had brought home from the East. Nothing else would have satisfied me; +my father led the pony, and I have always thought this fantasy +exceedingly characteristic; it must be so, for it awoke in me twenty +years afterwards; and fanciful and absurd as it may appear, I +certainly should have liked to have worn my travelling companion's +bournous in the train if only for a few minutes. All this is twelve +years ago, and I have not yet gone to visit him in his oasis, but how +many times have I done so in my imagination, seeing myself arriving on +the back of a dromedary crying out, "Allah! Allah! And Mohammed is his +prophet!" But though one can go on thinking year after year about a +bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; +and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my +friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as +Fromentin says, _chez lui_, I was glad to say good-bye to my +friends at Marseilles. + +I was still quite far from the end of my journey, and so weary of talk +that at first I was doubtful whether or not it would be worth while to +engage again in conversation, but a pleasant gentleman had got into my +carriage, and he required little encouragement to tell me his story. +His beginnings were very humble, but he was now a rich merchant. It is +always interesting to hear how the office boy gets his first chance; +the first steps are the interesting ones, and I should be able to tell +his story here if we had not been interrupted in the middle of it by +his little girl. She had wearied of her mother, who was in the next +carriage, and had come in to sit on her father's knee. Her hair hung +about her shoulders just as Doris's had done five years ago, taking +the date from the day that I journeyed in quest of the golden fleece. +She was a winsome child, with a little fluttering smile about her lips +and a curious intelligence in her eyes. She admitted that she was +tired, but had not been ill, and her father told me that long train +journeys produced the same effect on her as a sea journey. She spoke +with a pretty abruptness, and went away suddenly, I thought for good, +but she returned half an hour afterwards looking a little faint, I +thought, green about the mouth, and smiling less frequently. One +cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these +people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in +about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should +have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey +dragged itself out very wearily. + +Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting +for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not +even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and +the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I +congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the +telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel +than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same +pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in +Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to +tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little +paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile +inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform +talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There +was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink. +"She is going to tell me that I cannot come to her hotel. Why did I +send that telegram from Lyons?" Had it not been for that telegram I +could have gone straight to her hotel. It was just the telegram that +had brought her to the station, and she had come to tell me that it +was impossible for me to stay at her hotel. + +After thirty hours of travel it mattered little which hotel I stayed +at, but to-morrow and the next day, the long week we were to spend +together passed before my eyes, the tedium of the afternoons, the +irritation and emptiness of Platonic evenings--"Heavens! what have I +let myself in for," I thought, and my mind went back over the long +journey and the prospect of returning _bredouille_, as the +sportsmen say. But to argue about details with a woman, to get angry, +is a thing that no one versed in the arts of love ever does. We are in +the hands of women always; it is they who decide, and our best plan is +to accept the different hotel without betraying disappointment, or as +little as possible. But we had not seen each other for so long that we +could not part at once. Doris said that I must come to her hotel and +eat some supper. No; I had dined on board the train, and all she could +persuade me to have was a cup of chocolate. Over that cup of chocolate +we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon +looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling +very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my +heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however, +and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come +quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning +when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves +symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight +flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to +jump out of bed at once and to throw open _les croisees_. And +what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim, +alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as +the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere. +And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous +gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer +wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I +think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the +morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the +sea. + +Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I +breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees; +remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is +this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed +more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted +among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see +when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, +nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the +golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to +pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so +much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell +we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never +grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at +last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly +happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more +than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so +surprised as I did that morning. The _valet de chambre_ brought +in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of +him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find +the sunlight a bewitchment. But who would not be bewitched by the +pretty sunlight that finds its way into the gardens of Plessy? I knew +I was going to walk with Doris by a sea blue as any drop-curtain, and +for a moment Doris seemed to be but a figure on a drop-curtain. Am I +very cynical? But are we not all figures on drop-curtains, and is not +everything comic opera, and "La Belle Helene" perhaps the only true +reality? Amused by the idea of Jason or Paris or Menelaus in Plessy, I +asked Doris what music was played by the local orchestra, and she told +me it played "The March of Aida" every evening. "Oh, the cornet," I +said, and I understood that the mission of Plessy was to redeem one +from the coil of one's daily existence, from Hebrew literature and its +concomitants, bishops, vicars, and curates--all these, especially +bishops, are regarded as being serious; whereas French novels and +their concomitants, pretty girls, are supposed to represent the +trivial side of life. A girl becomes serious only when she is engaged +to be married; the hiring of the house in which the family is reared +is regarded as serious; in fact all prejudices are serious; every +deflection from the normal, from the herd, is looked upon as trivial; +and I suppose that this is right: the world could not do without the +herd nor could the herd do without us--the eccentrics who go to Plessy +in quest of a golden fleece instead of putting stoves in the parish +churches (stoves and organs are always regarded as too devilishly +serious for words). + +Once I had a long conversation with my archbishop concerning the Book +of Daniel, and were I to write out his lordship's erudition I might +even be deemed sufficiently serious for a review in the _Church +Gazette_. But looking back on this interview and judging it with +all the impartiality of which my nature is capable, I cannot in truth +say that I regard it as more serious than pretty Doris's fluent +conversation, or the melancholy aspect of his lordship's cathedral as +more serious than the pretty Southern sunlight glancing along the +seashore, lighting up the painted houses, and causing Doris to open +her parasol. What a splendid article I might write on the trivial side +of seriousness, but discussion is always trivial; I shall be much more +serious in trying to recall the graceful movement of the opening of +her parasol, and how prettily it enframed her face. True that almost +every face is pretty against the distended silk full of sunlight and +shadow, but Doris's, I swear to you, was as pretty as any medieval +virgin despite its modernness. Memline himself never designed a more +appealing little face. Think of the enchantment of such a face after a +long journey, by the sea that the Romans and the Greeks used to cross +in galleys, that I used to read about when I was a boy. There it was, +and on the other side the shore on which Carthage used to stand; there +it was, a blue bay with long red hills reaching out, reminding me of +hills I had seen somewhere, I think in a battle piece by Salvator +Rosa. It seemed to me that I had seen those hills before--no, not in a +picture; had I dreamed them, or was there some remembrance of a +previous existence struggling in my brain? There was a memory +somewhere, a broken memory, and I sought for the lost thread as well +as I could, for Doris rarely ceased talking. + +"And there is the restaurant," she said, flinging up her parasol, +"built at the end of those rocks." + +We were the first swallows to arrive; the flocks would not be here for +about three weeks. So we had the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter +and doubtless the cook; and they gave us all their attention. Would we +have breakfast in the glass pavilion? How shall I otherwise describe +it, for it seemed to be all glass? The scent of the sea came through +the window, and the air was like a cordial--it intoxicated; and +looking across the bay one seemed to be looking on the very thing that +Whistler had sought for in his Nocturnes, and that Steer had nearly +caught in that picture of children paddling, that dim, optimistic blue +that allures and puts the world behind one, the dream of the +opium-eater, the phrase of the syrens in "Tannhaeuser," the phrase +which begins like a barcarolle; but the accompaniment tears underneath +until we thrill with expectation. + +As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost +insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing +even if I did not succeed in winning her. + +"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you, +but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was +doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said: +"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem, +as it were, to have come into my inheritance." + +"Your inheritance! Am I not----" + +"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful +inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my +arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked +across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness +blowing across the bay. + +"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue." + +"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in +reality red." + +"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white +sides of villas." + +"Peeping through olive trees." + +"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive +begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when +we passed through Avignon." + +"You'll see very few trees here; only olives and ilex." + +"The ilex I know, and there is no more beautiful tree than the ilex." + + "Were not the crocuses that grew + Under that ilex tree, + As beautiful in scent and hue + As ever fed the bee?" + +"Whose verses are those?" + +"Shelley's. I know no others. Are the lines very wonderful? They seem +no more than a statement, yet they hang about my memory. I am glad I +shall see the ilex tree." + +"And the eucalyptus--plenty of eucalyptus trees." + +"That was the scent that followed us this morning as we came through +the gardens." + +"Yes, as we passed from our hotel one hung over the garden wall, and +the wind carried its scent after us." + +The arrival of the waiter with _hors d'oeuvres_ distracted our +attention from the olive tree to its fruit, I rarely touch olives, but +that morning I ate many. Should we have mutton cutlets or lamb? Doris +said the Southern mutton was detestable. "Then we'll have lamb." An +idea came into my head, and it was this, that I had been mistaken +about Doris's beauty. Hers was not like any face that one may find in +a panel by Memline. She was like something, but I could not lay my +thoughts on what she was like. + +"A sail would spoil the beauty of the bay," I said when the waiter +brought in the coffee, and left us--we hoped for the last time. Taking +hands and going to the window we sat looking across the sailless bay. +"How is it that no ships come here? Is the bay looked upon as a mere +ornament and reserved exclusively for the appreciation of visitors? +Those hills, too, look as if they had been designed in a like +intent.... How much more beautiful the bay is without a sail--why I +cannot tell, but----" + +"But what?" + +"A great galley rowed by fifty men would look well in this bay.... The +bay is antiquity, and those hills; all the morning while talking to +you a memory or a shadow of a memory has fretted in my mind like a fly +on a pane. Now I know why I have been expecting a nymph to rise out of +those waves during breakfast. For a thousand years men believed that +nymphs came up on those rocks, and that satyrs and their progeny might +be met in the woods and on the hillsides. Only a thin varnish has been +passed over these beliefs. One has only to come here to look down into +that blue sea-water to believe that nymphs swim about those rocks; and +when we go for a drive among those hillsides we'll keep a sharp +lookout for satyrs. Now I know why I like this country. It is heathen. +Those mountains--how different from the shambling Irish hills from +whence I have come! And you, Doris, you might have been dug up +yesterday, though you are but two-and-twenty. You are a thing of +yester age, not a bit like the little Memline head which I imagined +you to be like when I was coming here in the train, nor like anything +done by the Nuremberg painters. You are a Tanagra figure, and one of +the finest. In you I read all the winsomeness of antiquity. But I must +look at the bay now, for I may never see anything like it again; never +have I seen anything like it before. Forgive me, remember that three +days ago I was in Ireland, the day before yesterday I was in England, +yesterday I was in Paris. I have come out of the greyness of the +North. When I left Paris all was grey, and when the train passed +through Lyons a grey night was gathering; now I see no cloud at all: +the change is so wonderful. You cannot appreciate my admiration. You +have been looking at the bay for the last three weeks, and _La cote +d'azur_ has become nothing to you now but palms and promenades. To +me it is still quite different. I shall always see you beautiful, +whereas Plessy may lose her beauty in a few days. Let me enjoy it +while I may." + +"Perhaps I shall not outlast Plessy." + +"Yes, you will. Do you know, Doris, that you don't look a day older +since the first time I saw you walking across the room to the piano in +your white dress, your gold hair hanging down over your shoulders. It +has darkened a little, that is all." + +"It is provoking you should see me when I am thin. I wish you had seen +me last year when I came from the rest cure. I went up more than a +stone in weight. Every one said that I didn't look more than sixteen. +I know I didn't, for all the women were jealous of me." + +As I sat watching the dissolving line of the horizon, lost in a dream, +I heard my companion say: + +"Of what are you thinking?" + +"I'm thinking of something that happened long ago in that very bay." + +"Tell me about it;" and her hand sought mine for a moment. + +"Would you like to hear it? I'd like to tell it, but it's a long, long +story, and to remember it would be an effort. The colour of the sea +and the sky is enough; the warmth of the sunlight penetrates me; I +feel like a plant; the only difference between me and one of those +palm trees----" + +"I am sure those poor palms are shivering. There is not enough heat +here for them; they come from the south, and you come from the north." + +"I suppose that is so. They grow, but they don't flourish here. +However, my mood is not philanthropic; I cannot pity even a palm tree +at the present moment. See how my cigar smoke curls and goes out! It +is strange, Doris, that I should meet you here, for some years ago it +was arranged that I should come here----" + +"With a woman?" + +"Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? Our lives are woven along +and across with women. Some men find the reality of their lives in +women, others, as we were saying just now, in bishops." + +"Tell me about the woman who asked you to come here? Did you love her? +And what prevented you from coming here with her?" + +"It is one of the oddest stories--odd only because it is like myself. +Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each +spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, +such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a +long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with +her, and her letter was most welcome, for I had no plans for that +evening. I do not know if you know that curious dread of life which +steals through the twilight; it had just laid its finger on my +shoulder when the bell rang, and I said: 'My visitor is welcome, +whoever she or he may be.' The visitor would have only spent a few +minutes perhaps with me, but Gertrude's letter--that was her name--was +a promise of a long and pleasant evening, for it was more than a mere +invitation to dinner. She wrote: 'I have not asked any one to meet +you, but you will not mind dining alone with me. I hope you will be +able to come, for I want to consult you on a matter about which I +think you will be able to advise me.' As I dressed I wondered what she +could have to propose, and with my curiosity enkindled I walked to her +house. The evening was fine--I remember it--and she did not live far +from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and +I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had +never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to +her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be +Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of +forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners +still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French +gowns and underwear that cost a little fortune made her a woman that +one would still take a pleasure in making love to. It would be +pleasant to be her lover for many reasons. There were disadvantages, +however, for Gertrude, though never vulgar herself, liked vulgar +things. Her friends were vulgar; her flat, for she had just left her +husband, was opulent, overdecorated; the windows were too heavily +curtained, the electric light seemed to be always turned on, and as +for the pictures--well, we won't talk of them; Gertrude was the only +one worth looking at. And she was rather like a Salon picture, a +Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as +vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white +dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't +you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour +of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her +bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought +that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my +hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been +doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I +have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or +intentional." + +"Probably a little of both," Doris said. + +"I see you understand. You always understand." + +"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her +bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,' +and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company +and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two +men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking +to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist." + +"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations." + +"Yes, I think I can. You have not changed; I have not forgotten you +though we have not seen each other for five years; and now go on, tell +me about Gertrude." + +"Well, sitting beside her on the sofa----" + +"Under the shaded electric light," interrupted Doris. + +"I tried to discover--not the reason of this invitation to dinner; of +course it was natural that old friends should dine together, but she +had said in her letter that she wished to talk to me about some matter +on which she thought I could advise her. The servant would come in a +moment to announce that dinner was ready, and if Gertrude did not tell +me at once I might, if the story were a long one, have to wait till +dinner was over; her reluctance to confide in me seemed to point to +pecuniary help. Was it possible that Gertrude was going to ask me to +lend her money! If so, the loan would be a heavy one, more than I +could afford to lend. That is the advantage of knowing rich people; +when they ask for money they ask for more than one can afford to lend, +and one can say with truth: 'Were I to lend you five hundred pounds, +I should not be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.' Her +reluctance to confide in me seemed incomprehensible, unless indeed she +wanted to borrow money. But Gertrude was not that kind, and she was a +rich woman. At last, just before the servant came into the room, she +turned round saying that she had sent for me because she wished to +speak to me about a yacht. Imagine my surprise. To speak to me about a +yacht! If it had been about the picture. + +"The door opened, the servant announced that dinner was ready, and we +had to talk in French during dinner, for her news was that she had +hired a yacht for the winter in order that she might visit Greece and +the Greek Islands. But she did not dare to travel in Greece alone for +six months, and it was difficult to find a man who was free and whom +one could trust. She thought she could trust me, and remembering that +I had once liked her, it had occurred to her to ask me if I would like +to go with her. I shall never forget how Gertrude confided her plan to +me, the charming modesty with which she murmured: 'Perhaps you do +still, and you will not bore me by claiming rights over me. I don't +mind your making love to me, but I don't like rights. You know what I +mean. When we return to England you will not pursue me. You know what +I have suffered from such pursuits; you know all about it?' Is it not +curious how a woman will sometimes paint her portrait in a single +phrase; not paint, but indicate in half-a-dozen lines her whole moral +nature? Gertrude exists in the words I have quoted just as God made +her. And now I have to tell you about the pursuit. When Gertrude +mentioned it I had forgotten it; a blankness came into my face, and +she said: 'Don't you remember?' 'Of course, of course,' I said, and +this is the story within the story. + +"One day after lunch Gertrude, getting up, walked unconsciously +towards me, and quite naturally I took her in my arms, and when I had +told her how much I liked her, and the pleasure I took in her company, +she promised to meet me at a hotel in Lincoln. We were to meet there +in a fortnight's time; but two days before she sent for me, and told +me that she would have to send me away. I really did like Gertrude, +and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to +tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust +things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of +it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But +Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to +give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes--they +seemed like genuine tears--and it was difficult to believe that she +had taken all this trouble merely to arrive at this inexplicable and +most disagreeable end. Months passed without my hearing anything of +Gertrude, till one day she sent me a little present, and in response +to a letter she invited me to come to see her in the country. And, +walking through some beautiful woods, she told me the reason why she +had not gone to Lincoln. A Pole whom she had met at the gambling +tables at Monte Carlo was pursuing her, threatening her that if he saw +her with any other man he would murder her and her lover. This at +first seemed an incredible tale, but when she entered into details, +there could be no doubt that she was telling the truth, for had she +not on one occasion very nearly lost her life through this man? They +were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up +in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had +pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the +trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' +she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if +things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But +things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. 'What +you tell me is terrible'; and we talked for a long time, walking about +the woods, fearing that the Pole might spring from behind every bush, +the pistol in his hand. But he did not appear; she evidently knew +where he was, or had made some compact with him. Nevertheless, at the +close of the day, I drove through the summer evening not having got +anything from Gertrude except a promise that if she should find +herself free, she would send for me. Weeks and months went by during +which I saw Gertrude occasionally; you see love stories, once they get +entangled, remain entangled; that is what makes me fear that we shall +never be able to pick the knot that you have tied our love story into. +Misadventure followed misadventure. It seems to me that I behaved very +stupidly on many occasions; it would take too long to tell you +how--when I met her at the theatre I did not do exactly what I should +have done; and on another occasion when I met her driving in a suburb, +I did not stop her cab, and so on and so on until, resolved to bring +matters to a crisis, Gertrude had sent me an invitation to dinner, and +her plan was the charming one which I have told you, that we should +spend six months sailing about the Greek Islands in a yacht. We left +the dining-room and returned to the drawing-room, she telling me that +the yacht had been paid for--the schooner, the captain, the crew, +everything for six months; but I not unnaturally pointed out to her +that I could not accept her hospitality for so long a time, and the +greater part of the evening was spent in trying to persuade her to +allow me to pay--Gertrude was the richer--at least a third of the +upkeep of the yacht must come out of my pocket. + +"The prospect of a six months' cruise among the Greek Islands kindled +my imagination, and while listening to Gertrude I was often in spirit +far away, landing perchance at Cyprus, exalted at the prospect of +visiting the Cyprians' temple; or perchance standing with Gertrude on +the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the +sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a +wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water +parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined +how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, +a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. +'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as +I walked home, and the title of the book was an inspiration, 'An +Unsentimental Journey.' It was Gertrude's own words that had suggested +it. Had she not said that she did not mind my making love to her, but +she did not like rights? She couldn't complain if I wrote a book, and +I imagined how every evening when the lover left her, the chronicler +would sit for an hour recording his impressions. Very often he would +continue writing until the pencil dropped from his hand, till he fell +asleep in the chair. An immediate note-taking would be necessary, so +fugitive are impressions, and an analysis of his feelings, their +waxing and their waning; he would observe himself as an astronomer +observes the course of a somewhat erratic star, and his descriptions +of himself and of her would be interwoven with descriptions of the +seas across which Menelaus had gone after Helen's beauty--beauty, the +noblest of men's quests. + +"For once Nature seemed to me to put into the hands of the artist a +subject perfect in its every part; the end especially delighted me, +and I imagined our good-byes at Plymouth or Portsmouth or Hull, +wherever we might land. 'Well, Gertrude, goodbye. We have spent a very +pleasant six months together; I shall never forget our excursion. But +this is not a rupture; I may hope to see you some time during the +season? You will allow me to call about tea-time?' And she would +answer: 'Yes, you may call. You have been very nice.' Each would turn +away sighing, conscious of a little melancholy in the heart, for all +partings are sad; but at the bottom of the heart there would be a +sense of relief, of gladness--that gladness which the bird feels when +it leaves its roost: there is nothing more delicious perhaps than the +first beat of the wings. I forget now whether I looked forward most to +the lady or to the book.... If the winds had been more propitious, I +might have written a book that would have compared favourably with the +eighteenth-century literature, for the eighteenth century was cynical +in love; while making love to a woman, a gallant would often consider +a plan for her subsequent humiliation. Gouncourt----" + +"But, dear one, finish about the yacht." + +"Well, it seemed quite decided that Gertrude and I were to go to +Marseilles to meet the schooner; but the voyage from the Bay of Biscay +is a stormy and a tedious one; the weather was rough all the way, and +she took a long time to get to Gibraltar. She passed the strait +signalling to Lloyd's; we got a telegram; everything was ready; I had +ordered yachting clothes, shoes, and quantities of things; but after +that telegram no news came, and one evening Gertrude told me she was +beginning to feel anxious; the yacht ought to have arrived at +Marseilles. Three or four days passed, and then we read in the +paper--the _Evening Standard_, I think it was--the _Ring-Dove_, +a large schooner, had sunk off the coast while making for the Bay +of Plessy. Had she passed that point over yonder, no doubt she +would have been saved; all hands were lost, the captain, seven +men, and my book." + +"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were +you never her lover?" + +"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in +love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores +her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms." + +At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the +sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months' +cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I +loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that +my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and +taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't +know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had +anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing +questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in +love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though +not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that +since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once +incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a +_liaison_ that had lasted many years and had come to an end at +last. Fearing that Doris would ask if it had come to an end through +weariness, it seemed well to add that the lady had a daughter growing +up, and it was for the girl's sake we had agreed to bring our love +story to a close. We had, however, promised to remain friends. + +Doris's silence embarrassed me a little, for she didn't ask any +questions about the lady and her daughter; and it was impossible to +tell from her manner whether she believed that this lady comprised the +whole of my love life for the last five years, and if she thought I +had really broken with her. For a moment or two I did not dare to look +at Doris, and then I felt that her disbelief mattered little, so long +as it did not enter as an influencing factor into the present +situation. Under a sky as blue and amid nature poetical as a +drop-curtain, one's moral nature dozes. No doubt that was it. There is +an English church at Plessy, but really! Dear little town, town of my +heart, where the local orchestra plays "The March of Aida" and "La +Belle Helene"! If I could inoculate you, reader, with the sentiment of +the delicious pastoral you would understand why, all the time I was at +Plessy, I looked upon myself as a hero of legend, whether of the +Argonauts or the siege of Troy matters little. Returning from Mount +Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest +of women with the apple, I said: + +"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have +you been in love?" + +"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married." + +"And you are still engaged?" + +She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that +it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, +but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice. + +"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and +dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a +little mouse about?" + +"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what +happened." + +"Really?" + +"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered." + +"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall +understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as +you say, your story will ... I must hear it." + +"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered +horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over +it all again?" + +"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love +story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it. Tell it, and +in telling, the bitterness will pass from you. Who was this man? How +did you meet him?" + +"He was a friend of Albert's. Albert introduced him." + +"Albert is the man you are engaged to? The old story, the very oldest. +Why should it always be the friend? There are so many other men, but +it is always the friend who attracts." And I told Doris the story of a +friend who had once robbed me, and my story had the effect of drying +her tears. But they began again as soon as she tried to tell her own +story. There could be no doubt that she had suffered. Things are +interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; +Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it +may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert +was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have +suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed +with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she +should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories +happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the +old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and +this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my +eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of +mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that +it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. When +I turned to Doris I could see she was wholly immersed in her own +sorrow, and it took all my art to persuade her to tell it, or it +seemed as if all my art of persuasion were necessary. + +"As soon as you knew you loved him, you resolved to see him no more?" + +Doris nodded. + +"You sent him away before you yielded to him?" + +She nodded, and looking at me her eyes filled with tears, but which +only seemed to make them still more beautiful, she told me that they +had both felt that it was impossible to deceive Albert. + + * * * * * + +All love stories are alike in this; they all contain what the +reviewers call "sordid details." But if Tristan had not taken +advantage of King Mark's absence on a hunting expedition, the world +would have been the poorer of a great love story; and what, after all, +does King Mark's happiness matter to us--a poor passing thing, whose +life was only useful in this, that it gave us an immortal love story? +And if Wagner had not loved Madame Wasendonck, and if Madame +Wasendonck had not been unfaithful to her husband, we should not have +had "Tristan." Who then would, for the sake of Wasendonck's honour, +destroy the score of "Tristan"? Nor is the story of "Tristan" the only +one, nor the most famous. There is also the story of Helen. If +Menelaus's wife had not been unfaithful to him, the world would have +been the poorer of the greatest of all poems, the "Iliad" and the +"Odyssey." Dear me, when one thinks of it, one must admit that art +owes a great deal to adultery. Children are born of the marriage, +stories of the adulterous bed, and the world needs both--stories as +well as children. Even my little tale would not exist if Doris had +been a prudent maiden, nor would it have interested me to listen to +her that day by the sea if she had naught to tell me but her +unswerving love for Albert. Her story is not what the world calls a +great story, and it would be absurd to pretend that if a shorthand +writer had taken it down his report would compare with the stories of +Isolde and Helen, but I heard it from her lips, and her tears and her +beauty replaced the language of Wagner and of Homer; and so well did +they do this that I am not sure that the emotion I experienced in +listening to her was less than that which I have experienced before a +work of art. + +"Do you know," she began, "perhaps you don't, perhaps you've never +loved enough to know the anxiety one may feel for the absent. We had +been together all day once, and when we bade each other good-bye we +agreed that we should not see each other for two days, till Thursday; +but that night in bed an extraordinary desire took hold of me to know +what had become of him. I felt I must hear from him; one word would be +enough. But we had promised. It was stupid, it was madness, yet I had +to take down the telephone, and when I got into communication what do +you think the answer was?--'Thank God you telephoned! I've been +walking about the room nearly out of my mind, feeling that I should go +mad if the miracle did not happen.'" + +"If you loved Ralph better than Albert----" + +"Why didn't I give up Albert? Albert's life would have been broken and +ruined if I had done that. You see he has loved me so many years that +his life has become centred in me. He is not one of those men who like +many women. Outside of his work nothing exists but me. He doesn't care +much for reading, but he reads the books I like. I don't know that he +cares much about music for its own sake, but he likes to hear me sing +just because it is me. He never notices other women; I don't think +that he knows what they wear, but he likes my dresses, not because +they are in good taste, but because I wear them. One can't sacrifice a +man like that. What would one think of oneself? One would die of +remorse. So there was nothing to be done but for Ralph to go away. It +nearly killed me." + +"I'm afraid I can give you no such love; my affection for you will +prove very tepid after such violent emotions." + +"I don't want such emotions again; I could not bear them, they would +kill me; even a part would kill me. Two months after Ralph left I was +but a little shadow. I was thinner than I am now, I was worn to a +thread, I could hardly keep body and skirt together." + +We laughed at Doris's little joke; and we watched it curling and going +out like a wreath of cigarette smoke. + +"But did you get no happiness at all out of this great love?" + +"We were happy only a very little while." + +"How long?" + +Doris reflected. + +"We had about six weeks of what I should call real happiness, the time +while Albert was away. When he came back the misery and remorse began +again. I had to see him--not Albert, the other--every day; and Albert +began to notice that I was different. We used to go out together, we +three, and at last the sham became too great and Albert said he could +not stand it any longer. 'I prefer you should go out with him alone, +and if it be for your happiness I'll give you up.'" + +"So you nearly died of love! Well, now you must live for love, liking +things as they go by. Life is beautiful at the moment, sad when we +look back, fearful when we look forward; but I suppose it's hopeless +to expect a little Christian like you to live without drawing +conclusions, liking things as they go by as the nymphs do. Dry those +tears; forget that man. You tell me it is over and done. Remember +nothing except that the sky and the sea are blue, that it is a luxury +to feel alive here by the sea-shore. My happiness would be to make you +happy, to see you put the past out of your mind, to close your eyes to +the future. That will be easy to do by this beautiful sea-shore, under +those blue skies with flowers everywhere and drives among the +mountains awaiting us. We create our own worlds. Chance has left you +here and sent me to you. I want you to eat a great deal and to sleep +and to get fatter and to dream and to read Theocritus, so that when we +go to the mountains we shall be transported into antiquity. You must +forget Albert and him who made you unhappy--he allowed you to look +back and forwards." + +"I think I deserve some happiness; you see I have sacrificed so much." + +At these words my hopes rose--shall I say like a balloon out of which +a great weight of ballast has been thrown?--and so high did they go +that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. +"She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. +Her words could bear no other interpretation; she had spoken without +thought, and instinctively. Albert was away; why should she not take +this happiness which I offered her? Would she understand that distance +made a difference, that it was one thing to deceive Albert if he were +with her, and another when she was a thousand miles away? It was as if +we were in a foreign country; we were under palm trees, we were by the +Mediterranean. With Albert a thousand miles away it would be so easy +for her to love me. She had said there was no question of her marrying +any one but Albert--and to be unfaithful is not to be inconstant. +These were the arguments which I would use if I found that I had +misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it +would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, +feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being +able to think of anything more plausible: + +"You spoke, didn't you, of going for a drive?" + +"We were speaking of happiness--but if you'd like to go for a drive. +There's no happiness like driving." + +"Isn't there?" + +She pinched my arm, and with a choking sensation in the throat I asked +her if I should send for a carriage. + +"There will be time for a short drive before the sun setting. You said +you admired the hills--one day we will go to a hill town. There is a +beautiful one--Florac is the name of it--but we must start early in +the morning. To-day there will be only time to drive as far as the +point you have been admiring all the morning. The road winds through +the rocks, and you want to see the ilex trees." + +"My dear, I want to see you." + +"Well, you're looking at me. Come, don't be disagreeable." + +"Disagreeable, Doris! I never felt more kindly in my life. I'm still +absorbed in the strange piece of luck which has brought us together, +and in such a well-chosen spot; no other would have pleased me as +much." + +"Now why do you like the landscape? Tell me." + +"I cannot think of the landscape now, Doris: I'm thinking of you, of +what you said just now." + +"What did I say?" + +"You said--I tried to remember the words at the time, but I have +forgotten them, so many thoughts have passed through my mind +since--you said--how did you word it?--after having suffered as much +as you did, some share of happiness----" + +"No, I didn't say that; I said, having sacrificed so much, I thought I +deserved a little happiness." + +"So she knew what she was saying," I said to myself. "Her words were +not casual," but not daring to ask her if she intended to make me her +happiness, I spoke about the landscape. "You ask me why I like the +landscape? Because it carries me back into past times when men +believed in nymphs and in satyrs. I have always thought it must be a +wonderful thing to believe in the dryad. Do you know that men +wandering in the woods sometimes used to catch sight of a white breast +between the leaves, and henceforth they could love no mortal woman? +The beautiful name of their malady was nympholepsy. A disease that +every one would like to catch." + +"But if you were to catch it you wouldn't be able to love me, so I'll +not bring you to the mountains. Some peasant girl----" + +"Fie! Doris, I have never liked peasant girls." + +"Your antiquity is eighteenth-century antiquity. There are many +alcoves in it." + +"I don't know that the alcove was an invention of the eighteenth +century. There were alcoves at all times. But, Doris, good heavens! +what are those trees? Never did I see anything so ghastly; they are +like ghosts. Not only have they no leaves, but they have no bark nor +any twigs; nothing but great white trunks and branches." + +"I think they are called plantains." + +"That won't do, you are only guessing; I must ask the coachman." + +"I think, sir, they are called plantains." + +"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people." + +"Sont des plantains, Monsieur." + +"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing. + +Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields, +and Doris murmured: + +"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the +folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch." + +I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you +had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months +of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those +fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that +interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by +her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she +were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were +robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of +it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of +things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself +on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit +the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our +talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another. + +Lovers are divided into two kinds, the babbling and the silent. + +We meet specimens of the silent kind on a Thames back-water--the punt +drawn up under the shady bank with the twain lying side by side, their +arms about each other all the afternoon. When evening comes, and it is +time to return home, her fellow gets out the sculls, and they part +saying: "Well, dear, next Sunday, at the same time." "Yes, at the same +time next Sunday." + +We were of the babbling kind, as the small part of our conversation +that appears in this story shows. + +"My dear, my dear, remember that we are in an open carriage." + +"What do those folks matter to us?" + +"My dear, if I don't like it?" + +To justify my desire of her lips I began to compare her beauty with +that of a Greek head on a vase, saying that hers was a cameo-like +beauty, as dainty as any Tanagra figure. + +"And to see you and not to claim you, not to hold your face in my +hands just as one holds a vase, is----" + +"Is what?" + +"A kind of misery. What else shall I say? Fancy my disappointment if, +on digging among these mountains, I were to find a beautiful vase, and +some one were to say: 'You can look at it but not touch it.'" + +"Do you love me as well as that?" she answered, somewhat moved, for my +words expressed a genuine emotion. + +"I do indeed, Doris." + +"We might get out here. I want you to see the view from the hilltop." + +And, telling the driver that he need not follow us, to stay there and +rest his panting horse, we walked on. Whether Doris was thinking of +the view I know not; I only know that I thought only of kissing Doris. +To do so would be pleasant--in a way--even on this cold hillside, and +I noticed that the road bent round the shoulder of the mount. We soon +reached the hilltop, and we could see the road enter the village in +the dip between the hills, a double line of houses--not much +more--facing the sea, a village where we might go to have breakfast; +we might never go there; however that might be, we certainly should +remember that village and the road streaming out of it on the other +side towards the hills. Now and then we lost sight of the road; it +doubled round some rock or was hidden behind a group of trees; and +then we caught sight of it a little farther on, ascending the hills in +front of us, and no doubt on the other side it entered another +village, and so on around the coast of Italy. Even with the thought of +Doris's kisses in my mind, I could admire the road and the curves of +the bay. I felt in my pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil. The +colour was as beautiful as a Brabizon; there were many tints of blue, +no doubt, but the twilight had gathered the sea and sky into one tone, +or what seemed to be one tone. + +"You wanted to see olive trees--those are olives." + +"So those are olives! Do I at last look upon olives?" + +"Are you disappointed?" + +"Yes and no. The white gnarled trunk makes even the young trees seem +old. The olive is like an old man with skimpy legs. It seems to me a +pathetic tree. One does not like to say it is ugly; it is not ugly, +but it would be puzzling to say wherein lies its charm, for it throws +no shade, and is so grey--nothing is so grey as the olive. I like the +ilex better." + +Where the road dipped there was a group of ilex trees, and it was in +their shade that I kissed Doris, and the beauty of the trees helps me +to appreciate the sentiment of those kisses. And I remember that road +and those ilex trees as I might remember a passage in Theocritus. +Doris--her very name suggests antiquity, and it was well that she was +kissed by me for the first time under ilex trees; true that I had +kissed her before, but that earlier love story has not found a +chronicler, and probably it never will. I like to think that the +beauty of the ilex is answerable, perhaps, for Doris's kisses--in a +measure. Her dainty grace, her Tanagra beauty, seemed to harmonise +with that of the ilex, for there is an antique beauty in this tree +that we find in none other. Theocritus must have composed many a poem +beneath it. It is the only tree that the ancient world could have +cared to notice; and if it were possible to carve statues of trees, I +am sure that the ilex is the tree sculptors would choose. The beech +and the birch, all the other trees, only began to be beautiful when +men invented painting. No other tree shapes itself out so beautifully +as the ilex, lifting itself up to the sky so abundantly and with such +dignity--a very queen in a velvet gown is the ilex tree; and we stood +looking at the group, admiring its glossy thickness, till suddenly the +ilex tree went out of my mind, and I thought of the lonely night that +awaited me. + +"Doris, dear, it is more than flesh and blood can bear. My folly lay +in sending the telegram. Had I not sent it you wouldn't have known by +what train I was coming; you would have been fast asleep in your bed, +and I should have gone straight to your hotel." + +"But, darling, you wouldn't compromise me. Every one would know that +we stayed at the same hotel." + +"Dearest, it might happen by accident, and were it to happen by +accident what could you do?" + +"All I can say is that it would be a most unfortunate accident." + +"Then I have come a thousand miles for nothing. This is worse than the +time in London when I left you for your strictness. Can nothing be +done?" + +"Am I not devoted to you? We have spent the whole day together. Now I +don't think it's at all nice of you to reproach me with having brought +you on a fool's errand." + +"I didn't say that," and we quarrelled a little until we reached the +carriage. Doris was angry, and when she spoke again it was to say: + +"If you are not satisfied, you can go back. I'm sorry. I think it's +most unreasonable that you should ask me to compromise myself." + +"And I think it's unkind of you to suggest that I should go back, for +how can I go back?" + +She did not ask me why--she was too angry at the moment--and it was +well she did not, for I should have been embarrassed to tell her that +I was fairly caught. + +I had come a thousand miles to see her, and I could not say I was +going to take the _Cote d'azur_ back again, because she would not +let me stay at her hotel; to do so would be too childish, too futile. +The misery of the journey back would be unendurable. There was nothing +to do but to wait, and hope that life, which is always full of +accidents, would favour us. Better think no more about it. For it is +thinking that makes one miserable. + +There were many little things which helped to pass the time away. +Doris went every evening to a certain shop to fetch two eggs that had +been laid that morning. It was necessary for her health that she +should eat eggs beaten up with milk between the first and second +breakfast. We went there, and it was amusing to pick my way through +the streets, carrying her eggs back to the hotel for her. She knew a +few people--strange folk, I thought them--elderly spinsters living +_en pension_ at different hotels. We dined with her friends, and +after dinner Doris sang, and when she had played many things that she +used to play to me in the old days, it was time for her to go to bed, +for she rarely slept after six o'clock, so she said. + +"Good-night. Ah, no, the hour is ill," I murmured to myself as I +wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything +that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to +say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at +night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's +head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain +argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more +Christian spirit--all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads +and satyrs and fauns frightened her. In the heat of the moment one +says more than one intends, though it is quite true that, as a rule, +it is well to insist that there is no such thing as our lower nature, +that everything about us is divine. So constituted are we that the +mind accepts the convention, and what we have to do is to keep to the +convention, just as in opera. Singing appears natural so long as the +characters do not speak. Once they speak they cannot go back to music; +the convention has been broken. As in Art so it is in Life. Tell a +woman that she is a nymph, and she must not expect any more from you +than she would from a faun, that all you know is the joy of the +sunlight, that you have no dreams beyond the worship of the perfect +circle of her breast, and the desire to gather grapes for her, and she +will give herself to you unconscious of sin. I must have fallen asleep +thinking of these things, and I must have slept soundly, for I +remembered nothing until the servant came in with my bath, and I saw +again the pretty sunlight flickering along the wall-paper. Before +parting the previous night, Doris and I had arranged that I was to +call an hour earlier than usual at the hotel; I was to be there at +half-past ten. She had promised to be ready. We were going to drive to +Florac, to one of the hill towns, and it would take two hours to get +there. We were going to breakfast there, and while I dressed, and in +the carriage going there, I cherished the hope that perhaps I might be +able to persuade Doris to breakfast in a private room, though feeling +all the while that it would be difficult to do so, for the public room +would be empty, and crowds of waiters would gather about us like +rooks, each trying to entice us towards his table. + +The village of Florac is high up among the hills, built along certain +ledges of rock overlooking the valley, and going south in the train +one catches sight of many towns, like it built among mountain +declivities, hanging out like nests over the edge of precipices, +showing against a red background, crowning the rocky hill. No doubt +these mediaeval towns were built in these strange places because of +the security that summit gives against raiders. One can think of no +other reason, for it is hard to believe that in the fifteenth century +men were so captivated with the picturesque that for the sake of it +they would drag every necessary of life up these hills, several +hundred feet above the plain, probably by difficult paths--the +excellent road that wound along the edge of the hills, now to the +right, now to the left, looping itself round every sudden ascent like +a grey ribbon round a hat, did not exist when Florac was built. On the +left the ground shelves away into the valley, down towards the sea, +and olives were growing down all these hillsides. Above us were olive +trees, with here and there an orange orchard, and the golden fruit +shining among the dark leaves continued to interest me. Every now and +again some sudden aspect interrupted our conversation; the bay as it +swept round the carved mountains, looking in the distance more than +ever like an old Italian picture of a time before painters began to +think about values and truth of effect, when the minds of men were +concerned with beauty; as mine was, for every time I looked at Doris +it occurred to me that I had never seen anything prettier, and not +only her face but her talk still continued to enchant me. She was +always so eager to tell me things, that she must interrupt, and these +interruptions were pleasant. I identified them with her, and so +closely that I can remember how our talk began when we got out of the +suburbs. By the last villa there was a eucalyptus tree growing; the +sun was shining, and Doris had asked me to hold her parasol for her; +but the road zigzagged so constantly that I never shifted the parasol +in time, and a ray would catch her just in the face, adding perhaps to +the freckles--there were just a few down that little nose which was +always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our +talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those +little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only +from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest +us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear +Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I +have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember +suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, +that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch +and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in +the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down +the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where +one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going +to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I +should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I +agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is +only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... + +"But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." + +"I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am +amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is +amused, whether somebody is making love to her." + +"Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to +anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, +the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, +only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the +sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." + +"My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been +there." + +"Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up +two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The +seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who +suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb +the Matterhorn." + +"The Matterhorn!" + +"Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, +glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him +saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and +would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he +answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arreter pour +vous expliquer les trois passes.'" + +Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years +ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the +_fussent_ and the _eussent, ete_, and when our language of +the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we +had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days +in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course. + +"I'm not sure at all that mountain air would not do me good. Plessy +lies very low and is very relaxing." + +"Very." + +But though I convinced her that it would have been better if she had +gone at once to stop at Florac, I could do nothing to persuade her to +pass three days with me in the inn there. As we drove up through the +town the only hope that remained in my mind was that I might induce +her to take breakfast in a private room. But the _salle du +restaurant_ was fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, it contained a +hundred tables, maybe more, the floor was polished oak, and the +ceilings were painted and gilded, and there were fifty waiters waiting +for the swallows that would soon arrive from the north; we were the +van birds. + +"Shall we breakfast in a private room?" I whispered humbly. + +"Good heavens! no! I wouldn't dare to go into a private room before +all these waiters." + +My heart sank again, and when Doris said, "Where shall we sit?" I +answered, "Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter." + +It had taken two hours for the horses to crawl up to the mountain +town, and as I had no early breakfast I was ravenously hungry. A box +of sardines and a plate of butter, and the prospect of an omelette and +a steak, put all thoughts of Doris for the moment out of my head, and +that was a good thing. We babbled on, and it was impossible to say +which was the more interested, which enjoyed talking most; and the +pleasure which each took in talking and hearing the other talk became +noticeable. + +"I didn't interrupt you just now, I thought it would be cruel, for you +were enjoying yourself so much," said Doris, laughing. + +"Well, I promise not to interrupt the next time--you were in the midst +of one of your stories." + +It was not long before she was telling me another story, for Doris was +full of stories. She observed life as it went by, and could recall +what she had seen. Our talk had gone back to years before, to the +evening when I first saw her cross the drawing-room in a white dress, +her gold hair hanging over her shoulders; and in that moment, as she +crossed the room, I had noticed a look of recognition in her eyes; the +look was purely instinctive; she was not aware of it herself, but I +could not help understanding it as a look whereby she recognised me as +one of her kin. I had often spoken to her of that look, and we liked +speaking about it, and about the time when we became friends in Paris. +She had written asking me to go to see her and her mother. I had found +them in a strange little hotel, just starting for some distant suburb, +going there to buy presents from an old couple, dealers in china and +glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy +her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of +those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save +twopence on a vase. + +"It took us two hours to get to that old, forgotten quarter, to the +old quaint street where they lived. They were old-world Jews who read +the Talmud, and seemed to be quite isolated, out of touch with the +modern world. It was like going back to the Middle Ages; this queer +old couple moving like goblins among the china and glass. Do you ever +see them now? Are they dead?" + +"Let me tell you," cried Doris, "what happened. The old man died two +years ago, and his wife, who had lived with him for forty years, could +not bear to live alone, so what do you think she did? She sent for her +brother-in-law----" + +"To marry him?" + +"No, not to marry him, but to talk to him about her husband. You see +this couple had lived together for so many years that she had become +ingrained, as it were, in the personality of her late husband, her +habits had become his habits, his thoughts had become hers. The story +really is very funny," and Doris burst out laughing, and for some time +she could not speak with laughing. "I am sorry for the poor man," she +said at last. + +"For whom? For the brother-in-law?" + +"Yes; you see he is dyspeptic, and he can't eat the dishes at all that +his brother used to like, but the wife can't and won't cook anything +else." + +"In other words," I said, "the souvenir of brother Isaac is poisoning +brother Jacob." + +"That is it." + +"What a strange place this world is!" And then my mind drifted back +suddenly. "O Doris, I'm so unhappy--this place--I wish I had never +come." + +"Now, now, have a little patience. Everything comes right in the end." + +"We shall never be alone." + +"Yes, we shall. Why do you think that?" + +"Because I can't think of anything else." + +"Well, you must think of something else. We're going to the factory +where they make perfume, and I'm going to buy a great many bottles of +scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy +the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper." + +"Don't you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a +church here." + +On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed +Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the +superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few +old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did +not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear +that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease +absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of +alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what +perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris +decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of +that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she +always used it. + +"And you like it, don't you dear?" + +"Yes, but what does it matter what I like?" + +"Now, don't be cross. Don't look so sad." + +"I don't mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase +of heliotrope is really too cynical." + +"Cynical! Why is it cynical?" + +"Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving +among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour +as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?" + +"But, dear one----" + +I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the +carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm +calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the +driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing +chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his +horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one +is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were +passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back +to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, +for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after +her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said: + +"You don't mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a +visit to pay." + +In the three weeks' time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, +Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who +lived in the different hotels _en pension_, and who would go away +as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another "resort" where the +season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and +bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs +and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had +explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once. + +"But as we're going to spend the evening with them, I don't see the +necessity----" + +"Of course not, dear, but don't you remember you promised to go to see +the Formans with me?" + +Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been +able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to +Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her +daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to +dinner, "One of the family is enough." What her mother's age could be +I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But +after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so +old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those +who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is +generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to +narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions +age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see +from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her +life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those +daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living +with their mothers on small incomes. "The daughter's tragedy is +written all over her face," I said, and while speaking to her I +scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that +tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are +heroines--the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, +grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her +manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the +life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked +old-fashioned--why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black +lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung +from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of +bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me +farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed +to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a +rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, +before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and +her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her +politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished +speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind +was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most +trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and +sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her +ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking +of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it +wonderful that her mother had read--shall we say, "The Three +Musketeers?" three times. She was interested in all her mother's +characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her +mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she +pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to +understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a +colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be +forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, +philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to +this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I +have no right to grumble." + +I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, +I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who +accepts her daughter's sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter +that has been sacrificed. From the daughter's appearance I had +imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, +lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered +with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature +is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, +two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a +more subtle rhythm. But though Nature's rhythm is irregular, its +irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear +that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I +recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and +that Nature's combination was more harmonious than mine. The first +thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the +daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five +years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been +overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have +grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt +somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her +love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up +hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma--that +short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything +else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small +beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face--forgetful of her +daughter's sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their +shins over the fire: + +"Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn't marry +Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well." + +My interest in these two women who had lived side by side all their +lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if +Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house +by her mother's side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I +waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for +as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had +lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and +planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her +high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so +energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even +her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss +Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer +heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had +gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks +there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman +explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, +"Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go +home again"; and they had come home after six days in the hill +village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her +mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: "I +always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here +until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come +down to mamma's balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go +away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. +I don't think mamma was ever afraid of anything." Her voice seemed to +me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, "I don't think mamma was +ever afraid of anything," and I said, "She is proud of her ideal, and +it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not +for her at least," and noticing that the three women were talking +together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to +studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived. + +On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits--two +engravings--and I did not need to look at the date to know that they +had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other +her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in +my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a +small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa +covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More +characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music +rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her +stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same +old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little. + +Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be +regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to +the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back +again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans +had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please +them. "They don't know anything about singing," she whispered to me; +"but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little +to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for +them to hear me sing," and she went to the piano and sang song after +song. + +"It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a +middle-aged woman," Mrs. Forman said, "and I hope you will come to see +us again, both of you." + +"What should bring me to see them again?" I asked myself as I tried to +get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making +impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to +England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to +Plessy again she would rush to see them. "Why should she go on like +that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this +world?" I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should +accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss +Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and +Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would +come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to +send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and +she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she +consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. +"No," she said, "I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this +evening to try on mamma's dress, and mamma is very particular about +her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown +had to go back--you must excuse me." + +"Good-bye, dear, good-bye," I heard Doris crying, and I said to +myself, "How kind she is!" + +"Now, my dear, aren't you glad that you came to see them? Aren't they +nice? Isn't she good? And you like goodness." + +"Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. +Don't you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon +your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your +face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems +to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my +love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, +years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become +of the two blind women you used to help?" + +"So you haven't forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful +that a blind woman should be able to get her living." + +"Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any +one should be able to earn his living." + +"You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not +realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs." + +"But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough +money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, +knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever +it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the +dark." + +"Do you remember her story?" + +"I think so. She was once rich, wasn't she? In fairly easy +circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit +by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told +it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part +of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even +then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox +and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to +England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop +in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And +where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind +woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don't +understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work +every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who +led her about? + +"How well you remember, dear." + +"Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a +sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind +woman's life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never +happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a +hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman's life. +Now don't tell me; it's all coming back to me. Something about a +student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and +they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each +other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. +This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with +serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to +read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty +story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud +to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?" + +"No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference." + +"You're quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it +was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn't he?" + +Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. "No +sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst +kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a +long time. The friend upstairs didn't dare to come down to tell her. +But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It's +extraordinary how tragedy follows some." + +"Isn't it?" + +"And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But +she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people +who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no +interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable +are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money's worth. I +only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her +truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything +from her!" + +"Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?" + +"Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn't she?" Doris nodded. +"And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three +or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman +with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet." + +"I don't think I said like red velvet, dear." + +"Well, it doesn't sound like a woman's description of another woman, +but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that +that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have +love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn't +realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the +blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things +from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, +something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love +than anybody else. She wouldn't know if he were a man of forty or one +of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?" + +"Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are." + +"Perhaps." + +"I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man +and a middle-aged. There was little she didn't know." + +"I daresay you're quite right. But still everything must have been +more intense and vague. When the blind woman's lover is not speaking +to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home +she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. +She doesn't know what eyes are, but she imagines them like--what? +anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no +eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes +like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think +of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front +of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice +to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that +these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a +difficult thing to do in any circumstances--but in hers! And when her +voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her +one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the +one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn't +know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when +she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching +recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils +might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?" + +"I don't think there was any reason. She lost her pupils in the +ordinary way; she was unlucky. As you were just saying, it was more +difficult for her to earn her living than for those who could see, and +Judith is no longer as young as she was; she isn't old, she is still a +handsome woman, but in a few years.... If old-age pensions are to be +granted to people, they surely ought to be granted to blind women." + +"Yes, I remember; the sentiment of the whole story is in my mind; only +I am a little confused about the facts. I remember you wrote a lot of +letters--how was it?" + +"Well, I just felt that the thing to do was to get an annuity for +Judith; I could not afford to give her one myself; so after a great +deal of trouble I got into communication with a rich woman who was +interested in the blind and wanted to found one." + +"You are quite right, that was it. You must have written dozens of +letters." + +"Yes, indeed, and all to no purpose. Judith knew the trouble I was +taking, but she couldn't bear with her loneliness any longer; the +dread of the long evenings by herself began to prey upon her nerves, +and she went off to Peckham to marry a blind man--quite an elderly +man; he was over sixty. They had known each other for some time, and +he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty +pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than +the annuity." + +"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity." + +"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The +charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she +regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from +somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel +herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages." + +"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its +goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't +even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to +live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to +live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they +are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I +mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if +she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!" + +"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write +them." + +"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach; +only Turgenieff could write them. But here we are at the Dog's Home." + +"Don't talk like that--it's unkind." + +"I don't mean to be unkind, but I have to try to realise things before +I can appreciate them." + +It seemed not a little incongruous that these two little spinsters +should pay for our dinners, and I tried to induce Doris to agree to +some modification in the present arrangements, but she said it was +their wish to entertain us. + +The evening I spent in that hotel hearing Doris sing, and myself +talking literature to a company of about a dozen spinsters, all plain +and elderly, all trying to live upon incomes varying from a hundred +and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, comes up before my mind, every +incident. Life is full of incidents, only our intelligence is not +always sufficiently trained to perceive them; and the incident I am +about to mention was important in the life I am describing. Miss Tubbs +had asked me what wine I would drink. And in a moment of inadvertence +I said "Vin Ordinaire," forgetting that the two shillings the wine +would cost would probably mean that Miss Tubbs would very likely have +to go without her cup of tea at five o'clock next day in order that +her expenditure should not exceed her limit, and I thought how +difficult life must be on these slippery rocks, incomes of one hundred +and fifty a year. Poor little gentlefolk, roving about from one +boarding-house to another, always in search of the cheapest, sometimes +getting into boarding-houses where the cheapness of the food +necessitates sending for the doctor, so the gain on one side is a loss +on the other. Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, +the pence and threepenny bits of human life! + +That Doris's singing should have provoked remarks painfully +inadequate, mattered little. Inadequate remarks about singing and +about the other arts are as common in London drawing-rooms as in +hotels and boarding-houses (all hotels are boarding-houses; there is +really no difference), and the company I found in these winter resorts +would have interested me at any other time. I can be interested in the +woman who collects stamps, in the gentle soul who keeps a botany book +in which all kinds of quaint entries are found, in the lady who writes +for the papers, and the one who is supposed to have a past. Wherever +human beings collect there is always to be found somebody of interest, +but when one's interest is centred in a lady, everybody else becomes +an enemy; and I looked upon all these harmless spinsters as my +enemies, and their proposals for excursions, and luncheons, and +dinners caused me much misgiving, not only because they separated me +from Doris, but because I felt that any incident, the proposed picnic, +might prove a shipwrecking reef. One cannot predict what will happen. +Life is so full of incidents; a woman's jealous tongue or the arrival +of some acquaintance might bring about a catastrophe. A love affair +hangs upon a gossamer thread, you know, and that is why I tried to +persuade Doris away from her friends. + +She was very kind and good and didn't inflict the society of these +people too much upon me. Perhaps she was conscious of the danger +herself, and we only visited the boarding-houses in the evening. But +these visits grew intolerable. The society of Miss Tubbs and Miss +Whitworth jarred the impressions of a long day spent in the open air, +in a landscape where once the temples of the gods had been, where men +had once lived who had seen, or at all events believed, in the fauns +and the dryads, in the grotto where the siren swims. + +One afternoon I said to Doris: "I'm afraid I can't go to see Miss +Tubbs this evening. Can't we devise something else? Another dinner in +a boarding-house would lead me to suicide, I think." + +"You would like to drown yourself in that bay and join the nymphs. Do +you think they would prove kinder than I?" + +I did not answer Doris. I suddenly seemed to despair; the exquisite +tenderness of the sky, and the inveigling curves of the bay seemed to +become detestable to me, theatrical, absurd. "Good God!" I thought: "I +shall never win her love. All my journey is in vain, and all this +love-making." The scene before me was the most beautiful in shape and +colour I had ever seen; but I am in no mood to describe the +Leonardo-like mountains enframing the azure bay. The reader must +imagine us leaning over a low wall watching the sea water gurgling +among the rocks. We had come to see some gardens. The waiter at my +hotel had told me of some, the property of a gentleman kind enough to +throw them open to the public twice a week; and I had taken his +advice, though gardens find little favour with me--now and again an +old English garden, but the well-kept horticultural is my abhorrence. +But one cannot tell a coachman to drive along the road, one must tell +him to go somewhere, so we had come to see what was to be seen. And +all was as I had imagined it, only worse; the tall wrought-iron gate +was twenty feet high, there was a naked pavilion behind it, and a +woman seated at a table with a cash-box in front of her. This woman +took a franc apiece, and told us that the money was to be devoted to a +charitable purpose; we were then free to wander down a gravel walk +twenty feet wide branching to the right and the left, along a line of +closely clipped shrubs, with a bunch of tall grasses here and a +foreign fir there; gardens that a painter would turn from in horror. I +said to Doris: + +"This is as tedious as a play at the _Comedie_, as tiresome as a +tragedy by Racine, and very like one. Let us seek out one of the +external walks overlooking the sea; even there I'm afraid the +knowledge that these shrubs are behind us will spoil our pleasure." + +Doris laughed; that was one of her charms, she could be amused; and it +was in this mood that we sat down on a seat placed in a low wall +overlooking the bay, looking at each other, basking in the rays of the +afternoon sun, and there we sat for some little while indolent as +lizards. Pointing to one at a little distance I said: + +"It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not +sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake +all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I +was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. +Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one +doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy." + +"But why, dear, do you allow yourself to be unhappy? Look at that +lizard. Isn't he nice? Isn't he satisfied? He desires nothing but what +he has got, light and warmth." + +"And, Doris, would you like me to be as content as that lizard--to +desire nothing more than light and warmth?" + +Doris looked at me, and thinking her eyes more beautiful even than the +sunlight, I said: + + "'And the sunlight clasps the earth, + And the moonbeams kiss the sea, + But what are all those kissings worth, + If thou kiss not me?' + +"That is the eternal song of the spheres and of the flowers. If I don't +become part of the great harmony, I must die." + +"But you do kiss me," Doris answered wilfully, "when the evening turns +cold and the coachman puts up the hood of the carriage." + +"Wilful Doris! Pretty puss cat!" + +"I'm not a puss cat; I'm not playing with you, dear. I do assure you I +feel the strain of these days; but what am I to do? You wouldn't have +me tell you to stay at my hotel and to compromise myself before all +these people?" + +"These people! Those boarding-houses are driving me mad! That Miss +Forman!" + +"I thought you liked her. You said she is good, 'a simple, kind +person, without pretensions.' And that is enough, according to +yesterday's creed. You were never nicer than you were yesterday +speaking of her (I remember your words): you said the flesh fades, the +intellect withers, only the heart remembers. Do you recant all this?" + +"No, I recant nothing; only yesterday's truth is not to-day's. One day +we are attracted by goodness, another day by beauty; and beauty has +been calling me day after day: at first the call was heard far away +like a horn in the woods, but now the call has become more imperative, +and all the landscape is musical. Yesterday standing by those ancient +ruins, it seemed to me as if I had been transported out of my present +nature back to my original nature of two thousand years ago. The sight +of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I +say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never +wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never +appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to +appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that +has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me. +That hat I would put away----" + +"Don't you like my hat?" + +"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two +thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the +nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes." + +"Why should you not see her, dear?" + +"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their +inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me. +I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am +saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me +of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite +clear to me." + +"But you do possess me, dear?" + +"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that +will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live, +but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the +squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard. If some way is not +found out of this horrible dilemma, I shall remember you as a +collector remembers a vase which a workman handed to him and which +slipped and was broken, or like a vase that was stolen from him; I +cannot find a perfect simile, at least not at this moment; my speech +is imperfect, but you will understand." + +"Yes, I understand, I think I understand." + +"If I do not get you, it will seem to me that I have lived in vain." + +"But, dear one, things are not so bad as that. We need not be in Paris +for some days yet, and though I cannot ask you to my hotel, there is +no reason why----" + +"Doris, do not raise up false hopes." + +"I was only going to say, dear, that it does not seem to be necessary +that we should go straight back to Paris." + +"You mean that we might stop somewhere at some old Roman town, at +Arles in an eighteenth-century house. O Doris, how enchanting this +would be! I hardly dare to think lest----" + +"Lest what, dear? Lest I should deceive you?" + +There was a delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot +be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired +by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the +eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the +nineteenth, and had reproduced its spirit. + +"Is it not strange that, in the midst of reality, artistic conceptions +always hang about me; but shall I ever possess you, Doris? Is it my +delicious fate to spend three days with you in an old Roman town?" + +"There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Where shall it be?" + +"Any town would be sufficient with you, Doris; but let us think of +some beautiful place"; and looking across the bay into the sunset, I +recalled as many names as I could; many of those old Roman towns rose +up before my eyes, classic remains mingling with mediaeval towers, +cathedral spires rising over walls on which Roman sentries had once +paced. We could only spend our honeymoon in a town with a beautiful +name--a beautiful name was essential--a name that it would be a +delight to remember for ever after; the name would have to express by +some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be +expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking +doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was +too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after +all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were +rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among +these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening +and the next we studied _L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer_. +"Armance," I said, interrupting Doris, who was telling me that we +should lose our tickets by the _Cote d'Azur_. For in Doris's +opinion it was necessary that we should leave Plessy by the _Cote +d'Azur_. Her friends would certainly come to the station to see her +off. "That is a matter of no moment," I said. "At Marseilles we can +catch an express train, which will be nearly as good. There are two +excellent trains; either will do, if you have decided to spend three +days at Armance." + +She asked me if Armance were a village or a town, and I answered, +"What matter?"--for everywhere in France there are good beds and good +food and good wine--ay, and omelettes. We should do very well in any +village in the south of France for three days. But suddenly two names +caught my eye, Orelay and Verlancourt, and we agreed that we preferred +either of these names to Armance. + +"Which name shall give shelter to two unfortunate lovers flying in +search of solitude?" + +"Orelay is a beautiful name." + +"Orelay it shall be," I said. "We shall be able to get there from +Marseilles in a few hours." + +"You see, dear, it would be impossible for me to travel all the way to +Paris--a journey of at least twenty-four hours would kill me, and I'm +not strong; nothing tires me more than railway traveling. We must stop +somewhere. Why not at Orelay?" + +As this history can have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I +must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify +herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human +than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not +unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would +strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, +no more: where there is no subterfuge there is no life. + +This story will be read, no doubt, by the young and the old, the wise +and the foolish, by the temperate and the intemperate, but the subject +matter is so common to all men that it will interest every one, even +ecclesiastics, every one except certain gentlemen residing chiefly in +Constantinople, whose hostility to the lover on his errand is so well +known, and so easily understandable, that I must renounce all hope of +numbering them among the admirers of my own or Doris's frailty. But +happily these gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected +that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of +certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary +falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting +abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few +critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged +men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an interest in +a love story; in these modern days when the novel wanders even as far +as the nuns in their cells (I have good authority for making this +statement), perhaps I may be able to count upon an aged Mother Abbess +to be, outwardly perhaps a disapproving, but at heart a sympathetic +reader. Indeed, I count upon the ascetic more than upon any other +class for appreciation, for the imagination of those who have had no +experience in love adventures will enkindle, and they will appreciate +perhaps more intensely than any other the mental trouble that a +journey to Orelay with Doris would entail. + +It would take nearly five hours according to the time table to get +from Marseilles to Orelay; and these five hours would wear themselves +wearily away in conversation with Doris, in talking to her of every +subject except the subject uppermost in my mind. I should have kept a +notebook, just as I had arranged to do when I thought I was going on +the yachting excursion among the Greek Islands with Gertrude; but, +having no notes, I can only appeal to the reader's imagination. I must +ask him to remember the week of cruel abstinence I had been through, +and to take it into his consideration. My dear, dear reader, I am sure +you can see me if you try (in your mind's eye, of course) walking +about the corridors, seeking the guard, asking every one I meet: + +"How far away are we now from Orelay?" + +"Orelay? Nearly two hours from Orelay." + +Our heavy luggage had been sent on before, but we had a number of +dressing cases and bags with us, and there might not be time to remove +all these. The guard, who had promised to take them out of the +carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be, +he was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times +up and down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader, +can you not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of +catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not +stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young +lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last +moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw +myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake +of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is +an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and +every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of +the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes +closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to +Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I? + +And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same +interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often +as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between +us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our +lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an +excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day. And as I write +the sad thought floats past that such expectations will never be my +lot again. The delights of the moment are perhaps behind me, but why +should I feel sad for that? Life is always beautiful, in age as well +as in youth; the old have a joy that the youths do not +know--recollection. It is through memory we know ourselves; without +memory it might be said we have hardly lived at all, or only like +animals. + +This is a point on which I would speak seriously to every reader, +especially to my young readers; for it is of the utmost importance +that every one should select adventures that not only please them at +the moment, but can be looked back upon with admiration, and for which +one can offer up a mute thanksgiving. My life would not have been +complete, a corner-stone would have been lacking if Doris had not come +to Orelay with me. Without her I should not have known the joy that +perfect beauty gives; that beauty which haunted in antiquity would +never have been known to me. But without more, as the lawyers say, we +will return to Doris. I asked her if she had been asleep? No, she had +not slept, only it rested her to keep her eyes closed, the sunlight +fatigued her. I did not like to hear her talk of fatigue, and to hide +from her what was passing in my mind I tried to invent some +conversation. Orelay--what a lovely name it was! Did she think the +town would vindicate or belie its name? She smiled faintly and said +she would not feel fatigued as soon as she got out of the train, and +there was some consolation in the thought that her health would not +allow her to get farther that day than Orelay. + +We decided to stay at the Hotel des Valois. One of the passengers had +spoken to me of this hotel; he had never stayed there himself, but he +believed it to be an excellent hotel. But it was not his +recommendation that influenced me, it was the name--the Hotel des +Valois. How splendid! And when we got out at Orelay I asked the +porters and the station-master if they could recommend a hotel. No, +but they agreed that the Hotel des Valois was as good as any other. We +drove there wondering what it would be like. Everything had turned out +well up to the present, but everything would go for naught if the +Hotel des Valois should prove unworthy of its name. And the first +sight of it was certainly disappointing. Its courtyard was +insignificant, only saved by a beautiful ilex tree growing in one +corner. The next moment I noticed that the porch of the hotel was +pretty and refined--a curious porch it was, giving the hotel for a +moment the look of an eighteenth-century English country house. There +were numerous windows with small panes, and one divined the hall +beyond the porch. The hall delighted us, and I said to Doris as we +passed through that the hotel must have been a nobleman's house some +long while ago, when Orelay had a society of its own, perhaps a +language, for in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century Provencal +or some other dialect must have been written or spoken at Orelay. We +admired the galleries overlooking the hall, and the staircase leading +to them. We seemed to have been transported into the eighteenth +century; the atmosphere was that of a Boucher, a provincial Boucher +perhaps, but an eighteenth-century artist for all that. The doves that +crowd round Aphrodite seemed to have led us right; and we foresaw a +large quiet bedroom with an Aubusson carpet in the middle of a parquet +floor, writing-tables in the corners of the room or in the +silken-curtained windows. + +This was the kind of room I had imagined--one as large as a +drawing-room, and furnished like a drawing-room, with sofas and +arm-chairs that we could draw around the fire, and myself and Doris +sitting there talking. Love is composed in a large measure of desire +of intimacy, and if the affection that birds experience in making +their nest be not imitated, love descends to the base satisfaction of +animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as +soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better +than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of +the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were +offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined +the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French +words _chambre meublee_ will convey an idea of the rooms we were +shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into the +corner, an eider-down on top, a tall dusty window facing the bed, with +skimpy red curtains and a vacant fireplace? There were, no doubt, a +few chairs--but what chairs! + +The scene was at once tragic and comic. It was of vital importance to +myself and Doris to find a room such as I have attempted to describe, +and it was of equal indifference to the waiter whether we did or +didn't. The appearance of each contributed to the character of the +scene. Doris's appearance I have tried to make clear to the reader; +mine must be imagined; it only remains for me to tell what the waiter +was like; an old man, short and thick, slow on the feet from long +service, enveloped in an enormous apron; one only saw the ends of his +trousers and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever +seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his +head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a +pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and +restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a +thick provincial accent--that alone amused me. + +"Have you no other rooms?" + +"Nous n'avons que cela." + +I quote his words in the language in which they were spoken, for I +remember how brutal they seemed, and how entirely in keeping with the +character of the room. No doubt the words will seem flat and tame to +the reader, but they never can seem that to me. "_Nous n'avons que +cela_" will always be to me as pregnant with meaning as the famous +_to be or not to be_. For it really amounted to that. I can see +Doris standing by me, charming, graceful as a little Tanagra +statuette, seemingly not aware of the degradation that the possession +of her love would mean in such a room as that which we stood in; and I +think I can honestly say that I wished we had never come to Orelay, +that we had gone straight on to Paris. It were better even to +sacrifice her love than that it should be degraded by vulgar +circumstances; and, instead of a holy rite, my honeymoon had come to +seem to me what the black mass must seem to the devout Christian. + +"The rooms will look better," Doris said, "when fires have been +lighted, and when our bags are unpacked. A skirt thrown over the arm +of a chair furnishes a room." + +Taking her hands in mine I kissed them, and was almost consoled; but +at that moment my eyes fell upon the beds, and I said: + +"Those beds! O Doris, those beds! yours is no better than mine." Women +are always satisfied, or they are kind, or they are wise; and accept +the inevitable without a murmur. + +"Dearest, ask the waiter to bring us some hot water." + +I did so, and while he was away I paced the room, unable to think of +anything but the high bed; it was impossible to put out of my sight +the ridiculous spectacle of a couple in a nightgown and pyjama suit +climbing into it. The vision of myself and Doris lying under that +eider-down, facing that tall window, with nothing to shut out the +light but those vulgar lace curtains, pursued me, and I paced the room +till the pink waiter returned with two jugs; and then, feeling very +miserable, I began to unpack my bag without getting further than the +removal of the brushes and comb; Doris unpacked a few things, and she +washed her hands, and I thought I might wash mine; but before I had +finished washing them I left the dreadful basin, and going to Doris +with dripping hands I said: + +"There is very little difference in the rooms. Perhaps you would like +to sleep in mine?" + +"I can see no difference. I think I'll remain where I am." + +Which room she slept in may seem insignificant to the reader, but this +is not so, for had we changed rooms this story would never have been +written. I can see myself even now walking to and fro like a caged +animal vainly seeking for a way of escape, till suddenly--my adventure +reminds me very much of the beginning of many romantic novels--the +tapestry that the wind had blown aside, the discovery of the secret +door--suddenly I discovered a door in the wall paper; it was +unlatched, and pushing through it I descended two steps, and lo! I was +in the room of my heart's desire; a large, richly-coloured saloon with +beautifully proportioned windows and red silk damask curtains hanging +from carved cornices, and all the old gilding still upon them. And the +silk fell into such graceful folds that the proportions of the windows +were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine +romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the +curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the +marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to +examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value +... it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago. + +"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and +seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom +likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, +it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, +"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But +the curtains hung well from _les ciels de lit_ (one cannot say +_cieux de lit_, I suppose)--the English word is, I think, +"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I +muttered, "but _a la rigueur ca peut marcher_." But pursuing my +quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two +windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have +satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable +Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various +perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed +should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my +head: + + "Madame, shall we undress you for the fight? + The wars are naked that you make to-night." + +And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with +a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a +crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.... He rarely painted +bedrooms. I do not remember any at this moment; but I remember many by +Fragonard, and Fragonard would have said: "I have no fault to find +with that bed." The carpet was not Aubusson, but it was nevertheless a +finely-designed carpet, and its colour was harmonious; the sofa was +shapely enough, and the Louis XVI. arm-chairs were filled with deep +cushions. I turned to the toilet-table fearing it might prove an +incongruity, but it was in perfect keeping with the room, and I began +at once to look forward to seeing it laid out with all the manifold +ivories and silver of Doris's dressing-case. + +Imagine my flight, dear reader, if you can, back to Doris, whom I had +left trying to make the best of that miserable square room; more like +a prison cell than a bedroom. + +"What is the matter, dearest?" she asked. + +But without answering her I said, "Give me your hand," and led her as +a prince leads his betrothed, in a fairy tale, through the +richly-coloured salon, lingering a moment for her to admire it, and +then I took her through my room, the double-bedded room, saying: "All +this is nothing; wait till you see your room." And Doris paused +overcome by the beauty of the bed, of the curtains falling from the +tester gracefully as laburnum or acacia branches in June. + +"The rooms are beautiful, but a little cheerless." + +"Doris, Doris, you don't deserve to lie there! The windows of course +must be opened, fresh air must be let in, and fires must be lighted. +But think of you and me sitting here side by side talking before our +bedtime." + +Fires were lighted quickly, servants came in bearing candelabra in +their hands, and among them, and with Doris by my side, I imagined +myself a prince, for who is a prince but he who possesses the most +desirable thing in the world, who finds himself in the most delectable +circumstances? And what circumstance is more delightful than sitting +in a great shadowy bedroom, watching the logs burning, shedding their +grateful heat through the room, for the logs that were brought to us, +as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in +Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense +and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very +soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had +said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; +and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room +back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a +flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing tables, filled +with pigments and powders and glasses. + +There was one of those tables in the room, and I drew it from the +corner and raised its lid, the lid with the looking-glass in it. And I +liked the unpacking of her dressing-case, the discovery of a multitude +of things for bodily use, the various sponges; the flat sponge for the +face, the round sponge for the body, and the little sponges; all the +scissors and the powder for the nails, and the scents, the soft silks, +the lace scarfs, and the long silk nightgown soon to droop over her +shoulders. My description by no means exhausts the many things she +produced from her dressing-case and bags, nor would the most complete +catalogue convey an impression of Doris's cleanliness of her little +body! One would have to see her arranging her things, with her long +curved hands and almond nails carefully cut--they were her immediate +care, and many powders and ointments and polishers were called into +requisition. Some reader will cry that all this is most unimportant, +but he is either hypocritical or stupid, for it is only with scent and +silk and artifices that we raise love from an instinct to a passion. + +"I am longing," said Doris, "to see that beautiful red drawing-room +with all the candelabra lighted and half a dozen logs blazing on the +hearth. It is extraordinary how cold it is." + +To procure an impartial mind, bodily ease is necessary, and we sat on +either side of a splendid fire warming our toes. At the bottom of his +heart every Christian feels, though he may not care to admit it in +these modern days, that every attempt to make love a beautiful and +pleasurable thing is a return to paganism. In his eyes the only excuse +for man's love of woman is that without it the world would come to an +end. Why he should consider the end of the world a misfortune I have +never been able to find out, for if his creed be a true one the +principal use of this world is to supply Hell with fuel. He is never +weary of telling us that very few indeed may hope to get to Heaven. + +"But France is not a Christian country, and yet you see the high bed +has not become extinct," said Doris. + +Doris, who was doubtless feeling a little tired, sat looking into the +fire. Her attitude encouraged reverie; dream linked into dream till at +last the chain of dreams was broken by the entrance of the pink waiter +bringing in our dinner. In the afternoon I had called him an imbecile, +which made him very angry, and he had explained that he was not an +imbecile, but if I hurried him he lost his head altogether. Of course +one is sorry for speaking rudely to a waiter; it is a shocking thing +to do, and nothing but the appearance of the bedroom we were shown +into would excuse me. His garrulousness, which was an irritation in +the afternoon, was an amusement as he laid the cloth and told me the +bill of fare; moreover, I had to consult him about the wine, and I +liked to hear him telling me in his strong Southern accent of a +certain wine of the country, as good as Pomard and as strong, and +which would be known all over the world, only it did not bear +transportation. Remembering how tired we were, and the verse-- + + "Quand on boit du Pomard on devient bon on aime, + On devient aussi bon que le Pomard lui-meme--" + +we drank, hoping that the wine would awaken us. But the effect of that +strong Southern wine seemed to be more lethargic than exhilarating, +and when dinner was over and we had returned to our seats by the +fireside we were too weary to talk, and too nervous. + +The next morning, the coffee and the rolls and butter were ready +before Doris, and the vexation of seeing the breakfast growing cold +was recompensed by the pleasure of teasing her, urging her to pass her +arms into her dressing-gown, to come as she was, it did not matter +what she had on underneath. The waiter did not count; he was not a +man, he was a waiter, a pink creature, pinker than anything in the +world, except a baby's bottom, and looking very like that. + +"Hasten, dear, hasten!" and I went back to the salon and engaged in +chatter with the old provincial, my English accent contrasting +strangely with his. It was the first time I had heard the Southern +accent. At Plessy I had heard all accents, Swiss, German, Italian; +there was plenty of Parisian accent there, and I had told a Parisian +flower-woman, whose husband was a Savoyard, that I declined to believe +any more in the Southern accent _"C'est une blague qu'on m'a +faite"_; but at Orelay I had discovered the true accent, and I +listened to the old man for the sake of hearing it. He was asking me +for my appreciation of the wine we had drunk last night when Doris +entered in a foamy white dressing-gown. + +"You liked the wine, dear, didn't you? He wants to know if we will +have the same wine for twelve-o'clock breakfast." + +"Dear me, it's eleven o'clock now," Doris answered, and she looked at +the waiter. + +"Monsieur and Madame will go for a little walk; perhaps you would like +to breakfast at one?" + +We agreed that we could not breakfast before one, and our waiter +suggested a visit to the cathedral--it would fill up the time +pleasantly and profitably; but Doris, when she had had her coffee, +wanted to sit on my knee and to talk to me; and then there was a +piano, and she wanted to play me some things, or rather I wanted to +hear her. But the piano was a poor one; the notes did not come back, +she said, and we talked for some hours without perceiving that the +time was passing. After lunch the waiter again inquired if we intended +to go for a little walk; there were vespers about four in the +cathedral. + +"It would do Monsieur and Madame good." + +"The walk or the cathedral?" we inquired, and, a little embarrassed, +the old fellow began to tell us that he had not been to the cathedral +for some years, but the last time he was there he had been much +impressed by the darkness. It was all he could do to find his way from +pillar to pillar; he had nearly fallen over the few kneeling women who +crouched there listening to the clergy intoning Latin verses. +According to his account there were no windows anywhere except high up +in the dome. And leaning his hands on the table, looking like all the +waiters that ever existed or that will ever exist, his _tablier_, +reaching nearly to his chin, upheld by strings passed over the +shoulders, he told us that it was impossible to see what was happening +in the chancel; but there had seemed to be a great number of clergy +seated in the darkness at the back, for one heard voices behind the +tall pieces of furniture singing Latin verses; one only heard the +terminations of the words, an "us" and a "noster," and words ending in +"e," and the organ always coming in a little late. + +"My good man," I said, "your description leaves nothing to be desired. +Why should I go to the cathedral unless to verify your impressions? I +am sure the service is exactly as you describe it, and I would not for +the world destroy the picture you have evoked of those forgotten +priests intoning their vespers in the middle of the granite church +behind a three-branched candlestick." + +The poor man left the room very much disconcerted, feeling, Doris +said, as if he had lost one of the forks. + +"Thank Heaven that matter is done with--a great weight is off my +mind." + +"But there is the museum. You would like to see that?" said Doris, and +a change came into my face. + +"Well, Doris, the waiter has told us that there is a celebrated study +by David in the museum, 'The Nymph of Orelay.'" + +"But, dear one, am I not your nymph of Orelay?" and Doris slipped on +her knees and put her arms about me. "Will I not do as well as the +painted creature in the museum?" + +"Far better," I said, "far better. Now we are free, Doris, freed from +the cathedral and from the museum. All the day belongs to us, and +to-morrow we may pass as we like." + +"And so we will," Doris said meditatively; and so we did, dear reader, +and I consider the time was well spent, for by so doing we avoided +catching cold, a thing easy to do when a mistral is blowing. It was +not until the following evening we remembered that time was always on +the wing, that our little bags would have to be packed. Next morning +we were going. + +"Going away by the train," Doris said regretfully. "Would we were +going away in a carriage! We shall leave Orelay knowing nothing of it +but this suite of apartments." + +"There is no reason why we should not drive," and I stopped packing my +bag, and stood looking at her. + +"I wonder if we should have stayed three days if we had not discovered +these rooms? Dear one, I think I should not have meant so much to you +in those humbler rooms: you attach much importance to these cornices +and hangings." + +"I should have loved you always, Doris, but I think I can love you +better here," and with our bags in our hands we wandered from the +bedroom into the drawing-room and stood admiring its bygone splendour. +"Doris, dear, you must play me 'The Nut Bush.' I want to hear it on +that old piano. Tinkle it, dear, tinkle it, and don't play 'The Nut +Bush' too sentimentally, nor yet too gaily." + +"Which way will you have it?" she asked; "'a true love's truth or a +light love's art'?" + +"I would have it dainty and fantastic as Schumann wrote it, 'only the +song of a secret bird.'" + +"With a pathos of loneliness in it?" + +"That is it," I cried, "that is the right time to play it in, without +stress on either side.... No, you mustn't leave the piano, Doris. +Sing me some songs. Go on singing Schumann or Schubert; there are no +other songs. Let me hear you sing 'The Moonlight' or 'The +Lotus-flower.' Schumann and Schubert were the singing birds of the +fifties; I love their romantic sentimentalities, orange gardens, south +winds, a lake with a pinnace upon it, and a nightingale singing in a +dark wood by a lonely shore; that is how they felt, how they dreamed." + +And resigning herself to my humour, she sang song after song till at +last, awaking from a long reverie of music and old association of +memories, I said, "Play me a waltz, Doris; I would hear an old-time +waltz played in this room; its romantic flourishes will evoke the +departed spirits." And very soon, sitting in my chair with half-closed +eyes, it seemed to me that I saw crinolines faintly gliding over the +floor, and white-stockinged feet, sloping shoulders and glistening +necks with chignons--swan-like women, and long-whiskered cavaliers +wearing peg-top trousers and braided coats dancing or talking with +them.... The music suddenly stopped and Doris said: + +"If we are to catch our train we must go on with our packing." + +"You mustn't talk to me of trains," and overcome with a Schumann-like +longing and melancholy I took her in my arms, overcome by her beauty. +She was perfection. No Chelsea or Dresden figure was ever more dainty, +gayer, or brighter. She was Schumann and Dresden, but a Dresden of an +earlier period than Schumann; but why compare her to anything? She was +Doris, the very embodiment of her name. + +"Ah, Doris, why are we leaving here? Why can't we remain here for +ever?" + +"It is strange," she said; "I feel the charm of those old stately +rooms as much as you do. But, dearest, we have missed the train." + +The pink waiter came up, I promised to hasten, but my love of Doris +delayed us unduly, and we arrived at the station only to hear that the +train had gone away some ten minutes before. The train that had left +was the only good train in the day, and missing it had given us +another twenty-four hours in Orelay; but Doris was superstitious. "Our +three days are done," she said; "if we don't go today we shall go +to-morrow, and to go on the fourth day would be unlucky. What shall we +do all day? The spell has been broken. We have left our hotel. Let us +take a carriage," she pleaded, "and drive to the next station. The sun +is shining, and the country is beautiful; we saw it from the railway, +a strange red country grey with olives, olive orchards extending to +the very foot of the mountains, and mingling with the pine trees +descending the slopes." + +"The slopes!" I said, "the precipitous sides of that high rock! Shall +I ever forget it, beginning like the tail of a lion and rising up to +the sky, towering above the level landscape like a sphinx." + +"The drive would be delightful!" + +"And it would be a continuation of the romance of the old Empire +drawing-room. A post-chaise would be the thing if we could discover +one." + +Sometimes Nature seems to conspire to carry out an idea, and though no +veritable post-chaise of old time was discovered in the coach-house +behind the courtyard in which the ilex trees flourished, we happened +to catch sight of a carriage some twenty-five or thirty years old, a +cumbersome old thing hung upon C springs, of the security of which the +coachman seemed doubtful. He spoke disparagingly, telling us that the +proprietor had been trying to sell it, but no one would buy it, so +heavy was it on the horses' backs, so out of fashion one was ashamed +to go out in it. The coachman's notions of beauty did not concern us, +but Doris dreaded lest one of the wheels should come off; however, on +examination it was found to be roadworthy, and I said to Doris as I +helped her into it: + +"If it be no post-chaise, at all events ladies wearing crinolines have +sat inside it, that is certain, and gentlemen wearing peg-top trousers +with braid upon them. Good God, Doris, if you were to wear a crinoline +I should love you beyond hope of repentance. Don't I remember when I +was a boy every one wore white stockings; I had only heard of black +ones, and I always hoped to meet a lady wearing black stockings... now +my hope is to meet one wearing white." + +"We might have searched the town for a crinoline and a pair of white +stockings." + +"Yes, and I might have discovered a black silk stock. I wonder how I +should have looked in it. Doris," I said, "we have missed the best +part of our adventure. We forgot to dress for the part we are playing, +the lovers of Orelay." + +Who will disagree with me when I say that no adventure is complete +unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, +high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress +himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some +strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of +these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and +believe it to be natural--the comedy that Doris and I played in the +old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, where we hoped to +breakfast. + +We could hardly speak for excitement. Doris thought of how she would +look in a crinoline, and I remembered the illustrations in an early +edition of Balzac of which I am the happy possessor. How nice the men +looked in the light trousers and the black stockings of the period; +and crossing my legs I followed with interest the line of my calf. +Somebody did that in "Les Illusions Perdues." She and I lay back +thinking which story in "The Human Comedy" was the most applicable to +our case; and the only one we could think of was when Madame Bargeton, +a provincial blue-stocking, left Angouleme for Paris with Lucien de +Rubempre. There were no railways in the forties; they must have +travelled in a post-chaise. Yes, I remember their journey, faintly it +is true, but I remember it. Madame Bargeton was a woman of +five-and-thirty at least, and Doris was much younger. Lucien was only +one-and-twenty, and even at that time I was more than that. The names +of these people and of the people they met at the theatre and in the +Tuileries Gardens--Rastignac, Madame d'Espard, the Duchess of +Chaulieu, Madame de Rochefide, and Canalis--carried my mind back from +crinolines and white stockings, from peg-top trousers and braided +coats, to the slim trousers that were almost breeches and to the +high-breasted gowns of the Restoration. Our mothers and fathers wore +the crinolines and the peg-top trousers, and our grandfathers the +tight trousers and the black silk stocks. The remembrance of these +costumes filled me with a tenderness and a melancholy I could not +subdue, and I could see that Doris was thinking of the same subject as +myself. + +We were thinking of that subject which interested men before history +began, the mutability of human things, the vanishing of generations. +Young as she was, Doris was thinking of death; nor is it the least +extraordinary she should, for as soon as any one has reached the age +of reflection the thought of death may come upon him at any moment, +though he be in the middle of a ballroom or lying in the arms of his +mistress. If the scene be a ballroom he has only to look outside, and +the night will remind him that in a few years he will enter the +eternal night; or if the scene be a bedroom the beautiful face of his +mistress may perchance remind him of another whose face was equally +beautiful and who is now under the earth; lesser things will suffice +to recall his thoughts from life to death, a rose petal falling on a +marble table, a dead bird in the path as he walks in his garden. And +after the thought of death the most familiar thought is the decay of +the bodily vesture. The first grey hair may seem to us an amusing +accident, but very few years will pass before another and yet another +appear, and if these do not succeed in reminding us that decay has +begun, a black speck on a tooth cannot fail to do so; and when we go +to the dentist to have it stopped we have begun to repair artificially +the falling structure. The activity of youth soon passes, and its +slenderness. I remember still the shock I felt on hearing an athlete +say that he could no longer run races of a hundred yards; he was half +a second or a quarter of a second slower than he was last year. I +looked at him saying, "But you are only one-and-twenty," and he +answered, "Yes, that is it." A football player I believe is out of +date at eight-and-twenty. Out of date! What a pathos there is in the +words--out of date! _Suranne_, as the French say. How are we to +render it in English? By the beautiful but artificial word +"yester-year"? Yester-year perhaps, for a sorrow clings about it; it +conveys a sense of autumn, of "the long decline of roses." There is +something ghostlike in the out-of-date. The landscape about Plessy had +transported us back into antiquity, making us dream of nymphs and +dryads, but the gilt cornices and damask hangings and the salon at +Orelay had made us dream of a generation ago, of the youth of our +parents. Ancient conveys no personal meaning, but the out-of-date +transports us, as it were, to the stern of the vessel, throws us into +a mournful attitude; we lean our heads upon our hands and, looking +back, we see the white wake of the vessel with shores sinking in the +horizon and the crests of the mountains passing away into the clouds. + +While musing on these abstract questions raised by my remark that we +had not managed our adventure properly, since we had forgotten to +provide ourselves with proper costumes, the present suddenly thrust +itself upon me. + +"Good God!" I said to Doris, "let us look back, for we shall never see +Orelay again!" and she from one window, and I from the other, saw the +spires of Orelay for the last time. We could not tear ourselves away, +but fortunately the road turned; Orelay was blotted out from our sight +for ever, and we sank back to remember that a certain portion of our +lives was over and done, a beautiful part of our lives had been thrown +into the void, into the great rubble-heap of emotions that had been +lived through, that are no more. + +"Of what are you thinking, dear? You have been far away. This is the +first time we have been separated, and we are not yet five miles from +Orelay." + +"Five miles! Ah, if it were only five!" + +We did not speak for a long time, and watching the midday sun, I +thought that peradventure it was not farther from us than yesterday. +Were I to say so to Doris she would answer, "It will be the same in +Paris," but if she did it would be the first falsehood she had told +me, for we both knew that things are never the same; things +change--for better or worse, but they change. + +This last sentence seems to me somewhat trite, and if I were to +continue this story any further my pen would run into many other +superficial and facile observations, for my mind is no longer +engrossed with the story. I no longer remember it; I do not mean that +I do not remember whether we got to Verlancourt, whether we had +breakfast, or whether we drove all the way to Paris with relays of +horses. I am of course quite certain about the facts: we breakfasted +at Verlancourt, and after breakfast we asked the coachman whether he +would care to go on to Paris with us; he raised his eyes--"The +carriage is a very old one, surely, Monsieur----" Doris and I laughed, +for, truth to tell, we had been so abominably shaken that we were glad +to exchange the picturesque old coach of our fathers' generation for +the train. + +These stories are memories, not inventions, and an account of the days +I spent in Paris would interest nobody; all the details are forgotten, +and invention and remembrance do not agree any better than the goat +and the cabbage. So, omitting all that does not interest me--and if it +does not interest me how can it interest the reader?--I will tell +merely that my adventure with Doris was barren of scandal or +unpleasant consequences. Her mother, a dear unsuspicious +woman--whether her credulity was the depth of folly or the depth of +wisdom I know not; there are many such mothers, my blessing be upon +them!--took charge of her daughter, and Doris and her mother returned +to England. I am afraid that when I confess that I did not speak to +Doris of marriage I shall forfeit the good opinion of my reader, who +will, of course, think that a love story with such an agreeable +creature as Doris merited a lifetime of devotion; but I pray the +reader to discover an excuse for me in the fact that Doris had told me +when we were at Plessy that there was no question of her marrying any +one but Albert. Had she not sacrificed the great love of her life in +order that she might remain constant to Albert? Is it to be expected, +then, that having done that, she would put Albert aside and throw her +lot in with mine? She might have done this; men and women act +inconsequently. Having on one occasion refused to drop the mutton chop +for the shadow, on the next occasion they would drop it for the shadow +of the shadow; but Doris was made of sterner stuff, and some months +afterwards she wrote me a steady, sensible little letter telling me +that she was going to be married, and that it seemed to her quite +natural that she should marry Albert. Years have passed away, and +nothing has happened to lead me to believe that she has not proved a +true and loving wife. Albert has always told me that he found all the +qualities in her which he had foreseen from the first time he looked +upon her pretty, sparkling face. Frown not, reader; accuse me not of +superficial cynicism! Albert is part of the world's inheritance. You +may be Albert yourself--every one has been or will be Albert; Albert +is in us all, just as I am in you all. Doris, too, is in you, dear +lady who sit reading my book--Doris my three-days mistress at Orelay, +and Doris the faithful spouse of Albert for twenty years in a lonely +London suburb. + +Study and boudoir would like to know if Doris had any children. About +two years afterwards I heard that she was "expecting." The word came +up spontaneously in my mind, perhaps because I had written it in the +beginning of the story. Reader, do you remember in "Massimilla Doni" +how Balzac, when he came to the last pages, declares that he dare not +tell you the end of the adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for +the worshippers of the ideal--_Massimilla Doni_ was "expecting." +I have not read the story for many years, but the memory of it shines +in my mind bright--well, as the morning star; and I looked up this +last paragraph when I began to write this story, but had to excuse +myself for not translating it, my pretext being that I was baffled by +certain grammatical obscurities, or what seemed to me such. I seemed +to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that +"_les peuplades de cent cathedrales gothiques_" (which might be +rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals), +"_tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir a +vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques filles +incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurerent!_" What puzzles me is why statues should break their +forms (_form_ I suppose should be translated by _mould_)--break +their moulds--the expression seems very inadequate--break their +moulds "in order to go to you, great imaginative artists." How +could they break their moulds or their forms to go to the +imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift of +the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if +he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas +and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of +_Massimilla_ to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little +tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage: + +"Les peris, les ondines, les fees, les sylphides du vieux temps, les +muses de la Grece, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le +Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le +premier mit au bas des tableaux d'eglise, et que Raphael a faits si +divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gele +a Dresde, les delicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'eglise de +San-Michele a Florence, les choeurs celestes du tombeau de Saint Sebald +a Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent +cathedrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur +forme pour venir a vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques +filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurerent." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + + +There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I +remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of +Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool +in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, +of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the +foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the +picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my +copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been +promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has +abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some +Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a +sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, +and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking +of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it. + +After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half +satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that +awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the +Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for +breakfast in a queer little cafe; the meal cost us about a shilling. +On my return from this cafe soon after twelve--I had breakfasted early +that morning--I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could +not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and +the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw +myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in +the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, +smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself. + +Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, +whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards--the Rue de Rivoli, +the Rue de la Paix--knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April +playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great +stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts +embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city +that lies far away behind the Hotel de Ville and behind the Boulevard +St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely +visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; +but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sevigne, and did not care +whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the +Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel +interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old +French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty +tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the +high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I +tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one +forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always +seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful +domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, +like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries +to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. +One cannot view it--I cannot, at least--without thinking of the great +monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have +learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his +"Etude de Catherine de Medicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and +I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de +Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte +Bouverand de la Loyere, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coetlogon, +La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other +names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. +I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in +the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious +and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the +names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain +that others bearing equally noble names lived there. + +Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth +century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the +Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his +house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most +interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind +to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient +to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion +that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such +sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame +together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the +historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the +sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that +Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this +somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I +looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight +flickered. + +But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the +beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, +tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young +blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I +could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and +single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the +sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are +statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single +figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every +thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of +statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; +no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always +reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was +the only world. + +When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight +than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately +flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone +basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these +gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills +where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his +arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these +gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, +after admiring Fremiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, +appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved +to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken. + +"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, +idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've +been working all day." + +"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might +interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could +not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came +every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread +from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny +little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, +seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin +Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing +the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The +strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their +charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the +beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench +eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?--a model no doubt come from a +studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an _exalte_ or a +_fumist_; a very innocent _fumist_ if he were one, not one +of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know +that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the +frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met +an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, +playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty +April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, +telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to +dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first +opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the +life of the Quarter, in _le bal Bullier_, in my stories of +grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every +student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long +frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his +slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a +week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the +boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes +were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes +Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I +thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, +and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband +still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and +then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her +movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for +her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost +disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her +eyebrows were black, and they nearly met. + +The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner--we had come by +chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother +was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked +very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She +had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her +face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner +her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent +and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk." + +"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that +lovely two-step?" + +Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, +but she had not played many bars before her daughter said: + +"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us." + +I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; +an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not +want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any +opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn +Cake Walk," I said: + +"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?" + +The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague +expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it +was indifference or stupidity. + +"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She +plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life." + +"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate +and----" + +"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play +something for me. + +"I haven't got my keys--they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me +alone; I'm thinking of other things." + +Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred +looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the +illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about +foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a +small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much +better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not +know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else +why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met +some nice Englishmen, but Yankees--oh! Yankees! There was one at +Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are +they not? There was one at Cannes. + +"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I +am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was +given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be +upon me if I gave it away." + +"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her." + +"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always +get sick of me if they see me two days running." + +"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it." + +"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true." + +Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully +than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and +a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked +less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I +could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was +searching for an excuse to send her to bed. + +"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?" + +"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it." + +Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" +but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and +had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face +appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said: + +"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!" + +She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper: + +"Not a word. He's my fiance, and mother doesn't know he's here. She +does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank +you; you played that sonata very nicely." + +"Won't you play, my dear?" + +"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day." + +And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room +to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when +she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened. + +"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiance, +and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell +mamma. He said _'Foi de gentilhomme,_' so I suppose it's all +right." + +"Why not have your fiance in here? I'm going to bed." + +"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my +bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't +matter what people say." + +A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my +shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me +through the open door she said: + +"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I +know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the +world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre +with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?" + +"I never split on any one." + +"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without +leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. +Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to +her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner." + +Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door. + +"_Entre!_" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for +you in the salon." + +When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married +Donald, or said she had. + +"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to +go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we +might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting +to-day?" + +"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never +seen Madame de Sevigne's house." + +"Who is she?" + +"The woman who wrote the famous letters." + +"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books." + +"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the +morning." + +There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out +with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human +that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I +told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sevigne's house. The reader +doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sevigne's +house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her +remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris +wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's +memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it +without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I +felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when +we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent +the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for +her. Madame de Sevigne and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated +ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity +of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that +evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat +in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April +sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these +things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my +mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just +when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens +with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet +we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows +how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the +gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, +thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, +and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and +statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to +find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little +mamma suspected anything. + +"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?" + +"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I +think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit." + +As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past +life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but +since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He +had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a +merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and +just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a +purse of five pounds. + +She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her +attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the +painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to +remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like +his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, +laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young +naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey +sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred +said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. +"He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: +I hate a little man." + +We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation +occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and +I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called +away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me +that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for +she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to +wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the +sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had +posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; +sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore +open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried +to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought +rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could +not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is +antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early +in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed +here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, +notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we +are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. +To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each +other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of +the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the +river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for +her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take +an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these +floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries--how could it be +otherwise since I was there with Mildred?--and I began to argue that +it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind +to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying +like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence. + +"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the +knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater +length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to +the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?" + +"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A +short tibia is not pretty." + +A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that +we are going to Italy next week?" + +"Yes, you told me." + +Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the +statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. +She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same +square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the +square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, +he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days +before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had +become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in +putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice. + +"But you like Donald much better than Toby?" + +"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all +about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do +look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made +Rodin put a woman in that position." + +She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. +Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the +statue was "La Danaide." + +"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his +sculpture may be sometimes called _l'article de Paris_. It is +occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great +exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the +back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the +same." + +"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. +Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about +lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of +these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all +these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no +change." + +"Do you think so? I wonder." + +"Do you doubt it?" + +"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my +life." + +"Not even Donald?" + +"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after +we arrived?" + +"Your wedding night?" + +"Yes, my wedding night." + +We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl +was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she +did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, +she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an +exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and +her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her +instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught +sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little +dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only +floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of +a stream. + +"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be +good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has +been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you +to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma +will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my +nerves." + +"You play the violin, don't you?" + +"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think +was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if +this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or +to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the +hotel." + +"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would +amuse you." + +"I wish I were a grisette." + +"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have +to get on with my painting." + +That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the +morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and +as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away. + +"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, +and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told +you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here." + +"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in +yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to +everybody else as they are to you." + +"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the +first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was +because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that +you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--" + +My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark +was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before +I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you +said--" + +"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like +to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it +would not have mattered to you if I had." + +She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her +seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender +it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or +if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her +fiddle-case with her? + +"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play +now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it." + +These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew +that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing +might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should +sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald. + +"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me." + +"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How +pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight +flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water +dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. +Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case." + +"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I +thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow +morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma +would want to accompany me." + +"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!" + +"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to +anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with +hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end +of the alley reciting his verses. + +"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him." + +"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; +I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour +for playing until your remark about--" + +"About what?" + +"You know very well," she answered. + +The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. +The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the +translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts +into another age. I began to see a picture--myself, the poet, and +this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to +make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet +intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading +his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose +lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed +the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini +whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a +man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why +describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because +its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I +dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive +suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my +pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred +to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must +happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without +sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of +violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and +in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, +advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played +the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined +the others, playing as she danced. + +"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if +they'll let me." + +Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred +as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander +and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up +their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. +Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these +three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one +enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a +noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at +last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode +of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house +which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking +together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the +fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of +mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would +not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune +awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust +the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She +stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so +much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that +God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. +This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be +danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges." + +"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the +youngest sister. + +"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, +and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the +Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine--the true gavotte as it was +danced when Madame de Sevigne drove up in a painted coach drawn by six +horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon." + +This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to +the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the +fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves +along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte +tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the +sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between +the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the +fashion of the time--the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! +How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old +women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until +the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. +After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing +a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before--in +church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long +phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of +Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its +way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has +desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred +could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing +that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? +Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an +echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious +self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged +in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by +another. + +She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and +then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to +play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it +seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady +in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred +Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been +unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows +not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the +ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament--how well Mildred played +it!--followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul +upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in +elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet +saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is +different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but +just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are +deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as +shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things +exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that +hears? + +A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the +great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as +well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of +the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing +and returned to me. + +"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?" + +"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't +play the 'Impassionata.'" + +"Why aren't you always like this?" + +"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I +play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great +deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it." + +We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at +all, thinking of the music. + +"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. +Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall +meet again some day." + +"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and +you're not often in the mood." + +"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better----" + +"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch +you?" + +"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money." + +"And you'll fall in love with some one else?" + +"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this +week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I +like those collars; they have just come out--those turned-down ones. +Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about +three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move +their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour +she liked best--violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor +Donald! He's so handsome." + +After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before +we reached the hotel she who had played--I cannot say for certain what +she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was +not then fully awakened; could it have been?--the names of Bach and +Chopin come up in my mind--"I can't speak about music," she said, as +we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel +possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to +play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," +as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she +looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the +line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic +look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the +hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday. + +"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the +office I saw a Yank--oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather +boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But +presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and +put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So +I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did." + + * * * * * + +I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of +her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose +individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived +many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to +me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing +anything to destroy the mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A REMEMBRANCE + + +It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the +first time--saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. +The next time was in her own home--a farm-house that had been rebuilt +and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy +thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of +harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be +coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted +with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the +parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his +pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down +their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was +effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned +eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day +I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to +study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the +value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of +interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she +passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere +belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had +wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The +Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared +that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest +of the family--another was invented which appealed more to their +imagination--but she held to the name she had given me, and during the +course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. + +There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these +people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we +seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly +there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth +was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw +and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds +when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl +and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was +aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, +and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred +yards--an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the +seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than +shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of +the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might +an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking +up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought +at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by +chance in London. + +Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had +left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was +the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, +walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came +upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part +and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; +life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become +distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was +surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had +appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an +age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and +effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years +older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought +each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became +companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I +liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in +the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded +poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an +old gipsy woman." + +"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet." + +She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. +"It is a regular show." + +"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I +like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to +Brighton." + +"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk." + +"I think I like you equally well at all times." + +We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our +friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you +half as much when I knew you first?" + +"How was that? I was quite a young woman then." + +"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that +time I was a mere boy--I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed +around me." + +"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw +in me was a woman with a grown-up son." + +Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she +said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on +the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate +teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on +that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of +age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I +admired. + +One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown +paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old +_Athenaeums_. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I +could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the +_Athenaeum_ in a house where never a book was read. I looked at +the dates--three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was +gathering some withering apples from the floor. + +"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the +_Athenaeum_ here?" + +"Oh, they are my _Athenaeums_," she said. "I always used to read +the _Athenaeum_ when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. +You must have heard of him--he wrote that famous book about the +Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used +to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built +over now." + +This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us +closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the +odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her +girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her. + +"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you +then I should have asked you to marry me." + +"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read +books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of +books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should +have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father +thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look +after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted +to help us." + +At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them +when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six +months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. +The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I +used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If +I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at +dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate +intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was +in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her +from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain +till this hour in the garden?" + +I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight +confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness +became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would +accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation +with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for +her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to +London. + +The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the +waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in +truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are +some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was +endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on +you over the brink of the grave. + +We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came +back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she +remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her +sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, +and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew +better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of +movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the +old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, +coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the +library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable +drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up +in pieces of paper. + +"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a +girl of fifteen." + +She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old +woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more +to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so +does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something +strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent +charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, +at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time +had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an +affection that formal man knows not of. + +I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. +Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought +it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent +long hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely +on her back, and we supplicated--I was the foremost among her +supplicators--that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and +fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and +to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one +of those who would do everything herself--who thought that if she did +not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of +her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, +everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to +make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work +where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it +became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our +friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, +and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that +with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the +present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I +spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, +looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be +saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to +her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting +through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the +fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in +in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her +husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw +the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, +soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been +married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used +all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I +remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, +Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the +little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet +the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful +with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking +out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, +with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who +was to die. + +"Is it then incurable?" + +"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only +stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, +and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end." + +"Then there is no hope?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Can she live for five years?" + +"I should think it extremely improbable." + +"What length of life do you give her?" + +"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year." + +The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly +sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. +That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, +very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: +"Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my +work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters +telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death +grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in +person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter +came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the +winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another +month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at +once." + +It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the +Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its +jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station +shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and +beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for +the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and +welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping +in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How +is she?" + +"Very bad indeed, sir." + +She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we +waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what +remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these +lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into +disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great +our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other +things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not +escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we +commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will +not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over +Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." +Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is +dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts." + +One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my +return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, +and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." +I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came +downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before +she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before +sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor +arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little +child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was +given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were +glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing +grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she +was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were +collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains +undone! How will they get on without me!" + +I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and +expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving +wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of +sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when +they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And +during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her +dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not +be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but +it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the +price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered +with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed +with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember +the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of +the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral +procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on +a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line +and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on +my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old +church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn +village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees +showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were +discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's +arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the +grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the +altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked +unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, +impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into +that comfortless hole. + +The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the +deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable +and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those +who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology +to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered +to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely +disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young +corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, +larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we +approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded +pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at +the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that +anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to +cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, +dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its +way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had +loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a +shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the +pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered +that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her +he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely +personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the +world offering to its creatures. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BRING IN THE LAMP + + +For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the +landscape reminds me of a somnambulist--the same silence, the same +mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even +the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The +hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, +the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night +a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were +few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars +hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last +days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. +At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no +doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves +hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, +and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say +whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the +blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks +in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, +benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a +painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are +forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins +in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or +little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last +seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, +or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of +pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his +writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are +written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker +green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when +his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh +forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his +garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than +the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories +any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? +Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium +which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and +his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the +easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will +seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the +horse is pumping water--water is necessary; but art, even if his work +is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary +to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world +can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that +is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have +to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts +say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, +otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He +asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an +idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! +Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His +thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It +would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South +America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. +He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to +horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by +the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping +through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by +leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the +air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But +if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can +the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? +His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the +evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell +of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. +No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to +write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story +shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it +forming part of the procession of things? The best part of +story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of +church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long +tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the +homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps +the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage +enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire +lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch +of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in +his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze +of the flesh the spirit awakes. What--is the story coming now? Yes; it +is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take +shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he +sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young +men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to +the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a +waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him--a +waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since +forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he +able to remember that _coda_, and it comes with a scent of +violets in it--the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she +dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice +was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear _crepe de +chime_, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill +about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after +marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of +the world, from America--Baltimore will do as well as any other, +perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion +whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by +mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her +come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street--Cathedral +Street--there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of +the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose +Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an +informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her +husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be +dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass +between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the +dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and +women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the +women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon +her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook +between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. +She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or +jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are +these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should +take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her +dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to +keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A +little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material +existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that +one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the +Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no +denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious +than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is +rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what +we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is +going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are +going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as +he passes the _concierge's_ lodge, pitying the poor couple +asleep--what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience +the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, +words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his +writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song +moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume--the +handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a +rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her +tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him--where? No better place +for lovers than the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite. His night passes +in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking +he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how +carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him +better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet +or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and +what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five +going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and +forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite? He knows +she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at +ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the +nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another +occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the +prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of +existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. +He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have +done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the +gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in +black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover +going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, +hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to +breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common +pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on +the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of +the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her +that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is +whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going +to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been +there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place +where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be +again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they +go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast. + +The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding--like +gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining--all is +omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What +a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance +in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket--he must read +it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty +years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees +and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon--for +all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is +made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object +of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, +to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. +Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the +blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable +setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits--the dreamer +can see her on the warm grass--hidden as well as she can hide herself +behind some bushes, the black crepe dress hiding her feet or +pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears +white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little +black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; +the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young +man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem +pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her +affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the +night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him +many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to +bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the +beauty of her blond hair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + May flowers are not more sweet + Than the shower of loosened hair + That will fall around my feet. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "The golden curls they paint, + Round the forehead of a saint, + Ne'er glittered half so bright + As thy enchanted hair, + Full of shadow, full of light. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair, + And weave a web of gold + Of thy enchanted hair, + Till all be in its hold. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair." + +"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by +'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a +web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'--do you mean unloose my hair?" + + "Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds + Qui sont si lourds et si longs. + +"How well it goes with French!" + +"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you +know, I like it very much!" + +It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the +mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that +it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he +sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers +the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly +sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries +to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was +reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked +him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he +must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had +she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is +not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote +that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the +phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should +think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man +prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be +paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her +hair unwreathed. + +"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" +and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer +can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, +how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! +On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be +doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he +refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of +Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has +just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a +bench at a little distance. + +"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us." + +"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, +before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed." + +Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away +even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. +The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He +insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from +him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the +season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get +something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet. + +Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this +restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a _cabinet +particulier_, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, +would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over +with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear +reader, if you are expecting a _cabinet particulier_ in this +story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page +at once--you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains +nothing that will shock your--shall I say your "prudish +susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured +American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the +great long _salle_ lined with tables, and they were attended by +an army of waiters weary of their leisure. + +There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it +and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes +of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty +reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished +story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, +how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a +sensual _denouement_ be a better end than, let us say, that the +lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an +accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at +the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers +of Vincennes rushing into one of the _concierge's_ lodges at the +gates of the villas. + +"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon." + +But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three +umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for +herself. + +"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes." + +"No more I do." + +"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that +Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)." + +"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go--it will be +rather fun." + +"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?" + +"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?" + +The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex +mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them +clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the +villa to the _perron_--an explicit word that the English language +lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at +Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both +a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? +A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their +host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered +sofas and chairs. + +A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller +could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller +would see at once that _le bon bourgeois et sa dame_ and the +children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for +the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that +the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the +rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers +from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After +dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of +neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose +than that it was _la bourgeoise's_ evening at home? The young +couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own +sweet selves. _Le bourgeois et sa dame_ would watch them with +kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there +were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined +that they must depart, _le bourgeois_ and _la bourgeoise_ +would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no +possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little +situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage--on the +French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman +to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with +the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, +"did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in +allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished +story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had +acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not +being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say +how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous +thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The +situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not +happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that +the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their +adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made +to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or +the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already +taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end +of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between +us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a +big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It +would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' +invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an +impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun +again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the +train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did +not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all +with the _bourgeois et sa dame_, and the dear little widow might +never have known her fate--O happy fate!--until the time came for them +to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the +rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come +back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he +must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should +give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in +the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next +time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the +story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a +year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know +that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief +which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps +some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am +sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had +taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he +wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so +well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was +not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty +years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, +and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but +change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always +overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a +stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are +pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the +unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there +is no hope, not a particle. + + * * * * * + +I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my +feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there +no light? Bring in the lamp!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + + +Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? +Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or +ten at the Cafe Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on +the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on +the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the +tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps +spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we +will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the +reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the +unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives +resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom +and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely +thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we +are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are +together. + +At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to +put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if +he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom +shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and +after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the +northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's +Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who +will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round +of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin +with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is +interesting company he seeks. + +It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how +different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was +Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins +about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that +evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had +enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences +refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and +the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass +the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was +to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in +St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had +fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been +divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along +the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or +seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of landscape-gardening +is more akin to the art of a musician than to that of +a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The +formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by +Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the +Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a +boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, +but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but +after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the +silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight +stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the +shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so +beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy +to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, +ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled +shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. +Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead--that was his fault; but +Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the +pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows +are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great +designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples--those +pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? +Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist +and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from +Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his +own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say. + +Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the +tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in +illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to +look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards +shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I +may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what +interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's +Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset--there is the lake, and, +led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of +Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts +occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of +the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little +life of the ponds--the ducks going hither and thither, every duck +intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely +fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more +beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of +the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage +hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the +ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century +couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was +to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies +are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, +too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main +business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all +returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was +surely because it was part of me--not that part known to my friends; +our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they +discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or +herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply +interested in the fact when attention was called to it.... + +I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying--solemnly silent +and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a +breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! +In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more +beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very +subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness +did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like +plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the +deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park +for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. +But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures +flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of +festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which +all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered +dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that +they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the +sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, +great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the +fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing +and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, +the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the +satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged +for a guitar. + +As the twilight gathered under the plane trees my vision became more +mixed and morbid, and I hardly knew if the picture I saw was the +picture in the Dulwich Gallery or the exquisite picture in the Louvre, +"Une Assemblee dans la Parc." We all know that picture, the gallants +and the ladies by the water-side, and the blue evening showing through +the tall trees. The picture before me was like that picture, only the +placing of the trees and the slope of the greensward did not admit of +so extended a composition. A rough tree-trunk, from which a great +branch had been broken or lopped off, stood out suddenly in very +nineteenth-century naturalness, awaking the ghost of a picture which I +recognised at once as Corot. Behind the tree a tender, evanescent sky, +pure and transparent as the very heart of a flower, rose up, filling +the park with romance, and as the sunset drooped upon the water, my +soul said, "The Lake!" Ah, the pensive shadow that falls from the +hills on either side of "The Lake," leaving the middle of the picture +suffused with a long stream of light, narrowing as it approached the +low horizon. But the line of the trees on the hither side of this +London lake was heavier than the spiritual trees in the picture +entitled "By the Water-side," and there was not anywhere the beauty of +the broken birch that leans over the lake in "Le Lac de Garde." Then I +thought of "The Ravine," for the darkening island reminded me of the +hillside in the picture. But the St. James's Park sky lacked the +refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, +low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the +right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the +difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is +anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity--self! Therefore +not quite so interesting as a good Corot. + +So did I chatter to myself as I walked toward the bridge, that dear +bridge, thrown straight as a plank across the lake, with numerous +water-fowl collected there, a black swan driving the ducks about, +snatching more than his due share of bread, and little children +staring stolidly, afraid of the swan, and constantly reproved by their +mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A +little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the +waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their +webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round +the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with +outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into +the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, which +the night instantly obliterated. + +An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. +One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise +after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we +like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all +our poets and priests. + +The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding +me that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining +alone I should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had +not lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, +and meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the +absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting +with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it +would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the +dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one +appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young +man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we +went to a restaurant to talk art. + +"After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about +the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women +hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them +all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an +enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the +ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me +extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last +that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all +socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which +obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that +somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight +London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent +Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of +his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." + + * * * * * + +The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken +sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... +I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I +said: + +"He reminds me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping +sensualities of his phrase--his one phrase--how descriptive it is of +the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's +muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on +silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of +embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries of bronze lamps. Or, +maybe, the scene passes on a terrace overlooking a dark river. Behind +the domes and minarets a yellow moon dreams like an odalisque, her +hand on the circle of her breast; and through the torrid silence of +the garden, through the odour of over-ripe fruit and the falling sound +thereof, comes the melancholy warble of a fountain. Or is it the +sorrow of lilies rising through the languid air to the sky? The night +is blue and breathless; the spasms of the lightning are intermittent +among the minarets and the domes; the hot, fierce fever of the garden +waxes in the almond scent of peaches and the white odalisques +advancing, sleek oracles of mood.... He reminds me of the dark-eyed +Bohemian who comes into a tavern silently, and, standing in a corner, +plays long, wild, ravishing strains. I see him not, I hardly hear him; +my thoughts are far away; my soul slumbers, desiring nothing. I care +not to lift my head. Why should I break the spell of my meditations? +But I feel that his dark eyes are fixed upon me, and little by little, +in spite of my will, my senses awake; a strange germination is in +progress within me; thoughts and desires that I dread, of whose +existence in myself I was not aware, whose existence in myself I would +fain deny, come swiftly and come slowly, and settle and absorb and +become part of me.... Fear is upon me, but I may not pause; I am +hurried on; repudiation is impossible, supplication and the wringing +of hands are vain; God has abandoned me; my worst nature is uppermost. +I see it floating up from the depths of my being, a viscous scum. But +I can do nothing to check or control.... God has abandoned me.... I am +the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable +fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him +all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The +Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and +forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, +its mankind and its godkind--surely it is nearer to life! Or go into +the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! +We are nearer life lying by a shady brook, hearing the quail in the +meadows and the yellow-hammer in the thicket, than we are now, under +this oppressive sky. This street is like Klinsor's garden; here, too, +are flower-maidens--patchouli, jessamine, violet. Here is the +languorous atmosphere of "Parsifal." Come, let us go; let us seek the +country, the moon-haunted dells we shall see through Piccadilly +railings. Have you ever stood in the dip of Piccadilly and watched the +moonlight among the trees, and imagined a comedy by Wycherley acted +there, a goodly company of gallants and fine ladies seated under the +trees watching it? Every one has come there in painted sedan-chairs; +the bearers are gathered together at a little distance." + +"My dear friend, you're talking so much that you don't see those who +are passing us. That girl, she who has just turned to look back, +favours heliotrope; it is delicious still upon the air; she is as +pretty a girl as any that ever came in a sedan-chair to see a comedy +by Wycherley. The comedy varies very little: it is always the same +comedy, and it is always interesting. The circus in a sultry summer +night under a full moon is very like Klinsor's garden. Come, if you be +not _Parsifal_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RESURGAM + + +I was in London when my brother wrote telling me that mother was ill. +She was not in any immediate danger, he said, but if a change for the +worse were to take place, and it were necessary for me to come over, +he would send a telegram. A few hours after a telegram was handed to +me. It contained four words: "_Come at once.--Maurice._" "So +mother is dying," I muttered to myself, and I stood at gaze, +foreseeing myself taken into her room by a nurse and given a chair by +the bedside, foreseeing a hand lying outside the bed which I should +have to hold until I heard the death-rattle and saw her face become +quiet for ever. + +This was my first vision, but in the midst of my packing, I remembered +that mother might linger for days. The dear friend who lies in the +church-yard under the downs lingered for weeks; every day her husband +and her children saw her dying under their eyes: why should not this +misfortune be mine? I know not to what God, but I prayed all night in +the train, and on board the boat; I got into the train at the +Broadstone praying. It is impossible, at least for me, to find words +to express adequately the agony of mind I endured on that journey. +Words can only hint at it, but I think that any one possessed of any +experience of life, or who has any gift of imagination, will be able +to guess at the terror that haunted me--terror of what?--not so much +that my mother might die, nor hope that she might live, but just that +I might arrive in time to see her die. In this confession I am afraid +I shall seem hard and selfish to some; that will be because many +people lack imagination, or the leisure to try to understand that +there are not only many degrees of sensibility, but many kinds, and it +is doubtful if any reader can say with truth any more than that my +sensibility is not his or hers. It is my privilege to be sympathetic +with ideas I do not share, and in certain moods I approach those who +take a sad pleasure in last words, good-byes, and at looking on the +dead. In my present mood it seems to me that it is not unlikely that +my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in +imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can +be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of +what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our +perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. +There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we +should not be able to live at all. + +But to the journey. How shall I tell it? The third part must have been +the most painful, so clearly do I remember it: the curious agony of +mind caused by a sudden recognition of objects long forgotten--a tree +or a bit of bog-land. The familiar country, evocative of a great part +of my childhood, carried my thoughts hither and thither. My thoughts +ranged like the swallows; the birds had no doubt just arrived, and in +swift elliptical flights they hunted for gnats along the banks of the +old weedy canal. That weedy canal along which the train travelled took +my thoughts back to the very beginning of my life, when I stood at the +carriage window and plagued my father and mother with questions +regarding the life of the barges passing up and down. And it was the +sudden awakenings from these memories that were so terrible--the +sudden thrust of the thought that I was going westward to see my +mother die, and that nothing could save her from death or me from +seeing her die. Perhaps to find one's self suddenly deprived of all +will is the greatest suffering of all. How many times did I say to +myself, "Nothing can save me unless I get out at the next station," +and I imagined myself taking a car and driving away through the +country! But if I did such a thing I should be looked upon as a +madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think +how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were +selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it +all, must be perhaps the greatest part of their pain. + +The morning was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I used +to catch myself thinking out a picturesque expression to describe it. +It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked +so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast +feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton +made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to +provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on +instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself +plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility of keeping one's +thoughts fixed on any one subject for any considerable length of time. +At the end of these reflections I fell back, wondering, again asking +if I were really destined to watch by my mother's death-bed. That day +I seemed to become a sheer mentality, a sort of buzz of thought, and I +could think of myself only as of a fly climbing a glass dome. It +seemed to me that I was like a fly climbing and falling back, buzzing, +and climbing again. "Never," I said to myself, "have I been more than +a fly buzzing in a glass dome. And, good Lord, who made the glass +dome?" How often did I ask myself that question, and why it was made, +and if it were going to endure for ever! + +In such sore perplexity of mind questions from anybody would be +intolerable, and I shrank back into the corner of the carriage +whenever a passer-by reminded me, however vaguely, of anybody I had +ever known; the mental strain increased mile after mile, for the names +of the stations grew more familiar. I began to try to remember how +many there were before we arrived at Claremorris, the station at which +I was going to get out. Half an hour afterward the train slackened, +the porter cried out "Ballyhaunis." The next would be Claremorris, and +I watched every field, foreseeing the long road, myself on one side of +the car, the driver on the other; a two hours' drive in silence or in +talk--in talk, for I should have to tell him my errand.... He might be +able to tell me about my mother, if the news of her illness had got as +far as Claremorris. At the public-house where I went to get a car I +made inquiries, but nothing was known. My mother must have fallen ill +suddenly--of what? I had not heard she was ailing; I did not remember +her ever to have been ill. At that moment some trees reminded me that +we were close to Ballyglass, and my thoughts wandered away to the long +road on the other side of the hill, and I saw there (for do we not +often see things in memory as plainly as if they were before us?) the +two cream-coloured ponies, Ivory and Primrose, she used to drive, and +the phaeton, and myself in it, a little child in frocks, anxious, +above all things, to see the mail-coach go by. A great sight it was to +see it go by with mail-bags and luggage, the guard blowing a horn, the +horses trotting splendidly, the lengthy reins swinging, and the +driver, his head leaned a little on one side to save his hat from +being blown away--he used to wear a grey beaver hat. The great event +of that time was the day that we went to Ballyglass, not to see the +coach go by, but to get into it, for in those days the railway stopped +at Athenry. And that was the day I saw the canal, and heard with +astonishment that there was a time long ago, no doubt in my father's +youth, when people used to go to Dublin in a barge. Those memories +were like a stupor, and awaking suddenly I saw that more than two and +a half miles lay between me and my mother. In half an hour more I +should know whether she were alive or dead, and I watched the horse +trotting, interested in his shambling gait, or not at all interested +in it--I do not know which. On occasions of great nervous tension one +observes everything.... Everything I remembered best appeared with +mechanical regularity; now it was a wood, a while afterward somebody's +farmyard, later on a line of cottages, another wood, one of my own +gate lodges. An old sawyer lived in it now--looking after it for me; +and I hoped that the wheels of the car would not bring him out, for it +would distress me to see him. The firs in the low-lying land had grown +a little within the last thirty years, but not much. We came to the +bridge; we left it behind us; the gate lodge and the drive from it; +the plantation that I knew so well, the lilac bushes, the laburnums--good +Heavens! How terrible was all this resurrection! Mists hide the +mountains from us, the present hides the past; but there are times +when the present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared +away, and the past confronts us in naked outline, and that perhaps is +why it is so painful to me to return home. The little hill at the +beginning of the drive is but a little hill, but to me it is much +more, so intimately is it associated with all the pains and troubles +of childhood. All this park was once a fairyland to me; now it is but +a thin reality, a book which I have read, and the very thought of +which bores me, so well do I know it. There is the lilac bush! I used +to go there with my mother thirty years ago at this time of year, and +we used to come home with our hands full of bloom. Two more turnings +and we should be within sight of the house! This is how men feel when +condemned to death. I am sure of it. At the last hill the driver +allowed his horse to fall into a walk, but I begged of him to drive on +the horse, for I saw some peasants about the steps of the hall door; +they were waiting, no doubt, for news, or perhaps they had news. "We +have bad news for you," they cried in the wailing tones of the West. + +"Not altogether bad news," I said to myself; "my mother is dead, but I +have been saved the useless pain, the torture of spirit, I should have +endured if I had arrived in time." China roses used to grow over the +railings; very few blooms were left. I noticed just a few as I ran up +the high steps, asking myself why I could not put the past behind me. +If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but +never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I +opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and +painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that +corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying, +showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will +show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning +of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to +spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see +his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put +his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country, +and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How +the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning +my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which +the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear! + +In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was +there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died +that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of +our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness +unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is +why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a +little shocked at my own insensibility. This was stupid of me, for I +knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately +after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But +in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect; +one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable +as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister +could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's +goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It +even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she +might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the +specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had +blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have +submitted to an operation. + +While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk +of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A +Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her +husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I +at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her +suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the +butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready. How these incidents +jar our finer feelings! They seem to degrade life, and to such a point +that we are ashamed of living, and are tempted to regard life itself +as a disgrace. + +I foresaw that the same interruptions, the same devagations, would +happen among ourselves in the square Georgian house standing on a +hill-top overlooking a long winding lake, as had happened among my +friends in the Italian house under the downs amid bunches of evergreen +oaks. Nor had I to wait long for one of these unhappy devagations. My +sister had to tell me who was staying in the house: an aunt was there, +my mother's sister, and an uncle, my mother's brother, was coming over +next day. It is easy to guess how the very mention of these names +beguiled us from what should be the subject of our thought. And the +room itself supplied plenty of distractions: all the old furniture, +the colour of the walls, the very atmosphere of the room took my +thought back to my childhood. The sofa on which my sister was sitting +had been broken years ago, and I unwittingly remembered how it had +been broken. It had been taken away to a lumber-room; somebody had had +it mended. I began to wonder who had done this--mother, most likely; +she looked after every thing. I have said that I had just arrived +after a long journey. I had eaten nothing since the night before. My +sister spoke of lunch and we went into the dining-room, and in the +middle of the meal my brother came in looking so very solemn that I +began to wonder if he had assumed the expression he thought +appropriate to the occasion--I mean if he had involuntarily +exaggerated the expression of grief he would naturally wear. We are so +constituted that the true and the false overlap each other, and so +subtly that no analysis can determine where one ends and the other +begins. I remembered how the relatives and the friends on the day of +the funeral in Sussex arrived, each one with a very grave face, +perchance interrupting us in the middle of some trivial conversation; +if so, we instantly became grave and talked of the dead woman +sympathetically for a few minutes; then on the first opportunity, and +with a feeling of relief, we began to talk of indifferent things; and +with every fresh arrival the comedy was re-acted. Returning from the +past to the present, I listened to my brother, who was speaking of the +blunder that had been made: how a wrong doctor had come down owing +to--the fault was laid upon somebody, no matter upon whom; the subject +was a painful one and might well have been dropped, but he did not +dare to talk of anything but our mother, and we all strove to carry on +the conversation as long as possible. But my brother and I had not +seen each other for years; he had come back from India after a long +absence. Nor, I think, had I seen my sister since she was married, and +that was a long while ago; she had had children; I had not seen her +before in middle age. We were anxious to ask each other questions, to +hear each other's news, and we were anxious to see the landscape that +we had not seen, at least not together, for many years; and I remember +how we were tempted out of the house by the soft sunlight floating on +the lawn. The same gentle day full of mist and sunlight that I had +watched since early morning had been prolonged, and the evening +differed hardly from the morning; the exaltation in the air was a +little more intense. My mother died certainly on the most beautiful +day I had ever seen, the most winsome, the most white, the most +wanton, as full of love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a +spray of hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I wonder why +death should have come to any one on such a bridal-like day. That we +should expect Nature to prepare a decoration in accordance with our +moods is part of the old savagery. Through reason we know that Nature +cares for us not at all, that our sufferings concern her not in the +least, but our instincts conform to the time when the sun stood still +and angels were about. It was impossible for us not to wonder why the +black shadow of death should have fallen across the white radiant day. +I say "us," for my brother no doubt pondered the coincidence, though +he did not speak his thoughts to me. No one dares to speak such +thoughts; they are the foolish substance of ourselves which we try to +conceal from others, forgetting that we are all alike. The day moved +slowly from afternoon to evening, like a bride hidden within a white +veil, her hands and her veil filled with white blossom; but a black +bird, tiny like a humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, +and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister black speck that +had intruded itself upon it. No doubt I could think of something +better were I to set my mind upon doing so, but that is how I thought +the day I walked on the lawn with my brother, ashamed and yet +compelled to talk of what our lives had been during the years that +separated us. How could one be overpowered with grief amid so many +distracting circumstances? Everything I saw was at once new and old. I +had come among my brother and sister suddenly, not having seen them, +as I have said, for many years; this was our first meeting since +childhood, and we were assembled in the house where we had all been +born. The ivy grown all over one side of the house, the disappearance +of the laburnum, the gap in the woods--these things were new; but the +lake that I had not seen since a little child I did not need to look +at, so well did I know how every shore was bent, and the place of +every island. My first adventures began on that long yellow strand; I +did not need to turn my head to see it, for I knew that trees +intervened and I knew the twisting path through the wood. That yellow +strand speckled with tufts of rushes was my first playground. But when +my brother proposed that we should walk there, I found some excuse; +why go? The reality would destroy the dream. What reality could equal +my memory of the firs where the rabbits burrowed, of the drain where +we fished for minnows, of the long strand with the lake far away in +summertime? How well I remember that yellow sand, hard and level in +some places as the floor of a ball-room. The water there is so shallow +that our governess used to allow us to wander at will, to run on ahead +in pursuit of a sandpiper. The bird used to fly round with little +cries; and we often used to think it was wounded; perhaps it pretended +to be wounded in order to lead us away from its nest. We did not think +it possible to see the lake in any new aspect, yet there it lay as we +had never seen it before, so still, so soft, so grey, like a white +muslin scarf flowing out, winding past island and headland. The +silence was so intense that one thought of the fairy-books of long +ago, of sleeping woods and haunted castles; there were the castles on +islands lying in misted water, faint as dreams. Now and then a bird +uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall +larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft +murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. +Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island +seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror--a mirror that somebody had +breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about +the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear eternity murmuring its sad +monotony. + +The lake curves inland, forming a pleasant bay among the woods; there +is a sandy spit where some pines have found roothold, and they live on +somehow despite the harsh sallies of the wind in winter. Along the +shore dead reeds lie in rows three feet deep among the rushes; had +they been placed there by hand they could not have been placed with +more regularity; and there is an old cart-track, with hawthorns +growing out of a tumbled wall. The hillside is planted--beautiful +beeches and hollies at one end, and at the other some lawny +interspaces with tall larches swaying tasselled branches shedding +faint shadows. These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads +through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a +seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some +reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a +child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the +knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the +end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was +taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my +father was taken there. + +What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear +again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up +with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman +no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others +with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all +wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon +they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a +funeral! + +Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked +that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the +elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer +lingered there. And the interval between her death and her burial I +spent along the lake's shore. The same weather continued day after +day, and it is almost impossible to find words to express the beauty +of the grey reflection of the islands and the reeds, and the faint +evanescent shores floating away, disappearing in the sun-haze, and the +silence about the shores, a kind of enchanted silence, interrupted, as +I have said, only by the low gurgle of the water about the limestone +shingle. Now and then the song of a bird would break out, and all was +silence again.... "A silence that seems to come out of the very heart +of things!" I said, and I stopped to listen, like one at the world's +end; I walked on, wondering, through the rushes and tussocked grass +and juniper bushes which grew along the wilding shore, along the edge +of the wood. Coming from the town, I could not but admire the +emptiness of the country; hardly ever did I hear the sound of a human +voice or a footstep; only once did I meet some wood-gatherers, poor +women carrying bundles of faggots, bent under their loads. And +thinking that perchance I knew them--they were evidently from the +village; if so, I must have known them when I was a boy--I was +suddenly seized by an unaccountable dread or a shyness, occasioned no +doubt by the sense of the immense difference that time had effected in +us: they were the same, but I was different. The books I had pondered +and the pictures I had seen had estranged me from them, simple souls +that they were; and the consciousness of the injustice of the human +lot made it a pain to me to look into their eyes. So I was glad to be +able to pass behind some bushes, and to escape into the wood without +their perceiving me. + +And coming upon pleasant interspaces, pleasanter even than those that +lingered in my memory, I lay down, for, though the days were the first +days of May, the grass was long and warm and ready for the scythe, the +tasselled branches of the tall larches swung faintly in a delicious +breeze, and the words of the old Irish poet came into my mind, "The +wood was like a harp in the hands of a harper." To see the boughs, to +listen to them, seemed a sufficient delight, and I began to admire the +low sky full of cotton-like clouds, and the white flower that was +beginning to light up the little leaves of the hedgerow, and I suppose +it was the May-flower that drew down upon me a sudden thought of the +beloved girl lost to me for ever. My mother's death had closed that +wound a little, but in a moment all my grief reappeared, the wound +gaped again, and it was impossible to stanch the bleeding. + +A man cannot lament two women at the same time, and only a month ago +the most beautiful thing that had ever appeared in my life, an idea +which I knew from the first I was destined to follow, had appeared to +me, had stayed with me for a while, and had passed from me. All the +partial loves of my youth seemed to find expression at last in a +passion that would know no change. Who shall explain the mystery of +love that time cannot change? Fate is the only word that conveys any +idea of it, for of what use to say that her hair was blond and thick, +that her eyes were grey and blue? I had known many women before her, +and many had hair and eyes as fine and as deep as hers. But never one +but she had had the indispensable quality of making me feel I was more +intensely alive when she was by me than I was when she was away. It +is that tingle of life that we are always seeking, and that perhaps we +must lose in order to retain. On such a day, under the swaying +branches of the larches, the whiteness of the lake curving so +beautifully amid low shores could not fail to remind me of her body, +and its mystery reminded me of her mystery; but the melancholy line of +mountains rippling down the southern sky was not like her at all. One +forgets what is unlike, caring only to dwell upon what is like.... +Thinking of her my senses grow dizzy, a sort of madness creeps up +behind the eyes. What an exquisite despair is this--that one shall +never possess that beautiful personality again, sweet-scented as the +May-time, that I shall never hold that dainty oval face in my hands +again, shall look into those beautiful eyes no more, that all the +intimacy of her person is now but a memory never to be renewed by +actual presence--in these moments of passionate memory one experiences +real grief, a pang that never has found expression perchance except in +Niobe; even that concentration of features is more an expression of +despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that +prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned +her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her +virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I +lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, +her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I +should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now, +intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking, +the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost +in losing her. + +We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the +pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of +our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best +thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if +her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be +beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be +loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of +her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him +for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to +him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was +thinking of myself when shame prevented me from going to meet the poor +wood-gatherers; they would not have thought at all of the injustice of +having been left to the labour of the fields while I had gone forth to +enjoy the world; they would have been interested to see me again, and +a few kind words would have made their load seem easier on their +backs. Called back by a sudden association of ideas, I began to +consider that shameful injustice is undoubtedly a part of our human +lot, for we may only grieve passionately for the casual, or what seems +the merely casual; perhaps because the ultimate law is hidden from us; +I am thinking now of her who comes suddenly into our lives tempting us +with colour, fugitive as that of a flower, luring us with light as +rapid as the light shed from the wings of a dove. Why, I asked myself, +as I lay under the larches, are we to mourn transitory delight so +intensely, why should it possess us more entirely than the sorrow that +we experience for her who endured the labour of child-bearing, who +nourished us perchance at her breast, whose devotion to us was +unceasing, and who grew kindlier and more divorced from every thought +of self as the years went by? From injustice there can be no escape, +not a particle. At best we can, indeed we must, acquiesce in the fact +that the only sorrow to be found in our hearts for aged persons is a +sort of gentle sorrow, such as the year itself administers to our +senses in autumn, when we come home with our hands full of the +beautiful single dahlias that the Dutchmen loved and painted, bound up +with sprays of reddening creepers; we come home along the sunny roads +over which the yellow beeches lean so pathetically, and we are sad for +the year, but we do not grieve passionately; our hearts do not break. + +Then again we cannot grieve as the conventions would have us +grieve--in strange dress; the very fact of wearing crepe and black +gloves alienates us from our real selves; we are no longer ourselves, +we are mummers engaged in the performance of a masque. I could have +mourned my mother better without crepe. "There never has been invented +anything so horrible as the modern funeral," I cried out. A picture of +the hearse and the mutes rose up in my mind, and it was at that very +moment that the song of the bird broke out again, and just above my +head in the larches an ugly, shrilling song of about a dozen notes +with an accent on the two last, a stupid, tiresome stave that never +varied. "What bird can it be," I cried out, "that comes to interrupt +my meditations?" and getting up I tried to discover it amid the +branches of the tree under which I had been lying. It broke out again +in another tree a little farther away, and again in another. I +followed it, and it led me round the wood towards the hilltop to the +foot of the steps, two short flights; the second flight, or part of it +at least, has to be removed when the vault is opened. It consists, no +doubt, of a single chamber with shelves along either side; curiosity +leads few into vaults not more than a hundred years old; above the +vault is the monument, a very simple one, a sort of table built in, +and when my father was buried, a priest scrambled up or was lifted up +by the crowd, and he delivered a funeral oration from the top of it. + +That day the box edgings were trampled under foot, and all the flowers +in the beds. My mother, perhaps, cared little for flowers, or she did +not live here sufficiently long to see that this garden was carefully +tended; for years there were no children to come here for a walk, and +it was thought sufficient to keep in repair the boundary wall so that +cattle should not get in. No trees were cut here when the Woods were +thinned, and the pines and the yews have grown so thickly that the +place is overshadowed; and the sepulchral dark is never lifted even at +midday. At the back of the tomb, in the wood behind it, the headstones +of old graves show above the ground, though the earth has nearly +claimed them; only a few inches show above the dead leaves; all this +hillside must have been a graveyard once, hundreds of years ago, and +this ancient graveyard has never been forgotten by me, principally on +account of something that happened long ago when I was a little child. +The mystery of the wood used to appeal to my curiosity, but I never +dared to scramble over the low wall until one day, leaving my +governess, who was praying by the tomb, I discovered a gap through +which I could climb. My wanderings were suddenly brought to an end by +the appearance, or the fancied appearance, of somebody in a brown +dress--a woman I thought it must be; she seemed to float along the +ground, and I hurried back, falling and hurting myself severely in my +hurry to escape through the gap. So great was my fear that I spoke not +of my hurt to my governess, but of the being I had seen, beseeching of +her to come back; but she would not come back, and this fact impressed +me greatly. I said to myself, "If she didn't believe somebody was +there she'd come back." The fear endured for long afterwards; and I +used to beg of her not to cross the open space between the last shift +of the wood and the tomb itself. We can re-live in imagination an +emotion already experienced. Everything I had felt when I was a child +about the mysterious hollows in the beech wood behind the tomb and the +old stone there, and the being I had seen clothed in a brown cloak, I +could re-live again, but the wood enkindled no new emotion in me. +Everything seemed very trivial. The steps leading to the tomb, the +tomb itself, the boundary wall, and the enchanted wood was now no more +than a mere ordinary plantation. There were a few old stones showing +through the leaves, that is all. Marvels never cease; in youth one +finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner +life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I +should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down +to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery +also a dream, an imagination? Which is the truth--that experience robs +the earth of its mystery, or that we have changed so that the +evanescent emanations which we used suddenly to grow aware of, and +which sometimes used to take shape, are still there, only our eyes are +no longer capable of perceiving them? May not this be so?--for as one +sense develops, another declines. The mystic who lives on the hillside +in the edge of a cave, pondering eternal rather than ephemeral things, +obtains glimpses, just as the child does, of a life outside this life +of ours. Or do we think these things because man will not consent to +die like a plant? Wondering if a glimpse of another life had once been +vouchsafed to me when my senses were more finely wrought, I descended +the hillside; the bird, probably a chaffinch, repeated its cry without +any variation. I went down the hillside and lay in the shadow of the +tasselled larches, trying to convince myself that I had not hoped to +see the brown lady, if it were a lady I had seen, bending over the +stones of the old burial-ground. + + +One day the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of a mason's +hammer, and on making inquiry from a passing workman--his hodman +probably--I learned that on opening the vault it had been discovered +that there was not room for another coffin. But no enlargement of the +vault was necessary; a couple of more shelves was all that would be +wanted for many a year to come. His meaning was not to be +mistaken--when two more shelves had been added there would be room for +my brothers, myself, and my sister, but the next generation would have +to order that a further excavation be made in the hill or look out for +a new burial-ground. He stood looking at me, and I watched for a +moment a fine young man whose eyes were pale as the landscape, and I +wondered if he expected me to say that I was glad that things had +turned out very well.... The sound of the mason's hammer got upon my +nerves, and feeling the wood to be no longer a place for meditation, I +wandered round the shore as far as the old boat-house, wondering how +it was that the words of a simple peasant could have succeeded in +producing such a strange revulsion of feeling in me. No doubt it was +the intensity with which I realised the fact that we are never far +from death, none of us, that made it seem as if I were thinking on +this subject for the first time. As soon as we reach the age of +reflection the thought of death is never long out of our minds. It is +a subject on which we are always thinking. We go to bed thinking that +another day has gone, that we are another day nearer our graves. Any +incident suffices to remind us of death. That very morning I had seen +two old blue-bottles huddled together in the corner of a pane, and at +once remembered that a term of life is set out for all things--a few +months for the blue-bottle, a few years for me. One forgets how one +thought twenty years ago, but I am prone to think that even the young +meditate very often upon death; it must be so, for all their books +contain verses on the mutability of things, and as we advance in years +it would seem that we think more and more on this one subject, for +what is all modern literature but a reek of regret that we are but +bubbles on a stream? I thought that nothing that could be said on this +old subject could move me, but that boy from Derryanny had brought +home to me the thought that follows us from youth to age better than +literature could have done; he had exceeded all the poets, not by any +single phrase--it was more his attitude of mind towards death (towards +my death) that had startled me--and as I walked along the shore I +tried to remember his words. They were simple enough, no doubt, so +simple that I could not remember them, only that he had reminded me +that Michael Malia, that was the mason's name, had known me since I +was a little boy; I do not know how he got it out; I should not have +been able to express the idea myself, but without choosing his words, +without being aware of them, speaking unconsciously, just as he +breathed, he had told me that if my heart were set on any particular +place I had only to tell Michael Malia and he would keep it for me; +there would be a convenient place for me just above my grandfather +when they had got the new shelf up; he had heard we were both writers. + +That country boy took it out of me as perhaps no poet had ever done! I +shall never forget him as I saw him going away stolidly through the +green wood, his bag of lime on his back. + +And sitting down in front of the tranquil lake I said, "In twenty or +thirty years I shall certainly join the others in that horrible vault; +nothing can save me," and again the present slipped away from me and +my mind became again clear as glass; the present is only subconscious; +were it not so we could not live. I have said all this before; again I +seemed to myself like a fly crawling up a pane of glass, falling back, +buzzing, and crawling again. Every expedient that I explored proved +illusory, every one led to the same conclusion that the dead are +powerless. "The living do with us what they like," I muttered, and I +thought of all my Catholic relations, every one of whom believes in +the intervention of priests and holy water, the Immaculate Conception, +the Pope's Indulgences, and a host of other things which I could not +remember, so great was my anguish of mind at the thought that my poor +pagan body should be delivered helpless into their pious hands. I +remembered their faces, I could hear their voices--that of my dear +brother, whom I shall always think of as a strayed cardinal rather +than as a colonel; I could see his pale eyes moist with faith in the +intercession of the Virgin--one can always tell a Catholic at sight, +just as one can tell a consumptive. The curving lake, the pale +mountains, the low shores, the sunlight, and the haze contributed not +a little to frighten me; the country looked intensely Catholic at that +moment. My thoughts swerved, and I began to wonder if the face of a +country takes its character from the ideas of those living in it. "How +shall I escape from that vault?" I cried out suddenly. Michael Malia's +hodman had said that they might place me just above my grandfather, +and my grandfather was a man of letters, a historian whose histories I +had not read; and in the midst of the horror my probable burial +inspired in me, I found some amusement in the admission that I should +like the old gentleman whose portrait hung in the dining-room to have +read my novels. This being so, it was not improbable that he would +like me to read his histories, and I began to speculate on what the +author of a history of the French Revolution[1] would think of "Esther +Waters." The colour of the chocolate coat he wears in his picture +fixed itself in my mind's eye, and I began to compare it with the +colour of the brown garment worn by the ghost I had seen in the wood. +Good Heavens, if it were his ghost I had seen! + +[Footnote 1: Still unpublished.] + +And listening to the lapping of the lake water I imagined a horrible +colloquy in that vault. It all came into my mind, his dialogue and my +dialogue. "Great God," I cried out, "something must be done to +escape!" and my eyes were strained out on the lake, upon the island on +which a Welshman had built a castle. I saw all the woods reaching down +to the water's edge, and the woods I did not see I remembered; all the +larch trees that grew on the hillsides came into my mind suddenly, and +I thought what a splendid pyre might be built out of them. No trees +had been cut for the last thirty years; I might live for another +thirty. What splendid timber there would then be to build a pyre for +me!--a pyre fifty feet high, saturated with scented oils, and me lying +on the top of it with all my books (they would make a nice pillow for +my head). The ancient heroes used to be laid with their arms beside +them; their horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be +free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My +pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen +for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body +would become a sort of beacon-fire--the beacon of the pagan future +awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be +anything too excessive--a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a +thousand larches and a few barrels of scented oil and the great feast: +for while I was roasting, my mourners should eat roast meat and drink +wine and wear gay dresses--the men as well as the women; and the +gayest music would be played. The "Marriage of Figaro" and some +Offenbach would be pleasing to my spirit, the ride of the Valkyrie +would be an appropriate piece; but I am improvising a selection, and +that is a thing that requires careful consideration. It would be a +fine thing indeed if such a funeral--I hate the word--such a burning +as this could be undertaken, and there is no reason why it should not +be, unless the law interdicts public burnings of human bodies. And +then my face clouded, and my soul too; I grew melancholy as the lake, +as the southern mountains that rippled down the sky plaintive as an +Irish melody, for the burning I had dreamed of so splendidly might +never take place. I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium +in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the +belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to +myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral +liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen," +and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin. + +It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my +interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed +as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who +would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should +catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of +so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological +reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a +fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the +Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in +the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor +would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there +would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up +whatever will I was minded to make. In order to secure the burial of +my body, my notion was to leave all my property, lands, money, +pictures, and furniture to my brother, Colonel Maurice Moore on the +condition that I should be burnt and the ashes disposed of without the +humiliation of Christian rites; that if the conditions that the +inheritance carried with it were so disagreeable to Colonel Maurice +Moore that he could not bring himself to see that the disposal of my +remains was carried out according to my wishes, my property, lands, +money, pictures, and furniture, should go to my brother Augustus +Moore; that in the event of his declining to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all my property should go to my +brother Julian Moore; that if he should refuse to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all the said property should go +to my friend Sir William Eden, who would, I felt sure, take a sad +pleasure in giving effect to the wishes of his old friend. A will +drawn up on these lines would secure me against all chance of being +buried with my ancestors in Kiltoon, and during the next two days I +pondered my own burning. My brother might think that he was put to a +good deal of expense, but he would not fail me. He had taken off my +hands the disagreeable task of seeing the undertakers and making +arrangements for the saying of Masses, etc., arrangements which would +be intensely disagreeable to me to make so. I had plenty of time to +think out the details of my burning; and I grew happy in the thought +that I had escaped from the disgrace of Christian burial--a disgrace +which was never, until the last two days, wholly realised by me, but +which was nevertheless always suspected. No doubt it was the dread of +Kiltoon that had inspired that thought of death from which in late +years I had never seemed able to escape. I am of the romantic +temperament, and it would be a pity to forgo the burning I had +imagined. I delighted in the vision that had come upon me of the +felling of the larch trees on the hillside and the building of the +pyre about the old castle. It would reach much higher; I imagined it +at least fifty feet high. I saw it flaming in imagination, and when +half of it was burnt, the mourners would have to take to the boats, so +intense would be the heat. What a splendid spectacle! Never did any +man imagine a more splendid funeral! It would be a pity if the law +obliged me to forgo it. But there was no use hoping that the law would +not; there was a law against the burning of human remains, and I might +have to fall back on the Public Crematorium: it only remained for me +to decide what I would wish to be done with the ashes. In a moment of +happy inspiration I conceived the idea of a Greek vase as the only +suitable repository for my ashes, and I began to remember all the +Greek vases I had seen: all are beautiful, even the Roman Greek; these +are sometimes clumsy and heavy, but the sculpture is finely designed +and executed. Any Greek vase I decided would satisfy me, provided, of +course, that the relief represented Bacchanals dancing, and nearly +every Greek vase is decorated in this way. The purchase of the vase +would be an additional expense; no doubt I was running my brother in +for a good deal of money; it is becoming more and more difficult to +buy original Greek sculpture! and in a moment of posthumous parsimony +my thoughts turned to a copy of a Greek vase in granite, granite being +more durable than marble, and I wanted the vase to last for a long +time. It was delightful to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and to +draw all that I remembered of the different vases I had seen, +different riots of lusty men carrying horns of wine, intermingled with +graceful girls dancing gracefully, youths playing on pipes, and amidst +them fauns, the lovely animality of the woods, of the landscape ages, +when men first began to milk their goats, and when one man out of the +tribe, more pensive, more meditative than the others, went down to the +river's bank and cut a reed and found music within it. The vase I +remembered best has upright handles springing from the necks of swans. +It stands about two feet high, perhaps a little more, and its cavity +should be capable of containing all that remains of me after my +burning. None would have thought, from the happy smile upon my lips, +that I was thinking of a Grecian urn and a little pile of white ashes. +"O death, where is thy sting?" I murmured, and the pencil dropped from +my hand, for my memory was more beautiful than anything I could +realise upon paper. I could only remember one side of a youth, that +side of him next to an impulsive maiden; her delight gives her wings; +his left arm is about her shoulder. She is more impulsive than he, and +I wondered at his wistfulness--whether he was thinking of another love +or a volume of poems that he loved better. Little by little many of +the figures in the dance were remembered, for the sculpture was so +well done that the years had only clouded my memory. The clouds +dispersed, and I saw this time one whole figure, that of a +dancing-girl; her right arm is extended, her left arm is bent, she +holds a scarf as she dances, and the muscles of the arms are placed so +well, and the breasts too, that one thinks that the girl must have +been before the sculptor as he worked. Ingres and Antiquity alone knew +how to simplify. There is little, but that little is so correct that +detail is unnecessary, and I exulted in remembrance of the dainty +design of the belly, half hidden, half revealed by little liquid +folds. "How exquisite," I said, "is that thigh! how well it advances! +And we poor moderns have lived upon that beauty now well-nigh two +thousand years? But how vainly we have attempted to imitate that +drapery flowing about the ankles, like foam breaking on the crest of a +wave." A slender youth stands next; his shoulders are raised, for the +pipes are to his lips, his feet are drawn close together, and by him a +satyr dances wildly, clashing cymbals as he dances. He is followed, I +think--it is difficult to say whether this be a recollection of +another vase or whether the figure is included in the same group--by a +faun tempting the teeth and claws of a panther with a bunch of grapes. +And it was this winsome faun that decided me to select this vase as +the repository of my ashes. And I determined to stipulate in my will +that this vase be chosen. But my will must not be too complicated, +otherwise it might be contested. All that is not common can easily be +argued to be madness by a loquacious lawyer before a stupid jury. Who +except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to +what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees +with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour +that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead +coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because +men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs +insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The +common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our +remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It +is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander +away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor +humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at +least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that +might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some +little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every +one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of +the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is +served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of +crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I +am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last +manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have +I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have +done in this order for my tomb. One trouble, however, still remained +upon my mind. Where should the vase be placed? Not in Westminster +Abbey. Fie upon all places of Christian burial! A museum inspires +lofty thoughts in a few; Gouncourt speaks of the icy admiration of +crowds. The vase might stand in the stone wall, and in the very corner +where I learned to spin my top? But sooner or later a housemaid would +break it. The house itself will become the property of another family, +and the stranger will look upon the vase with idle curiosity, or +perhaps think it depressing to have me in the hall. An order for my +removal to a garret might be made out. + +The disposal of the vase caused me a great deal of anxiety, and I +foresaw that unless I hit upon some idea whereby I could safeguard it +from injury for ever, my project would be deprived of half its value. +As I sat thinking I heard a noise of feet suddenly on the staircase. +"They are bringing down my mother's coffin," I said, and at that +moment the door was opened and I was told that the funeral procession +was waiting for me. My brother, and various relatives and friends, +were waiting in the hall; black gloves were on every hand, crepe +streamed from every hat, "All the paraphernalia of grief," I muttered; +"nothing is wanting." My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why +should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far +be it from me to criticise such a desire!" + +The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up +to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first +understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to +understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant +follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that +there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain +themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try +to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were +any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the +chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, +we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the +wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing +about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; +Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of +what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to +prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with +scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the +point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people, +I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But +Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against +violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the +Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed? + +Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they +chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking +that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very +moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of +the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase +containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it +would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless +depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made +without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel +of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods, +man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some +millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase +containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some +secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless +desert that the earth will then be). + +Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and +maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the +extinct sea of an extinct planet. Millions of years will pass away, +and the earth, after having lain dead for a long winter, as it does +now for a few weeks under frost and snow, will, with all other +revolving planets, become absorbed in the sun, and the sun itself will +become absorbed in greater suns, Sirius and his like. In the matters +of grave moment, millions of years are but seconds; billions convey +very little to our minds. At the end of, let us say, some billion +years the ultimate moment towards which everything from the beginning +has been moving will be reached; and from that moment the tide will +begin to flow out again, the eternal dispersal of things will begin +again; suns will be scattered abroad, and in tremendous sun-quakes +planets will be thrown off; in loud earth-quakes these planets will +throw off moons. Millions of years will pass away, the earth will +become cool, and out of the primal mud life will begin again in the +shape of plants, and then of fish, and then of animals. It is like +madness, but is it madder than Christian doctrine? and I believe that +billions of years hence, billions and billions of years hence, I shall +be sitting in the same room as I sit now, writing the same lines as I +am now writing: I believe that again, a few years later, my ashes will +swing in the moveless and silent depths of the Pacific Ocean, and that +the same figures, the same nymphs, and the same fauns will dance +around me again. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of My Dead Life, by George Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 7789.txt or 7789.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/8/7789/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Memoirs of My Dead Life + +Author: George Moore + +Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7789] +[This file was first posted on May 17, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + + + + +Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + +BY + +GEORGE MOORE + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +I. SPRING IN LONDON + +II. FLOWERING NORMANDY + +III. A WAITRESS + +IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + +V. LA BUTTE + +VI. SPENT LOVES + +VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HOTE + +VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + +IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + +X. A REMEMBRANCE + +XI. BRING IN THE LAMP + +XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + +XIII. RESURGAM + + + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +[_The_ APOLOGIA _which follows needs, perhaps, a word of +explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful, +as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this +present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever +written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published. +When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of +Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East," +first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these +"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s +library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy +they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of +a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a +certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among +the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the +publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his_ Mayflower +_ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of +Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so +beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet +in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East" +that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted +the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake. +And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called +publishers, gave way on condition that this _APOLOGIA_ should +appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration +of an Ibsen comma, and if the _Mayflower_ "weeds" mere instrumental +in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew_.--THE +PUBLISHER.] + +Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader +will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that +one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me +personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm +he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were +omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," +--Messrs. Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the +other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was +not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a +certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question, +and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had +been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed +his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the +right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions +or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life" +and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they +depict him. + +"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly +imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to +put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental +grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are +concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the +ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run +continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which +may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You +range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander. + +"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak +of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but +interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last +analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call +illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I _do_ want to +know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do +you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned, +explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to +cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all +women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his +aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl +by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution +of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be +inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your +own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?" + + * * * * * + +The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on +the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever +this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much +a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to +think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he +would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart, +nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea. +"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not +say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of +the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I +imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he +shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with +nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along +which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing +table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my +real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself +in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I +was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these +questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of +view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather +like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began +my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the +same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even +suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have +written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying +the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that +I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads, +deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see +that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a +personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a +woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and +the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial. +Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching +of the roads, and the best way I can serve him is by drawing his +attention to the fallacy, which till now he has accepted as a truth, +that there is one immutable standard of conduct for all men and all +women." But the difficulty of writing a sufficient letter on a subject +so large and so intricate puzzled me and I sat smiling, for an odd +thought had dropped suddenly into my mind. My correspondent was a +Bible reader, no doubt, and it would be amusing to refer him to the +chapter in Genesis where God is angry with our first parents because +they had eaten of the tree of good and evil. "This passage" I said to +myself, "has never been properly understood. Why was God angry? For no +other reason except that they had set up a moral standard and could be +happy no longer, even in Paradise. According to this chapter the moral +standard is the origin of all our woe. God himself summoned our first +parents before him, and in what plight did they appear? We know how +ridiculous the diminutive fig leaf makes a statue seem in our museums; +think of the poor man and woman attired in fig leaves just plucked +from the trees! I experienced a thrill of satisfaction that I should +have been the first to understand a text that men have been studying +for thousands of years, turning each word over and over, worrying over +it, all in vain, yet through no fault of the scribe who certainly +underlined his intention. Could he have done it better than by +exhibiting our first parents covering themselves with fig leaves, and +telling how after getting a severe talking to from the Almighty they +escaped from Paradise pursued by an angel? The story can have no other +meaning, and that I am the first to expound it is due to no +superiority of intelligence, but because my mind is free. But I must +not appear to my correspondent as an exegetist. Turning to his letter +again I read: + +"I am sorely puzzled. Is your life all of a piece? Are your 'Memoirs' +a pose? I can't think the latter, for you seem sincere and frank to +the verge of brutality (or over). But what is your standard of +conduct? Is there a right and a wrong? Is everything open to any man? +Can you refer me now to any other book of yours in which you view life +steadily and view it whole from our standpoint? Forgive my intrusion. +You see I don't set myself as a judge, but you sweep away apparently +all my standards. And you take your reader so quietly and closely into +your confidence that you tempt a response. I see your many admirable +points, but your center of living is not mine, and I do want to know +as a matter of enormous human interest what your subsumptions are. I +cannot analyze or express myself with literary point as you do, but +you may see what I aim at. It is a bigger question to me than the +value or force of your book. It goes right to the core of the big +things, and I approach you as one man of limited outlook to another of +wider range." + +The reader will not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these +quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man +paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to +do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, +hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's +heart"--but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him +... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. +But if my view of him is right, my task is a more subtle one than +merely to point out that he will seek in vain for a moral standard +whether he seeks it in the book of Nature or in the book of God. I +should not move him by pointing out that in the Old Testament we are +told an eye for an eye is our due, and in the New the rede is to turn +the left cheek after receiving a blow on the right. Nor would he be +moved by referring him to the history of mankind, to the Boer War, for +instance, or the massacres which occur daily in Russia; everybody +knows more or less the history of mankind, and to know it at all is to +know that every virtue has at some time or other been a vice. But man +cannot live by negation alone, and to persuade my correspondent over +to our side it might be well to tell him that if there be no moral +standard he will nevertheless find a moral idea if he looks for it in +Nature. I reflected how I would tell him that he must not be +disappointed because the idea changes and adapts itself to +circumstance, and sometimes leaves us for long intervals; if he would +make progress he must learn to understand that the moral world only +becomes beautiful when we relinquish our ridiculous standards of what +is right and wrong, just as the firmament became a thousand times more +wonderful and beautiful when Galileo discovered that the earth moved. +Had Kant lived before the astronomer he would have been a great +metaphysician, but he would not have written the celebrated passage +"Two things fill the soul with undying and ever-increasing admiration, +the night with its heaven of stars above us and in our hearts the +moral law." The only fault I find with this passage is that I read the +word "law" where I expected to read the word "idea," for the word +"law" seems to imply a Standard, and Kant knew there is none. Is the +fault with the translator or with Kant, who did not pick his words +carefully? The metaphysician spent ten years thinking out the +"Critique of Pure Reason" and only six months writing it; no doubt his +text might be emendated with advantage. If there was a moral standard +the world within us would be as insignificant as the firmament was +when the earth was the center of the universe and all the stars were +little candles and Jehovah sat above them, a God who changed his mind +and repented, a whimsical, fanciful God who ordered the waters to rise +so that his creatures might be overwhelmed in the flood, all except +one family (I need not repeat here the story of Noah's Ark and the +doctrine of the Atonement) if there was one fixed standard of right +and wrong, applicable to everybody, black, white, yellow, and red men +alike, an eternal standard that circumstance could not change. Those +who believe in spite of every proof to the contrary that there is a +moral standard cannot appreciate the beautiful analogy which Kant +drew, the moral idea within the heart and the night with its heaven of +stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on +worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after +the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison +rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office +after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant +thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize +within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not +sufficient to lead my correspondent out of the narrow lanes of +conventions and prejudices into the open field of inquiry. Turning to +his letter, I read it again, misjudging him, perhaps ... but the +reader shall form his own estimate. + +"I honestly felt and feel a big difficulty in reading and thinking +over your 'Memoirs' for you are a propagandist whether you recognize +that as a conscious mission or not. There is in your book a +challenging standard of life which will not wave placidly by the side +of the standard which is generally looked up to as his regimental +colors by the average man. One must go down. And it was because I felt +the necessity of choosing that I wrote to you. + +"'Memoirs' is clearly to me a sincere book. You have built your life +on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that +sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for +instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward +for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say +that limitation has no other sanction than convention--race +inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it +so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is +the best? Men have been hunting the best all their history long by a +process of trial and error. Surely the build of things condemns the +murderer, the liar, the sensualist, and the coward! and how do you +come by 'natural goodness' if your moral is merely your customary? No, +with all respect for your immense ability and your cultured outlook, I +do not recognize the lawless variability of the right and the wrong +standard which you posit. How get you your evidence? From human +actions? But it is the most familiar of facts that men do things they +feel to be wrong. I have known a thief who stole every time in pangs +of conscience; not merely in the fear of detection. There is a higher +and a lower in morals, but the lower is recognized as a lower, and +does not appeal to a surface reading of the code of an aboriginal in +discussing morals. That, I think is only fair. Your artistic sense is +finely developed, but it is none the less firmly based, although there +are Victorian back parlors and paper roses. + +"You see you are a preacher, not merely an artist. Every glimpse of +the beautiful urges the beholder to imitation and _vice versa_. +And that is why your 'Memoirs' are not merely 'an exhibition' of the +immoral; they are 'an incitement' to the immoral. Don't you think so? +And thinking so would you not honestly admit, that society (in the +wide sense, of course--civilization) would relapse, go down, +deliquesce, if all of us were George Moores as depicted in your book?" + +His letter dropped from my hand, and I sat muttering, "How +superficially men think!" How little they trouble themselves to +discover the truth! While declaring that truth is all important, they +accept any prejudice and convention they happen to meet, fastening on +to it like barnacles. How disappointing is that passage about the +murderer, the sensualist, the liar, and the coward; but of what use +would it be to remind my correspondent of Judith who went into the +tent of Holofernes to lie with him, and after the love feast drove a +nail into the forehead of the sleeping man. She is in Scripture held +up to our admiration as a heroine, the saviour of our nation. +Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath, yet who regards Charlotte +Corday as anything else but a heroine? In Russia men know that the +fugitives lie hidden in the cave, yet they tell the Cossack soldiers +they have taken the path across the hill--would my correspondent +reprove them and call them liars? I am afraid he has a lot of leeway +to make up, and it is beyond my power to help him. + +Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther +Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any +book of mine in which I viewed life--I cannot bring myself to +transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold--I referred him to "Esther +Waters," saying that a critic had spoken of it as a beautiful +amplification of the beatitudes. Of the book he makes no mention in +his letter, but he writes: "There is a challenging standard of life in +your book which will not wave placidly by the side of the standard +which is generally looked up to as his regimental colors by the +average man." The idea besets him, and he refers to it again in the +last paragraph; he says: "You see, you are a preacher, not merely an +artist." And very likely he is right; there is a messianic aspect in +my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading +between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that +desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be +treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture +and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to +believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century +Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its +moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not dare to keep +Esther; but if she sent her servant away, she spoke kindly, giving her +enough money to see her through her trouble; there are good people +among Christians. The usual Christian attitude would be to tell Esther +that she must go into a reformatory after the birth of her child, for +the idea of punishment is never long out of the Christian's thoughts. +It is not necessary to recapitulate here how Esther, escaping from the +network of snares spread for her destruction, takes refuge in a +workhouse, and lives there till her child is reared; how she works +fifteen hours a day in a lodging house, sleeping in corners of +garrets, living upon insufficient food; or how, after years of +struggle, she meets William, now separated from his wife, and consents +to live with him that her child may have a father. For this second +"transgression," so said a clergyman in a review of the book, Esther +could not be regarded as a moral woman. His moral sense, dwarfed by +doctrine, did not enable him to see that the whole evil came out of +standard morality and the whole good out of the instinct incarnate in +her; and he must have read the book without perceiving its theme, the +revelation in the life of an outcast servant girl of the instinct on +which the whole world rests. + +Not until writing these lines did I ever think of "Esther Waters" as a +book of doctrine; but it is one, I see that now, and that there is a +messianic aspect in my writings. My correspondent did well to point +that out, and no blame attaches to him because he seems to fail to see +that I may be an admirable moralist while depreciating Christian +morality and advocating a return to Nature's. He belonged to the +traditions yesterday, today he is among those who are seekers, and +to-morrow I doubt not he will be among those prone to think that +perhaps Christianity is, after all, retrograde. His lips will curl +contemptuously to-morrow when he hears the cruelty of the circus +denounced by men who would, if they were allowed, relight the bon +fires of the Inquisition; ... he is a Protestant, I had forgotten. +Gladiators have begun to appear to us less cruel than monks, and +everybody who can think has begun to think that some return to pagan +morality is desirable. That is so; awaking out of the great slumber of +Christianity, we are all asking if the qualities which once we deemed +our exclusive possession have not been discovered among pagans--pride, +courage, and heroism. Our contention has become that no superiority is +claimed in any respect but one; it appears that it must be admitted +that Christians are more chaste than pagans, at all events that +chastity flourishes among Christian communities as it has never +flourished among pagan. The Christian's boast is that all sexual +indulgence outside of the marriage bed is looked upon as sinful, and +he would seem to think that if he proclaims this opinion loudly, its +proclamation makes amends for many transgressions of the ethical law. +All he understands is the law; nothing of the subtler idea that the +ethical impulse is always invading the ethical law finds a way into +his mind. Women are hurried from Regent Street to Vine Street, and his +conscience is soothed by these raids; the owners of the houses in +which these women live are fined, and he congratulates himself that +vice is not licensed in England, that, in fact, its existence is +unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not +discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of +degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these +reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human +grief, he mutters "how very sad!" + +But the assurance that the women are wretched and despised soothes his +conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish +prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It +would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of +men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish--you +would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was +once respected and honored, and the world was as beautiful then as +now, and as noble men lived in it. In many ways the world was more +moral than when your ideas began to prevail." He asks me to explain, +and I tell him that with the degradation of the courtesan the moral +standard has fallen, for as we degrade her we disgrace the act of +love. We have come to speak of it as part of our lower nature, +permissible, it is true, if certain conditions are complied with, but +always looked upon askance; and continuing the same strain of +argument, I tell him that the act of love was once deemed a sacred +rite, and that I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and +exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused +men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels +instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he +asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too +old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; +"a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort +necessary to understand me if I were to tell him, for instance, that +the desire of beauty is in itself a morality." It was, perhaps, the +only morality the Greeks knew, and upon the memory of Greece we have +been living ever since. In becoming _hetairae_, Aspasia, Lais, +Phryne, and Sappho became the distributors of that desire of beauty +necessary in a state which had already begun to dream the temples of +Minerva and Zeus. + +The words of Blake come into my mind, "the daring of the lion or the +submission of the ox." With these words I should have headed my letter +to the secretary of the charitable institution, and I should have told +him that many books which he would regard as licentious are looked +upon by me as sacred. "Mademoiselle de Maupin," "the golden book of +spirit and sense," Swinburne has called it, I have always looked upon +as a sacred book from the very beginning of my life. It cleansed me of +the belief that man has a lower nature, and I learned from it that the +spirit and the flesh are equal, "that earth is as beautiful as heaven, +and that perfection of form is virtue." "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was a +great purifying influence, a lustral water dashed by a sacred hand, +and the words are forever ringing in my ear, "by exaltation of the +spirit and the flesh thou shalt live." This book would be regarded by +my correspondent as he regards my "Memoirs," and its publication has +been interdicted in England. How could it be permitted to circulate in +a country in which the kingdom of heaven is (in theory) regarded as +more important than the kingdom of earth? A few pages back the idea +came up under my pen that the aim of practical morality was to render +illicit love as unattractive as possible, and I suppose, though he has +never thought the matter out, the Christian moralist would regard +Gautier as the most pernicious of writers, for his theme is always +praise of the visible world, of all that we can touch and see; and in +this book art and sex are not estranged. I have often wondered if the +estrangement of the twain so noticeable in English literature is not +the origin of this strange belief that bodily love is part of our +lower nature. Our appreciation of the mauve flush dying in the west +has been indefinitely heightened by descriptions seen in pictures and +read in poems, and I cannot but think that if the lover's exaltation +before the curve of his mistress's breast had not been forbidden, the +ugly thought that the lover's ardor is inferior to the poet's would +never have obtained credence. There is but one energy, and the vital +fluid, whether expended in love or in a poem, is the same. The poet +and the lover are creators, they participate and carry on the great +work begun billions of years ago when the great Breath breathing out +of chaos summoned the stars into being. But why do I address myself +like this to the average moralist? How little will he understand me! +In the Orelay adventure which horrified him there was an appreciation +of beauty which he has, I am afraid, rendered himself incapable of. +Myself and Doris were spiritual gainers by the Orelay adventure, +Doris's rendering of "The Moonlight Sonata," till she went to Orelay, +was merely brilliant and effective; and have not all the critics in +England agreed that the story in which I relate her contains some of +the best pages of prose I have written? But why talk of myself when +there is Wagner's experience to speak about? Did he not write to +Madame Wasendonck, "I owe you Tristan for all eternity"? She has not +left any written record of her debt to Wagner, perhaps because she +could not find words to give the reader any idea how great it was. + +Histories of human civilization there are in abundance, but I do not +know of any history of the human intelligence. But when this comes to +be written--if it ever should come to be written--the writer will +hesitate, at least I can imagine him hesitating, how much of the +genius of artists he would be justified in tracing back to sexual +impulses. Goethe, as my correspondent informs me, looked upon love of +woman as a means of increasing his aesthetic sensibilities, and my +correspondent seems to think that he did them wrong thereby, whereas I +think he honored them exceedingly. Balzac held the contrary belief, so +Gautier tells us, maintaining that great spiritual elation could be +gained by restraint, and when inquiry was made into his precise +beliefs on this point he confessed that he could not allow an author +more than half an hour once a year with his beloved; he placed no +restriction, however, on correspondence, "for that helped to form a +style." When Gautier mentioned the names of certain great men whose +lives offered a striking refutation of this theory, Balzac answered +they would have written better if they had lived chastely. Gautier +seems to have left the question there, and so will we, remarking only +that Balzac was prone to formulating laws out of his single +experience. I remember having written, or having heard somebody say, +"in other writers we discover this or that thing, but everything +exists in Balzac." And in his conversation with Gautier we do not find +him praising chastity as a virtue, but extolling the results that may +be gotten from chastity as a Yogi might. It is said that English +missionaries in India sometimes drive out in their pony chaises to +visit a holy man who has left his womenfolk, plentiful food, and a +luxurious dwelling for a cave in some lonely ravine. The pony chaise +only takes the parson to the mouth of the ravine, and leaving his wife +and children in charge of his servant, the parson ascends the rocky +way on foot, meeting, perchance, a fat peasant priest from Maynooth +bent on the same mission as himself--the conversion of the Yogi. It is +amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting +with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking +to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all +agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his +eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously +he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their +discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon +all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, if he +answered his visitors; "I dwell in solitude and in silence, and am +chaste, and live upon the rice that the pious leave on the rocks for +me, but I do not regard chastity and abstinence as possessed of any +inherent merits; as virtues, they are but a means to an end. How would +you impose chastity upon all men, since every man brings a different +idea into the world with him? There are men who would die if forced to +live chaste lives, and there are men who would choose death rather +than live unchaste, and many a woman if she were forced to live with +one husband would make him very unhappy, whereas if she lived with two +men she would make them both supremely happy. But the news has reached +me even here that in the West you seek a moral standard, and this +quest always fills me with wonder. There are priests among you, I can +see that, and soldiers, and fishermen, and artists and princes and +folk who labor in the fields--now do you expect all these men, living +in different conditions of life, to live under the same rule? I am +afraid that the East and the West will never understand each other. +The sun is setting, my time for speech is over," and the wise man, +rising from the stone on which he has been sitting, enters into the +cave, leaving the priest and the parson to descend the rocks together +in the twilight, their differences hushed for the moment, to break +forth again the next day. + +Schopenhauer has a fine phrase, one that has haunted my mind these +many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime +wisdom of the East like bullets fired against a cliff. + +How can it be otherwise? For when we were naked savages the Brahmans +were learned philosophers, and had seen as far into every mystery as +mortal eyes will ever see. We have progressed a little lately; our +universities, it is true, are a few hundred years old, but in +comparison with the East we are still savages; our culture is but +rudimentary, and my correspondent's letter is proof of it. It is +characteristic of the ideas that still flourish on the banks of the +Thames, ideas that have changed only a little since the +_Mayflower_ sailed. It would have been better if Columbus had +delayed his discovery for, let us say, a thousand years. I am afraid +the _Mayflower_ carried over a great many intellectual weeds +which have caught root and flourished exceedingly in your +States--Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A letter arrived +from Washington some two or three months ago. The writer was a lady +who used to write to me on all subjects under the sun; about fifteen +years ago we had ceased to write to each other, so she began her +letter, not unnaturally, by speaking of the surprise she guessed her +handwriting would cause me. She had broken the long silence, for she +had been reading "The Lake," and had been much interested in the book. +It would have been impolite to write to me without alluding to the +aesthetic pleasure the book had given her, but her interest was mainly +a religious one. About five years ago she had become a Roman Catholic, +she was writing a book on the subject of her conversion, and would +like to find out from me why I had made Father Gogarty's conversion +turn upon his love of woman, "for it seems to me clear, unless I have +misunderstood your book, that you intended to represent Gogarty as an +intellectual man." It is difficult to trace one's motives back, but I +remember the irritation her letter caused me, and how I felt it would +not be dignified for me to explain; my book was there for her to +interpret or misinterpret, as she pleased; added to which her +"conversion" to Rome was an annoying piece of news. Fifteen years ago +she was an intelligent woman and a beautiful woman, if photographs do +not lie, and it was disagreeable for me to think of her going on her +knees in a confessional, receiving the sacraments, wearing scapulars, +trying to persuade herself that she believed in the Pope's +indulgences. She must now be middle-aged, but the decay of physical +beauty is not so sad a spectacle as the mind's declension. "She began +to think," I said, "of another world only when she found herself +unable to enjoy this one any longer; weariness of this world produces +what the theologians call 'faith.' How often have we heard the phrase +'You will believe when you are dying'? She would have had," I said, +"Father Gogarty leave his church for doctrinal rather than natural +reasons, believing scrolls to be more intellectual than the instincts; +Father Gogarty poring over some early edition of the Scriptures in his +little house on the hilltop, reading by the light of the lamp at +midnight and deciding that he would go out of his parish because, +according to recent exegesis, a certain verset in the Gospel had been +added three hundred years after the death of Christ." I fell to +thinking how dry, common, and uninteresting the tale would be had it +been written on these doctrinal lines. Carlyle said that Cardinal +Newman had the brain of a half-grown rabbit, and he was right; Newman +never got further than a scroll, and man must think with his body, as +well as with his brain. To think well the whole man must think, and it +seems to me that Father Gogarty thought in this complete way. Rose +Leicester revealed to him the enchantment and the grace of life, and +his quest became life. Had it been Hose Leicester herself the story +would have merely been a sensual incident. The instinct to go rose up +within him, he could not tell how or whence it came, and he went as +the bird goes, finding his way toward a country where he had never +been, led as the bird is led by some nostalgic instinct. And I do not +doubt that he found life, whether in the form of political or literary +ambition or in some other woman who would remind him of the woman he +had lost; perhaps he found it in all these things, perhaps in none. +Told as I told it the story seems to me a true and human one, and one +that might easily occur in these modern days; much more easily than +the story my correspondent would have had me write. The story of a +priest abandoning his parish for theological reasons is not an +improbable one, but I think such a story would be more typical of the +sixteenth century, when men were more interested in the authenticity +of the Biblical texts than they are in the twentieth. The Bible has +been sifted again and again; its history is known, every word has been +weighed, and it is difficult to imagine the most scrupulous exegetist +throwing a search light into any unexplored corner. Even Catholic +scholarship, if Loisy can be regarded as a Catholic, has abandoned the +theory that the gospels were written by the Apostles. The earliest, +that of Mark, was written sixty years after the death of Christ, and +it is the only one for which any scholar claims the faintest +historical value. With this knowledge of history in our possession +belief has become in modern times merely a matter of temperament, +entirely dissociated from the intellect. Some painter once said that +Nature put him out. The theologian can say the same about the +intellect--it puts him out. Out of a great deal of temperament and a +minimum of intellect he gets a precipitate, if I may be permitted to +drop into the parlance of the chemist, for dregs would be an impolite +word to use, and the precipitate always delights in the fetich. There +will always be men and women, the cleric has discovered, who will +barter their souls for the sake of rosaries and scapulars and the +Pope's indulgences. The two great enemies of religion, as the clerics +know well, are the desire to live and the desire to know. We find this +in Genesis: God: i. e., the clerics, was angry because his creatures +ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of +the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of +the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of +the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was +written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men +from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so +anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this +tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the +ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics +were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent +herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit +of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected +were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great +feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always +ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great +depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the +tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter +fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it +has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no +conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The +origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the +glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... +The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another +instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now +directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of +knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among +themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may +always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups +to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were +infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this +fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the +earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken +when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have +involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the +Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done +all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful +that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been +written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as +heaven," and Gautier's phrase, _"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle +que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la +vertu,"_ has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to +the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual +spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of +doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather +than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of +mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more +serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So +leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on. + +My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did +more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be +vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of +an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part +of the book which interested us the least was that very part which +would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am +alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's +room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted, +for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been +seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did +he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his +own imagination made visible by some prodigy to him. For a still +briefer space Rosette shared Albert's dream, and man and wife remained +faithful to each other. It is easy to imagine the vileness which a +prosecuting counsel could extract from these beautiful pages made +entirely of vision and ecstasy. How false and shameful is the whole +business. We are allowed to state that we prefer pagan morality to +Christian, but are interdicted from illustrating our beliefs by +incident. So long as we confine ourselves to theory we are unmolested. +But these are subtleties which do not trouble the minds of the members +of vigilance associations, the men and women who gather together in +back parlors with lead pencils to mark out passages which they +consider "un-Kur-istean" (a good strong accent on the second +syllable). Their thoughts pursue beaten tracks. Books like +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" they hold would act directly on the +temperament, and we know that they do not do this, we know that the +things of the intellect belong to the intellect and the things of the +flesh to the flesh. Were it otherwise Rose Leicester, the pretty +school mistress, might have been left out of my story entitled "The +Lake," and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will +be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second +correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have +chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His +choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still +Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with +the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of +an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have had an +inflamed young man curled up in an armchair reading eagerly, walking +up and down the room from time to time, unable to contain himself, and +eventually throwing the book aside, he would find his way down to the +lake. + +These two versions of "The Lake," as it might have been written by my +correspondents, will convince, I think, almost anyone, even them, that +the desire of life which set Father Gogarty free could have been +inspired only by a woman's personality. It was not necessary that he +should go after the woman herself--but that point has already been +explained. What concerns us now to understand is how the strange idea +could have come into men's minds that literature is a more potent +influence than life itself. The solving of this problem has beguiled +many an hour, but the solution seems as far away as ever, and I have +never got nearer than the supposition that perhaps this fear of +literature is a survival of the very legitimate fear that prevailed in +the Middle Ages against writing. In my childhood I remember hearing an +old woman say that writing was an invention of the devil, and what an +old woman believed forty years ago in outlying districts was almost +the universal opinion of the Middle Ages. Denunciations and burnings +of books were frequent, and ideas die slowly, finding a slow +extinction many generations after the reason for their existence has +ceased. In the famous trial of Gille de Rais we have it on record that +the Breton baron was asked by his ecclesiastical judges if pagan +literature had inspired the strange crimes of which he was accused, if +he had read of them in--I have forgotten the names of the Latin +authors mentioned, but I remember Gille de Rais' quite simple answer +that his own heart had inspired the crimes. Whereupon the judges not +unnaturally were shocked, for the conclusion was forced upon them that +if Gille's confession were true they were not trying a man who had +been perverted by outward influence but one who had been born +perverted. Who then was responsible for his crimes? Lunacy sometimes +in these modern days serves as a scapegoat, but the knowledge of +lunacy in the fifteenth century was not so complete as it is now and +the judges preferred to believe that Gille was lying. And about ten +years ago London found itself in the same moral quandary. Three or +four little boys were discovered to have planned the murder of one of +their comrades--sixpence, I think, was the object of the murder; not +one was over eight, yet they planned the crime skillfully and very +nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys +with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages +a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the +question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; +London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be +prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a +little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it +was a little earlier, I relate these things in the order in which they +come into my mind, the London Vigilance Association instituted a +prosecution against Mr. Henry Vizetelly, a man of letters and the +publisher of Zola's novels. With the exception of Mr. Robert Buchanan +and myself not a single man of letters could be found to speak in Mr. +Vizetelly's defense. Everybody urged some excuse, his wife was ill, +his children were at the seaside and he had to go down to see them, or +that he had never cared much about naturalistic literature; whereas, +if the prosecution had been directed against something romantic, +etc.--Stranger still is the fact that it was almost impossible to find +a counsel willing to defend Mr. Vizetelly. One man threw up the case, +giving as his reason that he would have to read the books, another +said that it would be impossible to adequately defend Mr. Vizetelly's +case because no one could say what one had a right to put into a book. +This remark seemed to me at the time contemptible, but there was more +in it than I thought, for will it be believed that when the case came +into court the judge ruled that the fact that standard writers had +availed themselves of a great deal of license could not be taken as a +proof that such license was permissible? Two wrongs do not make a +right he said. In these circumstances perhaps counsel was wise to tell +Mr. Vizetelly to plead guilty to having published an indecent libel; +but the advice seemed so cruel that, justly or unjustly, I suspect the +lawyer of a wish to escape the odium that would have attached to him +if he had defended a book accused of immorality. The old man was +heavily fined. On going out of court he set to work to have the books +revised, spending hundreds of pounds having the plates altered, but +the Vigilance Association attacked him again, and this time they +succeeded in killing him. Mr. Vizetelly was over seventy years of age +when he went to prison, and the shame, anxiety, and three months of +prison life killed him. Five years afterwards the Authors' Society, +who would not say a word in his favor, voted a great banquet for Zola +when he came to London. Zola received every homage that could be paid +to a man of letters. The Vigilance Association raised no protest, and +I do not blame them. None would have been heard. But while the +banquets were held and the speeches were published in the newspapers +some of the members of the Association must have meditated sadly on +the futility of their efforts and the death of Mr. Vizetelly. It +requires a heavy blow of a very heavy mallet to get anything into some +people's heads, and nothing short of the reception that was given to +Zola could have affected the minds of the Vigilance Association. The +significance of the judge's words that the fact that classical writers +had availed themselves of a certain license could not be taken as +proof that such license was permissible escaped them altogether, for +some time afterwards the question of immorality in literature arose +again--I have forgotten the circumstances of this case--but I remember +that Mr. Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if +Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr. +Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the +Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he +answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral +doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed +himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote +beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and +the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of +duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all +those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members +and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they +must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's +moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies +with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits." +Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr. +Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of +the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again +that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be +acquitted. We must consider the question impartially. It is true that +a magistrate may be found presiding at Bow Street who will refuse to +issue a warrant against the publishers, let us say of Byron, Sterne, +the Restoration, and the Elizabethan dramatists. The Association will +have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association +from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a +magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all +that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be +picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male +and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections in Bow +Street in a crowded court would prove quite a literary entertainment, +and if the magistrate refused to issue a warrant he could only do so +on the pretext that the book had been published a long while, a +pretext which can hardly be held to be more valid than the pretext put +forward by Mr. Coote for not prosecuting Shakespeare. Of one thing +only would I warn the Society which I seem to be taking under my wing, +and that is, even if it should succeed in interdicting two-thirds of +English literature its task will still be only half accomplished. The +newspaper question will still have to be faced. Books are relatively +expensive, but the newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and it +will be admitted that no author is as indecent as the common reporter. +The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some +celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in +the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful +Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the +outraged husband of--I will spare my reader. + +About fifteen years ago I was asked if I would care to go over to ---- +College to see the sports. We walked across the downs, and while +watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if +I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than +refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse +and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, +but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished +with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some +thirty or forty boys, of ages varying from twelve to eighteen, reading +the newspapers, reading the reports of the Oscar Wilde trial; each +daily paper contained three or four columns of it. I asked the head +master if it were right to allow the boys to read such reports and he +answered that lately the newspapers contained a great deal of +objectionable matter, "But how am I to keep the daily papers out of +the college?" Now I am not easily scandalized, but I could not help +feeling that a grave scandal was being committed in allowing these +boys to read the newspapers during the week of that trial. But if you +admit the newspapers one day how can you forbid them on another +occasion? And while appreciating the head master's difficulty I walked +out into the open air unable to take any further interest in the +sports. Nor has time obliterated anything of the shame I felt that +day. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to pose as a moralist, +but I cannot help thinking that while newspapers continue to be +published, the Vigilance Society need not trouble lest certain books +should fall into the hands of young people. My correspondent forgot +that thousands of newspapers are published to-day when he wrote to me +saying that my book roused sensuality. I am afraid I omitted the +passage in which these words occur, fearing to burden my article with +quotation. Here it is: + +"The perusal of the episodes (Doris' Orelay experiences) does +certainly not ennoble me, it rouses sensuality, it lowers woman from a +friend and helpmeet into a convenience and a minister to pleasure. I +am less able and less willing to think 'high' after your book; poetry +is distasteful, art is narrowed, I look out for the licentious, the +suggestive, the low, and the mean; and don't you? You seem in passage +after passage to be world-weary in a sense that no sane man ought to +be, sated, disgusted, tired of life--is it not so? You see I speak +from what I am sure you will regard as a narrow platform, my ideals +are certainly not yours but I am simply and frankly curious as to the +ultimates in your book and in yourself." + +Let us suppose now that the Vigilance Association after a sharp +crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all +reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the +newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all +reports of sexual crimes and misdemeanors. And having extended our +imagination so far we may presume as the sequence a world of such +highly developed moral susceptibilities that Miss Austen's novels are +beginning to cause uneasiness. Miss Austen's novels are still +permitted, but in current literature nothing is said that would lead +the reader to suppose that men and women are not of the same sex. But +men and women still continue to meet and hold conversation. Only some +advanced members of the Association are in favor of that complete +separation of the sexes which obtains in Ireland in the rural +districts. In the imaginary time of which I am writing the Association +has only obtained complete control over literature. The theaters are +either closed or given over to the representation of plays on +religious subjects; but private life has not been invaded by the +Puritan missionary, and waltz tunes are still heard and figures seen +whirling past lighted windows in Grosvenor Square and Fifth Avenue. +Mr. Coote has at this time become a moderate, he is no longer among +the progressives, and is in danger of losing his post, so I have no +difficulty in imagining what he would do in such a dilemma. He would +disguise himself as a waiter and at the next meeting of the Society +tell how he had until now showed some reluctance to--the sentence +would be a difficult one to finish, perhaps Mr. Coote would break off +and say--reluctance to put restraint on the action of men and women as +long as they kept within their own doors, but after what he has seen, +he finds himself obliged to pass from the moderates to the +progressives. What has Mr. Coote seen. How would he tell his tale? + +He would tell of the length and the breadth of the ball room, of the +parquet floor usually covered with an aubusson carpet but the carpet +had been lifted and the gilded furniture taken away; the windows and +the recesses had been filled with flowers, and to keep these fresh, +great blocks of ice had been placed in the niches. He would tell of +the lighting arrangements, for are not flowers and lights incentives +to immorality? But his descriptions of the roses and the lilies would +only lead up to his descriptions of the shameless animality that came +up the staircase between twelve and one. A half-naked lady, the +hostess, stood at the head of the stairs receiving her guests with +smiles and words of welcome. The dresses the women wore resembled the +dress worn by the hostess; young and old alike went about their +pleasure with necks and bosoms and arms uncovered, and he saw these +undressed creatures slip into the arms of men who whirled them round +and round; it was but a whirling of silk ankles and a shuffling of +glazed shoes; and every now and then the men and women looked into +each other's eyes, and the whole scene was reflected shamelessly in +tall mirrors. Notwithstanding the fact that most of Mr. Coote's time +was spent behind the buffet serving out ices, he nevertheless +contrived to find a spare moment for investigation. On the pretext of +seeking a lady who had dropped a handkerchief he had crossed the ball +room and was therefore in a position to give an accurate account of +the waltzes he had heard, dulcet, undulating, capricious measures, far +more provocative than Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" which Tolstoy has +denounced. The lady that Mr. Coote sought was not in the ball room, +and so he had an opportunity of investigating all the retiring rooms, +and I need not describe the pensive and shocked faces that listened to +his descriptions of the shady nooks. Sometimes it was a screen, +sometimes it was a palm that was employed to hide the couple from +observation. Mr. Coote at last discovered the owner of the +handkerchief in one of those shady nooks, she was there with a +gentleman.... Mr. Coote, of course, would refuse to relate what he +saw, he would hesitate, but the members of his Association would +insist upon knowing everything, and he would at last confess: "Well, +the gentleman had kissed the lady on the point of her shoulder." From +this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered +of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had +worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets, +chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not +acquainted with. + +Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his +description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I +imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the +dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen +for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I +cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr. +Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the +conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their +pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex. + +We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved +by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that +dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half +a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a +woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's +"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have +prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war +cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what +is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long +consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance +Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as +completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go +by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one +night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we +are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and +the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book +rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring +day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring +days. Yet how infinitely more pernicious is their influence than any +book! What thoughts they put into the hearts of lads and lasses! and +perforce even the moralist has to accept the irrepressible feeling of +union and growth, the loosening of the earth about the hyacinth shoots +and the birds going about their amorous business, and the white clouds +floating up gladly through the blue air. Why, then, should he look +askance at my book, which is no more than memories of my spring days? +If the thing itself cannot be suppressed, why is it worth while to +interfere with the recollection? What strange twist in his mind leads +him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, +one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding +its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient +literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be +disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages +and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or +proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these +purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of +letters. Let us take a typical case, that of the late Lord ----. Forty +or fifty years ago he was one of the most strenuous advocates of +purity in literature, and more shops were raided at his instigation +than at any other; yet when he died his library was found to contain +the finest collection of impure literature in Europe, and his +executors were left wondering whether the prosecutions were prompted +by a desire to increase the value of his collection by the destruction +of rare books, copies of which were in his possession, or whether he +had been moved by conscientious scruples; a man might bamboozle +himself in this way: "I am a man of letters and possess these books +because they are rare, a curious corner of literature, but it would be +highly inexpedient for others to possess them." His conscience might +take a still more curious turn, leading to a dizzier height: "I am a +sinner; that, alas! is so; but I can prevent others from sinning +likewise." No doubt the greater part of the literature which the noble +lord collected with so much industry was of that frankly indecent kind +which is debarred from every library, Continental as well as English +and American. There is a literature which does not come within the +scope of the present inquiry, and there is what may perhaps be called +a border literature, books which are found in public libraries in the +German, the French, and the Italian texts. It seems pertinent to ask +why a little knowledge of French and German and Italian should procure +the right to read Brantome's "Femmes Gallantes." It would be difficult +for anybody to say that this book is not frankly obscene, and yet in +the French text I suppose every library contains it. Casanova's +"Memoirs" is another book of the same kind; I am not aware of any +complete translation of Boccaccio's tales, but every library possesses +an edition in the original Italian. The only reason that can be put +forward for the suppression of a book is that it is harmful, and if +Brantome, Casanova, and Boccaccio are harmful in English, they do harm +to those who can read them in the original texts. But perhaps I have +pointed out enough inconsistencies, and the reader, growing weary, may +say: "Are you so young, then, that you don't know that the world is a +mass of contradictions? that life is no more than a tale told by an +idiot full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?" Shakespeare did +no more than to put into eloquent language every man's belief, that we +are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is +mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of +the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book +morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, +and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back +than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the +English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years +at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of +letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame +of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet +now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be +drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other +writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of +these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings, +as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if +reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of +what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof +sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and +Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while +recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book, +etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my +story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an +authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in +England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in +Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book +had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to +publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I +answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three +weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral +book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes," +disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a +gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out +not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which, +being an expert, he felt sure that others would take exception. The +gentleman was kind enough to insist on submitting his marked copy to +me, and my wonderment increased as I turned over the pages, and it +reached a climax when I happened upon the following passage, which had +been marked to be omitted by the American printer. The passage was: +"... in her stage life Evelyn was an agent of the sensual passion, not +only with her voice, but in her arms, her neck, and hair, and in every +expression of her face; and it was the craving music that had thrown +her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her how much more would it +subjugate and hold within its persuasion the listener--the listener, +who perceived in the music nothing but its sensuality?" "But for what +reason," I asked the expert, "do you suggest the elimination of this +passage? This is the Puritan point of view. I thought that your +proposal was to draw my attention to the passages to which you thought +the Puritan would object." "Ah," he said, "that is how I began, but as +I got on with the work I thought it better to mark every passage that +might give offense." "And to whom would this passage give offense?" I +said. "Certainly not to any religious body?" "No," he answered, "not +to any religious body, but it would give offense to the subscribers to +the New Opera House. If parents read that the music of 'Tristan' threw +Evelyn Innes into the arms of Ulick Dean, they would not care to bring +their daughters to hear the opera, and might possibly discontinue +their subscriptions." Everybody will agree that "expert opinion" can +hardly go further, yet the folly which this "expert" was betrayed into +did not arise from any congenital stupidity; it is the mistake that +you and I, every one of us, would make when we seek the truth in our +casual experience instead of in our hearts. + +One would have thought that my pointing out the absurdity of this +expurgation of "Evelyn Innes" to the house of Appleton would have +saved it ever afterwards from similar folly, and forgetful that +experience is, as Coleridge describes it, only a lamp in a vessel's +stern which throws a light on the waters we have passed through, none +on those which lie before us, the publication of "The Lake" was issued +by Messrs. Appleton with my consent. The book, as the American public +already know, is free from all matter to which the most severe +moralist could take exception, yet the American edition did not +conform entirely with the English; a dedication written in French was +omitted, for what reason I do not know, but it was omitted. The matter +may seem a small one, and it may seem invidious to allude to it at +all, but on an occasion like the present nothing must be passed over. +The English proofs of the "Memoirs" were read, and the book was +accepted, but when it was set up in America it did not seem quite so +moral in the American type as it did in the English and difficulties +arose; these have been alluded to in the first paragraph of this +article, and perhaps wrongly I agreed that the two stories, "The +Lovers of Orelay" and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," should be left out. +On September 28th I wrote, suggesting that "In the Luxembourg Gardens" +might be retained, that it was only necessary to drop out a few +sentences to make it, as the expert would say, "acceptable to the +American public," but it never occurred to me that "The Lovers of +Orelay" could be published in any form except the form in which I +wrote it. This morning I received a letter from Mr. Sears. + +October 8, 1906. DEAR MR. MOORE: + +Your letter of September 28th has just arrived this morning. I hope +that by the time you receive this I shall have the open letter which +we are to print in "Memoirs of My Dead Life." The book is all ready, +waiting for it. As a matter of fact, we have not cut out either "In +the Luxembourg Gardens" or "The Lovers of Orelay." We simply have +taken out parts of each. Very truly yours, J. H. SEARS. + +"Simply have taken out parts of each!" My book, then, is a sort of +unfortunate animal, whose destiny was to be thrown on the American +vivisecting table and pieces taken out of it. Well, I raise no +objection. The promise that this preface will be published without +alteration soothes me (it is the anaesthetic), and after all, is it +not an honor to be Bowdlerized? Only the best are deemed dangerous.... +I am not aware that anybody ever took liberties with Miss Braddon's +texts. And the day of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one! Sooner or later +the original text is published. This is the rule, and I am confident I +shall not prove an exception to the rule. + +GEORGE MOORE. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRING IN LONDON + + +As I sit at my window on Sunday morning, lazily watching the +sparrows--restless black dots that haunt the old tree at the corner of +King's Bench Walk--I begin to distinguish a faint green haze in the +branches of the old lime. Yes, there it is green in the branches; and +I'm moved by an impulse--the impulse of Spring is in my feet; +india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would +see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to +stop--pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs--to call a hansom, and +to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The +quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can +be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in a hansom, +one is alone with London. London is beautiful in that narrow street, +celebrated for licentious literature. The blue and white sky shows +above a seventeenth-century gable, and a few moments after we are in +Drury Lane. The fine weather has enticed the population out of grim +courts and alleys; skipping-ropes are whirling everywhere. The +children hardly escape being run over. Coster girls sit wrapped in +shawls, contentedly, like rabbits at the edge of a burrow; the men +smoke their pipes in sullen groups, their eyes on the closed doors of +the public house. At the corner of the great theatre a vendor of cheap +ices is rapidly absorbing the few spare pennies of the neighbourhood. +The hansom turns out of the lane into the great thoroughfare, a bright +glow like the sunset fills the roadway, and upon it a triangular block +of masonry and St. Giles's church rise, the spire aloft in the faint +blue and delicate air. Spires are so beautiful that we would fain +believe that they will outlast creeds; religion or no religion we must +have spires, and in town and country--spires showing between trees and +rising out of the city purlieus. + +The spring tide is rising; the almond trees are in bloom, that one +growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the +wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light +up--how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in +the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the +spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing +together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How +exciting! It melts on the lips in fond kisses, instilling a delicate +gluttony of life. It would be pleasant in these gardens walking +through shadowy alleys, lit here and there by a ray, to see girls +walking hand in hand, catching at branches, as girls do when dreaming +of lovers. But alas! the gardens are empty; only some daffodils! But +how beautiful is the curve of the flower when seen in profile, and +still more beautiful is the starry yellow when the flower is seen full +face. That antique flower carries my mind back--not to Greek times, +for the daffodil has lost something of its ancient loveliness; it is +more reminiscent of a Wedgwood than of a Greek vase. My nonsense +thoughts amuse me; I follow my thoughts as a child follows +butterflies; and all this ecstasy in and about me, is the joy of +health--my health and the health of the world. This April day has set +brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old +canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; +an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of--well, I do not know of +what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours +waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal does +nothing. + +Here comes a boat! The canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has +interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the +last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, +the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at +the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me +of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first +wonder. We all remember the wonder with which we watched the first +barge, the wonder which the smoke coming out of the funnel excited. +When my father asked me why I'd like to go to Dublin better by canal +than by railroad, I couldn't tell him. Nor could I tell any one to-day +why I love a canal. One never loses one's fondness for canals. The +boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he +strains, sticking his toes into the path! + +There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always +women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining +light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round +Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets +full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank +historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away, +and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius. +Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach +to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is +peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original +marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and +mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image; +till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white +Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it +has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs +are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her +veiled face and read. I have only to fix my thoughts to +decipher--what? I know not. Something ... perhaps. But I cannot +control my thoughts. I am absorbed in turn by the beauty of the Marble +Arch and the perspective of the Bayswater Road, fading like an +apparition amid the romance of great trees. + +As I turn away, for the wind thrills and obliges me to walk rapidly, I +think how fortunate I am to experience these emotions in Hyde Park, +whereas my fellows have to go to Switzerland and to climb up Mont +Blanc, to feel half what I am feeling now, as I stand looking across +the level park watching the sunset, a dusky one. The last red bar of +light fades, and nothing remains but the grey park with the blue of +the suburb behind it, flowing away full of mist and people, dim and +mournful to the pallid lights of Kensington; and its crowds are like +strips of black tape scattered here and there. By the railings the +tape has been wound into a black ball, and, no doubt, the peg on which +it is wound is some preacher promising human nature deliverance from +evil if it will forego the spring time. But the spring time continues, +despite the preacher, over yonder, under branches swelling with leaf +and noisy with sparrows; the spring is there amid the boys and girls, +boys dressed in ill-fitting suits of broadcloth, daffodils in their +buttonholes; girls hardly less coarse, creatures made for work, +escaped for a while from the thraldom of the kitchen, now doing the +business of the world better than the preacher; poor servants of +sacred Spring. A woman in a close-fitting green cloth dress passes me +to meet a young man; a rich fur hangs from her shoulders; and they go +towards Park Lane, towards the wilful little houses with low balconies +and pendent flower-baskets swinging in the areas. Circumspect little +gardens! There is one, Greek as an eighteenth-century engraving, and +the woman in the close-fitting green cloth dress, rich fur hanging +from her shoulders, almost hiding the pleasant waist, enters one of +these. She is Park Lane. Park Lane supper parties and divorce are +written in her eyes and manner. The old beau, walking swiftly lest he +should catch cold, his moustache clearly dyed, his waist certainly +pinched by a belt, he, too, is Park Lane. And those two young men, +talking joyously--admirable specimens of Anglo-Saxons, slender feet, +varnished boots, health and abundant youth--they, too, are +characteristic of Park Lane. + +Park Lane dips in a narrow and old-fashioned way as it enters +Piccadilly. Piccadilly has not yet grown vulgar, only a little modern, +a little out of keeping with the beauty of the Green Park, of that +beautiful dell, about whose mounds I should like to see a comedy of +the Restoration acted. + +I used to stand here, at this very spot, twenty years ago, to watch +the moonlight between the trees, and the shadows of the trees floating +over that beautiful dell; I used to think of Wycherly's comedy, "Love +in St. James's Park," and I think of it still. In those days the +Argyle Rooms, Kate Hamilton's in Panton Street, and the Cafe de la +Regence were the fashion. But Paris drew me from these, towards other +pleasures, towards the Nouvelle Athenes and the Elysee Montmartre; and +when I returned to London after an absence of ten years I found a new +London, a less English London. Paris draws me still, and I shall be +there in three weeks, when the chestnuts are in bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FLOWERING NORMANDY + + +On my arrival in Paris, though the hour was that stupid hour of seven +in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was +filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed +like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which +the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life +itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed +into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were +due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a +line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky, +one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound +except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the +fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails +only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange +crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I +remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere +could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in +the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral, +the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof +disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full +of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and +courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there +in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour +we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the +green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten +years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were +visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy +movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the +train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a +quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides +breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless +and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I +say of their beauty when the first faint lights appeared, when the +first rose clouds appeared above the hills? Orchard succeeded orchard, +and the farmhouses were all asleep. There is no such journey in the +world as the journey from Dieppe to Paris on a fine May morning. Never +shall I forget the first glimpse of Rouen Cathedral in the diamond +air, the branching river, and the tall ships anchored in the deep +current. I was dreaming of the cathedral when we had left Rouen far +behind us, and when I awoke from my dream we were in the midst of a +flat green country, the river winding about islands and through fields +in which stood solitary poplar-trees, formerly haunts of Corot and +Daubigny. I could see the spots where they had set their easels--that +slight rise with the solitary poplar for Corot, that rich river bank +and shady backwater for Daubigny. Soon after I saw the first weir, and +then the first hay-boat; and at every moment the river grew more +serene, more gracious, it passed its arms about a flat, green-wooded +island, on which there was a rookery; and sometimes we saw it ahead of +us, looping up the verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running +through it like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown +disappearing in fine muslin vapours, drawn about the low horizon. + +I did not weary of this landscape, and was sorry when the first villa +appeared. Another and then another showed between the chestnut-trees +in bloom; and there were often blue vases on the steps and sometimes +lanterns in metalwork hung from wooden balconies. The shutters were +not yet open, those heavy French shutters that we all know so well, +and that give the French houses such a look of comfort, of ease, of +long tradition. Suddenly the aspect of a street struck me as a place I +had known, and I said, "Is it possible that we are passing through +Asnieres?" The name flitted past, and I was glad I had recognised +Asnieres, for at the end of that very long road is the restaurant +where we used to dine, and between it and the bridge is the _bal_ +where we used to dance. It was there I saw the beautiful Blanche +D'Antigny surrounded by her admirers. It was there she used to sit by +the side of the composer of the musical follies which she sang--in +those days I thought she sang enchantingly. Those were the days of +L'Oeil, Creve, and Chilperic. She once passed under the chestnut-trees +of that dusty little _bal de banlieue_ with me by her side, proud +of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has +outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It +would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in +the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her +sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light +of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great +poets have voiced her woe and decadence. + +Not five minutes from that _bal_ was the little house in which +Herve lived, and to which he used to invite us to supper; and where, +after supper, he used to play to us the last music he had composed. We +listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken +all the tinkle out of it, and the poor _compositeur toque_ never +caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, +believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the +Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for +a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, +cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the great goddess of folly, +used to come down there to sing the songs which were intended to +revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and +Herve's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly +did he seize the conductor's _baton_; the days of their glory had +gone. Now Asnieres itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen +another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled +down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor +scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages +came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense +and Blanche and Julia. + +But after all I am in Paris. Almost the same Paris; almost the same +George Moore, my senses awake as before to all enjoyment, my soul as +enwrapped as ever in the divine sensation of life. Once my youth moved +through thy whiteness, O City, and its dreams lay down to dreams in +the freedom of thy fields! Years come and years go, but every year I +see city and plain in the happy exaltation of Spring, and departing +before the cuckoo, while the blossom is still bright on the bough, it +has come to me to think that Paris and May are one. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WAITRESS + + +Feeling that he would never see Scotland again, Stevenson wrote in a +preface to "Catriona":--"I see like a vision the youth of my father, +and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there +far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out +in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I +admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny." Does not this +sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile +emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it +reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however +vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be +remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget +the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler +phrase will form itself in our memories. The emotion that Stevenson +had to express transpires only in the words, "romance of destiny, +ultimate islands." Who does not feel his destiny to be a romance, and +who does not admire the ultimate island whither his destiny will cast +him? Giacomo Cenci, whom the Pope ordered to be flayed alive, no doubt +admired the romance of destiny that laid him on his ultimate island, a +raised plank, so that the executioner might conveniently roll up the +skin of his belly like an apron. And a hare that I once saw beating a +tambourine in Regent Street looked at me so wistfully that I am sure +it admired in some remote way the romance of destiny that had taken it +from the woodland and cast it upon its ultimate island--in this case a +barrow. But neither of these strange examples of the romance of +destiny seems to me more wonderful than the destiny of a wistful Irish +girl whom I saw serving drinks to students in a certain ultimate cafe +in the Latin Quarter; she, too, no doubt, admired the destiny which +had cast her out, ordaining that she should die amid tobacco smoke, +serving drinks to students, entertaining them with whatever +conversation they desired. + +Gervex, Mademoiselle D'Avary, and I had gone to this cafe after the +theatre for half an hour's distraction; I had thought that the place +seemed too rough for Mademoiselle D'Avary, but Gervex had said that we +should find a quiet corner, and we had happened to choose one in +charge of a thin, delicate girl, a girl touched with languor, +weakness, and a grace which interested and moved me; her cheeks were +thin, and the deep grey eyes were wistful as a drawing of Rossetti; +her waving brown hair fell over the temples, and was looped up low +over the neck after the Rossetti fashion. I had noticed how the two +women looked at each other, one woman healthful and rich, the other +poor and ailing; I had guessed the thought that passed across their +minds. Each had doubtless asked and wondered why life had come to them +so differently. But first I must tell who was Mademoiselle D'Avary, +and how I came to know her. I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated +cafe at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. +When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is +recorded that he said: "Now I've done with music, it has served its +turn, and I'm going to dine every day at Tortoni's." Even in my time +Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one +was there at five o'clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in +Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. +Tortoni was a sort of publication. At Tortoni I had discovered a young +man, one of my oldest friends, a painter of talent--he had a picture +in the Luxembourg--and a man who was beloved by women. Gervex, for it +was he, had seized me by the hand, and with voluble eagerness had told +me that I was the person he was seeking: he had heard of my coming and +had sought me in every cafe from the Madeleine to Tortoni. He had been +seeking me because he wished to ask me to dinner to meet Mademoiselle +D'Avary; we were to fetch her in the Rue des Capucines. I write the +name of the street, not because it matters to my little story in what +street she lived, but because the name is an evocation. Those who like +Paris like to hear the names of the streets, and the long staircase +turning closely up the painted walls, the brown painted doors on the +landings, and the bell rope, are evocative of Parisian life; and +Mademoiselle D'Avary is herself an evocation, for she was an actress +of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of +those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of +life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work +is done, _nous pouvons faire la fete ensemble_." But however +defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for +it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I +looked round the drawing-room admiring it--a drawing-room furnished +with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, _etageres_ +covered with silver ornaments, three drawings by Boucher--Boucher in +three periods, a French Boucher, a Flemish Boucher, and an Italian +Boucher--that I must not think that any of these things were presents +from him, and from saying when she came into the room that the +bracelet on her arm was not from him. It had seemed to me in slightly +bad taste that he should remind her that he made no presents, for his +remark had clouded her joyousness; I could see that she was not so +happy at the thought of going out to dine with him as she had been. + +It was _chez Foyoz_ that we dined, an old-fashioned restaurant +still free from the new taste that likes walls painted white and gold, +electric lamps and fiddlers. After dinner we had gone to see a play +next door at the Odeon, a play in which shepherds spoke to each other +about singing brooks, and stabbed each other for false women, a play +diversified with vintages, processions, wains, and songs. Nevertheless +it had not interested us. And during the _entr'actes_ Gervex had +paid visits in various parts of the house, leaving Mademoiselle +D'Avary to make herself agreeable to me. I dearly love to walk by the +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers. After the +play he had said, "Allons boire un bock," and we had turned into a +students' cafe, a cafe furnished with tapestries and oak tables, and +old-time jugs and Medicis gowns, a cafe in which a student +occasionally caught up a tall bock in his teeth, emptied it at a gulp, +and after turning head over heels, walked out without having smiled. +Mademoiselle D'Avary's beauty and fashion had drawn the wild eyes of +all the students gathered there. She wore a flower-enwoven dress, and +from under the large hat her hair showed dark as night; and her +southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the +hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent +suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her +ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. +Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her +lips parted, the small teeth showing between the red lips. The +waitress sat, her thin arms leaning on the table, joining very +prettily in the conversation, betraying only in one glance that she +knew that she was only a failure and Mademoiselle D'Avary a success. +It was some time before the ear caught the slight accent; an accent +that was difficult to trace to any country. Once I heard a southern +intonation, and then a northern; finally I heard an unmistakable +English intonation, and said: + +"But you're English." + +"I'm Irish. I'm from Dublin." + +And thinking of a girl reared in its Dublin conventions, but whom the +romance of destiny had cast upon this ultimate cafe, I asked her how +she had found her way here; and she told me she had left Dublin when +she was sixteen; she had come to Paris six years ago to take a +situation as nursery governess. She used to go with the children into +the Luxembourg Gardens and talk to them in English. One day a student +had sat on the bench beside her. The rest of the story is easily +guessed. But he had no money to keep her, and she had to come to this +cafe to earn her living. + +"It doesn't suit me, but what am I to do? One must live, and the +tobacco smoke makes me cough." I sat looking at her, and she must have +guessed what was passing in my mind, for she told me that one lung was +gone; and we spoke of health, of the South, and she said that the +doctor had advised her to go away south. + +Seeing that Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary were engaged in +conversation, I leaned forward and devoted all my attention to this +wistful Irish girl, so interesting in her phthisis, in her red Medicis +gown, her thin arms showing in the long rucked sleeves. I had to offer +her drink; to do so was the custom of the place. She said that drink +harmed her, but she would get into trouble if she refused drink; +perhaps I would not mind paying for a piece of beef-steak instead. She +had been ordered raw steak! I have only to close my eyes to see her +going over to the corner of the cafe and cutting a piece and putting +it away. She said she would eat it before going to bed, and that would +be two hours hence, about three. While talking to her I thought of a +cottage in the South amid olive and orange trees, an open window full +of fragrant air, and this girl sitting by it. + +"I should like to take you south and attend upon you." + +"I'm afraid you would grow weary of nursing me. And I should be able +to give you very little in return for your care. The doctor says I'm +not to love any one." + +We must have talked for some time, for it was like waking out of a +dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing +how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that +it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry +jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them +into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg +Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad +to find oneself alone on the pavement at midnight. Instead of going +back to the cafe I wandered on, thinking of the girl I had seen, and +of her certain death, for she could not live many months in that cafe. +We all want to think at midnight, under the moon, when the city looks +like a black Italian engraving, and poems come to us as we watch a +swirling river. Not only the idea of a poem came to me that night, but +on the Pont Neuf the words began to sing together, and I jotted down +the first lines before going to bed. Next morning I continued my poem, +and all day was passed in this little composition. + + We are alone! Listen, a little while, + And hear the reason why your weary smile + And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet, + And how my love of you is more complete + Than any love of any lover. They + Have only been attracted by the grey + Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim + And delicate form, or some such other whim, + The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I + For other reason. Listen whilst I try + To say. I joy to see the sunset slope + Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, + Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm + Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, + In mildly modulated phrases; thus + Your life shall fade like a voluptuous + Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die + Like some soft evening's sad serenity.... + I would possess your dying hours; indeed + My love is worthy of the gift, I plead + For them. Although I never loved as yet, + Methinks that I might love you; I would get + From out the knowledge that the time was brief, + That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, + And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm + Beyond all other loves, for now the arm + Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims + You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames + Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet + To see you fading like a violet, + Or some sweet thought, would be a very strange + And costly pleasure, far beyond the range + Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I + Will chose a country spot where fields of rye + And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains, + Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, + To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where + The porch and windows are festooned with fair + Green leaves of eglantine, and look upon + A shady garden where we'll walk alone + In the autumn summer evenings; each will see + Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree, + The garden's length, is far, and you will rest + From time to time, leaning upon my breast + Your languid lily face, then later still + Unto the sofa by the window-sill + Your wasted body I shall carry, so + That you may drink the last left lingering glow + Of evening, when the air is filled with scent + Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent + The while with many griefs. Like some blue day + That grows more lovely as it fades away, + Gaining that calm serenity and height + Of colour wanted, as the solemn night + Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep + For ever and for ever; I shall weep + A day and night large tears upon your face, + Laying you then beneath a rose-red place + Where I may muse and dedicate and dream + Volumes of poesy of you; and deem + It happiness to know that you are far + From any base desires as that fair star + Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. + Death takes but little, yea, your death has given + Me that deep peace and immaculate possession + Which man may never find in earthly passion. + +Good poetry of course not, but good verse, well turned every line +except the penultimate. The elision is not a happy one, and the mere +suppression of the "and" does not produce a satisfying line. + + Death takes but little, Death I thank for giving + Me a remembrance, and a pure possession + Of unrequited love. + +And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the cafe near +the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the +girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, +fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the +soul of a poet is not the soul of Florence Nightingale. I was sorry +for this wistful Irish girl, and was hastening to her, I knew not why; +not to show her the poem--the very thought was intolerable. Often did +I stop on the way to ask myself why I was going, and on what errand. +Without discovering an answer in my heart I hastened on, feeling, I +suppose, in some blind way that my quest was in my own heart. I would +know if it were capable of making a sacrifice; and sitting down at one +of her tables I waited, but she did not come, and I asked the student +by me if he knew the girl generally in charge of these tables. He said +he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a +transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He +described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and +passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things +began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying, +"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could +not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking +of her. + +Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little +Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate +cafe. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the +romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once, +should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten +her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe +and dedicate to her nameless memory. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + + +Octave Barres liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us +who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and +little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one +never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming +into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never +seen before on the easel. + +"It was in the back room turned to the wall," he said. "I took it out, +thinking that the Russian prince who ordered the Pegasus decoration +might buy it," and he turned away, not liking to hear my praise of it; +for it neither pleases a painter to hear his early works praised nor +abused. "I painted it before I knew how to paint," and standing before +me, his palette in his hand, he expounded his new aestheticism: that +up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all painting had been +done first in monochrome and then glazed, and what we know as solid +painting had been invented by Greuze. One day in the Louvre he had +perceived something in Delacroix, something not wholly satisfactory; +this something had set him thinking. It was Rubens, however, who had +revealed the secret! It was Rubens who had taught him how to paint! He +admitted that there was danger in retracing one's steps, in beginning +one's education over again; but what help was there for it, since +painting was not taught in the schools. + +I had heard all he had to say before, and could not change my belief +that every man must live in the ideas of his time, be they good or +bad. It is easy to say that we must only adopt Rubens's method and +jealously guard against any infringement on our personality; but in +art our personality is determined by the methods we employ, and +Octave's portrait interested me more than the Pegasus decoration, or +the three pink Venuses holding a basket of flowers above their heads. +The portrait was crude and violent, but so was the man that had +painted it; he had painted it when he was a disciple of Manet's, and +the methods of Manet were in agreement with my friend's temperament. +We are all impressionists to-day; we are eager to note down what we +feel and see; and the carefully prepared rhetorical manner of Rubens +was as incompatible with Octave's temperament as the manner of John +Milton is with mine. There was a thought of Goya in the background, in +the contrast between the grey and the black, and there was something +of Manet's simplifications in the face, but these echoes were faint, +nor did they matter, for they were of our time. In looking at his +model he had seen and felt something; he had noted this harshly, +crudely, but he noted it; and to do this, is after all the main thing. +His sitter had inspired him. The word "inspired" offended him; I +withdrew it; I said that he had been fortunate in his model, and he +admitted that: to see that thin, olive-complexioned girl with fine +delicate features and blue-black hair lying close about her head like +feathers--she wore her hair as a blackbird wears his wing--compelled +one to paint; and after admiring the face I admired the black silk +dress he had painted her in, a black silk dress covered with black +lace. She wore grey pearls in her ears, and pearls upon her neck. + +I was interested in the quality of the painting, so different from +Octave's present painting, but I was more interested in the woman +herself. The picture revealed to me something in human nature that I +had never seen before, something that I had never thought of. The soul +in this picture was so intense that I forgot the painting, and began +to think of her. She was unlike any one I had ever met in Octave +Barres's studio; a studio beloved of women; the women one met there +seemed to be of all sorts, but in truth they were all of a sort. They +began to arrive about four o'clock in the afternoon, and they stayed +on until they were sent away. He allowed them to play the piano and +sing to him; he allowed them, as he would phrase it, to +_grouiller_ about the place, and they talked of the painters they +had sat to, of their gowns, and they showed us their shoes and their +garters. He heeded them hardly at all, walking to and fro thinking of +his painting, of his archaic painting. I often wondered if his +appearance counted for anything in his renunciation of modern methods, +and certainly his appearance was a link of association; he did not +look like a modern man, but like a sixteenth-century baron; his beard +and his broken nose and his hierarchial air contributed to the +resemblance; the jersey he wore reminded one of a cuirass, a coat of +mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively +to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of +which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and +the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the +middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. +Octave was always, as he would phrase it, _dans une deche +epouvantable_, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the +stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as +the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, +mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and +many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode +away. + +But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that +cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might +have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual +women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a +Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken +out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus +might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's +mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her +history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly +endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was +saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to +propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his +present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, +"and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." + +"Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to +sit. A _concierge's_ daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" +My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know +her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where +he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where +Alphonsine's was. + +"I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going +back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier +Breda on her holiday. _Sacre nom!_ Half-past five, and I haven't +washed my brushes yet!" + +In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Breda +for a holiday, he said: + +"I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." + +But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he +must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and +swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes +he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the +lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a +_peignoir_, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a +polished _parquet_ floor. We at last returned to the carriage, +but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He +scribbled notes in the lodges of the _concierges_, and between +whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This +delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was +the daughter of a _concierge_ on the Boulevard Exterieur. She had +run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysee Montmartre. + + Sa jupe avait des trous, + Elle aimait des voyous, + Ils ont des yeux si doux. + +But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built +her a palace in the Champs Elysees; but the Russian prince and his +palace bored her. + +The stopping of the carriage interrupted Octave's narrative. "Here we +are," he said, seizing a bell hanging on a jangling wire, and the +green door in the crumbling wall opened, and I saw an undersized +woman--I saw Alphonsine! And her portrait, a life-sized caricature +drawn by Octave, faced me from the white-washed wall of the hen-coop. +He had drawn her two cats purring about her legs, and had written +under it, "Ils viennent apres le mou." Her garden was a gravelled +space; I think there was one tree in it. A tent had been stretched +from wall to wall; and a seedy-looking waiter laid the tables (there +were two), placing bottles of wine in front of each knife and fork, +and bread in long sticks at regular intervals. He was constantly +disturbed by the ringing of the bell, and had to run to the door to +admit the company. Here and there I recognised faces that I had +already seen in the studio; Clementine, who last year was studying the +part of Elsa and this year was singing, "La femme de feu, la cui, la +cui, la cuisiniere," in a _cafe chantant_; and Margaret Byron, +who had just retreated from Russia--a disastrous campaign hers was +said to have been. The greater number were _hors concours_, for +Alphonsine's was to the aged courtesan what Chelsea Hospital is to the +aged soldier. It was a sort of human garden full of the sound and +colour of October. + +I scrutinised the crowd. How could any one of these women interest the +woman whose portrait I had seen in Barres's studio? That one, for +instance, whom I saw every morning in the Rue des Martyres, in a +greasy _peignoir_, going marketing, a basket on her arm. Search +as I would I could not find a friend for Marie among the women nor a +lover among the men--neither of those two stout middle-aged men with +large whiskers, who had probably once been stockbrokers, nor the +withered journalist whom I heard speaking to Octave about a duel he +had fought recently; nor the little sandy Scotchman whose French was +not understood by the women and whose English was nearly +unintelligible to me; nor the man who looked like a head-waiter-- +Alphonsine's lover; he had been a waiter, and he told you with the air +of Napoleon describing Waterloo that he had "created" a certain +fashionable cafe on the Boulevard. I could not attribute any one of +these men to Marie; and Octave spoke of her with indifference; +she had interested him to paint, and now he hoped she would get the +Russian to buy her picture. + +"But she's not here," I said. + +"She'll be here presently," Octave answered, and he went on talking to +Clementine, a fair pretty woman whom one saw every night at the _Rat +Mort_. It was when the soup-plates were being taken away that I saw +a young woman dressed in black coming across the garden. + +It was she, Marie Pellegrin. + +She wore a dress similar to the one she wore in her portrait, a black +silk covered with lace, and her black hair was swathed about her +shapely little head. She was her portrait and something more. Her +smile was her own, a sad little smile that seemed to come out of a +depth of her being, and her voice was a little musical voice, +irresponsible as a bird's, and during dinner I noticed how she broke +into speech abruptly as a bird breaks into song, and she stopped as +abruptly. I never saw a woman so like herself, and sometimes her +beauty brought a little mist into my eyes, and I lost sight of her or +very nearly, and I went on eating mechanically. Dinner seemed to end +suddenly, and before I knew that it was over we were getting up from +table. + +As we went towards the house where coffee was being served, Marie +asked me if I played cards, but I excused myself, saying that I would +prefer to sit and look at her; and just then a thin woman with red +hair, who had arrived at the same time as Marie and who had sat next +her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was +Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever +Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as _La Glue_, her +real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, +but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red +hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of +_des petits verres de cognac_. Her sketch-book was being passed +round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear +stays and was dressed in old grey woollen. She lit cigarette after +cigarette, and leaned over Marie with her arm about her shoulder, +advising her what cards to play. The game was baccarat, and in a +little while I saw that Marie was losing a great deal of money, and a +little later I saw _La Glue_ trying to persuade her away from the +card-table. + +"One more deal." That deal lost her the last louis she had placed on +the table. "Some one will have to pay my cab," she said. + +We were going to the Elysee Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a +couple of louis, _pour passer sa soiree_, and we all went away in +carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the +plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was +in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high +steps leading from the street to the _bal_. + +"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysee +for many a month." + +"You'll soon be back again?" + +"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to +Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysee," +and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which +she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said, +"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like, +rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric +lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played +upon an _estrade_, and everyone whirled his partner as if she +were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle," +she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when +her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn +together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie +Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began +to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting +under her tree, she and _La Glue_ together, their friends about +them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little +procession suddenly formed under the trees and came towards her, and +Marie was presented with a great basket of flowers, and all her +company with bouquets; and a little cheer went up from different parts +of the _bal_, "Vive Marie Pellegrin, la reine de l'Elysee." + +The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two +women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them +I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in +Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night +at the Elysee. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its +height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a +little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to +ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The +falling fire changed again and again. And Marie stood on a chair and +watched till the last sparks vanished. + +"Doesn't she look like my picture now?" said Octave. + +"You seemed to have divined her soul." + +He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I'm not a psychologist; I +am a painter. But I must get a word with her," and with a carelessness +that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called +her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the +_bal_ together. I could not understand his indifference to her +charm, and asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a +little while they returned. + +"I'll do my best," I heard her say; and she ran back to join her +companions. + +"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysee?" + +"Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le +Russe." + +We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said +anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and +presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia. + +"I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to +paint." + +"Do you think she'll go to Russia?" + +"Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and +I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of +the art of painting; the art is forgotten. The old masters did +perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days +Rubens finished his _grisaille_, and the glazing was done with +certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more +depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much +paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's +none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it +doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and +Cezanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt." + +I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying +many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and +this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was +glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted. + +"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope +he'll buy the portrait." + +"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it." + +"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the +woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the +day after to-morrow?" + +"Yes," I said, "I'll come." + +"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture." + +Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian +had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely +settled yet. + +Marie had gone to St. Petersburg with the prince, and this was the +last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed +without something happening to remind me of her. One day a books of +travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to +a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts, where he +had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The +gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the +reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, +betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one +of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell +of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew +melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original +instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He +disappeared, and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan +came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed +himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any +knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor +did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of +Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, +returned for her holiday to the Quartier Breda? + +A few days afterwards I heard in Barres's studio that she had escaped +from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine's to dinner, hoping +to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except +Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of +her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was +nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; +no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little +higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the +Elysee Montmartre. The number I could inquire out, she said, and I +went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing +the cafe and then the _brasserie_ and a little higher up the +fruit-seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one +notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. +The first house we stopped at happened to be the right one, and the +_concierge_ said, "The fourth floor." As I went upstairs I +thought of _La Glue_, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and +it was she who answered the bell and asked me into an unfurnished +drawing-room, and we stood by the chimneypiece. + +"She's talking of going to the Elysee to-night. Won't you come in? +She'd like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know +them. Clementine, Margaret Byron?" And she mentioned some other names +that I did not remember, and opening a door she cried: "Marie, here's +a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine's. You know, dear, the +Englishman, Octave Barres's friend." + +She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while. + +"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Des qu'on est malade--" + +I don't think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear +her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for +cards. + +"You didn't play that night at Alphonsine's when I lost all my money. +You preferred to look at Victorine's drawings. She has done some +better ones. Go and look at them, and let's finish our game. Then I'll +talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine's? They say I'm very +ill, don't they? But now that I've come back I'll soon get well. I'm +always well at Montmartre, amn't I, Victorine?" "Nous ne sommes pas +installes encore," Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, +and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there +were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery +among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the +games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate +and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small +beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features +about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above +all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and +then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in +her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself--her soul; and +Marie's soul rose up like a water-flower in her eyes, and then the +soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, _une grue_, +playing cards with five others from Alphonsine's, losing her money and +her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful Empire table +that her prince had given her, and Bijou, Clementine's little dog, +slept on an embroidered cushion. Bijou was one of those dear little +Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King +Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky +coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard +Clementine's voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a +great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been +fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and _La +Glue_ told Clementine that she was not wanted, that _elle ferait +bien de debarrasser les planches_, that was the expression she +used. I heard further accusations, and among them the plaintive voice +of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught +each other by the hair, and tore at each other's faces, and Marie +raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell +back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down +to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then +everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each +other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them +quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bijou jumped from her +chair and followed her mistress. + +"Help me to look," Marie said; and looking I saw her faint hands +seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a +bracelet and some pearls, as well as all her money. Marie fell back +among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow +of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon +soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had +been paid her by a _fournisseur_ in the _Quartier_, who had +given her two thousand francs for her _garniture de cheminee_. A +few francs were found among the bed-clothes, and these few francs, she +said, were sufficient _pour passer sa soiree_, and she begged me +to go the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised +for ten o'clock. + +"I shall be at the Elysee by eleven. _Au revoir, au revoir!_ Let +me rest a little now. I shall see you to-night. You know where I +always sit, in the left-hand corner; they always keep those seats for +me." + +Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm +and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable +life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying +here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept +contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid +the bedclothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the +Elysee! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of +her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if +he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If +she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes on the +streets. And this decadence--was it her fault? Octave would say: +"Qu'est ce que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ou moins fichue +... si je pouvais reussir un peu dans ce sacre metier!" This was how +he talked, but he thought more profoundly in his painting; his picture +of her was something more than mere sarcasm. + +She was going to the Elysee to-night. It was just six o'clock, so she +wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten away to the dressmaker at once; +it might be wiser not--she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the +Elysee she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until +three in the morning. But I had promised: she wouldn't forgive me if I +didn't, and I went. + +The dressmaker said that Madame Pellegrin would have her dress by +nine, and at half-past ten I was at the Elysee waiting for her. + +How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the +unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the +quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the +human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs +and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that +Marie's friends spent their evening in the left-hand corner; but they +did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money +they were spending was stolen money. + +I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had +not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she +had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, +for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the afternoon sitting to +him. + +We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, +when we heard footsteps on the stairs. + +"Only some women," he said; "I've a mind not to open the door." + +"But do," I said, feeling sure the women were Marie's friends bringing +news of her. And it was so. She had been found dead on her balcony +dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker. + +I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some +ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. "Even Octave," I +said, "refrains, _on ne blague pas la mort_." + +"But what was she doing on the balcony?" he asked. "What I don't +understand is the balcony." + +We all stood looking at her picture, trying to read the face. + +"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about +eleven." + +It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to +explain the picture. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LA BUTTE + + +To-morrow I shall drive to breakfast, seeing Paris continuously +unfolding, prospect after prospect, green swards, white buildings, +villas engarlanded; to-day I drive to breakfast through the white +torridities of Rue Blanche. The back of the coachman grows drowsier, +and would have rounded off into sleep long ago had it not been for the +great paving stones that swing the vehicle from side to side, and we +have to climb the Rue Lepic, and the poor little fainting animal will +never be able to draw me to the Butte. So I dismiss my carriage, half +out of pity, half out of a wish to study the Rue Lepic, so typical is +it of the upper lower classes. In the Rue Blanche there are +_portes-cocheres_, but in Rue Lepic there are narrow doors, +partially grated, open on narrow passages at the end of which, +squeezed between the wall and the stairs, are small rooms where +_concierges_ sit, eternally _en camisole_, amid vegetables +and sewing. The wooden blinds are flung back on the faded yellow +walls, revealing a portion of white bed-curtain and a heavy +middle-aged woman, _en camisole_, passing between the cooking +stove, in which a rabbit in a tin pail lies steeping, and the men +sitting at their trades in the windows. The smell of leather follows +me for several steps; a few doors farther a girl sits trimming a +bonnet, her mother beside her. The girl looks up, pale with the +exhausting heat. At the corner of the next street there is the +_marchand de vins_, and opposite the dirty little _charbonnier_, +and standing about a little hole which he calls his _boutique_ +a group of women in discoloured _peignoirs_ and heavy carpet +slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of +meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch +common in our London streets--the man with bare feet, the furtive +and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, +tattered shirt about his consumptive chest. + +The asphalt is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, +my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer +neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow +has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the +street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above +the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill +is now a mute ornament, a sign for the _Bal du Moulin de la +Galette_. + +As I ascend the street grows whiter, and at the Butte it is empty of +everything except the white rays of noon. There are some dusty +streets, and silhouetting against the dim sky a dilapidated facade of +some broken pillars. Some stand in the midst of ruined gardens, +circled by high walls crumbling and white, and looking through a +broken gateway I see a fountain splashing, but nowhere the inhabitants +that correspond to these houses--only a workwoman, a grisette, a child +crying in the dust. The Butte Montmartre is full of suggestion; grand +folk must at some time have lived there. Could it be that this place +was once country? To-day it is full of romantic idleness and +abandonment. + +On my left an iron gateway, swinging on rusty hinges, leads on to a +large terrace, at the end of which is a row of houses. It is in one of +these houses that my friend lives, and as I pull the bell I think that +the pleasure of seeing him is worth the ascent, and my thoughts float +back over the long time I have known Paul. We have known each other +always, since we began to write. But Paul is not at home. The servant +comes to the door with a baby in her arms, another baby! and tells me +that Monsieur et Madame are gone out for the day. No breakfast, no +smoke, no talk about literature, only a long walk back--cabs are not +found at these heights--a long walk back through the roasting sun. And +it is no consolation to be told that I should have written and warned +them I was coming. + +But I must rest, and ask leave to do so, and the servant brings me in +some claret and a siphon. The study is better to sit in than the front +room, for in the front room, although the shutters are closed, the +white rays pierce through the chinks, and lie like sword-blades along +the floor. The study is pleasant and the wine refreshing. The house +seems built on the sheer hillside. Fifty feet--more than that--a +hundred feet under me there are gardens, gardens caught somehow in the +hollow of the hill, and planted with trees, tall trees, for swings +hang out of them, otherwise I should not know they were tall. From +this window they look like shrubs, and beyond the houses that surround +these gardens Paris spreads out over the plain, an endless tide of +bricks and stone, splashed with white when the sun shines on some +railway station or great boulevard: a dim reddish mass, like a +gigantic brickfield, and far away a line of hills, and above the plain +a sky as pale and faint as the blue ash of a cigarette. + +I can never look upon this city without strong emotion; it has been +all my life to me. I came here in my youth, I relinquished myself to +Paris, never extending once my adventure beyond Bas Meudon, Ville +d'Avray, Fontainebleau--and Paris has made me. How much of my mind do +I owe to Paris? And by thus acquiring a fatherland more ideal than the +one birth had arrogantly imposed, because deliberately chosen, I have +doubled my span of life. Do I not exist in two countries? Have I not +furnished myself with two sets of thoughts and sensations? Ah! the +delicate delight of owning _un pays ami_--a country where you may +go when you are weary to madness of the routine of life, sure of +finding there all the sensations of home, plus those of irresponsible +caprice. The pleasure of a literature that is yours without being +wholly your own, a literature that is like an exquisite mistress, in +whom you find consolation for all the commonplaces of life! The +comparison is perfect, for although I know these French folk better +than all else in the world, they must ever remain my pleasure, and not +my work in life. It is strange that this should be so, for in truth I +know them strangely well. I can see them living their lives from hour +to hour; I know what they would say on any given occasion. + +There is Paul. I understand nothing more completely than that man's +mind. I know its habitual colour and every varying shade, and yet I +may not make him the hero of a novel when I lay the scene in +Montmartre, though I know it so well. I know when he dresses, how long +he takes to dress, and what he wears. I know the breakfast he eats, +and the streets down which he passes--their shape, their colour, their +smell. I know exactly how life has come to him, how it has affected +him. The day I met him in London! Paul in London! He was there to meet +_une petite fermiere_ with whom he had become infatuated when he +went to Normandy to finish his novel. Paul is _foncierement bon; he +married her_, and this is their abode. There is the _salle-a-manger_, +furnished with a nice sideboard in oak, and six chairs to match; on the +left is their bedroom, and there is the baby's cot, a present from +_le grand, le cher et illustre maitre_. + +Paul and Mrs. Paul get up at twelve, and they loiter over breakfast; +some friends come in and they loiter over les _petits verres_. +About four Paul begins to write his article, which he finishes or +nearly finishes before dinner. They loiter over dinner until it is +time for Paul to take his article to the newspaper. He loiters in the +printing office or the cafe until his proof is ready, and when that is +corrected he loiters in the many cafes of the Faubourg Montmartre, +smoking interminable cigars, finding his way back to the Butte between +three and four in the morning. Paul is fat and of an equable +temperament. He believes in naturalism all the day, particularly after +a breakfast over _les petits verres_. He never said an unkind +word to any one, and I am sure never thought one. He used to be fond +of grisettes, but since he married he has thought of no one but his +wife. _Il ecrit des choses raides_, but no woman ever had a +better husband. And now you know him as well as I do. Here are his own +books, "The End of Lucie Pellegrin," the story that I have just +finished writing: I think I must explain how it was that I have come +to rewrite one of Paul's stories, the best he ever wrote. I remember +asking him why he called her Lucie, and he was surprised to hear her +name was Marie; he never knew her, he had never been to Alphonsine's, +and he had told the story as he had picked it up from the women who +turned into the Rat Mort at midnight for a _soupe a l'oignon_. He +said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I +could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in +the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had +never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have +done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a +miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully +shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the +blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so +why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my +friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on +her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that +every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism. + +I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the +author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Ceard, Maupassant, Hennique, +etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who +tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les +Moralites Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by +Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I +suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their +authors do not visit here. + +And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation +except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists +than Paul. I am the youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the +symbolists. The naturalists affected the art of painting, the +symbolists the art of music; and since the symbolists there has been +no artistic manifestation--the game is played out. When Huysmans and +Paul and myself are dead, it will be as impossible to write a +naturalistic novel as to revive the megatherium. Where is Hennique? +When Monet is dead it will be as impossible to paint an +impressionistic picture as to revive the ichthyosaurus. A little world +of ideas goes by every five-and-twenty years, and the next that +emerges will be incomprehensible to me, as incomprehensible as Monet +was to Corot.... Was the young generation knocking at the door of the +Opera Comique last night? If the music was the young generation, I am +sorry for it. It was the second time I had gone. I had been to hear +the music, and I left exasperated after the third act. A friend was +with me and he left, but for different reasons; he suffered in his +ears; it was my intelligence that suffered. Why did the flute play the +chromatic scale when the boy said, "Il faut que cela soit un grand +navire," and why were all the cellos in motion when the girl answered, +"Cela ou bien tout autre chose?" I suffered because of the divorce of +the orchestra and singers, uniting perhaps at the end of the scene. It +was speaking through music, no more, monotonous as the Sahara, league +after league, and I lost amid sands. A chord is heard in "Lohengrin" +to sustain Elsa's voice, and it performs its purpose; a motive is +heard to attract attention to a certain part of the story, and it +fills its purpose, when Ortrud shrieks out the motive of the secret, +and in its simplest form, at the church door, the method may be +criticised as crude, but the crudest melodrama is better than this +desert wandering. While I ponder on the music of the younger +generation, remembering the perplexity it had caused me, I hear a +vagrant singing on the other side of the terrace: + +[Illustration] + + Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + +and I say: "I hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one +who possibly has no _trou_ wherein to lay his head." _Et moi +aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y +reste, car mon trou est_--Richard Wagner. My _trou_ is the +Ring--the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of +Liszt and Wagner and Strauss was to write music. However long Wotan +might ponder on Mother Earth the moment comes when the violins begin +to sing; ah! how the spring uncloses in the orchestra, and the lovers +fly to the woods!... + +The vagrant continued his wail, and forgetful of Paul, forgetful of +all things but the philosophy of the minstrel of the Butte, I picked +my way down the tortuous streets repeating: + +[Illustration] + +Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SPENT LOVES + + +I am going to see dear and affectionate friends. The train would take +me to them, that droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_, and it +seems a pity to miss the Gare St. Lazare, its Sunday morning tumult of +Parisians starting with their mistresses and their wives for a +favourite suburb. I never run up these wide stairways leading to the +great wide galleries full of bookstalls (charming yellow notes), and +pierced with little _guichets_ painted round with blue, without +experiencing a sensation of happy lightness--a light-headedness that I +associate with the month of May in Paris. But the tramway that passes +through the Place de la Concorde goes as far as Passy, and though I +love the droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_ I love this +tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the +garden of the Champs Elysees, through miles of chestnut bloom, the +roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet +overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, +cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little +steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I +love this sprightly little river better than the melancholy Thames, +along whose banks saturnine immoralities flourish like bulrushes! +Behold the white architecture, the pillars, the balustraded steps, the +domes in the blue air, the monumented swards! Paris, like all pagan +cities, is full of statues. A little later we roll past gardens, +gaiety is in the air.... And then the streets of Passy begin to +appear, mean streets, like London streets. I like them not; but the +railway station is compensation; the little railway station like a +house of cards under toy trees, and the train steaming out into the +fanciful country. The bright wood along which it speeds is like the +season's millinery. + +It is pleasant to notice everything in Paris, the flymen asleep on +their box-seats, the little horses dozing beneath the chestnut trees, +the bloused workmen leaning over a green-painted table in an arbour, +drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre, the villas of Auteuil, rich +woodwork, rich iron railings, and the summer hush about villas +engarlanded. Auteuil is so French, its symbolism enchants me. Auteuil +is like a flower, its petals opening out to the kiss of the air, its +roots feeling for way among the rich earth. Ah, the land of France, +its vineyards and orchards, its earthly life! Thoughts come unbidden, +my thoughts sing together, and I hardly knowing what they are singing. +My thoughts are singing like the sun; do not ask me their meaning; +they mean as much and as little as the sun that I am part of--the +sun of France that I shall enjoy for thirty days. May takes me to dear +and affectionate friends who await me at Auteuil, and June takes me +away from them. There is the villa! And there amid the engarlanding +trees my friend, dressed in pale yellow, sits in front of his easel. +How the sunlight plays through the foliage, leaping through the rich, +long grass; and amid the rhododendrons in bloom sits a little girl of +four, his model, her frock and cap impossibly white under the great, +gaudy greenery. + +Year after year the same affectionate welcome, the same spontaneous +welcome in this garden of rhododendrons and chestnut bloom. I would +linger in the garden, but I may not, for breakfast is ready _et il +ne faut pas faire manquer la messe a Madame. La messe_! How gentle +the word is, much gentler than our word, mass, and it shocks us hardly +at all to see an old lady going away in her carriage _pour entendre +la messe_. Religion purged of faith is a pleasant, almost a pretty +thing. Some fruits are better dried than fresh; religion is such a +one, and religion, when nothing is left of it but the pleasant, +familiar habit, may be defended, for were it not for our habits life +would be unrecorded, it would be all on the flat, as we would say if +we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are +our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what +we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to +think the matter out--here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and +how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only +goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent +of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who +said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds +us of the beautiful goodness that floats over his face, a light from +Paradise. But why from Paradise? Paradise is an ugly ecclesiastical +invention, and angels are an ugly Hebrew invention. It is unpardonable +to think of angels in Auteuil; an angel is a prig compared to the dear +doctor, and an angel has wings. Well, so had this admirable chicken, a +bird that was grown for the use of the table, produced like a +vegetable. A dear bird that was never allowed to run about and weary +itself as our helpless English chicken is; it lived to get fat without +acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon +in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it +was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only +stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour +came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge +or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards +its predestined end--a delicious repast! What better end, what greater +glory than to be a fat chicken? The carcasses of sheep that hang in +butchers' shops are beginning to horrify the conscience of Europe. To +cut a sheep's throat is an offensive act, but to clip out a bird's +tongue with a long pair of scissors made for the purpose is genteel. +It is true that it beats its wings for a few moments, but we must not +allow ourselves to be disturbed by a mere flutter of feathers. Man is +merciful, and saved it from life. It grew like an asparagus! And +talking of asparagus, here are some from Argenteuil thick as umbrellas +and so succulent! A word about the wine. French red wines in England +always seem to taste like ink, but in France they taste of the sun. +Melons are better in June--that one comes, no doubt, from Algeria. It +is, however, the kind I like best, the rich, red melon that one eats +only in France; a thing of the moment, unrememberable; but the chicken +will never be forgotten; twenty years hence I shall be talking of a +chicken, that in becoming a fat chicken acquired twenty years of +immortality--which of us will acquire as many? + +As we rise from table the doctor calls me into his studio: for he +would give me an excellent cigar before he bids me good-bye, and +having lighted it I follow my friend to the studio at the end of the +garden, to that airy drawing-room which he has furnished in pale +yellow and dark blue. On the walls are examples of the great modern +masters--Manet and Monet. That view of a plain by Monet--is it not +facile? It flows like a Japanese water-colour: the low horizon +evaporating in the low light, the spire of the town visible in the +haze. And look at the celebrated "Lecon de Danse" by Degas--that +dancer descending the spiral staircase, only her legs are visible, the +staircase cutting the picture in twain. On the right is the dancing +class and the dancing master; something has gone wrong, and he holds +out his hands in entreaty; a group of dancers are seated on chairs in +the foreground, and their mothers are covering their shoulders with +shawls--good mothers anxious for their daughters' welfare, for their +advancement in life. + +This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that +plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait +by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature. +Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with +a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied +with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I +turned into the Salle Carree for relaxation, and there wandered about, +waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and +I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I +delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this +year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells +of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of +the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she +is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion +that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at +you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her +eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling +her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful +tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white, +faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes +through the yellow. She wears a fur jacket, but the fur was no trouble +to Rembrandt; he did not strive for realism. It is fur, that is +sufficient. Grey pearls hang in her ears, there is a brooch upon her +breast, and a hand at the bottom of the picture passing out of the +frame, and that hand reminds one, as the chin does, of the old story +that God took a little clay and made man out of it. That chin and that +hand and arm are moulded without display of knowledge, as Nature +moulds. The picture seems as if it had been breathed upon the canvas. +Did not a great poet once say that God breathed into Adam? and here it +is even so. + +The other pictures seem dry, insignificant; the Mona Liza, celebrated +in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared +with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the +ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; +that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem +but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe +or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, +an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle +or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a +sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention +rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive +her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose +passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil paint, +that arid glazing of _terre verte_, and has come into her +possession of eternal life, into the immortality of Pater's prose. +Degas is wilting already; year after year he will wither, until one +day some great prose writer will arise and transfer his spirit into +its proper medium--literature. The Mona Liza and the "Lecon de Danse" +are intellectual pictures; they were painted with the brains rather +than with the temperaments; and what is any intellect compared with a +gift like Manet's! Leonardo made roads; Degas makes witticisms. +Yesterday I heard one that delighted me far more than any road would, +for I have given up bicycling. Somebody was saying he did not like +Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to +show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it, he +would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel he would +say with a sigh 'That is my fault!'" + +My reverie is broken by the piano; my friend is playing, and it is +pleasant to listen to music in this airy studio. But there are women I +must see, women whom I see every time I go to Paris, and too much time +has been spent in the studio--I must go. + +But where shall I go? My thoughts strike through the little streets of +Passy, measuring the distance between Passy and the Arc de Triomphe. +For a moment I think that I might sit under the trees and watch the +people returning from the races. Were she not dead I might stop at her +little house in the fortifications among the lilac trees. There is her +portrait by Manet on the wall, the very toque she used to wear. How +wonderful the touch is; the beads--how well they are rendered! And +while thinking of the extraordinary handicraft I remember his studio, +and the tall fair woman like a tea-rose coming into it: Mary Laurant! +The daughter of a peasant, and the mistress of all the great +men--perhaps I should have said of all the distinguished men. I used +to call her _toute la lyre_. + +The last time I saw her we talked about Manet. She said that every +year she took the first lilac to lay upon his grave. Is there one of +her many lovers who brings flowers to her grave? What was so +rememberable about her was her pleasure in life, and her desire to get +all the pleasure, and her consciousness of her desire to enjoy every +moment of her life. Evans, the great dentist, settled two thousand a +year upon her, and how angry he was one night on meeting Manet on the +staircase! In order to rid herself of her lover she invited him to +dinner, intending to plead a sick headache after dinner.... She must +go and lie down. But as soon as her guest was gone she took off the +_peignoir_ which hid her ball dress and signed to Manet, who was +waiting at the street corner, with her handkerchief. But as they went +downstairs together whom should they meet but the dentist _qui a +oublie ses carnets_. And he was so disappointed at meeting his +beautiful but deceitful mistress that he didn't visit her again for +three or four days. His anger mattered very little to Mary. Someone +else settled two thousand a year more upon her; and having four +thousand a year or thereabouts, she dedicated herself to the love and +conversation of those who wrote books and music and painted pictures. + +We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the +imagination, at least the imagination stimulates the senses, acting as +a sort of adjuvant. The barmaid falls in love with No. 1 because he +wipes a glass better than No. 2, and Mary fell in love with Coppee on +account of his sonnet "Le Lys," and she grew indifferent when he wrote +poems like "La Nourrice" or "Le petit epicier de Montrouge qui cassait +le sucre avec melancolie." And it was at this time when their love +story was at wane that I became a competitor. But one day Madame +Albazi came to Manet's studio, a splendid creature in a carriage drawn +by Russian horses from the Steppes, so she said; but who can tell +whether a horse comes from the Steppes or from the horse-dealers? Nor +does it matter when the lady is extraordinarily attractive, when she +inspires the thought--a mistress for Attila! That is not exactly how +Manet saw her: but she looks like that in his pastel. In it she holds +a tortoiseshell fan widespread across her bosom, and it was on one of +the sticks of the fan that he signed his name. A great painter always +knows where to sign his pictures, and he never signs twice in the same +place. The merit of these Russians is that they never leave one in +doubt. She could not sit that day, she was going to the Bois, and +asked me and a young man who happened to be in Manet's studio at the +time to go there with her, and we went there drawn by the Russian +horses, the young man and I wondering all the while which was going to +be the countess's lover; we played hard for her; but that day I was +wiser than he; I let him talk and recite poetry and jingle out all the +aphorisms that he had been collecting for years, feeling his +witticisms were in vain, for she was dark as a raven and I was as gold +as a sunflower. It was at the corner of the Rue Pontiere that we got +rid of him. Some days afterwards she sat to Manet. The pastel now +hangs in the room of a friend of mine; I bought it for him. + +The picture of a woman one knows is never so agreeable a companion as +the picture of a woman one has never seen. One's memory and the +painter's vision are in conflict, and I like to think better of the +long delicate nose, and the sparkling eyes, and a mouth like red +fruit. The pastel once belonged to me; it used to hang in my rooms; +for with that grace of mind which never left him, Manet said one day, +"I always promised you a picture," and searching among the pastels +that lined the wall he turned to me saying, "Now I think that this +comes to you by right." When I left Paris hurriedly, and left my +things to be sold, the countess came to the sale and bought her +picture, and then she sold it years afterwards to a picture-dealer, +tempted by the price that Manet's pictures were fetching. Hearing that +it was for sale, I bought it, as I have said, for a friend. And now I +have told the whole story, forgetting nothing except that it was years +afterwards, when I had written "Les Confessions d'un jeune Anglais" in +the _Revue Independante_, that Mary Laurant asked me--oh! she was +very enterprising; she sent the editor of the _Revue_ to me; an +appointment was made. She was wonderful in the garden. She said the +moment I arrived, "Now, my dear ----, you must go," and we walked +about, I listening to her aphorisms. Mary was beautiful, but she liked +one to love her for her wit, to admire her wit; and when I asked her +why she did not leave Evans, the great dentist, she said, "That would +be a base thing to do. I content myself by deceiving him," and +then--this confidence seemed to have a particular significance--"I am +not a woman," she said, "that is made love to in a garden." Her garden +was a nook at the fortifications, hidden among lilac bushes. She +wished to show me her house, and we talked for a long time in her +boudoir. But I knew she was Mallarme's mistress at the time, so +nothing came of this _caprice litteraire_. + +My thoughts run upon women, and why not? On what would you have them +run? on copper mines? Woman is the legitimate subject of all men's +thoughts. We pretend to be interested in other things. In the +smoking-rooms I have listened to men talking about hunting, and I have +said to myself, "Your interest is a pretence: of what woman are you +thinking?" We forget women for a little while when we are thinking +about art, but only for a while. The legitimate occupation of man's +mind is woman; and listening to my friend who is playing music--music +I do not care to hear, Brahms--I fall to thinking which of the women I +have known in years past would interest me most to visit. + +In the spring weather the walk from Passy to the Champs Elysees would +be pleasant and not too far; I like to see the swards and the poplars +and the villas, the tall iron railings, and the flower vases hidden in +bouquets of trees. These things are Paris; the mind of the country, +that mind which comes out of a long past, and which may be defined as +a sort of ancestral beauty and energy is manifested everywhere in +Paris; and a more beautiful day for seeing the tall, white houses and +the villas and the trees and the swards can hardly be imagined. I +should be interested in all these things, but my real interest would +be in one little hillside, a line of houses, eight or nine, close by +the Arc de Triomphe, the most ordinary in the avenue. She liked the +ordinary, and I have often wondered what was the link of association? +Was it no more than her blonde hair drawn up from the neck, her +fragrant skin, or her perverse subtle senses? It was something more, +but you must not ask me to explain further. I like to remember the +rustle of a flowered dress she wore as she moved, drifting like a +perfume, passing from her frivolous bedroom into the drawing-room. A +room without taste, stiff and middle-class, notwithstanding the crowns +placed over the tall portraits. I see a picture of two children; but +she is the fairer, and in her pale eyes and thinly-curved lips there +is a mixture of yearning and restlessness. As the child was, so is the +woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom +with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. +The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her +slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes +are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one +and cotillon favours for the other. + +We often sat on her bedroom balcony reading, talking, or watching the +sky growing pale beyond Mount Valerian, the shadow drifting and +defining and shaping the hill. In hours like the present, dreaming in +a studio, we remember those who deceived us, those who made us suffer, +and in these hours faces, fragments of faces, rise out of a past, the +line of a bent neck, the whiteness of a hand, and the eyes. I remember +her eyes; one day in an orchard, in the lush and luxuriance of June, +her husband was walking in front with a friend, and I was pleading. +"Well," she said, raising her eyes, "you can kiss me now." But her +husband was in front, and he was a thick-set man, and there was a +stream, and I foresaw a struggle--and an unpleasant one: confess and +be done with it!--I didn't dare to kiss her, and I don't think she +ever forgave me that lack of courage. All this is twenty years ago, +and is it not silly to spend the afternoon thinking of such rubbish? +But it is of such rubbish that our lives are made. Shall I go to her +now and see her in her decadence? Grey hair has not begun to appear +yet in the blonde, it will never turn grey, but she was shrivelling a +little the last time I saw her. And next year she will be older. At +her age a year counts for double. Others are more worthy of a visit. +If I do not go to her this year, shall I go next? + +In imagination I go past her house, thinking of a man she used to talk +about, "the man she left her 'ome for"; that is how the London street +girl would word it. He had been the centre of a disgraceful scandal in +his old age, a sordid but characteristic end for the Don Juan of the +nineteenth century. Perhaps she loved the big, bearded man whose +photograph she had once shown me. He killed himself for not having +enough money to live as he wished to live. That was her explanation. I +think there was some blackmail; she had to pay some money to the dead +man's relations for letters. These sensual American women are like +orchids, and who would hesitate between an orchid and a rose? It was +twenty years ago since she turned round on me in the gloom of her +brougham unexpectedly, and it was as if some sensual spirit had come +out of a world of perfume and lace. + + * * * * * + +In imagination I have descended the Champs Elysees, and have crossed +the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine is flowing past just as it +flowed when the workmen were building Notre Dame, just as it will flow +a thousand years hence. A thousand years hence men will stand watching +its current, thinking of little blonde women, and the shudder they can +send through the flesh; they can, but not twenty years afterwards. The +Reverend Donne has it that certain ghosts do not raise the hair but +the flesh; mine do no more than to set me thinking that rivers were +not created to bear ships to the sea, but to set our memories flowing. +Full many a time have I crossed the Pont Neuf on my way to see another +woman--an American! The time comes when desire wilts and dies, but the +sexual interest never dies, and we take pleasure in thinking in middle +life of those we enjoyed in youth. She, of whom I am thinking, lives +far away in the Latin Quarter, in an ill-paven street. How it used to +throw my carriage from side to side! I have been there so often that I +know all the shops, and where the shops end, and there is a +whitewashed wall opposite her house; the street bends there. The +_concierge_ is the same, a little thicker, a little heavier; she +always used to have a baby in her arms, now there are no more babies; +her children, I suppose, have grown up and have gone away. There used +to be a darkness at the foot of the stairs, and I used to slip on +those stairs, so great was my haste; the very tinkle of the bell I +remember, and the trepidation with which I waited. + +Her rooms looked as if they had never been sat in; even the studio was +formal, and the richly-bound volumes on the tables looked as if they +had never been opened. She only kept one servant, a little, redheaded +girl, and seeing this girl back again after an absence of many years, +I spoke to Lizzie of the old days. Lizzie told me her servant's story. +She had gone away to be married, and after ten years of misfortune she +had returned to her old mistress, this demure, discreet and sly New +Englander, who concealed a fierce sensuality under a homely +appearance. Lizzie must have had many lovers, but I knew nothing of +her except her sensuality, for she had to let me into that secret. + +She was a religious woman, a devout Protestant, and thinking of her my +thoughts are carried across the sea, and I am in the National Gallery +looking at Van Eyke's picture, studying the grave sensuality of the +man's face--he speaks with uplifted hand like one in a pulpit, and the +gesture and expression tell us as plainly as if we heard him that he +is admonishing his wife (he is given to admonition), informing her +that her condition--her new pregnancy--is an act of the Divine Will. +She listens, but how curiously! with a sort of partial comprehension +afloat upon her face, more of the guinea-pig than of the rabbit type. +The twain are sharply differentiated, and one of the objects of the +painter seems to have been to show us how far one human being may be +removed from another. The husband is painfully clear to himself, the +wife is happily unconscious of herself. Now everything in the picture +suggests order; the man's face tells a mind the same from day to day, +from year to year, the same passions, the same prayers; his apparel, +the wide-brimmed hat, the cloak falling in long straight folds, the +peaked shoon, are an habitual part of him. We see little of the room, +but every one remembers the chandelier hanging from the ceiling +reflected in the mirror opposite. These reflections have lasted for +three hundred years; they are the same to-day as the day they were +painted, and so is the man; he lives again, he is a type that Nature +never wearies of reproducing, for I suppose he is essential to life. +This sober Flemish interior expresses my mistress's character almost +as well as her own apartment used to do. I always experienced a chill, +a sense of formality, when the door was opened, and while I stood +waiting for her in the prim drawing-room. Every chair was in its +appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the +tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung +about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage +there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting +for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable +to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me +as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten +emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same +olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's, +and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not +detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech +Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival +of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_ and +settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was _le grave +Puritan du tableau_. The reader will notice that I write _le +grave Puritan_, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was +nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with +her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain +cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside. She never +relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we +always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions +and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells +us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs +and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, +and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles +away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and +real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day; +she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the +homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years +ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation +is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during +these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the +changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her +figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a +good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have +thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year +she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me +disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has +loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially +when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly +young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said. She asked me my age; +the question was unpleasant, and before I was aware of it I had told +her a lie, and I hate those who force me to tell lies. The interview +grew painful, and to bring it to a close she asked me if I would care +to see her husband. + +We found the old man alone in his studio, looking at an engraving +under the light of the lamp, much more like a picture than any of his +paintings. She asked him if he remembered me, and he got up muttering +something, and to help him I mentioned that I had been one of his +pupils. The dear old man said of course he remembered, and that he +would like to show me his pictures, but Lizzie said--I suppose it was +nervousness that made her say it, but it was a strangely tactless +remark--"I don't think, dear, that Mr. ---- cares for your pictures." +However celebrated one may be, it is always mortifying to hear that +some one, however humble the person may be, does not care for one's +art. But I saved the situation, and I think my remarks were judicious +and witty. It is not always that one thinks of the right words at the +right moment, but it would be hard to improve on the admonition that +she did me a wrong, that, like every one who liked art, I had changed +my opinion many times, but after many wanderings had come back to the +truth, and in order to deceive the old man I spoke of Ingres. I had +never failed in that love, and how could I love Ingres without loving +him? The contrary was the truth, but the old man's answer was very +sweet. Forgetful of his own high position, he answered, "We may both +like Ingres, but it is not probable that we like the same Ingres." I +said I did not know any Ingres I did not admire, and asked him which +he admired, and we had a pleasant conversation about the Apotheosis of +Homer, and the pictures in the Musee de Montauban. Then the old man +said, "I must show Mr. ---- my pictures." No doubt he had been +thinking of them all through the conversation about the Musee de +Montauban. "I must show you my Virgin," and he explained that the face +of the Infant Jesus was not yet finished. + +It was wonderful to see this old man, who must have been nearly +eighty, taking the same interest in his pictures as he took fifty +years ago. Some stupid reader will think, perchance, that it mattered +that I had once loved his wife. But how could such a thing matter? +Think for a moment, dear reader, for all readers are dear, even the +stupidest, and you will see that you are still entangled in +conventions and prejudices. Perhaps, dear reader, you think she and I +should have dropped on our knees and confessed. Had we done so, he +would have thought us two rude people, and nothing more. + +What will happen to her when he dies? Will she return to Boston? Shall +I ever see her again? Last year I vowed that I would not, and I think +it would please her as well if I stayed away.... And she is right, for +so long as I am not by her she is with me. But in the same room, amid +the familiar furniture, we are divided by the insuperable past, and to +retain her I must send her away. The idea is an amusing one; I think I +have read it somewhere, it seems to me like something I have read. Did +I ever read of a man who sent his mistress away so that his possession +might be more complete? Whether I did or didn't matters little, the +idea is true to me to-day--in order to possess her I must never see +her again. A pretty adventure it would be, nevertheless, to spend a +week paying visits to those whom I loved about that time; and I can +imagine a sort of Beau Brummel of the emotions going every year to +Paris to spend a day with each of his mistresses. + +There were others about that time. There was Madame ----. The name is +in itself beautiful, characteristically French, and it takes me back +to the middle centuries, to the middle of France. I always imagined +that tall woman, who thought so quickly and spoke so sincerely, +dealing out her soul rapidly, as one might cards, must have been born +near Tours. She was so French that she must have come from the very +heart of France; she was French as the wine of France; as Balzac, who +also came from Tours; and her voice, and her thoughts, and her words +transported one; by her side one was really in France; and, as her +lover, one lived through every circumstance of a French love story. +She lived in what is called in Paris an hotel; it had its own +_concierge_, and it was nice to hear the man say, "Oui, monsieur, +Madame la Marquise est chez elle," to walk across a courtyard and wait +in a boudoir stretched with blue silk, to sit under a Louis XVI. rock +crystal chandelier. She said one day, "I'm afraid you're thinking of +me a great deal," and she leaned her hands on the back of the chair, +making it easy for me to take them. She said her hands had not done +any kitchen work for five hundred years, and at the time that seemed a +very witty thing to say. The drawing-room opened onto a conservatory +twenty feet high; it nearly filled the garden, and the marquise used +to receive her visitors there. I do not remember who was the +marquise's lover when the last fete was given, nor what play was +acted; only that the ordinary guests lingered over their light +refreshments, scenting the supper, and that to get rid of them we had +to bid the marquise ostentatiously goodnight. Creeping round by the +back of the house, we gained the bedrooms by the servants' staircase, +and hid there until the ordinary guests in decency could delay no +longer. As soon as the last one was gone the stage was removed, and +the supper tables were laid out. Shall I ever forget the moment when +the glass roof of the conservatory began to turn blue, and the +shrilling of awakening sparrows! How haggard we all were, but we +remained till eight in the morning. That fete was paid for with the +last remnant of the poor marquise's fortune. Afterwards she was very +poor, and Suzanne, her daughter, went on the stage and discovered a +certain talent for acting which has been her fortune to this day. I +will go to the Vaudeville to-night to see her; we might arrange to go +together to see her mother's grave. To visit the grave, and to strew +azaleas upon it, would be a pretty piece of sentimental mockery. But +for my adventure there should be seven visits; Madame ---- would make +a fourth; I hear that she is losing her sight, and lives in a chateau +about fifty miles from Paris, a chateau built in the time of Louis +XIII., with high-pitched roofs and many shutters, and formal gardens +with balustrades and fish-ponds, yes _et des charmilles--charmilles_ +--what is that in English?--avenues of clipped limes. To walk in an avenue +of clipped limes with a woman who is nearly blind, and talk to her of the +past, would be indeed an adventure far "beyond the range of formal man's +emotion." + +Madame ---- interrupted our love story. She would be another--that +would be five--and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I +must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a +straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last +notes trickle out--somebody has been playing the prelude to +"Tristan"--I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on +art and women--and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow +will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again +meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied with +what I once heard dear old M'Cormac, Bishop of Galway, describe in his +sermon as 'the degrading passion of "loave."'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NINON'S TABLE D'HOTE + + +The day dies in sultry languor. A warm night breathes upon the town, +and in the exhaustion of light and hush of sound, life strikes sharply +on the ear and brain. + +It was early in the evening when I returned home, and, sitting in the +window, I read till surprised by the dusk; and when my eyes could no +longer follow the printed page, holding the book between finger and +thumb, my face resting on the other hand, I looked out on the garden, +allowing my heart to fill with dreams. The book that had interested me +dealt with the complex technique of the art of the Low Countries--a +book written by a painter. It has awakened in me memories of all +kinds, heartrending struggles, youthful passion, bitter +disappointments; it has called into mind a multitude of thoughts and +things, and, wearied with admiring many pictures and arguing with +myself, I am now glad to exchange my book for the gentle +hallucinations of the twilight. + +I see a line of leafage drawn across the Thames, but the line dips, +revealing a slip of grey water with no gleam upon it. Warehouses and a +factory chimney rise ghostly and grey, and so cold is that grey tint +that it might be obtained with black and white; hardly is the warmth +of umber needed. Behind the warehouses and the factory chimney the sky +is murky and motionless, but higher up it is creamy white, and there +is some cloud movement. Four lamps, two on either side of the factory +chimney, look across the river; one constantly goes out--always the +same lamp--and a moment after it springs into its place again. Across +my window a beautiful branch waves like a feather fan. It is the only +part of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost +imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, +and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the +gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a +man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying +branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his +mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers +of Temple Gardens the pigeons have gone to sleep. I can see the cots +under the conical caps of slate. + +The gross, jaded, uncouth present has slipped from me as a garment +might, and I see the past like a little show, struggles and +heartbreakings of long ago, and watch it with the same indifferent +curiosity as I would the regulated mimicry of a stage play. Pictures +from the past come and go without an effort of will; many are habitual +memories, but the one before me rises for the first time--for fifteen +years it has lain submerged, and now like a water weed or flower it +rises--the Countess Ninon de Calvador's boudoir! Her boudoir or her +drawing-room, be that as it may, the room into which I was ushered +many years ago when I went to see her. I was then a young man, very +thin, with sloping shoulders, and that pale gold hair that Manet +used to like to paint. I had come with a great bouquet for Ninon, +for it was _son jour de fete_, and was surprised and somewhat +disappointed to meet a large brunette with many creases in her neck, a +loose and unstayed bosom; one could hardly imagine Ninon dressed +otherwise than in a _peignoir_--a blue _peignoir_ seemed inevitable. +She was sitting by a dark, broad-shouldered young man when I came +in; they were sitting close together; he rose out of a corner and +showed me an impressionistic picture of a railway station. He was +one of the many young men who at that time thought the substitution of +dots of pink and yellow for the grey and slate and square brushwork of +Bastien Lepage was the certain way to paint well. I learned +afterwards, during the course of the evening, that he was looked at +askance, for even in Montmartre it was regarded as a dishonour to +allow the lady with whom you lived to pay for your dinner. Villiers de +L'Isle Adam, who had once been Ninon's lover, answered the reproaches +levelled against him for having accepted too largely of her +hospitality with, "Que de bruit pour quelques cotelettes!" and his +transgressions were forgiven him for the sake of the _mot_ which +seemed to summarise the moral endeavour and difficulties of the entire +quarter. When Villiers was her lover Villiers was middle-aged, and +Ninon was a young woman; but when I knew her she was interested in the +young generation, yet she kept friends with all her old lovers, never +denying them her board. How funny was the impressionist's indignation +against Villiers! He charged him with having squandered a great part +of Ninon's fortune, but Villiers's answer to the young man was, "He +talks like the _concierge_ in my story of 'Les Demoiselles de +Bienfillatre.'" + +Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's +temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room +testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had +been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand +francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for +it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open +house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in +Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but +when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all +hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the +_rates_ she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in +Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysees? Any friend could introduce +another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a +restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another +unless the newcomer was a _rate_--in other words, unless he had +written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not +appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the +taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there. + +The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my +expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew +there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked +about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the +companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches +and strutted across the swards. I came upon a badger and her brood, +and at my approach they disappeared into an enormous excavation, and +behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated +hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. +"That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the +different parts--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we +were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until +suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that +had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the +ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta and her admirers had to +leave the piano, and they came from the house glad to breathe the +evening air. How dear to me are flowered gowns and evening skies and +women with scarfs about their shoulders. Ah! what a beautiful evening +it was! And how well do I remember the poet comparing the darkening +sky to a blue veil with the moon like a gold beetle upon it. One of +the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice +streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of +the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes +grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen +faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had +only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a +cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare +had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could not tell. It was +whispered that she was the wife of a rich _commercant_ at Tours. +This added to the mystery, and later in the evening the lady told me +she had never been in artistic society before, and begged me to point +out to her the celebrities present, and to tell her why they were +celebrated. + +"Who is he--that one slouching towards the pond, that one wearing grey +trousers and a black jacket?--oh!" + +My companion's exclamation was caused by a new sight of Verlaine; at +that moment he had lifted off his hat (the evening was still warm), +and the great bald skull, hanging like a cliff over the shaggy +eyebrows, shaggy as furze bushes, frightened her. The poet continued +his walk round the pond, and, turning suddenly towards us, he stopped +to speak to me. I was but a pretext; he clearly wished to speak to my +companion. But how strangely did he suit his conversation to her, yet +how characteristic of his genius were the words I heard as I turned +away, thinking to leave them together--"If I were in love with a young +girl or with a young man?" My companion ran forward quickly and seized +my arm. "You must not leave me with him," she said. On account of his +genius Verlaine was a little slow to see things outside of +himself--all that was within him was clear, all without him obscure; +so we had some difficulty in getting rid of him, and as soon as he was +out of hearing my companion inquired eagerly who he was, and I was +astonished at the perception she showed. "Is he a priest? I mean, was +he ever a priest?" "A sort of cross between a thieves' kitchen and a +presbytery. He is the poet Verlaine. The singer of the sweetest verses +in the French language--a sort of ambling song like a robin's. You +have heard the robin singing on a coral hedge in autumn-tide; the +robin confesses his little soul from the topmost twig; his song is but +a tracery of his soul, and so is Verlaine's. His gift is a vision of +his own soul, and he makes a tracery as you might of a drawing with a +lead pencil, never troubling himself to inquire if what he traces is +good or ill. He knows that society regards him as an outcast, but +society's point of view is not the only one, that he knows too, and +also, though he be a lecher, a crapulous and bestial fellow at times, +at other times he is a poet, a visionary, the only poet that +Catholicism has produced since Dante. Huysmans, the apologist of +Gilles de Rais,--there he is over yonder, talking to the impressionist +painter, that small thin man with hair growing thickly, low down on +his forehead--Huysmans somewhere in his description of the trial of +the fifteenth-century monster, the prototype, so it is said, of the +nursery tale of Blue Beard, speaks of the white soul of the Middle +Ages; he must have had Verlaine on his mind, for Verlaine has spoken +of himself as a mediaeval Catholic, that is to say a Catholic in whom +sinning and repentance alternates regularly as night and day. Verlaine +has not cut the throats of so many little boys as Gilles de Rais, but +Gilles de Rais always declared himself to be a good Catholic. Verlaine +abandons himself to the Church as a child to a fairy tale; he does +trouble to argue whether the Conception of the Virgin was Immaculate; +the mediaeval sculptors have represented her attired very prettily in +cloaks with long folds, they have put graceful crowns upon her head, +and Verlaine likes these things; they inspire him to write, he feels +that belief in the Church is part of himself, and his poetical genius +is to tell his own story; he is one of the great soul-tellers. From a +literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of +faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma +shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate +himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas--the curse +of modern literature--and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living +his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have +freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get +the real taste of life--the aroma as from a wine that has been many +years in bottle. And Verlaine is aware that this is so. Sometimes he +thinks he might have written a little more poetry, and he sighs, but +he quickly recovers. 'After all, I have written a good many volumes.' +'And what would art be without life, without love?' He has a verse on +that subject; I wish I could remember it for you. His verse is always +so winsome, so delicate, slender as the birch tree, elegiac like it; a +birch bending over a lake's edge reminds me of Verlaine. He is a lake +poet, but the lake is in a suburb not far from a casino. What makes me +speak about the lake is that for a long time I thought these verses, + + Ton ame est un lac d'amour + Dont mes pensees sont les cygnes. + Vois comme ils font le tour.... + +were Verlaine's, but they are much less original; their beauty, for +they are beautiful, is conventional; numbers of poets might have +written them, whereas nobody but Verlaine could have written any of +his, really his own, poetry. His desires go sometimes as high as the +crucifix; very often they are in the gutter, hardly poetry at all, +having hardly any beauty except that of truth, and of course the +beauty of a versification that haunts in his ear, for he hears a song +in French verse that no French poet has ever heard before, and a song +so fluent, ranging from the ecstasy of the nightingale to the robin's +little homily. + + Oui, c'etait par un soir joyeux de cabaret, + Un de ces soirs plutot trop chauds ou l'on dirait + Que le gaz du plafond conspire a notre perte + Avec le vin du zinc, saveur naive et verte. + On s'amusait beaucoup dans la boutique et on + Entendait des soupirs voisins d'accordeon + Que ponctuaient des pieds frappant presque en cadence. + Quand la porte s'ouvrit de la salle de danse + Vomissant tout un flot dont toi, vers ou j'etais, + Et de ta voix fait que soudain je me tais, + S'il te plait de me donner un ordre peremptoire. + Tu t'ecrias 'Dieu, qu'il fait chaud! Patron, a boire!' + +"She was from Picardy; and he tells of her horrible accent, and in +elegy number five he continues the confession, telling how his well +beloved used to get drunk. + + "Tu fis le saut de ... Seine et, depuis morte-vive, + Tu gardes le vertige et le gout du neant." + +"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we +stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, +cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking +at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I +said: + +"Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed +of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. +It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all +written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." + +"In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the _commercant's_ +wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went +towards her pocket. + +"No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of +vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three +years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and +renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil +somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these +hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will +not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a +caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with +these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine +preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he +drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing +beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling +in love with drabs." + + Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouve l'ange + Qu'il eut fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi! + L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy, + Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle; + Elle ne m'adressa guere qu'une parole + Et c'etait d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait, + En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre, + Une troisieme, recemment chanteuse au Havre, + Affectait de dandinement des matelots + Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots, + Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacredie, quel dommage + La quatrieme etait sage comme une image, + Chatain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois: + Le diantre soit de ses sacres signes de croix! + Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma memoire + Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire + Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'ilot" + Tantot bien, tantot moins, le clair cafe falot + Les terasses l'ete, l'hiver les brasseries + Et par degres l'humble trottoir en theories + En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants + Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants + _Qutorum ego parva pars erim_, me disais-je. + Mais toutes, comme la premiere du cortege, + Des avant la bougie eteinte et le rideau + Tire, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau." + +"In the verses I have just quoted, you remember, he says that the +fourth was chaste as an image, her hair was pale brown, she had +scarcely any bosom, and prayed to God sometimes. He always hated piety +when it interfered with his pleasure, and in the next verse he says, +'The devil take those sacred signs of the Cross!'" + +"But do you know any of these women?" + +"Oh, yes; we all know the terrible Sara. She beats him." + +The _commercante's_ wife asked if she were here. + +"He wanted to bring her here, in fact he did bring her once, only she +was so drunk that she could not get beyond the threshold, and Ninon's +lover, the painter you saw painting the steam engines, was charged to +explain to the poet that Sara's intemperance rendered her impossible +in respectable society. 'I know Sara has her faults,' he murmured in +reply to all argument, and it was impossible to make him see that +others did not see Sara with his eyes. 'I know she has her faults,' he +repeated, 'and so have others. We all have our faults.' And it was a +long time before he could be induced to come back: hunger has brought +him." + +"And who is that hollow-chested man? How pathetic he looks with his +goat-like beard." + +"That is the celebrated Cabaner. He will tell you, if you speak to +him, that his father was a man like Napoleon, only more so. He is the +author of many aphorisms; 'that three military bands would be +necessary to give the impression of silence in music' is one. He comes +every night to the Nouvelle Athenes, and is a sort of rallying-point; +he will tell you that his ballad of 'The Salt Herring' is written in a +way that perhaps Wagner would not, but which Liszt certainly would +understand." + +"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his +music, I suppose?" + +"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la +Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five +francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of +art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you +should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain, +and he broke off the head of the Venus de Milo, saying that now she no +longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could +henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid +recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness, +his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his +music accompanies his own verses." + +"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?" + +"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the +last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is +the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam." + +And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all +I knew about Villiers. + +"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a +rate," I said. + +But the woman was not so simple as I had imagined, and one or two +questions she put to me led me to tell her that Villiers's genius only +appeared in streaks, like gold in quartz. + +"The comparison is an old one, but there is no better one to explain +Villiers, for when he is not inspired his writing is very like +quartz." + +"His great name----" + +"His name is part of his genius. He chose it, and it has influenced +his writings. Have I not heard him say, 'Car je porte en moi les +richesses steriles d'un grand nombre de rois oublies.'" + +"But is he a legitimate descendant?" + +"Legitimate in the sense that he desired the name more than any of +those who ever bore it legitimately." + +At that moment Villiers passed by me, and I introduced him to her, and +very soon he began to tell us that his _Eve_ had just been +published, and the success of it was great. + +"On m'a dit hier de passer a la caisse ... l'edition etait epuisee, +vous voyez--il parait, la fortune est venue ... meme a moi." + +But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon +as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his +stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately +in the _brasseries_ about a man in quest of a quiet village where +he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he +written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I +liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away +from us, and I had to tell my companion the story. + +"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in +his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less +of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the +cafe--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, +recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest +in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that +touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will +find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of +from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst +of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees +at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and +gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins. + +"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning +on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The +point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, +how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced +he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the +manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So +they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and +tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise +the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the cafe, but when +morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some +night to the Nouvelle Athenes to hear him; leaning across the table he +will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the +house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the +staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in +bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He +dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the +sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man +piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside +hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a +dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle +Athenes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow +night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too +bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it." + +The _commercant's_ wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she +came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot +remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think +of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in +which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the +years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue +eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of +sensual Christ? He, too, was after the _commercant's_ wife. And +didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure +yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. + + "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or. + Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore." + +The _commercant's_ wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by +the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew +nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here +and there? + + "Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite + Elle effleurait la Marguerite." + +The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires +him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. +Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt +Herring." + + "He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty, + A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed, + And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy. + He placed the ladder high, high, high, + Against the wall white, white, white. + He went up the ladder high, high, high, + Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed + Against the wall--toc! toc! toc! + He tied to the nail a string long, long, long, + And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry, + And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy, + He got down from the ladder high, high, high, + And went away, away, away. + Since then at the end of the string long, long, long, + A salt herring dry, dry, dry, + Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly. + Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple, + To make all serious men mad, mad, mad, + And to amuse children, little, little, little." + +This was the libretto on which Cabaner wrote music "that Wagner would +not understand, but which Liszt certainly would." Dear, dear Cabaner, +how well I can see thee with thy goat-like beard, and the ape in the +tree interrupting thee; he was not like Liszt, he chattered all night. +Poor ape, he broke his chain earlier in the evening, and it was found +impossible to persuade him to come down. The brute seemed somehow +determined that we should not hear Cabaner. Soon after the cocks began +answering each other, though it was but midnight; and so loud was +their shrilling that I awoke, surprised to find myself sitting at my +window in King's Bench Walk. A moment ago I was in Madame Ninon de +Calvador's garden, and every whit as much as I am now in King's Bench +Walk. Madame Ninon de Calvador--what has become of her? + +Is the rest of her story unknown? As I sit looking into the darkness, +a memory suddenly springs upon me. Villiers, who came in when dinner +was half over, brought a young man with him. Fumbling at his shirt +collar, apologising for being late, assuring us that he had dined, he +introduced his friend to the company as a young man of genius, of +extraordinary genius. Don't I remember Villiers's nervous, hysterical +voice! Don't I remember the journalist's voice when he asked Ninon's +lover if he sold his pictures, creating at once a bad impression? By +some accident a plate was given to him, out of which one of the cats +had been fed. The plate might have been given to any one else: +Villiers would not have minded, and as for Cabaner, he never knew what +he was eating; but it was given to the journalist. Now I remember the +young man misconducted himself badly; he struck the table with his +fist, and said, "Et bien, je casse tout." Yes, it was he who wrote the +article entitled "Ninon's Table d'hote" in the _Gil Blas_, and +from it she learned for the first time how the world viewed her +hospitality, how misinterpreted were her efforts to benefit the arts +and the artists. Somebody told me this story: who I cannot tell; it is +all so long ago. But it seems to me that I remember hearing that it +was this article that killed her. + +The passing of things is always a moving subject for meditation, and +it is strange how accident will bring back a scene, explicit in every +detail--a tree taking shape upon the dawning sky, the hairy ugliness +of the ape in its branches, and along the grey grass a waddling squad +of the ducks betaking themselves to the pond, a poet talking to a +_commercant's_ wife, Madame de Calvador leaning on a lover's arm. + +Had I a palette I could match the blue of the _peignoir_ with the +faint grey sky. I could make a picture out of that dusky suburb. Had I +a pen I could write verses about these people of old time, but the +picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream, and the +verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the +meditation, which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. +Better to sit by my window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the +memory. The mood has nearly passed, the desire of action is +approaching.... I would give much for another memory, but memory may +not be beckoned, and my mind is dark now, dark as that garden; the +swaying, fan-like bough by my window is nearly one mass of green; the +last sparrow has fallen asleep. I hear nothing.... I hear a horse +trotting in the Strand. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + + +I had come a thousand miles--rather more, nearly fifteen hundred--in +the hope of picking up the thread of a love story that had got +entangled some years before and had been broken off abruptly. A +strange misadventure our love story had been; for Doris had given a +great deal of herself while denying me much, so much that at last, in +despair, I fled from a one-sided love affair; too one-sided to be +borne any longer, at least by me. And it was difficult to fly from her +pretty, inveigling face, delightful and winsome as the faces one finds +on the panels of the early German masters. One may look for her face +and find it on an oak panel in the Frankfort Gallery, painted in pale +tints, the cheeks faintly touched with carmine. In the background of +these pictures there are all sorts of curious things; very often a +gold bower with roses clambering up everywhere. Who was that master +who painted cunning virgins in rose bowers? The master of Cologne, was +it not? I have forgotten. No matter. Doris's hair was darker than the +hair of those virgins, a rich gold hair, a mane of hair growing as +luxuriously as the meadows in June. And the golden note was continued +everywhere, in the eyebrows, in the pupils of the eyes, in the +freckles along her little nose so firmly and beautifully modelled +about the nostrils; never was there a more lovely or affectionate +mouth, weak and beautiful as a flower; and the long hands were curved +like lilies. + +There is her portrait, dear reader, prettily and truthfully and +faithfully painted by me, the portrait of a girl I left one afternoon +in London more than seventeen years ago, and whom I had lost sight of, +I feared for ever. Thought of her? Yes, I thought of her occasionally. +Time went by, and I wondered if she were married. What her husband was +like, and why I never wrote. It were surely unkind not to write.... +Reader, you know those little regrets. Perhaps life would be all on +the flat without regret. Regret is like a mountaintop from which we +survey our dead life, a mountaintop on which we pause and ponder, and +very often looking into the twilight we ask ourselves whether it would +be well to send a letter or some token. Now we had agreed upon one +which should be used in case of an estrangement--a few bars of +Schumann's melody, "The Nut Bush," should be sent, and the one who +received it should at once hurry to the side of the other and all +difference should be healed. But this token was never sent by me, +perhaps because I did not know how to scribble the musical phrase: +pride perhaps kept her from sending it; in any case five years are a +long while, and she seemed to have died out of my life altogether; but +one day the sight of a woman who had known her, brought her before my +eyes, and I asked if Doris married. The woman could not tell me; she +had not seen her for many years; they, too, were estranged, and I went +home saying to myself: "Doris must be married. What sort of a husband +has she chosen? Is she happy? Has she a baby? Oh, shameful thought!" + +Do you remember, dear reader, how Balzac, when he had come to the last +page of "Massimilla Doni," declares that he dare not tell you the end +of this adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for the worshippers +of the ideal: "Massimilla Doni was expecting." Then in a passage that +is pleasanter to think about than to read--for Balzac when he spoke +about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the +passage is altogether grammatical--he tells how the ideas of all the +great artists, painters, and sculptors--the ideas they have wrought on +panels and in stone--escaped from their niches and their frames--all +these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept. It +would be as disgraceful for Doris to be "expecting" as it was for +Massimilla Doni, and I like to think of all the peris, the nymphs, the +sylphs, the fairies of ancient legend, all her kinsfolk gathering +about her bed, deploring her condition, regarding her as lost to +them--were such a thing to happen I should certainly kneel there in +spirit with them. And feeling just as Balzac did about Massimilla +Doni, that it was a sacrilege that Doris should be "expecting" or even +married, I wrote, omitting, however, to tell her why I had suddenly +resolved to break silence; I sent her a little note, only a few words, +that I was sorry not to have heard of her for so long a time; but +though we had been estranged she had not been forgotten; a little +commonplace note, relieved perhaps by a touch of wistfulness, of +regret. And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask +for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat +disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to +her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would +be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and +I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long +telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had +come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said, +"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the +least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was +better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing." +The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full +of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black +misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her +health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in +this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that +if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak +to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it +was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long +estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied +the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could +it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if---- + +At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer +to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should +undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I +muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a +phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own +reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more +aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you +would not have me consider it good news, would you?" + +Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's +intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering +by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that +vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to +have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a +law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are +not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were +possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a +thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be +pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much. She had said +she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old +times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a +pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was +propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle +of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a +conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or +three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything +whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met +myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not +remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy +similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes +of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand +miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in +either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden +fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had +discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey, +for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the +train. + +When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the +train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had +rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of +some financial embarrassments. During those eight years I thought +often of Italy and the south of France, but the train journey of +sixteen or seventeen or eighteen hours to the Italian frontier always +seemed so much like what purgatory must be, that the heaven of Italy +on the other side never tempted me sufficiently to undertake it. A +companion would be of no use; one cannot talk for fifteen or sixteen +hours, and while debating with myself whether I should go to Plessy, I +often glanced down the long perspective of hours. Everything, pleasure +and pain alike, are greater in imagination than in reality--there is +always a reaction, and having anticipated more than mortal weariness, +I was surprised to find that the first two hours in the train passed +very pleasantly. It seemed that I had only been in the train quite a +little while when it stopped, yet Laroche is more than an hour from +Paris, quite a countryside station, and it seems strange that the +_Cote d'Azur_ should stop there. That was the grand name of the +train that I was travelling by. Think of any English company running a +train and calling it "The Azure Shore"! Think of going to Euston or to +Charing Cross, saying you are going by "The Azure Shore"! So long as +the name of this train endures, it is impossible to doubt that the +French mind is more picturesque than the English, and one no longer +wonders why the French school of painting, etc. + +A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just +before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the +train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in +the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of +glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought +a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many +various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the +bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I +began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed +to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The +directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should +exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to +examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that +would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter +to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like +ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The +French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune +no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on +how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way +of remedying abuses. + +I don't think we stopped again till we got to Lyons, and all the way +there I sat at the window looking at the landscape--the long, long +plain that the French peasant cultivates unceasingly. Out of that long +plain came all the money that was lost in Panama, and all the money +invested in Russian bonds--fine milliards came out of the French +peasants' stockings. We passed through La Beauce. I believe it was +there that Zola went to study the French peasant before he wrote "La +Terre." Huysmans, with that benevolent malice so characteristic of +him, used to say that Zola's investigation was limited to going out +once for a drive in a carriage with Madame Zola. The primitive man +that had risen out of some jungle of my being did not view this +immense and highly cultivated plain sympathetically. It seemed to him +to differ little from the town, so utterly was nature dominated by man +and portioned out. On a subject like this one can meditate for a long +time, and I meditated till my meditation was broken by the stopping of +the train. We were at Lyons. The tall white-painted houses reminded me +of Paris--Lyons, as seen from the windows of _La Cote d'Azur_ at +the end of a grey December day might be Paris. The climate seemed the +same; the sky was as sloppy and as grey. At last the train stopped at +a place from which I could look down a side street, and I decided that +Lyons wore a more provincial look than Paris, and I thought of the +great silk trade and the dull minds of the merchants ... their dinner +parties, etc. I noticed everything there was to notice in order to +pass the time; but there was so little of interest that I wrote out a +telegram and ran with it to the office, for Doris did not know what +train I was coming by, and it is pleasant to be met at a station, to +meet one familiar face, not to find oneself amid a crowd of strangers. +Very nearly did I miss the train; my foot was on the footboard when +the guard blew his whistle. "Just fancy if I had missed the train," I +said, and settling myself in my seat I added, "now, let us study the +landscape; such an opportunity as this may never occur again." + +The long plain cultivated with tedious regularity that we had been +passing through before we came to Lyons, flowed on field after field; +it seemed as if we should never reach the end of it, and looking on +those same fields, for they were the same, I said to myself: "If I +were an economist that plain would interest me, but since I got +Doris's letter I am primitive man, and he abhors the brown and the +waving field, and 'the spirit in his feet' leads him to some grassy +glen where he follows his flocks, listening to the song of the wilding +bee that sings as it labours amid the gorse. What a soulless race that +plain must breed," I thought; "what soulless days are lived there; +peasants going forth at dusk to plough, and turning home at dusk to +eat, procreate and sleep." At last a river appeared flowing amid +sparse and stunted trees and reeds, a great wide sluggish river with +low banks, flowing so slowly that it hardly seemed to flow at all. +Rooks flew past, but they are hardly wilding birds; a crow--yes, we +saw one; and I thought of a heron rising slowly out of one of the +reedy islands; maybe an otter or two survives the persecution of the +peasant, and I liked to think of a poacher picking up a rabbit here +and there; hares must have almost disappeared, even the flock and the +shepherd. France is not as picturesque a country as England; only +Normandy seems to have pasturage, there alone the shepherd survives +along the banks of the Seine. Picardy, though a swamp, never conveys +an idea of the wild; and the middle of France, which I looked at then +for the first time, shocked me, for primitive man, as I have said, was +uppermost in me, and I turned away from the long plain, "Dreary," I +said, "uneventful as a boarding-house." + +But it is a long plain that has no hill in it, and when I looked out +again a whole range showed so picturesquely that I could not refrain, +but turned to a travelling companion to ask its name. It was the +Esterelles; and never shall I forget the picturesqueness of one +moment--the jagged end of the Esterelles projecting over the valley, +showing against what remained of the sunset, one or two bars of dusky +red, disappearing rapidly amid heavy clouds massing themselves as if +for a storm, and soon after night closed over the landscape. + +"Henceforth," I said, "I shall have to look to my own thoughts for +amusement," and in my circumstances there was nothing reasonable for me +to think of but Doris. Some time before midnight I should catch sight +of her on the platform. It seemed to me wonderful that it should be +so, and I must have been dreaming, for the voice of the guard, crying +out that dinner was served awoke me with a start. + +It is said to be the habit of my countrymen never to get into +conversation with strangers in the train, but I doubt if that be so. +Everything depends on the tact of him who first breaks silence; if his +manner inspires confidence in his fellow-traveller he will receive +such answers as will carry the conversation on for a minute or two, +and in that time both will have come to a conclusion whether the +conversation should be continued or dropped. A pleasant little book +might be written about train acquaintances. If I were writing such a +book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with +whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should +have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette +of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the +quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection +in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting +people I met at dinner on board _La Cote d'Azur_, though some +readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman +was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the +upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas +the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or +would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more, +being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he +took off his hat I could see that he had come from the tropics-- +Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less +stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look +like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the +desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained +by his long residence among the Arabs. He had lived in the desert +since he was fourteen. "Almost a Saharian," I said to him. And during +dinner, and long after dinner we sat talking of the difference +between the Oriental races and the European; of the various Arab +_patois_. He spoke the Tunisean _patois_ and wrote the language +of the Koran, which is understood all over the Sahara and the +Soudan, as well as in Mecca. What interested me, perhaps even more +than the language question, was the wilding's enterprise in attempting +to cultivate the desert. He had already enlarged his estate by the +discovery of two ancient Roman wells, and he had no doubt that all +that part of the desert lying between the three oases could be brought +into cultivation. In ancient times there were not three oases but one; +the wells had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of acres had +been laid waste by the Numidians in order, I think he told me, to save +themselves from the Saracens who were following them. He spent eight +months of every year in his oasis, and begged of me, as soon as I had +wearied of Cannes, to take the boat from Marseilles--I suppose it was +from Marseilles--and spend some time with him in the wild. + +"Visitors," he said, "are rare. You'll be very welcome. The railway +will take you within a hundred miles; the last hundred miles will be +accomplished on the back of a dromedary; I shall send you a fleet one +and an escort." + +"Splendid," I answered. "I see myself arriving sitting high up on the +hump gathering dates--I suppose there are date palms where you are? +Yes?--and wearing a turban and a bournous." + +"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise +he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only +shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. +When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out +for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father +had brought home from the East. Nothing else would have satisfied me; +my father led the pony, and I have always thought this fantasy +exceedingly characteristic; it must be so, for it awoke in me twenty +years afterwards; and fanciful and absurd as it may appear, I +certainly should have liked to have worn my travelling companion's +bournous in the train if only for a few minutes. All this is twelve +years ago, and I have not yet gone to visit him in his oasis, but how +many times have I done so in my imagination, seeing myself arriving on +the back of a dromedary crying out, "Allah! Allah! And Mohammed is his +prophet!" But though one can go on thinking year after year about a +bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; +and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my +friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as +Fromentin says, _chez lui_, I was glad to say good-bye to my +friends at Marseilles. + +I was still quite far from the end of my journey, and so weary of talk +that at first I was doubtful whether or not it would be worth while to +engage again in conversation, but a pleasant gentleman had got into my +carriage, and he required little encouragement to tell me his story. +His beginnings were very humble, but he was now a rich merchant. It is +always interesting to hear how the office boy gets his first chance; +the first steps are the interesting ones, and I should be able to tell +his story here if we had not been interrupted in the middle of it by +his little girl. She had wearied of her mother, who was in the next +carriage, and had come in to sit on her father's knee. Her hair hung +about her shoulders just as Doris's had done five years ago, taking +the date from the day that I journeyed in quest of the golden fleece. +She was a winsome child, with a little fluttering smile about her lips +and a curious intelligence in her eyes. She admitted that she was +tired, but had not been ill, and her father told me that long train +journeys produced the same effect on her as a sea journey. She spoke +with a pretty abruptness, and went away suddenly, I thought for good, +but she returned half an hour afterwards looking a little faint, I +thought, green about the mouth, and smiling less frequently. One +cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these +people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in +about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should +have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey +dragged itself out very wearily. + +Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting +for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not +even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and +the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I +congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the +telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel +than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same +pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in +Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to +tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little +paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile +inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform +talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There +was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink. +"She is going to tell me that I cannot come to her hotel. Why did I +send that telegram from Lyons?" Had it not been for that telegram I +could have gone straight to her hotel. It was just the telegram that +had brought her to the station, and she had come to tell me that it +was impossible for me to stay at her hotel. + +After thirty hours of travel it mattered little which hotel I stayed +at, but to-morrow and the next day, the long week we were to spend +together passed before my eyes, the tedium of the afternoons, the +irritation and emptiness of Platonic evenings--"Heavens! what have I +let myself in for," I thought, and my mind went back over the long +journey and the prospect of returning _bredouille_, as the +sportsmen say. But to argue about details with a woman, to get angry, +is a thing that no one versed in the arts of love ever does. We are in +the hands of women always; it is they who decide, and our best plan is +to accept the different hotel without betraying disappointment, or as +little as possible. But we had not seen each other for so long that we +could not part at once. Doris said that I must come to her hotel and +eat some supper. No; I had dined on board the train, and all she could +persuade me to have was a cup of chocolate. Over that cup of chocolate +we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon +looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling +very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my +heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however, +and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come +quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning +when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves +symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight +flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to +jump out of bed at once and to throw open _les croisees_. And +what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim, +alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as +the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere. +And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous +gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer +wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I +think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the +morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the +sea. + +Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I +breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees; +remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is +this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed +more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted +among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see +when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, +nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the +golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to +pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so +much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell +we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never +grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at +last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly +happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more +than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so +surprised as I did that morning. The _valet de chambre_ brought +in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of +him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find +the sunlight a bewitchment. But who would not be bewitched by the +pretty sunlight that finds its way into the gardens of Plessy? I knew +I was going to walk with Doris by a sea blue as any drop-curtain, and +for a moment Doris seemed to be but a figure on a drop-curtain. Am I +very cynical? But are we not all figures on drop-curtains, and is not +everything comic opera, and "La Belle Helene" perhaps the only true +reality? Amused by the idea of Jason or Paris or Menelaus in Plessy, I +asked Doris what music was played by the local orchestra, and she told +me it played "The March of Aida" every evening. "Oh, the cornet," I +said, and I understood that the mission of Plessy was to redeem one +from the coil of one's daily existence, from Hebrew literature and its +concomitants, bishops, vicars, and curates--all these, especially +bishops, are regarded as being serious; whereas French novels and +their concomitants, pretty girls, are supposed to represent the +trivial side of life. A girl becomes serious only when she is engaged +to be married; the hiring of the house in which the family is reared +is regarded as serious; in fact all prejudices are serious; every +deflection from the normal, from the herd, is looked upon as trivial; +and I suppose that this is right: the world could not do without the +herd nor could the herd do without us--the eccentrics who go to Plessy +in quest of a golden fleece instead of putting stoves in the parish +churches (stoves and organs are always regarded as too devilishly +serious for words). + +Once I had a long conversation with my archbishop concerning the Book +of Daniel, and were I to write out his lordship's erudition I might +even be deemed sufficiently serious for a review in the _Church +Gazette_. But looking back on this interview and judging it with +all the impartiality of which my nature is capable, I cannot in truth +say that I regard it as more serious than pretty Doris's fluent +conversation, or the melancholy aspect of his lordship's cathedral as +more serious than the pretty Southern sunlight glancing along the +seashore, lighting up the painted houses, and causing Doris to open +her parasol. What a splendid article I might write on the trivial side +of seriousness, but discussion is always trivial; I shall be much more +serious in trying to recall the graceful movement of the opening of +her parasol, and how prettily it enframed her face. True that almost +every face is pretty against the distended silk full of sunlight and +shadow, but Doris's, I swear to you, was as pretty as any medieval +virgin despite its modernness. Memline himself never designed a more +appealing little face. Think of the enchantment of such a face after a +long journey, by the sea that the Romans and the Greeks used to cross +in galleys, that I used to read about when I was a boy. There it was, +and on the other side the shore on which Carthage used to stand; there +it was, a blue bay with long red hills reaching out, reminding me of +hills I had seen somewhere, I think in a battle piece by Salvator +Rosa. It seemed to me that I had seen those hills before--no, not in a +picture; had I dreamed them, or was there some remembrance of a +previous existence struggling in my brain? There was a memory +somewhere, a broken memory, and I sought for the lost thread as well +as I could, for Doris rarely ceased talking. + +"And there is the restaurant," she said, flinging up her parasol, +"built at the end of those rocks." + +We were the first swallows to arrive; the flocks would not be here for +about three weeks. So we had the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter +and doubtless the cook; and they gave us all their attention. Would we +have breakfast in the glass pavilion? How shall I otherwise describe +it, for it seemed to be all glass? The scent of the sea came through +the window, and the air was like a cordial--it intoxicated; and +looking across the bay one seemed to be looking on the very thing that +Whistler had sought for in his Nocturnes, and that Steer had nearly +caught in that picture of children paddling, that dim, optimistic blue +that allures and puts the world behind one, the dream of the +opium-eater, the phrase of the syrens in "Tannhaeuser," the phrase +which begins like a barcarolle; but the accompaniment tears underneath +until we thrill with expectation. + +As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost +insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing +even if I did not succeed in winning her. + +"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you, +but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was +doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said: +"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem, +as it were, to have come into my inheritance." + +"Your inheritance! Am I not----" + +"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful +inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my +arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked +across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness +blowing across the bay. + +"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue." + +"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in +reality red." + +"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white +sides of villas." + +"Peeping through olive trees." + +"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive +begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when +we passed through Avignon." + +"You'll see very few trees here; only olives and ilex." + +"The ilex I know, and there is no more beautiful tree than the ilex." + + "Were not the crocuses that grew + Under that ilex tree, + As beautiful in scent and hue + As ever fed the bee?" + +"Whose verses are those?" + +"Shelley's. I know no others. Are the lines very wonderful? They seem +no more than a statement, yet they hang about my memory. I am glad I +shall see the ilex tree." + +"And the eucalyptus--plenty of eucalyptus trees." + +"That was the scent that followed us this morning as we came through +the gardens." + +"Yes, as we passed from our hotel one hung over the garden wall, and +the wind carried its scent after us." + +The arrival of the waiter with _hors d'oeuvres_ distracted our +attention from the olive tree to its fruit, I rarely touch olives, but +that morning I ate many. Should we have mutton cutlets or lamb? Doris +said the Southern mutton was detestable. "Then we'll have lamb." An +idea came into my head, and it was this, that I had been mistaken +about Doris's beauty. Hers was not like any face that one may find in +a panel by Memline. She was like something, but I could not lay my +thoughts on what she was like. + +"A sail would spoil the beauty of the bay," I said when the waiter +brought in the coffee, and left us--we hoped for the last time. Taking +hands and going to the window we sat looking across the sailless bay. +"How is it that no ships come here? Is the bay looked upon as a mere +ornament and reserved exclusively for the appreciation of visitors? +Those hills, too, look as if they had been designed in a like +intent.... How much more beautiful the bay is without a sail--why I +cannot tell, but----" + +"But what?" + +"A great galley rowed by fifty men would look well in this bay.... The +bay is antiquity, and those hills; all the morning while talking to +you a memory or a shadow of a memory has fretted in my mind like a fly +on a pane. Now I know why I have been expecting a nymph to rise out of +those waves during breakfast. For a thousand years men believed that +nymphs came up on those rocks, and that satyrs and their progeny might +be met in the woods and on the hillsides. Only a thin varnish has been +passed over these beliefs. One has only to come here to look down into +that blue sea-water to believe that nymphs swim about those rocks; and +when we go for a drive among those hillsides we'll keep a sharp +lookout for satyrs. Now I know why I like this country. It is heathen. +Those mountains--how different from the shambling Irish hills from +whence I have come! And you, Doris, you might have been dug up +yesterday, though you are but two-and-twenty. You are a thing of +yester age, not a bit like the little Memline head which I imagined +you to be like when I was coming here in the train, nor like anything +done by the Nuremberg painters. You are a Tanagra figure, and one of +the finest. In you I read all the winsomeness of antiquity. But I must +look at the bay now, for I may never see anything like it again; never +have I seen anything like it before. Forgive me, remember that three +days ago I was in Ireland, the day before yesterday I was in England, +yesterday I was in Paris. I have come out of the greyness of the +North. When I left Paris all was grey, and when the train passed +through Lyons a grey night was gathering; now I see no cloud at all: +the change is so wonderful. You cannot appreciate my admiration. You +have been looking at the bay for the last three weeks, and _La cote +d'azur_ has become nothing to you now but palms and promenades. To +me it is still quite different. I shall always see you beautiful, +whereas Plessy may lose her beauty in a few days. Let me enjoy it +while I may." + +"Perhaps I shall not outlast Plessy." + +"Yes, you will. Do you know, Doris, that you don't look a day older +since the first time I saw you walking across the room to the piano in +your white dress, your gold hair hanging down over your shoulders. It +has darkened a little, that is all." + +"It is provoking you should see me when I am thin. I wish you had seen +me last year when I came from the rest cure. I went up more than a +stone in weight. Every one said that I didn't look more than sixteen. +I know I didn't, for all the women were jealous of me." + +As I sat watching the dissolving line of the horizon, lost in a dream, +I heard my companion say: + +"Of what are you thinking?" + +"I'm thinking of something that happened long ago in that very bay." + +"Tell me about it;" and her hand sought mine for a moment. + +"Would you like to hear it? I'd like to tell it, but it's a long, long +story, and to remember it would be an effort. The colour of the sea +and the sky is enough; the warmth of the sunlight penetrates me; I +feel like a plant; the only difference between me and one of those +palm trees----" + +"I am sure those poor palms are shivering. There is not enough heat +here for them; they come from the south, and you come from the north." + +"I suppose that is so. They grow, but they don't flourish here. +However, my mood is not philanthropic; I cannot pity even a palm tree +at the present moment. See how my cigar smoke curls and goes out! It +is strange, Doris, that I should meet you here, for some years ago it +was arranged that I should come here----" + +"With a woman?" + +"Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? Our lives are woven along +and across with women. Some men find the reality of their lives in +women, others, as we were saying just now, in bishops." + +"Tell me about the woman who asked you to come here? Did you love her? +And what prevented you from coming here with her?" + +"It is one of the oddest stories--odd only because it is like myself. +Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each +spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, +such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a +long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with +her, and her letter was most welcome, for I had no plans for that +evening. I do not know if you know that curious dread of life which +steals through the twilight; it had just laid its finger on my +shoulder when the bell rang, and I said: 'My visitor is welcome, +whoever she or he may be.' The visitor would have only spent a few +minutes perhaps with me, but Gertrude's letter--that was her name--was +a promise of a long and pleasant evening, for it was more than a mere +invitation to dinner. She wrote: 'I have not asked any one to meet +you, but you will not mind dining alone with me. I hope you will be +able to come, for I want to consult you on a matter about which I +think you will be able to advise me.' As I dressed I wondered what she +could have to propose, and with my curiosity enkindled I walked to her +house. The evening was fine--I remember it--and she did not live far +from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and +I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had +never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to +her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be +Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of +forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners +still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French +gowns and underwear that cost a little fortune made her a woman that +one would still take a pleasure in making love to. It would be +pleasant to be her lover for many reasons. There were disadvantages, +however, for Gertrude, though never vulgar herself, liked vulgar +things. Her friends were vulgar; her flat, for she had just left her +husband, was opulent, overdecorated; the windows were too heavily +curtained, the electric light seemed to be always turned on, and as +for the pictures--well, we won't talk of them; Gertrude was the only +one worth looking at. And she was rather like a Salon picture, a +Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as +vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white +dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't +you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour +of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her +bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought +that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my +hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been +doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I +have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or +intentional." + +"Probably a little of both," Doris said. + +"I see you understand. You always understand." + +"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her +bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,' +and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company +and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two +men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking +to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist." + +"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations." + +"Yes, I think I can. You have not changed; I have not forgotten you +though we have not seen each other for five years; and now go on, tell +me about Gertrude." + +"Well, sitting beside her on the sofa----" + +"Under the shaded electric light," interrupted Doris. + +"I tried to discover--not the reason of this invitation to dinner; of +course it was natural that old friends should dine together, but she +had said in her letter that she wished to talk to me about some matter +on which she thought I could advise her. The servant would come in a +moment to announce that dinner was ready, and if Gertrude did not tell +me at once I might, if the story were a long one, have to wait till +dinner was over; her reluctance to confide in me seemed to point to +pecuniary help. Was it possible that Gertrude was going to ask me to +lend her money! If so, the loan would be a heavy one, more than I +could afford to lend. That is the advantage of knowing rich people; +when they ask for money they ask for more than one can afford to lend, +and one can say with truth: 'Were I to lend you five hundred pounds, +I should not be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.' Her +reluctance to confide in me seemed incomprehensible, unless indeed she +wanted to borrow money. But Gertrude was not that kind, and she was a +rich woman. At last, just before the servant came into the room, she +turned round saying that she had sent for me because she wished to +speak to me about a yacht. Imagine my surprise. To speak to me about a +yacht! If it had been about the picture. + +"The door opened, the servant announced that dinner was ready, and we +had to talk in French during dinner, for her news was that she had +hired a yacht for the winter in order that she might visit Greece and +the Greek Islands. But she did not dare to travel in Greece alone for +six months, and it was difficult to find a man who was free and whom +one could trust. She thought she could trust me, and remembering that +I had once liked her, it had occurred to her to ask me if I would like +to go with her. I shall never forget how Gertrude confided her plan to +me, the charming modesty with which she murmured: 'Perhaps you do +still, and you will not bore me by claiming rights over me. I don't +mind your making love to me, but I don't like rights. You know what I +mean. When we return to England you will not pursue me. You know what +I have suffered from such pursuits; you know all about it?' Is it not +curious how a woman will sometimes paint her portrait in a single +phrase; not paint, but indicate in half-a-dozen lines her whole moral +nature? Gertrude exists in the words I have quoted just as God made +her. And now I have to tell you about the pursuit. When Gertrude +mentioned it I had forgotten it; a blankness came into my face, and +she said: 'Don't you remember?' 'Of course, of course,' I said, and +this is the story within the story. + +"One day after lunch Gertrude, getting up, walked unconsciously +towards me, and quite naturally I took her in my arms, and when I had +told her how much I liked her, and the pleasure I took in her company, +she promised to meet me at a hotel in Lincoln. We were to meet there +in a fortnight's time; but two days before she sent for me, and told +me that she would have to send me away. I really did like Gertrude, +and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to +tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust +things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of +it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But +Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to +give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes--they +seemed like genuine tears--and it was difficult to believe that she +had taken all this trouble merely to arrive at this inexplicable and +most disagreeable end. Months passed without my hearing anything of +Gertrude, till one day she sent me a little present, and in response +to a letter she invited me to come to see her in the country. And, +walking through some beautiful woods, she told me the reason why she +had not gone to Lincoln. A Pole whom she had met at the gambling +tables at Monte Carlo was pursuing her, threatening her that if he saw +her with any other man he would murder her and her lover. This at +first seemed an incredible tale, but when she entered into details, +there could be no doubt that she was telling the truth, for had she +not on one occasion very nearly lost her life through this man? They +were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up +in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had +pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the +trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' +she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if +things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But +things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. 'What +you tell me is terrible'; and we talked for a long time, walking about +the woods, fearing that the Pole might spring from behind every bush, +the pistol in his hand. But he did not appear; she evidently knew +where he was, or had made some compact with him. Nevertheless, at the +close of the day, I drove through the summer evening not having got +anything from Gertrude except a promise that if she should find +herself free, she would send for me. Weeks and months went by during +which I saw Gertrude occasionally; you see love stories, once they get +entangled, remain entangled; that is what makes me fear that we shall +never be able to pick the knot that you have tied our love story into. +Misadventure followed misadventure. It seems to me that I behaved very +stupidly on many occasions; it would take too long to tell you +how--when I met her at the theatre I did not do exactly what I should +have done; and on another occasion when I met her driving in a suburb, +I did not stop her cab, and so on and so on until, resolved to bring +matters to a crisis, Gertrude had sent me an invitation to dinner, and +her plan was the charming one which I have told you, that we should +spend six months sailing about the Greek Islands in a yacht. We left +the dining-room and returned to the drawing-room, she telling me that +the yacht had been paid for--the schooner, the captain, the crew, +everything for six months; but I not unnaturally pointed out to her +that I could not accept her hospitality for so long a time, and the +greater part of the evening was spent in trying to persuade her to +allow me to pay--Gertrude was the richer--at least a third of the +upkeep of the yacht must come out of my pocket. + +"The prospect of a six months' cruise among the Greek Islands kindled +my imagination, and while listening to Gertrude I was often in spirit +far away, landing perchance at Cyprus, exalted at the prospect of +visiting the Cyprians' temple; or perchance standing with Gertrude on +the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the +sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a +wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water +parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined +how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, +a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. +'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as +I walked home, and the title of the book was an inspiration, 'An +Unsentimental Journey.' It was Gertrude's own words that had suggested +it. Had she not said that she did not mind my making love to her, but +she did not like rights? She couldn't complain if I wrote a book, and +I imagined how every evening when the lover left her, the chronicler +would sit for an hour recording his impressions. Very often he would +continue writing until the pencil dropped from his hand, till he fell +asleep in the chair. An immediate note-taking would be necessary, so +fugitive are impressions, and an analysis of his feelings, their +waxing and their waning; he would observe himself as an astronomer +observes the course of a somewhat erratic star, and his descriptions +of himself and of her would be interwoven with descriptions of the +seas across which Menelaus had gone after Helen's beauty--beauty, the +noblest of men's quests. + +"For once Nature seemed to me to put into the hands of the artist a +subject perfect in its every part; the end especially delighted me, +and I imagined our good-byes at Plymouth or Portsmouth or Hull, +wherever we might land. 'Well, Gertrude, goodbye. We have spent a very +pleasant six months together; I shall never forget our excursion. But +this is not a rupture; I may hope to see you some time during the +season? You will allow me to call about tea-time?' And she would +answer: 'Yes, you may call. You have been very nice.' Each would turn +away sighing, conscious of a little melancholy in the heart, for all +partings are sad; but at the bottom of the heart there would be a +sense of relief, of gladness--that gladness which the bird feels when +it leaves its roost: there is nothing more delicious perhaps than the +first beat of the wings. I forget now whether I looked forward most to +the lady or to the book.... If the winds had been more propitious, I +might have written a book that would have compared favourably with the +eighteenth-century literature, for the eighteenth century was cynical +in love; while making love to a woman, a gallant would often consider +a plan for her subsequent humiliation. Gouncourt----" + +"But, dear one, finish about the yacht." + +"Well, it seemed quite decided that Gertrude and I were to go to +Marseilles to meet the schooner; but the voyage from the Bay of Biscay +is a stormy and a tedious one; the weather was rough all the way, and +she took a long time to get to Gibraltar. She passed the strait +signalling to Lloyd's; we got a telegram; everything was ready; I had +ordered yachting clothes, shoes, and quantities of things; but after +that telegram no news came, and one evening Gertrude told me she was +beginning to feel anxious; the yacht ought to have arrived at +Marseilles. Three or four days passed, and then we read in the +paper--the _Evening Standard_, I think it was--the _Ring-Dove_, +a large schooner, had sunk off the coast while making for the Bay +of Plessy. Had she passed that point over yonder, no doubt she +would have been saved; all hands were lost, the captain, seven +men, and my book." + +"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were +you never her lover?" + +"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in +love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores +her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms." + +At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the +sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months' +cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I +loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that +my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and +taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't +know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had +anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing +questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in +love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though +not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that +since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once +incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a +_liaison_ that had lasted many years and had come to an end at +last. Fearing that Doris would ask if it had come to an end through +weariness, it seemed well to add that the lady had a daughter growing +up, and it was for the girl's sake we had agreed to bring our love +story to a close. We had, however, promised to remain friends. + +Doris's silence embarrassed me a little, for she didn't ask any +questions about the lady and her daughter; and it was impossible to +tell from her manner whether she believed that this lady comprised the +whole of my love life for the last five years, and if she thought I +had really broken with her. For a moment or two I did not dare to look +at Doris, and then I felt that her disbelief mattered little, so long +as it did not enter as an influencing factor into the present +situation. Under a sky as blue and amid nature poetical as a +drop-curtain, one's moral nature dozes. No doubt that was it. There is +an English church at Plessy, but really! Dear little town, town of my +heart, where the local orchestra plays "The March of Aida" and "La +Belle Helene"! If I could inoculate you, reader, with the sentiment of +the delicious pastoral you would understand why, all the time I was at +Plessy, I looked upon myself as a hero of legend, whether of the +Argonauts or the siege of Troy matters little. Returning from Mount +Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest +of women with the apple, I said: + +"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have +you been in love?" + +"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married." + +"And you are still engaged?" + +She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that +it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, +but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice. + +"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and +dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a +little mouse about?" + +"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what +happened." + +"Really?" + +"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered." + +"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall +understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as +you say, your story will ... I must hear it." + +"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered +horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over +it all again?" + +"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love +story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it. Tell it, and +in telling, the bitterness will pass from you. Who was this man? How +did you meet him?" + +"He was a friend of Albert's. Albert introduced him." + +"Albert is the man you are engaged to? The old story, the very oldest. +Why should it always be the friend? There are so many other men, but +it is always the friend who attracts." And I told Doris the story of a +friend who had once robbed me, and my story had the effect of drying +her tears. But they began again as soon as she tried to tell her own +story. There could be no doubt that she had suffered. Things are +interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; +Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it +may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert +was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have +suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed +with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she +should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories +happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the +old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and +this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my +eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of +mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that +it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. When +I turned to Doris I could see she was wholly immersed in her own +sorrow, and it took all my art to persuade her to tell it, or it +seemed as if all my art of persuasion were necessary. + +"As soon as you knew you loved him, you resolved to see him no more?" + +Doris nodded. + +"You sent him away before you yielded to him?" + +She nodded, and looking at me her eyes filled with tears, but which +only seemed to make them still more beautiful, she told me that they +had both felt that it was impossible to deceive Albert. + + * * * * * + +All love stories are alike in this; they all contain what the +reviewers call "sordid details." But if Tristan had not taken +advantage of King Mark's absence on a hunting expedition, the world +would have been the poorer of a great love story; and what, after all, +does King Mark's happiness matter to us--a poor passing thing, whose +life was only useful in this, that it gave us an immortal love story? +And if Wagner had not loved Madame Wasendonck, and if Madame +Wasendonck had not been unfaithful to her husband, we should not have +had "Tristan." Who then would, for the sake of Wasendonck's honour, +destroy the score of "Tristan"? Nor is the story of "Tristan" the only +one, nor the most famous. There is also the story of Helen. If +Menelaus's wife had not been unfaithful to him, the world would have +been the poorer of the greatest of all poems, the "Iliad" and the +"Odyssey." Dear me, when one thinks of it, one must admit that art +owes a great deal to adultery. Children are born of the marriage, +stories of the adulterous bed, and the world needs both--stories as +well as children. Even my little tale would not exist if Doris had +been a prudent maiden, nor would it have interested me to listen to +her that day by the sea if she had naught to tell me but her +unswerving love for Albert. Her story is not what the world calls a +great story, and it would be absurd to pretend that if a shorthand +writer had taken it down his report would compare with the stories of +Isolde and Helen, but I heard it from her lips, and her tears and her +beauty replaced the language of Wagner and of Homer; and so well did +they do this that I am not sure that the emotion I experienced in +listening to her was less than that which I have experienced before a +work of art. + +"Do you know," she began, "perhaps you don't, perhaps you've never +loved enough to know the anxiety one may feel for the absent. We had +been together all day once, and when we bade each other good-bye we +agreed that we should not see each other for two days, till Thursday; +but that night in bed an extraordinary desire took hold of me to know +what had become of him. I felt I must hear from him; one word would be +enough. But we had promised. It was stupid, it was madness, yet I had +to take down the telephone, and when I got into communication what do +you think the answer was?--'Thank God you telephoned! I've been +walking about the room nearly out of my mind, feeling that I should go +mad if the miracle did not happen.'" + +"If you loved Ralph better than Albert----" + +"Why didn't I give up Albert? Albert's life would have been broken and +ruined if I had done that. You see he has loved me so many years that +his life has become centred in me. He is not one of those men who like +many women. Outside of his work nothing exists but me. He doesn't care +much for reading, but he reads the books I like. I don't know that he +cares much about music for its own sake, but he likes to hear me sing +just because it is me. He never notices other women; I don't think +that he knows what they wear, but he likes my dresses, not because +they are in good taste, but because I wear them. One can't sacrifice a +man like that. What would one think of oneself? One would die of +remorse. So there was nothing to be done but for Ralph to go away. It +nearly killed me." + +"I'm afraid I can give you no such love; my affection for you will +prove very tepid after such violent emotions." + +"I don't want such emotions again; I could not bear them, they would +kill me; even a part would kill me. Two months after Ralph left I was +but a little shadow. I was thinner than I am now, I was worn to a +thread, I could hardly keep body and skirt together." + +We laughed at Doris's little joke; and we watched it curling and going +out like a wreath of cigarette smoke. + +"But did you get no happiness at all out of this great love?" + +"We were happy only a very little while." + +"How long?" + +Doris reflected. + +"We had about six weeks of what I should call real happiness, the time +while Albert was away. When he came back the misery and remorse began +again. I had to see him--not Albert, the other--every day; and Albert +began to notice that I was different. We used to go out together, we +three, and at last the sham became too great and Albert said he could +not stand it any longer. 'I prefer you should go out with him alone, +and if it be for your happiness I'll give you up.'" + +"So you nearly died of love! Well, now you must live for love, liking +things as they go by. Life is beautiful at the moment, sad when we +look back, fearful when we look forward; but I suppose it's hopeless +to expect a little Christian like you to live without drawing +conclusions, liking things as they go by as the nymphs do. Dry those +tears; forget that man. You tell me it is over and done. Remember +nothing except that the sky and the sea are blue, that it is a luxury +to feel alive here by the sea-shore. My happiness would be to make you +happy, to see you put the past out of your mind, to close your eyes to +the future. That will be easy to do by this beautiful sea-shore, under +those blue skies with flowers everywhere and drives among the +mountains awaiting us. We create our own worlds. Chance has left you +here and sent me to you. I want you to eat a great deal and to sleep +and to get fatter and to dream and to read Theocritus, so that when we +go to the mountains we shall be transported into antiquity. You must +forget Albert and him who made you unhappy--he allowed you to look +back and forwards." + +"I think I deserve some happiness; you see I have sacrificed so much." + +At these words my hopes rose--shall I say like a balloon out of which +a great weight of ballast has been thrown?--and so high did they go +that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. +"She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. +Her words could bear no other interpretation; she had spoken without +thought, and instinctively. Albert was away; why should she not take +this happiness which I offered her? Would she understand that distance +made a difference, that it was one thing to deceive Albert if he were +with her, and another when she was a thousand miles away? It was as if +we were in a foreign country; we were under palm trees, we were by the +Mediterranean. With Albert a thousand miles away it would be so easy +for her to love me. She had said there was no question of her marrying +any one but Albert--and to be unfaithful is not to be inconstant. +These were the arguments which I would use if I found that I had +misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it +would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, +feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being +able to think of anything more plausible: + +"You spoke, didn't you, of going for a drive?" + +"We were speaking of happiness--but if you'd like to go for a drive. +There's no happiness like driving." + +"Isn't there?" + +She pinched my arm, and with a choking sensation in the throat I asked +her if I should send for a carriage. + +"There will be time for a short drive before the sun setting. You said +you admired the hills--one day we will go to a hill town. There is a +beautiful one--Florac is the name of it--but we must start early in +the morning. To-day there will be only time to drive as far as the +point you have been admiring all the morning. The road winds through +the rocks, and you want to see the ilex trees." + +"My dear, I want to see you." + +"Well, you're looking at me. Come, don't be disagreeable." + +"Disagreeable, Doris! I never felt more kindly in my life. I'm still +absorbed in the strange piece of luck which has brought us together, +and in such a well-chosen spot; no other would have pleased me as +much." + +"Now why do you like the landscape? Tell me." + +"I cannot think of the landscape now, Doris: I'm thinking of you, of +what you said just now." + +"What did I say?" + +"You said--I tried to remember the words at the time, but I have +forgotten them, so many thoughts have passed through my mind +since--you said--how did you word it?--after having suffered as much +as you did, some share of happiness----" + +"No, I didn't say that; I said, having sacrificed so much, I thought I +deserved a little happiness." + +"So she knew what she was saying," I said to myself. "Her words were +not casual," but not daring to ask her if she intended to make me her +happiness, I spoke about the landscape. "You ask me why I like the +landscape? Because it carries me back into past times when men +believed in nymphs and in satyrs. I have always thought it must be a +wonderful thing to believe in the dryad. Do you know that men +wandering in the woods sometimes used to catch sight of a white breast +between the leaves, and henceforth they could love no mortal woman? +The beautiful name of their malady was nympholepsy. A disease that +every one would like to catch." + +"But if you were to catch it you wouldn't be able to love me, so I'll +not bring you to the mountains. Some peasant girl----" + +"Fie! Doris, I have never liked peasant girls." + +"Your antiquity is eighteenth-century antiquity. There are many +alcoves in it." + +"I don't know that the alcove was an invention of the eighteenth +century. There were alcoves at all times. But, Doris, good heavens! +what are those trees? Never did I see anything so ghastly; they are +like ghosts. Not only have they no leaves, but they have no bark nor +any twigs; nothing but great white trunks and branches." + +"I think they are called plantains." + +"That won't do, you are only guessing; I must ask the coachman." + +"I think, sir, they are called plantains." + +"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people." + +"Sont des plantains, Monsieur." + +"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing. + +Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields, +and Doris murmured: + +"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the +folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch." + +I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you +had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months +of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those +fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that +interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by +her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she +were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were +robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of +it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of +things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself +on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit +the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our +talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another. + +Lovers are divided into two kinds, the babbling and the silent. + +We meet specimens of the silent kind on a Thames back-water--the punt +drawn up under the shady bank with the twain lying side by side, their +arms about each other all the afternoon. When evening comes, and it is +time to return home, her fellow gets out the sculls, and they part +saying: "Well, dear, next Sunday, at the same time." "Yes, at the same +time next Sunday." + +We were of the babbling kind, as the small part of our conversation +that appears in this story shows. + +"My dear, my dear, remember that we are in an open carriage." + +"What do those folks matter to us?" + +"My dear, if I don't like it?" + +To justify my desire of her lips I began to compare her beauty with +that of a Greek head on a vase, saying that hers was a cameo-like +beauty, as dainty as any Tanagra figure. + +"And to see you and not to claim you, not to hold your face in my +hands just as one holds a vase, is----" + +"Is what?" + +"A kind of misery. What else shall I say? Fancy my disappointment if, +on digging among these mountains, I were to find a beautiful vase, and +some one were to say: 'You can look at it but not touch it.'" + +"Do you love me as well as that?" she answered, somewhat moved, for my +words expressed a genuine emotion. + +"I do indeed, Doris." + +"We might get out here. I want you to see the view from the hilltop." + +And, telling the driver that he need not follow us, to stay there and +rest his panting horse, we walked on. Whether Doris was thinking of +the view I know not; I only know that I thought only of kissing Doris. +To do so would be pleasant--in a way--even on this cold hillside, and +I noticed that the road bent round the shoulder of the mount. We soon +reached the hilltop, and we could see the road enter the village in +the dip between the hills, a double line of houses--not much +more--facing the sea, a village where we might go to have breakfast; +we might never go there; however that might be, we certainly should +remember that village and the road streaming out of it on the other +side towards the hills. Now and then we lost sight of the road; it +doubled round some rock or was hidden behind a group of trees; and +then we caught sight of it a little farther on, ascending the hills in +front of us, and no doubt on the other side it entered another +village, and so on around the coast of Italy. Even with the thought of +Doris's kisses in my mind, I could admire the road and the curves of +the bay. I felt in my pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil. The +colour was as beautiful as a Brabizon; there were many tints of blue, +no doubt, but the twilight had gathered the sea and sky into one tone, +or what seemed to be one tone. + +"You wanted to see olive trees--those are olives." + +"So those are olives! Do I at last look upon olives?" + +"Are you disappointed?" + +"Yes and no. The white gnarled trunk makes even the young trees seem +old. The olive is like an old man with skimpy legs. It seems to me a +pathetic tree. One does not like to say it is ugly; it is not ugly, +but it would be puzzling to say wherein lies its charm, for it throws +no shade, and is so grey--nothing is so grey as the olive. I like the +ilex better." + +Where the road dipped there was a group of ilex trees, and it was in +their shade that I kissed Doris, and the beauty of the trees helps me +to appreciate the sentiment of those kisses. And I remember that road +and those ilex trees as I might remember a passage in Theocritus. +Doris--her very name suggests antiquity, and it was well that she was +kissed by me for the first time under ilex trees; true that I had +kissed her before, but that earlier love story has not found a +chronicler, and probably it never will. I like to think that the +beauty of the ilex is answerable, perhaps, for Doris's kisses--in a +measure. Her dainty grace, her Tanagra beauty, seemed to harmonise +with that of the ilex, for there is an antique beauty in this tree +that we find in none other. Theocritus must have composed many a poem +beneath it. It is the only tree that the ancient world could have +cared to notice; and if it were possible to carve statues of trees, I +am sure that the ilex is the tree sculptors would choose. The beech +and the birch, all the other trees, only began to be beautiful when +men invented painting. No other tree shapes itself out so beautifully +as the ilex, lifting itself up to the sky so abundantly and with such +dignity--a very queen in a velvet gown is the ilex tree; and we stood +looking at the group, admiring its glossy thickness, till suddenly the +ilex tree went out of my mind, and I thought of the lonely night that +awaited me. + +"Doris, dear, it is more than flesh and blood can bear. My folly lay +in sending the telegram. Had I not sent it you wouldn't have known by +what train I was coming; you would have been fast asleep in your bed, +and I should have gone straight to your hotel." + +"But, darling, you wouldn't compromise me. Every one would know that +we stayed at the same hotel." + +"Dearest, it might happen by accident, and were it to happen by +accident what could you do?" + +"All I can say is that it would be a most unfortunate accident." + +"Then I have come a thousand miles for nothing. This is worse than the +time in London when I left you for your strictness. Can nothing be +done?" + +"Am I not devoted to you? We have spent the whole day together. Now I +don't think it's at all nice of you to reproach me with having brought +you on a fool's errand." + +"I didn't say that," and we quarrelled a little until we reached the +carriage. Doris was angry, and when she spoke again it was to say: + +"If you are not satisfied, you can go back. I'm sorry. I think it's +most unreasonable that you should ask me to compromise myself." + +"And I think it's unkind of you to suggest that I should go back, for +how can I go back?" + +She did not ask me why--she was too angry at the moment--and it was +well she did not, for I should have been embarrassed to tell her that +I was fairly caught. + +I had come a thousand miles to see her, and I could not say I was +going to take the _Cote d'azur_ back again, because she would not +let me stay at her hotel; to do so would be too childish, too futile. +The misery of the journey back would be unendurable. There was nothing +to do but to wait, and hope that life, which is always full of +accidents, would favour us. Better think no more about it. For it is +thinking that makes one miserable. + +There were many little things which helped to pass the time away. +Doris went every evening to a certain shop to fetch two eggs that had +been laid that morning. It was necessary for her health that she +should eat eggs beaten up with milk between the first and second +breakfast. We went there, and it was amusing to pick my way through +the streets, carrying her eggs back to the hotel for her. She knew a +few people--strange folk, I thought them--elderly spinsters living +_en pension_ at different hotels. We dined with her friends, and +after dinner Doris sang, and when she had played many things that she +used to play to me in the old days, it was time for her to go to bed, +for she rarely slept after six o'clock, so she said. + +"Good-night. Ah, no, the hour is ill," I murmured to myself as I +wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything +that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to +say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at +night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's +head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain +argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more +Christian spirit--all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads +and satyrs and fauns frightened her. In the heat of the moment one +says more than one intends, though it is quite true that, as a rule, +it is well to insist that there is no such thing as our lower nature, +that everything about us is divine. So constituted are we that the +mind accepts the convention, and what we have to do is to keep to the +convention, just as in opera. Singing appears natural so long as the +characters do not speak. Once they speak they cannot go back to music; +the convention has been broken. As in Art so it is in Life. Tell a +woman that she is a nymph, and she must not expect any more from you +than she would from a faun, that all you know is the joy of the +sunlight, that you have no dreams beyond the worship of the perfect +circle of her breast, and the desire to gather grapes for her, and she +will give herself to you unconscious of sin. I must have fallen asleep +thinking of these things, and I must have slept soundly, for I +remembered nothing until the servant came in with my bath, and I saw +again the pretty sunlight flickering along the wall-paper. Before +parting the previous night, Doris and I had arranged that I was to +call an hour earlier than usual at the hotel; I was to be there at +half-past ten. She had promised to be ready. We were going to drive to +Florac, to one of the hill towns, and it would take two hours to get +there. We were going to breakfast there, and while I dressed, and in +the carriage going there, I cherished the hope that perhaps I might be +able to persuade Doris to breakfast in a private room, though feeling +all the while that it would be difficult to do so, for the public room +would be empty, and crowds of waiters would gather about us like +rooks, each trying to entice us towards his table. + +The village of Florac is high up among the hills, built along certain +ledges of rock overlooking the valley, and going south in the train +one catches sight of many towns, like it built among mountain +declivities, hanging out like nests over the edge of precipices, +showing against a red background, crowning the rocky hill. No doubt +these mediaeval towns were built in these strange places because of +the security that summit gives against raiders. One can think of no +other reason, for it is hard to believe that in the fifteenth century +men were so captivated with the picturesque that for the sake of it +they would drag every necessary of life up these hills, several +hundred feet above the plain, probably by difficult paths--the +excellent road that wound along the edge of the hills, now to the +right, now to the left, looping itself round every sudden ascent like +a grey ribbon round a hat, did not exist when Florac was built. On the +left the ground shelves away into the valley, down towards the sea, +and olives were growing down all these hillsides. Above us were olive +trees, with here and there an orange orchard, and the golden fruit +shining among the dark leaves continued to interest me. Every now and +again some sudden aspect interrupted our conversation; the bay as it +swept round the carved mountains, looking in the distance more than +ever like an old Italian picture of a time before painters began to +think about values and truth of effect, when the minds of men were +concerned with beauty; as mine was, for every time I looked at Doris +it occurred to me that I had never seen anything prettier, and not +only her face but her talk still continued to enchant me. She was +always so eager to tell me things, that she must interrupt, and these +interruptions were pleasant. I identified them with her, and so +closely that I can remember how our talk began when we got out of the +suburbs. By the last villa there was a eucalyptus tree growing; the +sun was shining, and Doris had asked me to hold her parasol for her; +but the road zigzagged so constantly that I never shifted the parasol +in time, and a ray would catch her just in the face, adding perhaps to +the freckles--there were just a few down that little nose which was +always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our +talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those +little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only +from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest +us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear +Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I +have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember +suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, +that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch +and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in +the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down +the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where +one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going +to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I +should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I +agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is +only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... + +"But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." + +"I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am +amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is +amused, whether somebody is making love to her." + +"Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to +anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, +the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, +only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the +sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." + +"My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been +there." + +"Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up +two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The +seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who +suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb +the Matterhorn." + +"The Matterhorn!" + +"Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, +glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him +saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and +would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he +answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arreter pour +vous expliquer les trois passes.'" + +Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years +ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the +_fussent_ and the _eussent, ete_, and when our language of +the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we +had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days +in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course. + +"I'm not sure at all that mountain air would not do me good. Plessy +lies very low and is very relaxing." + +"Very." + +But though I convinced her that it would have been better if she had +gone at once to stop at Florac, I could do nothing to persuade her to +pass three days with me in the inn there. As we drove up through the +town the only hope that remained in my mind was that I might induce +her to take breakfast in a private room. But the _salle du +restaurant_ was fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, it contained a +hundred tables, maybe more, the floor was polished oak, and the +ceilings were painted and gilded, and there were fifty waiters waiting +for the swallows that would soon arrive from the north; we were the +van birds. + +"Shall we breakfast in a private room?" I whispered humbly. + +"Good heavens! no! I wouldn't dare to go into a private room before +all these waiters." + +My heart sank again, and when Doris said, "Where shall we sit?" I +answered, "Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter." + +It had taken two hours for the horses to crawl up to the mountain +town, and as I had no early breakfast I was ravenously hungry. A box +of sardines and a plate of butter, and the prospect of an omelette and +a steak, put all thoughts of Doris for the moment out of my head, and +that was a good thing. We babbled on, and it was impossible to say +which was the more interested, which enjoyed talking most; and the +pleasure which each took in talking and hearing the other talk became +noticeable. + +"I didn't interrupt you just now, I thought it would be cruel, for you +were enjoying yourself so much," said Doris, laughing. + +"Well, I promise not to interrupt the next time--you were in the midst +of one of your stories." + +It was not long before she was telling me another story, for Doris was +full of stories. She observed life as it went by, and could recall +what she had seen. Our talk had gone back to years before, to the +evening when I first saw her cross the drawing-room in a white dress, +her gold hair hanging over her shoulders; and in that moment, as she +crossed the room, I had noticed a look of recognition in her eyes; the +look was purely instinctive; she was not aware of it herself, but I +could not help understanding it as a look whereby she recognised me as +one of her kin. I had often spoken to her of that look, and we liked +speaking about it, and about the time when we became friends in Paris. +She had written asking me to go to see her and her mother. I had found +them in a strange little hotel, just starting for some distant suburb, +going there to buy presents from an old couple, dealers in china and +glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy +her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of +those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save +twopence on a vase. + +"It took us two hours to get to that old, forgotten quarter, to the +old quaint street where they lived. They were old-world Jews who read +the Talmud, and seemed to be quite isolated, out of touch with the +modern world. It was like going back to the Middle Ages; this queer +old couple moving like goblins among the china and glass. Do you ever +see them now? Are they dead?" + +"Let me tell you," cried Doris, "what happened. The old man died two +years ago, and his wife, who had lived with him for forty years, could +not bear to live alone, so what do you think she did? She sent for her +brother-in-law----" + +"To marry him?" + +"No, not to marry him, but to talk to him about her husband. You see +this couple had lived together for so many years that she had become +ingrained, as it were, in the personality of her late husband, her +habits had become his habits, his thoughts had become hers. The story +really is very funny," and Doris burst out laughing, and for some time +she could not speak with laughing. "I am sorry for the poor man," she +said at last. + +"For whom? For the brother-in-law?" + +"Yes; you see he is dyspeptic, and he can't eat the dishes at all that +his brother used to like, but the wife can't and won't cook anything +else." + +"In other words," I said, "the souvenir of brother Isaac is poisoning +brother Jacob." + +"That is it." + +"What a strange place this world is!" And then my mind drifted back +suddenly. "O Doris, I'm so unhappy--this place--I wish I had never +come." + +"Now, now, have a little patience. Everything comes right in the end." + +"We shall never be alone." + +"Yes, we shall. Why do you think that?" + +"Because I can't think of anything else." + +"Well, you must think of something else. We're going to the factory +where they make perfume, and I'm going to buy a great many bottles of +scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy +the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper." + +"Don't you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a +church here." + +On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed +Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the +superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few +old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did +not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear +that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease +absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of +alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what +perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris +decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of +that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she +always used it. + +"And you like it, don't you dear?" + +"Yes, but what does it matter what I like?" + +"Now, don't be cross. Don't look so sad." + +"I don't mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase +of heliotrope is really too cynical." + +"Cynical! Why is it cynical?" + +"Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving +among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour +as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?" + +"But, dear one----" + +I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the +carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm +calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the +driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing +chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his +horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one +is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were +passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back +to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, +for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after +her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said: + +"You don't mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a +visit to pay." + +In the three weeks' time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, +Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who +lived in the different hotels _en pension_, and who would go away +as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another "resort" where the +season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and +bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs +and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had +explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once. + +"But as we're going to spend the evening with them, I don't see the +necessity----" + +"Of course not, dear, but don't you remember you promised to go to see +the Formans with me?" + +Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been +able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to +Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her +daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to +dinner, "One of the family is enough." What her mother's age could be +I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But +after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so +old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those +who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is +generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to +narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions +age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see +from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her +life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those +daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living +with their mothers on small incomes. "The daughter's tragedy is +written all over her face," I said, and while speaking to her I +scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that +tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are +heroines--the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, +grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her +manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the +life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked +old-fashioned--why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black +lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung +from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of +bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me +farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed +to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a +rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, +before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and +her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her +politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished +speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind +was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most +trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and +sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her +ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking +of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it +wonderful that her mother had read--shall we say, "The Three +Musketeers?" three times. She was interested in all her mother's +characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her +mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she +pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to +understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a +colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be +forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, +philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to +this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I +have no right to grumble." + +I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, +I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who +accepts her daughter's sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter +that has been sacrificed. From the daughter's appearance I had +imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, +lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered +with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature +is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, +two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a +more subtle rhythm. But though Nature's rhythm is irregular, its +irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear +that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I +recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and +that Nature's combination was more harmonious than mine. The first +thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the +daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five +years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been +overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have +grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt +somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her +love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up +hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma--that +short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything +else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small +beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face--forgetful of her +daughter's sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their +shins over the fire: + +"Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn't marry +Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well." + +My interest in these two women who had lived side by side all their +lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if +Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house +by her mother's side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I +waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for +as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had +lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and +planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her +high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so +energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even +her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss +Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer +heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had +gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks +there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman +explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, +"Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go +home again"; and they had come home after six days in the hill +village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her +mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: "I +always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here +until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come +down to mamma's balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go +away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. +I don't think mamma was ever afraid of anything." Her voice seemed to +me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, "I don't think mamma was +ever afraid of anything," and I said, "She is proud of her ideal, and +it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not +for her at least," and noticing that the three women were talking +together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to +studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived. + +On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits--two +engravings--and I did not need to look at the date to know that they +had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other +her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in +my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a +small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa +covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More +characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music +rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her +stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same +old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little. + +Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be +regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to +the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back +again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans +had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please +them. "They don't know anything about singing," she whispered to me; +"but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little +to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for +them to hear me sing," and she went to the piano and sang song after +song. + +"It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a +middle-aged woman," Mrs. Forman said, "and I hope you will come to see +us again, both of you." + +"What should bring me to see them again?" I asked myself as I tried to +get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making +impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to +England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to +Plessy again she would rush to see them. "Why should she go on like +that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this +world?" I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should +accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss +Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and +Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would +come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to +send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and +she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she +consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. +"No," she said, "I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this +evening to try on mamma's dress, and mamma is very particular about +her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown +had to go back--you must excuse me." + +"Good-bye, dear, good-bye," I heard Doris crying, and I said to +myself, "How kind she is!" + +"Now, my dear, aren't you glad that you came to see them? Aren't they +nice? Isn't she good? And you like goodness." + +"Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. +Don't you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon +your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your +face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems +to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my +love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, +years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become +of the two blind women you used to help?" + +"So you haven't forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful +that a blind woman should be able to get her living." + +"Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any +one should be able to earn his living." + +"You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not +realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs." + +"But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough +money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, +knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever +it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the +dark." + +"Do you remember her story?" + +"I think so. She was once rich, wasn't she? In fairly easy +circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit +by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told +it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part +of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even +then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox +and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to +England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop +in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And +where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind +woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don't +understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work +every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who +led her about? + +"How well you remember, dear." + +"Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a +sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind +woman's life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never +happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a +hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman's life. +Now don't tell me; it's all coming back to me. Something about a +student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and +they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each +other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. +This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with +serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to +read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty +story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud +to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?" + +"No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference." + +"You're quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it +was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn't he?" + +Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. "No +sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst +kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a +long time. The friend upstairs didn't dare to come down to tell her. +But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It's +extraordinary how tragedy follows some." + +"Isn't it?" + +"And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But +she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people +who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no +interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable +are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money's worth. I +only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her +truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything +from her!" + +"Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?" + +"Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn't she?" Doris nodded. +"And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three +or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman +with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet." + +"I don't think I said like red velvet, dear." + +"Well, it doesn't sound like a woman's description of another woman, +but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that +that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have +love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn't +realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the +blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things +from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, +something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love +than anybody else. She wouldn't know if he were a man of forty or one +of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?" + +"Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are." + +"Perhaps." + +"I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man +and a middle-aged. There was little she didn't know." + +"I daresay you're quite right. But still everything must have been +more intense and vague. When the blind woman's lover is not speaking +to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home +she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. +She doesn't know what eyes are, but she imagines them like--what? +anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no +eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes +like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think +of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front +of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice +to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that +these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a +difficult thing to do in any circumstances--but in hers! And when her +voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her +one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the +one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn't +know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when +she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching +recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils +might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?" + +"I don't think there was any reason. She lost her pupils in the +ordinary way; she was unlucky. As you were just saying, it was more +difficult for her to earn her living than for those who could see, and +Judith is no longer as young as she was; she isn't old, she is still a +handsome woman, but in a few years.... If old-age pensions are to be +granted to people, they surely ought to be granted to blind women." + +"Yes, I remember; the sentiment of the whole story is in my mind; only +I am a little confused about the facts. I remember you wrote a lot of +letters--how was it?" + +"Well, I just felt that the thing to do was to get an annuity for +Judith; I could not afford to give her one myself; so after a great +deal of trouble I got into communication with a rich woman who was +interested in the blind and wanted to found one." + +"You are quite right, that was it. You must have written dozens of +letters." + +"Yes, indeed, and all to no purpose. Judith knew the trouble I was +taking, but she couldn't bear with her loneliness any longer; the +dread of the long evenings by herself began to prey upon her nerves, +and she went off to Peckham to marry a blind man--quite an elderly +man; he was over sixty. They had known each other for some time, and +he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty +pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than +the annuity." + +"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity." + +"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The +charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she +regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from +somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel +herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages." + +"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its +goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't +even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to +live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to +live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they +are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I +mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if +she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!" + +"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write +them." + +"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach; +only Turgenieff could write them. But here we are at the Dog's Home." + +"Don't talk like that--it's unkind." + +"I don't mean to be unkind, but I have to try to realise things before +I can appreciate them." + +It seemed not a little incongruous that these two little spinsters +should pay for our dinners, and I tried to induce Doris to agree to +some modification in the present arrangements, but she said it was +their wish to entertain us. + +The evening I spent in that hotel hearing Doris sing, and myself +talking literature to a company of about a dozen spinsters, all plain +and elderly, all trying to live upon incomes varying from a hundred +and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, comes up before my mind, every +incident. Life is full of incidents, only our intelligence is not +always sufficiently trained to perceive them; and the incident I am +about to mention was important in the life I am describing. Miss Tubbs +had asked me what wine I would drink. And in a moment of inadvertence +I said "Vin Ordinaire," forgetting that the two shillings the wine +would cost would probably mean that Miss Tubbs would very likely have +to go without her cup of tea at five o'clock next day in order that +her expenditure should not exceed her limit, and I thought how +difficult life must be on these slippery rocks, incomes of one hundred +and fifty a year. Poor little gentlefolk, roving about from one +boarding-house to another, always in search of the cheapest, sometimes +getting into boarding-houses where the cheapness of the food +necessitates sending for the doctor, so the gain on one side is a loss +on the other. Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, +the pence and threepenny bits of human life! + +That Doris's singing should have provoked remarks painfully +inadequate, mattered little. Inadequate remarks about singing and +about the other arts are as common in London drawing-rooms as in +hotels and boarding-houses (all hotels are boarding-houses; there is +really no difference), and the company I found in these winter resorts +would have interested me at any other time. I can be interested in the +woman who collects stamps, in the gentle soul who keeps a botany book +in which all kinds of quaint entries are found, in the lady who writes +for the papers, and the one who is supposed to have a past. Wherever +human beings collect there is always to be found somebody of interest, +but when one's interest is centred in a lady, everybody else becomes +an enemy; and I looked upon all these harmless spinsters as my +enemies, and their proposals for excursions, and luncheons, and +dinners caused me much misgiving, not only because they separated me +from Doris, but because I felt that any incident, the proposed picnic, +might prove a shipwrecking reef. One cannot predict what will happen. +Life is so full of incidents; a woman's jealous tongue or the arrival +of some acquaintance might bring about a catastrophe. A love affair +hangs upon a gossamer thread, you know, and that is why I tried to +persuade Doris away from her friends. + +She was very kind and good and didn't inflict the society of these +people too much upon me. Perhaps she was conscious of the danger +herself, and we only visited the boarding-houses in the evening. But +these visits grew intolerable. The society of Miss Tubbs and Miss +Whitworth jarred the impressions of a long day spent in the open air, +in a landscape where once the temples of the gods had been, where men +had once lived who had seen, or at all events believed, in the fauns +and the dryads, in the grotto where the siren swims. + +One afternoon I said to Doris: "I'm afraid I can't go to see Miss +Tubbs this evening. Can't we devise something else? Another dinner in +a boarding-house would lead me to suicide, I think." + +"You would like to drown yourself in that bay and join the nymphs. Do +you think they would prove kinder than I?" + +I did not answer Doris. I suddenly seemed to despair; the exquisite +tenderness of the sky, and the inveigling curves of the bay seemed to +become detestable to me, theatrical, absurd. "Good God!" I thought: "I +shall never win her love. All my journey is in vain, and all this +love-making." The scene before me was the most beautiful in shape and +colour I had ever seen; but I am in no mood to describe the +Leonardo-like mountains enframing the azure bay. The reader must +imagine us leaning over a low wall watching the sea water gurgling +among the rocks. We had come to see some gardens. The waiter at my +hotel had told me of some, the property of a gentleman kind enough to +throw them open to the public twice a week; and I had taken his +advice, though gardens find little favour with me--now and again an +old English garden, but the well-kept horticultural is my abhorrence. +But one cannot tell a coachman to drive along the road, one must tell +him to go somewhere, so we had come to see what was to be seen. And +all was as I had imagined it, only worse; the tall wrought-iron gate +was twenty feet high, there was a naked pavilion behind it, and a +woman seated at a table with a cash-box in front of her. This woman +took a franc apiece, and told us that the money was to be devoted to a +charitable purpose; we were then free to wander down a gravel walk +twenty feet wide branching to the right and the left, along a line of +closely clipped shrubs, with a bunch of tall grasses here and a +foreign fir there; gardens that a painter would turn from in horror. I +said to Doris: + +"This is as tedious as a play at the _Comedie_, as tiresome as a +tragedy by Racine, and very like one. Let us seek out one of the +external walks overlooking the sea; even there I'm afraid the +knowledge that these shrubs are behind us will spoil our pleasure." + +Doris laughed; that was one of her charms, she could be amused; and it +was in this mood that we sat down on a seat placed in a low wall +overlooking the bay, looking at each other, basking in the rays of the +afternoon sun, and there we sat for some little while indolent as +lizards. Pointing to one at a little distance I said: + +"It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not +sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake +all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I +was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. +Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one +doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy." + +"But why, dear, do you allow yourself to be unhappy? Look at that +lizard. Isn't he nice? Isn't he satisfied? He desires nothing but what +he has got, light and warmth." + +"And, Doris, would you like me to be as content as that lizard--to +desire nothing more than light and warmth?" + +Doris looked at me, and thinking her eyes more beautiful even than the +sunlight, I said: + + "'And the sunlight clasps the earth, + And the moonbeams kiss the sea, + But what are all those kissings worth, + If thou kiss not me?' + +"That is the eternal song of the spheres and of the flowers. If I don't +become part of the great harmony, I must die." + +"But you do kiss me," Doris answered wilfully, "when the evening turns +cold and the coachman puts up the hood of the carriage." + +"Wilful Doris! Pretty puss cat!" + +"I'm not a puss cat; I'm not playing with you, dear. I do assure you I +feel the strain of these days; but what am I to do? You wouldn't have +me tell you to stay at my hotel and to compromise myself before all +these people?" + +"These people! Those boarding-houses are driving me mad! That Miss +Forman!" + +"I thought you liked her. You said she is good, 'a simple, kind +person, without pretensions.' And that is enough, according to +yesterday's creed. You were never nicer than you were yesterday +speaking of her (I remember your words): you said the flesh fades, the +intellect withers, only the heart remembers. Do you recant all this?" + +"No, I recant nothing; only yesterday's truth is not to-day's. One day +we are attracted by goodness, another day by beauty; and beauty has +been calling me day after day: at first the call was heard far away +like a horn in the woods, but now the call has become more imperative, +and all the landscape is musical. Yesterday standing by those ancient +ruins, it seemed to me as if I had been transported out of my present +nature back to my original nature of two thousand years ago. The sight +of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I +say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never +wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never +appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to +appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that +has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me. +That hat I would put away----" + +"Don't you like my hat?" + +"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two +thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the +nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes." + +"Why should you not see her, dear?" + +"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their +inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me. +I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am +saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me +of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite +clear to me." + +"But you do possess me, dear?" + +"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that +will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live, +but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the +squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard. If some way is not +found out of this horrible dilemma, I shall remember you as a +collector remembers a vase which a workman handed to him and which +slipped and was broken, or like a vase that was stolen from him; I +cannot find a perfect simile, at least not at this moment; my speech +is imperfect, but you will understand." + +"Yes, I understand, I think I understand." + +"If I do not get you, it will seem to me that I have lived in vain." + +"But, dear one, things are not so bad as that. We need not be in Paris +for some days yet, and though I cannot ask you to my hotel, there is +no reason why----" + +"Doris, do not raise up false hopes." + +"I was only going to say, dear, that it does not seem to be necessary +that we should go straight back to Paris." + +"You mean that we might stop somewhere at some old Roman town, at +Arles in an eighteenth-century house. O Doris, how enchanting this +would be! I hardly dare to think lest----" + +"Lest what, dear? Lest I should deceive you?" + +There was a delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot +be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired +by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the +eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the +nineteenth, and had reproduced its spirit. + +"Is it not strange that, in the midst of reality, artistic conceptions +always hang about me; but shall I ever possess you, Doris? Is it my +delicious fate to spend three days with you in an old Roman town?" + +"There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Where shall it be?" + +"Any town would be sufficient with you, Doris; but let us think of +some beautiful place"; and looking across the bay into the sunset, I +recalled as many names as I could; many of those old Roman towns rose +up before my eyes, classic remains mingling with mediaeval towers, +cathedral spires rising over walls on which Roman sentries had once +paced. We could only spend our honeymoon in a town with a beautiful +name--a beautiful name was essential--a name that it would be a +delight to remember for ever after; the name would have to express by +some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be +expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking +doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was +too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after +all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were +rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among +these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening +and the next we studied _L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer_. +"Armance," I said, interrupting Doris, who was telling me that we +should lose our tickets by the _Cote d'Azur_. For in Doris's +opinion it was necessary that we should leave Plessy by the _Cote +d'Azur_. Her friends would certainly come to the station to see her +off. "That is a matter of no moment," I said. "At Marseilles we can +catch an express train, which will be nearly as good. There are two +excellent trains; either will do, if you have decided to spend three +days at Armance." + +She asked me if Armance were a village or a town, and I answered, +"What matter?"--for everywhere in France there are good beds and good +food and good wine--ay, and omelettes. We should do very well in any +village in the south of France for three days. But suddenly two names +caught my eye, Orelay and Verlancourt, and we agreed that we preferred +either of these names to Armance. + +"Which name shall give shelter to two unfortunate lovers flying in +search of solitude?" + +"Orelay is a beautiful name." + +"Orelay it shall be," I said. "We shall be able to get there from +Marseilles in a few hours." + +"You see, dear, it would be impossible for me to travel all the way to +Paris--a journey of at least twenty-four hours would kill me, and I'm +not strong; nothing tires me more than railway traveling. We must stop +somewhere. Why not at Orelay?" + +As this history can have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I +must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify +herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human +than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not +unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would +strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, +no more: where there is no subterfuge there is no life. + +This story will be read, no doubt, by the young and the old, the wise +and the foolish, by the temperate and the intemperate, but the subject +matter is so common to all men that it will interest every one, even +ecclesiastics, every one except certain gentlemen residing chiefly in +Constantinople, whose hostility to the lover on his errand is so well +known, and so easily understandable, that I must renounce all hope of +numbering them among the admirers of my own or Doris's frailty. But +happily these gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected +that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of +certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary +falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting +abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few +critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged +men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an interest in +a love story; in these modern days when the novel wanders even as far +as the nuns in their cells (I have good authority for making this +statement), perhaps I may be able to count upon an aged Mother Abbess +to be, outwardly perhaps a disapproving, but at heart a sympathetic +reader. Indeed, I count upon the ascetic more than upon any other +class for appreciation, for the imagination of those who have had no +experience in love adventures will enkindle, and they will appreciate +perhaps more intensely than any other the mental trouble that a +journey to Orelay with Doris would entail. + +It would take nearly five hours according to the time table to get +from Marseilles to Orelay; and these five hours would wear themselves +wearily away in conversation with Doris, in talking to her of every +subject except the subject uppermost in my mind. I should have kept a +notebook, just as I had arranged to do when I thought I was going on +the yachting excursion among the Greek Islands with Gertrude; but, +having no notes, I can only appeal to the reader's imagination. I must +ask him to remember the week of cruel abstinence I had been through, +and to take it into his consideration. My dear, dear reader, I am sure +you can see me if you try (in your mind's eye, of course) walking +about the corridors, seeking the guard, asking every one I meet: + +"How far away are we now from Orelay?" + +"Orelay? Nearly two hours from Orelay." + +Our heavy luggage had been sent on before, but we had a number of +dressing cases and bags with us, and there might not be time to remove +all these. The guard, who had promised to take them out of the +carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be, +he was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times +up and down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader, +can you not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of +catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not +stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young +lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last +moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw +myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake +of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is +an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and +every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of +the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes +closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to +Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I? + +And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same +interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often +as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between +us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our +lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an +excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day. And as I write +the sad thought floats past that such expectations will never be my +lot again. The delights of the moment are perhaps behind me, but why +should I feel sad for that? Life is always beautiful, in age as well +as in youth; the old have a joy that the youths do not know-- +recollection. It is through memory we know ourselves; without +memory it might be said we have hardly lived at all, or only like +animals. + +This is a point on which I would speak seriously to every reader, +especially to my young readers; for it is of the utmost importance +that every one should select adventures that not only please them at +the moment, but can be looked back upon with admiration, and for which +one can offer up a mute thanksgiving. My life would not have been +complete, a corner-stone would have been lacking if Doris had not come +to Orelay with me. Without her I should not have known the joy that +perfect beauty gives; that beauty which haunted in antiquity would +never have been known to me. But without more, as the lawyers say, we +will return to Doris. I asked her if she had been asleep? No, she had +not slept, only it rested her to keep her eyes closed, the sunlight +fatigued her. I did not like to hear her talk of fatigue, and to hide +from her what was passing in my mind I tried to invent some +conversation. Orelay--what a lovely name it was! Did she think the +town would vindicate or belie its name? She smiled faintly and said +she would not feel fatigued as soon as she got out of the train, and +there was some consolation in the thought that her health would not +allow her to get farther that day than Orelay. + +We decided to stay at the Hotel des Valois. One of the passengers had +spoken to me of this hotel; he had never stayed there himself, but he +believed it to be an excellent hotel. But it was not his +recommendation that influenced me, it was the name--the Hotel des +Valois. How splendid! And when we got out at Orelay I asked the +porters and the station-master if they could recommend a hotel. No, +but they agreed that the Hotel des Valois was as good as any other. We +drove there wondering what it would be like. Everything had turned out +well up to the present, but everything would go for naught if the +Hotel des Valois should prove unworthy of its name. And the first +sight of it was certainly disappointing. Its courtyard was +insignificant, only saved by a beautiful ilex tree growing in one +corner. The next moment I noticed that the porch of the hotel was +pretty and refined--a curious porch it was, giving the hotel for a +moment the look of an eighteenth-century English country house. There +were numerous windows with small panes, and one divined the hall +beyond the porch. The hall delighted us, and I said to Doris as we +passed through that the hotel must have been a nobleman's house some +long while ago, when Orelay had a society of its own, perhaps a +language, for in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century Provencal +or some other dialect must have been written or spoken at Orelay. We +admired the galleries overlooking the hall, and the staircase leading +to them. We seemed to have been transported into the eighteenth +century; the atmosphere was that of a Boucher, a provincial Boucher +perhaps, but an eighteenth-century artist for all that. The doves that +crowd round Aphrodite seemed to have led us right; and we foresaw a +large quiet bedroom with an Aubusson carpet in the middle of a parquet +floor, writing-tables in the corners of the room or in the +silken-curtained windows. + +This was the kind of room I had imagined--one as large as a +drawing-room, and furnished like a drawing-room, with sofas and +arm-chairs that we could draw around the fire, and myself and Doris +sitting there talking. Love is composed in a large measure of desire +of intimacy, and if the affection that birds experience in making +their nest be not imitated, love descends to the base satisfaction of +animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as +soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better +than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of +the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were +offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined +the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French +words _chambre meublee_ will convey an idea of the rooms we were +shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into the +corner, an eider-down on top, a tall dusty window facing the bed, with +skimpy red curtains and a vacant fireplace? There were, no doubt, a +few chairs--but what chairs! + +The scene was at once tragic and comic. It was of vital importance to +myself and Doris to find a room such as I have attempted to describe, +and it was of equal indifference to the waiter whether we did or +didn't. The appearance of each contributed to the character of the +scene. Doris's appearance I have tried to make clear to the reader; +mine must be imagined; it only remains for me to tell what the waiter +was like; an old man, short and thick, slow on the feet from long +service, enveloped in an enormous apron; one only saw the ends of his +trousers and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever +seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his +head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a +pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and +restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a +thick provincial accent--that alone amused me. + +"Have you no other rooms?" + +"Nous n'avons que cela." + +I quote his words in the language in which they were spoken, for I +remember how brutal they seemed, and how entirely in keeping with the +character of the room. No doubt the words will seem flat and tame to +the reader, but they never can seem that to me. "_Nous n'avons que +cela_" will always be to me as pregnant with meaning as the famous +_to be or not to be_. For it really amounted to that. I can see +Doris standing by me, charming, graceful as a little Tanagra +statuette, seemingly not aware of the degradation that the possession +of her love would mean in such a room as that which we stood in; and I +think I can honestly say that I wished we had never come to Orelay, +that we had gone straight on to Paris. It were better even to +sacrifice her love than that it should be degraded by vulgar +circumstances; and, instead of a holy rite, my honeymoon had come to +seem to me what the black mass must seem to the devout Christian. + +"The rooms will look better," Doris said, "when fires have been +lighted, and when our bags are unpacked. A skirt thrown over the arm +of a chair furnishes a room." + +Taking her hands in mine I kissed them, and was almost consoled; but +at that moment my eyes fell upon the beds, and I said: + +"Those beds! O Doris, those beds! yours is no better than mine." Women +are always satisfied, or they are kind, or they are wise; and accept +the inevitable without a murmur. + +"Dearest, ask the waiter to bring us some hot water." + +I did so, and while he was away I paced the room, unable to think of +anything but the high bed; it was impossible to put out of my sight +the ridiculous spectacle of a couple in a nightgown and pyjama suit +climbing into it. The vision of myself and Doris lying under that +eider-down, facing that tall window, with nothing to shut out the +light but those vulgar lace curtains, pursued me, and I paced the room +till the pink waiter returned with two jugs; and then, feeling very +miserable, I began to unpack my bag without getting further than the +removal of the brushes and comb; Doris unpacked a few things, and she +washed her hands, and I thought I might wash mine; but before I had +finished washing them I left the dreadful basin, and going to Doris +with dripping hands I said: + +"There is very little difference in the rooms. Perhaps you would like +to sleep in mine?" + +"I can see no difference. I think I'll remain where I am." + +Which room she slept in may seem insignificant to the reader, but this +is not so, for had we changed rooms this story would never have been +written. I can see myself even now walking to and fro like a caged +animal vainly seeking for a way of escape, till suddenly--my adventure +reminds me very much of the beginning of many romantic novels--the +tapestry that the wind had blown aside, the discovery of the secret +door--suddenly I discovered a door in the wall paper; it was +unlatched, and pushing through it I descended two steps, and lo! I was +in the room of my heart's desire; a large, richly-coloured saloon with +beautifully proportioned windows and red silk damask curtains hanging +from carved cornices, and all the old gilding still upon them. And the +silk fell into such graceful folds that the proportions of the windows +were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine +romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the +curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the +marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to +examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value +... it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago. + +"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and +seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom +likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, +it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, +"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But +the curtains hung well from _les ciels de lit_ (one cannot say +_cieux de lit_, I suppose)--the English word is, I think, +"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I +muttered, "but _a la rigueur ca peut marcher_." But pursuing my +quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two +windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have +satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable +Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various +perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed +should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my +head: + + "Madame, shall we undress you for the fight? + The wars are naked that you make to-night." + +And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with +a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a +crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.... He rarely painted +bedrooms. I do not remember any at this moment; but I remember many by +Fragonard, and Fragonard would have said: "I have no fault to find +with that bed." The carpet was not Aubusson, but it was nevertheless a +finely-designed carpet, and its colour was harmonious; the sofa was +shapely enough, and the Louis XVI. arm-chairs were filled with deep +cushions. I turned to the toilet-table fearing it might prove an +incongruity, but it was in perfect keeping with the room, and I began +at once to look forward to seeing it laid out with all the manifold +ivories and silver of Doris's dressing-case. + +Imagine my flight, dear reader, if you can, back to Doris, whom I had +left trying to make the best of that miserable square room; more like +a prison cell than a bedroom. + +"What is the matter, dearest?" she asked. + +But without answering her I said, "Give me your hand," and led her as +a prince leads his betrothed, in a fairy tale, through the +richly-coloured salon, lingering a moment for her to admire it, and +then I took her through my room, the double-bedded room, saying: "All +this is nothing; wait till you see your room." And Doris paused +overcome by the beauty of the bed, of the curtains falling from the +tester gracefully as laburnum or acacia branches in June. + +"The rooms are beautiful, but a little cheerless." + +"Doris, Doris, you don't deserve to lie there! The windows of course +must be opened, fresh air must be let in, and fires must be lighted. +But think of you and me sitting here side by side talking before our +bedtime." + +Fires were lighted quickly, servants came in bearing candelabra in +their hands, and among them, and with Doris by my side, I imagined +myself a prince, for who is a prince but he who possesses the most +desirable thing in the world, who finds himself in the most delectable +circumstances? And what circumstance is more delightful than sitting +in a great shadowy bedroom, watching the logs burning, shedding their +grateful heat through the room, for the logs that were brought to us, +as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in +Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense +and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very +soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had +said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; +and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room +back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a +flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing tables, filled +with pigments and powders and glasses. + +There was one of those tables in the room, and I drew it from the +corner and raised its lid, the lid with the looking-glass in it. And I +liked the unpacking of her dressing-case, the discovery of a multitude +of things for bodily use, the various sponges; the flat sponge for the +face, the round sponge for the body, and the little sponges; all the +scissors and the powder for the nails, and the scents, the soft silks, +the lace scarfs, and the long silk nightgown soon to droop over her +shoulders. My description by no means exhausts the many things she +produced from her dressing-case and bags, nor would the most complete +catalogue convey an impression of Doris's cleanliness of her little +body! One would have to see her arranging her things, with her long +curved hands and almond nails carefully cut--they were her immediate +care, and many powders and ointments and polishers were called into +requisition. Some reader will cry that all this is most unimportant, +but he is either hypocritical or stupid, for it is only with scent and +silk and artifices that we raise love from an instinct to a passion. + +"I am longing," said Doris, "to see that beautiful red drawing-room +with all the candelabra lighted and half a dozen logs blazing on the +hearth. It is extraordinary how cold it is." + +To procure an impartial mind, bodily ease is necessary, and we sat on +either side of a splendid fire warming our toes. At the bottom of his +heart every Christian feels, though he may not care to admit it in +these modern days, that every attempt to make love a beautiful and +pleasurable thing is a return to paganism. In his eyes the only excuse +for man's love of woman is that without it the world would come to an +end. Why he should consider the end of the world a misfortune I have +never been able to find out, for if his creed be a true one the +principal use of this world is to supply Hell with fuel. He is never +weary of telling us that very few indeed may hope to get to Heaven. + +"But France is not a Christian country, and yet you see the high bed +has not become extinct," said Doris. + +Doris, who was doubtless feeling a little tired, sat looking into the +fire. Her attitude encouraged reverie; dream linked into dream till at +last the chain of dreams was broken by the entrance of the pink waiter +bringing in our dinner. In the afternoon I had called him an imbecile, +which made him very angry, and he had explained that he was not an +imbecile, but if I hurried him he lost his head altogether. Of course +one is sorry for speaking rudely to a waiter; it is a shocking thing +to do, and nothing but the appearance of the bedroom we were shown +into would excuse me. His garrulousness, which was an irritation in +the afternoon, was an amusement as he laid the cloth and told me the +bill of fare; moreover, I had to consult him about the wine, and I +liked to hear him telling me in his strong Southern accent of a +certain wine of the country, as good as Pomard and as strong, and +which would be known all over the world, only it did not bear +transportation. Remembering how tired we were, and the verse-- + + "Quand on boit du Pomard on devient bon on aime, + On devient aussi bon que le Pomard lui-meme--" + +we drank, hoping that the wine would awaken us. But the effect of that +strong Southern wine seemed to be more lethargic than exhilarating, +and when dinner was over and we had returned to our seats by the +fireside we were too weary to talk, and too nervous. + +The next morning, the coffee and the rolls and butter were ready +before Doris, and the vexation of seeing the breakfast growing cold +was recompensed by the pleasure of teasing her, urging her to pass her +arms into her dressing-gown, to come as she was, it did not matter +what she had on underneath. The waiter did not count; he was not a +man, he was a waiter, a pink creature, pinker than anything in the +world, except a baby's bottom, and looking very like that. + +"Hasten, dear, hasten!" and I went back to the salon and engaged in +chatter with the old provincial, my English accent contrasting +strangely with his. It was the first time I had heard the Southern +accent. At Plessy I had heard all accents, Swiss, German, Italian; +there was plenty of Parisian accent there, and I had told a Parisian +flower-woman, whose husband was a Savoyard, that I declined to believe +any more in the Southern accent _"C'est une blague qu'on m'a +faite"_; but at Orelay I had discovered the true accent, and I +listened to the old man for the sake of hearing it. He was asking me +for my appreciation of the wine we had drunk last night when Doris +entered in a foamy white dressing-gown. + +"You liked the wine, dear, didn't you? He wants to know if we will +have the same wine for twelve-o'clock breakfast." + +"Dear me, it's eleven o'clock now," Doris answered, and she looked at +the waiter. + +"Monsieur and Madame will go for a little walk; perhaps you would like +to breakfast at one?" + +We agreed that we could not breakfast before one, and our waiter +suggested a visit to the cathedral--it would fill up the time +pleasantly and profitably; but Doris, when she had had her coffee, +wanted to sit on my knee and to talk to me; and then there was a +piano, and she wanted to play me some things, or rather I wanted to +hear her. But the piano was a poor one; the notes did not come back, +she said, and we talked for some hours without perceiving that the +time was passing. After lunch the waiter again inquired if we intended +to go for a little walk; there were vespers about four in the +cathedral. + +"It would do Monsieur and Madame good." + +"The walk or the cathedral?" we inquired, and, a little embarrassed, +the old fellow began to tell us that he had not been to the cathedral +for some years, but the last time he was there he had been much +impressed by the darkness. It was all he could do to find his way from +pillar to pillar; he had nearly fallen over the few kneeling women who +crouched there listening to the clergy intoning Latin verses. +According to his account there were no windows anywhere except high up +in the dome. And leaning his hands on the table, looking like all the +waiters that ever existed or that will ever exist, his _tablier_, +reaching nearly to his chin, upheld by strings passed over the +shoulders, he told us that it was impossible to see what was happening +in the chancel; but there had seemed to be a great number of clergy +seated in the darkness at the back, for one heard voices behind the +tall pieces of furniture singing Latin verses; one only heard the +terminations of the words, an "us" and a "noster," and words ending in +"e," and the organ always coming in a little late. + +"My good man," I said, "your description leaves nothing to be desired. +Why should I go to the cathedral unless to verify your impressions? I +am sure the service is exactly as you describe it, and I would not for +the world destroy the picture you have evoked of those forgotten +priests intoning their vespers in the middle of the granite church +behind a three-branched candlestick." + +The poor man left the room very much disconcerted, feeling, Doris +said, as if he had lost one of the forks. + +"Thank Heaven that matter is done with--a great weight is off my +mind." + +"But there is the museum. You would like to see that?" said Doris, and +a change came into my face. + +"Well, Doris, the waiter has told us that there is a celebrated study +by David in the museum, 'The Nymph of Orelay.'" + +"But, dear one, am I not your nymph of Orelay?" and Doris slipped on +her knees and put her arms about me. "Will I not do as well as the +painted creature in the museum?" + +"Far better," I said, "far better. Now we are free, Doris, freed from +the cathedral and from the museum. All the day belongs to us, and +to-morrow we may pass as we like." + +"And so we will," Doris said meditatively; and so we did, dear reader, +and I consider the time was well spent, for by so doing we avoided +catching cold, a thing easy to do when a mistral is blowing. It was +not until the following evening we remembered that time was always on +the wing, that our little bags would have to be packed. Next morning +we were going. + +"Going away by the train," Doris said regretfully. "Would we were +going away in a carriage! We shall leave Orelay knowing nothing of it +but this suite of apartments." + +"There is no reason why we should not drive," and I stopped packing my +bag, and stood looking at her. + +"I wonder if we should have stayed three days if we had not discovered +these rooms? Dear one, I think I should not have meant so much to you +in those humbler rooms: you attach much importance to these cornices +and hangings." + +"I should have loved you always, Doris, but I think I can love you +better here," and with our bags in our hands we wandered from the +bedroom into the drawing-room and stood admiring its bygone splendour. +"Doris, dear, you must play me 'The Nut Bush.' I want to hear it on +that old piano. Tinkle it, dear, tinkle it, and don't play 'The Nut +Bush' too sentimentally, nor yet too gaily." + +"Which way will you have it?" she asked; "'a true love's truth or a +light love's art'?" + +"I would have it dainty and fantastic as Schumann wrote it, 'only the +song of a secret bird.'" + +"With a pathos of loneliness in it?" + +"That is it," I cried, "that is the right time to play it in, without +stress on either side.... No, you mustn't leave the piano, Doris. +Sing me some songs. Go on singing Schumann or Schubert; there are no +other songs. Let me hear you sing 'The Moonlight' or 'The +Lotus-flower.' Schumann and Schubert were the singing birds of the +fifties; I love their romantic sentimentalities, orange gardens, south +winds, a lake with a pinnace upon it, and a nightingale singing in a +dark wood by a lonely shore; that is how they felt, how they dreamed." + +And resigning herself to my humour, she sang song after song till at +last, awaking from a long reverie of music and old association of +memories, I said, "Play me a waltz, Doris; I would hear an old-time +waltz played in this room; its romantic flourishes will evoke the +departed spirits." And very soon, sitting in my chair with half-closed +eyes, it seemed to me that I saw crinolines faintly gliding over the +floor, and white-stockinged feet, sloping shoulders and glistening +necks with chignons--swan-like women, and long-whiskered cavaliers +wearing peg-top trousers and braided coats dancing or talking with +them.... The music suddenly stopped and Doris said: + +"If we are to catch our train we must go on with our packing." + +"You mustn't talk to me of trains," and overcome with a Schumann-like +longing and melancholy I took her in my arms, overcome by her beauty. +She was perfection. No Chelsea or Dresden figure was ever more dainty, +gayer, or brighter. She was Schumann and Dresden, but a Dresden of an +earlier period than Schumann; but why compare her to anything? She was +Doris, the very embodiment of her name. + +"Ah, Doris, why are we leaving here? Why can't we remain here for +ever?" + +"It is strange," she said; "I feel the charm of those old stately +rooms as much as you do. But, dearest, we have missed the train." + +The pink waiter came up, I promised to hasten, but my love of Doris +delayed us unduly, and we arrived at the station only to hear that the +train had gone away some ten minutes before. The train that had left +was the only good train in the day, and missing it had given us +another twenty-four hours in Orelay; but Doris was superstitious. "Our +three days are done," she said; "if we don't go today we shall go +to-morrow, and to go on the fourth day would be unlucky. What shall we +do all day? The spell has been broken. We have left our hotel. Let us +take a carriage," she pleaded, "and drive to the next station. The sun +is shining, and the country is beautiful; we saw it from the railway, +a strange red country grey with olives, olive orchards extending to +the very foot of the mountains, and mingling with the pine trees +descending the slopes." + +"The slopes!" I said, "the precipitous sides of that high rock! Shall +I ever forget it, beginning like the tail of a lion and rising up to +the sky, towering above the level landscape like a sphinx." + +"The drive would be delightful!" + +"And it would be a continuation of the romance of the old Empire +drawing-room. A post-chaise would be the thing if we could discover +one." + +Sometimes Nature seems to conspire to carry out an idea, and though no +veritable post-chaise of old time was discovered in the coach-house +behind the courtyard in which the ilex trees flourished, we happened +to catch sight of a carriage some twenty-five or thirty years old, a +cumbersome old thing hung upon C springs, of the security of which the +coachman seemed doubtful. He spoke disparagingly, telling us that the +proprietor had been trying to sell it, but no one would buy it, so +heavy was it on the horses' backs, so out of fashion one was ashamed +to go out in it. The coachman's notions of beauty did not concern us, +but Doris dreaded lest one of the wheels should come off; however, on +examination it was found to be roadworthy, and I said to Doris as I +helped her into it: + +"If it be no post-chaise, at all events ladies wearing crinolines have +sat inside it, that is certain, and gentlemen wearing peg-top trousers +with braid upon them. Good God, Doris, if you were to wear a crinoline +I should love you beyond hope of repentance. Don't I remember when I +was a boy every one wore white stockings; I had only heard of black +ones, and I always hoped to meet a lady wearing black stockings... now +my hope is to meet one wearing white." + +"We might have searched the town for a crinoline and a pair of white +stockings." + +"Yes, and I might have discovered a black silk stock. I wonder how I +should have looked in it. Doris," I said, "we have missed the best +part of our adventure. We forgot to dress for the part we are playing, +the lovers of Orelay." + +Who will disagree with me when I say that no adventure is complete +unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, +high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress +himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some +strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of +these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and +believe it to be natural--the comedy that Doris and I played in the +old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, where we hoped to +breakfast. + +We could hardly speak for excitement. Doris thought of how she would +look in a crinoline, and I remembered the illustrations in an early +edition of Balzac of which I am the happy possessor. How nice the men +looked in the light trousers and the black stockings of the period; +and crossing my legs I followed with interest the line of my calf. +Somebody did that in "Les Illusions Perdues." She and I lay back +thinking which story in "The Human Comedy" was the most applicable to +our case; and the only one we could think of was when Madame Bargeton, +a provincial blue-stocking, left Angouleme for Paris with Lucien de +Rubempre. There were no railways in the forties; they must have +travelled in a post-chaise. Yes, I remember their journey, faintly it +is true, but I remember it. Madame Bargeton was a woman of +five-and-thirty at least, and Doris was much younger. Lucien was only +one-and-twenty, and even at that time I was more than that. The names +of these people and of the people they met at the theatre and in the +Tuileries Gardens--Rastignac, Madame d'Espard, the Duchess of +Chaulieu, Madame de Rochefide, and Canalis--carried my mind back from +crinolines and white stockings, from peg-top trousers and braided +coats, to the slim trousers that were almost breeches and to the +high-breasted gowns of the Restoration. Our mothers and fathers wore +the crinolines and the peg-top trousers, and our grandfathers the +tight trousers and the black silk stocks. The remembrance of these +costumes filled me with a tenderness and a melancholy I could not +subdue, and I could see that Doris was thinking of the same subject as +myself. + +We were thinking of that subject which interested men before history +began, the mutability of human things, the vanishing of generations. +Young as she was, Doris was thinking of death; nor is it the least +extraordinary she should, for as soon as any one has reached the age +of reflection the thought of death may come upon him at any moment, +though he be in the middle of a ballroom or lying in the arms of his +mistress. If the scene be a ballroom he has only to look outside, and +the night will remind him that in a few years he will enter the +eternal night; or if the scene be a bedroom the beautiful face of his +mistress may perchance remind him of another whose face was equally +beautiful and who is now under the earth; lesser things will suffice +to recall his thoughts from life to death, a rose petal falling on a +marble table, a dead bird in the path as he walks in his garden. And +after the thought of death the most familiar thought is the decay of +the bodily vesture. The first grey hair may seem to us an amusing +accident, but very few years will pass before another and yet another +appear, and if these do not succeed in reminding us that decay has +begun, a black speck on a tooth cannot fail to do so; and when we go +to the dentist to have it stopped we have begun to repair artificially +the falling structure. The activity of youth soon passes, and its +slenderness. I remember still the shock I felt on hearing an athlete +say that he could no longer run races of a hundred yards; he was half +a second or a quarter of a second slower than he was last year. I +looked at him saying, "But you are only one-and-twenty," and he +answered, "Yes, that is it." A football player I believe is out of +date at eight-and-twenty. Out of date! What a pathos there is in the +words--out of date! _Suranne_, as the French say. How are we to +render it in English? By the beautiful but artificial word +"yester-year"? Yester-year perhaps, for a sorrow clings about it; it +conveys a sense of autumn, of "the long decline of roses." There is +something ghostlike in the out-of-date. The landscape about Plessy had +transported us back into antiquity, making us dream of nymphs and +dryads, but the gilt cornices and damask hangings and the salon at +Orelay had made us dream of a generation ago, of the youth of our +parents. Ancient conveys no personal meaning, but the out-of-date +transports us, as it were, to the stern of the vessel, throws us into +a mournful attitude; we lean our heads upon our hands and, looking +back, we see the white wake of the vessel with shores sinking in the +horizon and the crests of the mountains passing away into the clouds. + +While musing on these abstract questions raised by my remark that we +had not managed our adventure properly, since we had forgotten to +provide ourselves with proper costumes, the present suddenly thrust +itself upon me. + +"Good God!" I said to Doris, "let us look back, for we shall never see +Orelay again!" and she from one window, and I from the other, saw the +spires of Orelay for the last time. We could not tear ourselves away, +but fortunately the road turned; Orelay was blotted out from our sight +for ever, and we sank back to remember that a certain portion of our +lives was over and done, a beautiful part of our lives had been thrown +into the void, into the great rubble-heap of emotions that had been +lived through, that are no more. + +"Of what are you thinking, dear? You have been far away. This is the +first time we have been separated, and we are not yet five miles from +Orelay." + +"Five miles! Ah, if it were only five!" + +We did not speak for a long time, and watching the midday sun, I +thought that peradventure it was not farther from us than yesterday. +Were I to say so to Doris she would answer, "It will be the same in +Paris," but if she did it would be the first falsehood she had told +me, for we both knew that things are never the same; things +change--for better or worse, but they change. + +This last sentence seems to me somewhat trite, and if I were to +continue this story any further my pen would run into many other +superficial and facile observations, for my mind is no longer +engrossed with the story. I no longer remember it; I do not mean that +I do not remember whether we got to Verlancourt, whether we had +breakfast, or whether we drove all the way to Paris with relays of +horses. I am of course quite certain about the facts: we breakfasted +at Verlancourt, and after breakfast we asked the coachman whether he +would care to go on to Paris with us; he raised his eyes--"The +carriage is a very old one, surely, Monsieur----" Doris and I laughed, +for, truth to tell, we had been so abominably shaken that we were glad +to exchange the picturesque old coach of our fathers' generation for +the train. + +These stories are memories, not inventions, and an account of the days +I spent in Paris would interest nobody; all the details are forgotten, +and invention and remembrance do not agree any better than the goat +and the cabbage. So, omitting all that does not interest me--and if it +does not interest me how can it interest the reader?--I will tell +merely that my adventure with Doris was barren of scandal or +unpleasant consequences. Her mother, a dear unsuspicious +woman--whether her credulity was the depth of folly or the depth of +wisdom I know not; there are many such mothers, my blessing be upon +them!--took charge of her daughter, and Doris and her mother returned +to England. I am afraid that when I confess that I did not speak to +Doris of marriage I shall forfeit the good opinion of my reader, who +will, of course, think that a love story with such an agreeable +creature as Doris merited a lifetime of devotion; but I pray the +reader to discover an excuse for me in the fact that Doris had told me +when we were at Plessy that there was no question of her marrying any +one but Albert. Had she not sacrificed the great love of her life in +order that she might remain constant to Albert? Is it to be expected, +then, that having done that, she would put Albert aside and throw her +lot in with mine? She might have done this; men and women act +inconsequently. Having on one occasion refused to drop the mutton chop +for the shadow, on the next occasion they would drop it for the shadow +of the shadow; but Doris was made of sterner stuff, and some months +afterwards she wrote me a steady, sensible little letter telling me +that she was going to be married, and that it seemed to her quite +natural that she should marry Albert. Years have passed away, and +nothing has happened to lead me to believe that she has not proved a +true and loving wife. Albert has always told me that he found all the +qualities in her which he had foreseen from the first time he looked +upon her pretty, sparkling face. Frown not, reader; accuse me not of +superficial cynicism! Albert is part of the world's inheritance. You +may be Albert yourself--every one has been or will be Albert; Albert +is in us all, just as I am in you all. Doris, too, is in you, dear +lady who sit reading my book--Doris my three-days mistress at Orelay, +and Doris the faithful spouse of Albert for twenty years in a lonely +London suburb. + +Study and boudoir would like to know if Doris had any children. About +two years afterwards I heard that she was "expecting." The word came +up spontaneously in my mind, perhaps because I had written it in the +beginning of the story. Reader, do you remember in "Massimilla Doni" +how Balzac, when he came to the last pages, declares that he dare not +tell you the end of the adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for +the worshippers of the ideal--_Massimilla Doni_ was "expecting." +I have not read the story for many years, but the memory of it shines +in my mind bright--well, as the morning star; and I looked up this +last paragraph when I began to write this story, but had to excuse +myself for not translating it, my pretext being that I was baffled by +certain grammatical obscurities, or what seemed to me such. I seemed +to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that +"_les peuplades de cent cathedrales gothiques_" (which might be +rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals), +"_tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir a +vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques filles +incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurerent!_" What puzzles me is why statues should break their +forms (_form_ I suppose should be translated by _mould_)--break +their moulds--the expression seems very inadequate--break their +moulds "in order to go to you, great imaginative artists." How +could they break their moulds or their forms to go to the +imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift of +the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if +he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas +and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of +_Massimilla_ to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little +tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage: + +"Les peris, les ondines, les fees, les sylphides du vieux temps, les +muses de la Grece, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le +Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le +premier mit au bas des tableaux d'eglise, et que Raphael a faits si +divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gele +a Dresde, les delicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'eglise de +San-Michele a Florence, les choeurs celestes du tombeau de Saint Sebald +a Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent +cathedrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur +forme pour venir a vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques +filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurerent." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + + +There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I +remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of +Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool +in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, +of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the +foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the +picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my +copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been +promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has +abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some +Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a +sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, +and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking +of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it. + +After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half +satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that +awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the +Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for +breakfast in a queer little cafe; the meal cost us about a shilling. +On my return from this cafe soon after twelve--I had breakfasted early +that morning--I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could +not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and +the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw +myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in +the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, +smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself. + +Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, +whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards--the Rue de Rivoli, +the Rue de la Paix--knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April +playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great +stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts +embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city +that lies far away behind the Hotel de Ville and behind the Boulevard +St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely +visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; +but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sevigne, and did not care +whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the +Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel +interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old +French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty +tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the +high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I +tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one +forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always +seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful +domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, +like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries +to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. +One cannot view it--I cannot, at least--without thinking of the great +monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have +learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his +"Etude de Catherine de Medicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and +I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de +Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte +Bouverand de la Loyere, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coetlogon, +La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other +names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. +I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in +the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious +and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the +names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain +that others bearing equally noble names lived there. + +Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth +century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the +Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his +house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most +interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind +to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient +to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion +that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such +sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame +together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the +historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the +sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that +Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this +somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I +looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight +flickered. + +But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the +beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, +tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young +blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I +could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and +single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the +sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are +statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single +figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every +thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of +statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; +no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always +reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was +the only world. + +When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight +than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately +flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone +basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these +gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills +where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his +arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these +gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, +after admiring Fremiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, +appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved +to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken. + +"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, +idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've +been working all day." + +"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might +interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could +not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came +every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread +from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny +little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, +seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin +Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing +the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The +strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their +charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the +beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench +eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?--a model no doubt come from a +studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an _exalte_ or a +_fumist_; a very innocent _fumist_ if he were one, not one +of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know +that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the +frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met +an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, +playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty +April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, +telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to +dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first +opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the +life of the Quarter, in _le bal Bullier_, in my stories of +grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every +student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long +frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his +slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a +week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the +boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes +were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes +Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I +thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, +and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband +still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and +then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her +movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for +her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost +disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her +eyebrows were black, and they nearly met. + +The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner--we had come by +chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother +was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked +very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She +had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her +face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner +her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent +and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk." + +"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that +lovely two-step?" + +Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, +but she had not played many bars before her daughter said: + +"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us." + +I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; +an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not +want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any +opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn +Cake Walk," I said: + +"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?" + +The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague +expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it +was indifference or stupidity. + +"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She +plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life." + +"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate +and----" + +"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play +something for me. + +"I haven't got my keys--they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me +alone; I'm thinking of other things." + +Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred +looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the +illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about +foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a +small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much +better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not +know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else +why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met +some nice Englishmen, but Yankees--oh! Yankees! There was one at +Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are +they not? There was one at Cannes. + +"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I +am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was +given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be +upon me if I gave it away." + +"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her." + +"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always +get sick of me if they see me two days running." + +"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it." + +"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true." + +Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully +than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and +a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked +less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I +could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was +searching for an excuse to send her to bed. + +"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?" + +"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it." + +Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" +but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and +had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face +appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said: + +"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!" + +She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper: + +"Not a word. He's my fiance, and mother doesn't know he's here. She +does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank +you; you played that sonata very nicely." + +"Won't you play, my dear?" + +"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day." + +And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room +to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when +she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened. + +"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiance, +and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell +mamma. He said _'Foi de gentilhomme,_' so I suppose it's all +right." + +"Why not have your fiance in here? I'm going to bed." + +"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my +bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't +matter what people say." + +A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my +shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me +through the open door she said: + +"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I +know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the +world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre +with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?" + +"I never split on any one." + +"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without +leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. +Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to +her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner." + +Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door. + +"_Entre!_" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for +you in the salon." + +When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married +Donald, or said she had. + +"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to +go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we +might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting +to-day?" + +"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never +seen Madame de Sevigne's house." + +"Who is she?" + +"The woman who wrote the famous letters." + +"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books." + +"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the +morning." + +There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out +with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human +that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I +told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sevigne's house. The reader +doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sevigne's +house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her +remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris +wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's +memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it +without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I +felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when +we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent +the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for +her. Madame de Sevigne and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated +ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity +of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that +evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat +in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April +sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these +things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my +mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just +when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens +with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet +we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows +how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the +gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, +thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, +and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and +statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to +find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little +mamma suspected anything. + +"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?" + +"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I +think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit." + +As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past +life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but +since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He +had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a +merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and +just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a +purse of five pounds. + +She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her +attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the +painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to +remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like +his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, +laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young +naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey +sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred +said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. +"He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: +I hate a little man." + +We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation +occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and +I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called +away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me +that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for +she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to +wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the +sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had +posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; +sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore +open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried +to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought +rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could +not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is +antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early +in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed +here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, +notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we +are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. +To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each +other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of +the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the +river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for +her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take +an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these +floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries--how could it be +otherwise since I was there with Mildred?--and I began to argue that +it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind +to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying +like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence. + +"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the +knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater +length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to +the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?" + +"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A +short tibia is not pretty." + +A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that +we are going to Italy next week?" + +"Yes, you told me." + +Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the +statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. +She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same +square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the +square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, +he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days +before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had +become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in +putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice. + +"But you like Donald much better than Toby?" + +"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all +about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do +look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made +Rodin put a woman in that position." + +She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. +Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the +statue was "La Danaide." + +"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his +sculpture may be sometimes called _l'article de Paris_. It is +occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great +exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the +back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the +same." + +"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. +Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about +lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of +these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all +these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no +change." + +"Do you think so? I wonder." + +"Do you doubt it?" + +"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my +life." + +"Not even Donald?" + +"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after +we arrived?" + +"Your wedding night?" + +"Yes, my wedding night." + +We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl +was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she +did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, +she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an +exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and +her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her +instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught +sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little +dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only +floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of +a stream. + +"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be +good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has +been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you +to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma +will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my +nerves." + +"You play the violin, don't you?" + +"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think +was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if +this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or +to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the +hotel." + +"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would +amuse you." + +"I wish I were a grisette." + +"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have +to get on with my painting." + +That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the +morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and +as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away. + +"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, +and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told +you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here." + +"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in +yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to +everybody else as they are to you." + +"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the +first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was +because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that +you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--" + +My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark +was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before +I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you +said--" + +"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like +to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it +would not have mattered to you if I had." + +She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her +seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender +it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or +if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her +fiddle-case with her? + +"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play +now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it." + +These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew +that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing +might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should +sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald. + +"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me." + +"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How +pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight +flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water +dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. +Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case." + +"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I +thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow +morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma +would want to accompany me." + +"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!" + +"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to +anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with +hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end +of the alley reciting his verses. + +"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him." + +"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; +I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour +for playing until your remark about--" + +"About what?" + +"You know very well," she answered. + +The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. +The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the +translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts +into another age. I began to see a picture--myself, the poet, and +this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to +make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet +intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading +his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose +lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed +the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini +whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a +man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why +describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because +its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I +dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive +suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my +pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred +to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must +happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without +sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of +violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and +in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, +advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played +the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined +the others, playing as she danced. + +"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if +they'll let me." + +Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred +as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander +and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up +their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. +Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these +three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one +enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a +noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at +last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode +of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house +which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking +together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the +fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of +mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would +not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune +awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust +the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She +stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so +much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that +God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. +This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be +danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges." + +"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the +youngest sister. + +"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, +and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the +Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine--the true gavotte as it was +danced when Madame de Sevigne drove up in a painted coach drawn by six +horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon." + +This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to +the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the +fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves +along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte +tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the +sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between +the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the +fashion of the time--the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! +How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old +women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until +the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. +After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing +a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before--in +church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long +phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of +Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its +way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has +desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred +could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing +that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? +Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an +echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious +self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged +in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by +another. + +She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and +then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to +play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it +seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady +in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred +Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been +unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows +not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the +ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament--how well Mildred played +it!--followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul +upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in +elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet +saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is +different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but +just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are +deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as +shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things +exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that +hears? + +A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the +great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as +well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of +the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing +and returned to me. + +"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?" + +"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't +play the 'Impassionata.'" + +"Why aren't you always like this?" + +"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I +play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great +deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it." + +We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at +all, thinking of the music. + +"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. +Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall +meet again some day." + +"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and +you're not often in the mood." + +"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better----" + +"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch +you?" + +"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money." + +"And you'll fall in love with some one else?" + +"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this +week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I +like those collars; they have just come out--those turned-down ones. +Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about +three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move +their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour +she liked best--violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor +Donald! He's so handsome." + +After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before +we reached the hotel she who had played--I cannot say for certain what +she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was +not then fully awakened; could it have been?--the names of Bach and +Chopin come up in my mind--"I can't speak about music," she said, as +we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel +possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to +play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," +as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she +looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the +line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic +look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the +hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday. + +"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the +office I saw a Yank--oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather +boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But +presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and +put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So +I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did." + + * * * * * + +I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of +her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose +individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived +many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to +me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing +anything to destroy the mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A REMEMBRANCE + + +It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the +first time--saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. +The next time was in her own home--a farm-house that had been rebuilt +and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy +thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of +harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be +coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted +with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the +parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his +pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down +their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was +effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned +eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day +I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to +study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the +value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of +interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she +passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere +belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had +wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The +Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared +that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest +of the family--another was invented which appealed more to their +imagination--but she held to the name she had given me, and during the +course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. + +There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these +people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we +seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly +there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth +was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw +and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds +when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl +and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was +aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, +and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred +yards--an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the +seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than +shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of +the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might +an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking +up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought +at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by +chance in London. + +Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had +left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was +the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, +walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came +upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part +and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; +life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become +distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was +surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had +appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an +age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and +effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years +older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought +each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became +companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I +liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in +the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded +poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an +old gipsy woman." + +"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet." + +She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. +"It is a regular show." + +"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I +like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to +Brighton." + +"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk." + +"I think I like you equally well at all times." + +We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our +friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you +half as much when I knew you first?" + +"How was that? I was quite a young woman then." + +"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that +time I was a mere boy--I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed +around me." + +"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw +in me was a woman with a grown-up son." + +Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she +said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on +the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate +teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on +that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of +age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I +admired. + +One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown +paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old +_Athenaeums_. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I +could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the +_Athenaeum_ in a house where never a book was read. I looked at +the dates--three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was +gathering some withering apples from the floor. + +"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the +_Athenaeum_ here?" + +"Oh, they are my _Athenaeums_," she said. "I always used to read +the _Athenaeum_ when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. +You must have heard of him--he wrote that famous book about the +Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used +to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built +over now." + +This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us +closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the +odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her +girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her. + +"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you +then I should have asked you to marry me." + +"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read +books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of +books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should +have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father +thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look +after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted +to help us." + +At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them +when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six +months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. +The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I +used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If +I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at +dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate +intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was +in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her +from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain +till this hour in the garden?" + +I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight +confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness +became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would +accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation +with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for +her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to +London. + +The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the +waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in +truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are +some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was +endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on +you over the brink of the grave. + +We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came +back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she +remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her +sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, +and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew +better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of +movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the +old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, +coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the +library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable +drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up +in pieces of paper. + +"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a +girl of fifteen." + +She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old +woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more +to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so +does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something +strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent +charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, +at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time +had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an +affection that formal man knows not of. + +I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. +Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought +it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent +long hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely +on her back, and we supplicated--I was the foremost among her +supplicators--that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and +fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and +to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one +of those who would do everything herself--who thought that if she did +not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of +her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, +everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to +make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work +where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it +became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our +friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, +and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that +with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the +present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I +spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, +looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be +saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to +her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting +through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the +fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in +in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her +husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw +the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, +soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been +married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used +all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I +remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, +Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the +little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet +the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful +with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking +out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, +with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who +was to die. + +"Is it then incurable?" + +"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only +stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, +and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end." + +"Then there is no hope?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Can she live for five years?" + +"I should think it extremely improbable." + +"What length of life do you give her?" + +"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year." + +The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly +sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. +That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, +very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: +"Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my +work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters +telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death +grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in +person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter +came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the +winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another +month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at +once." + +It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the +Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its +jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station +shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and +beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for +the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and +welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping +in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How +is she?" + +"Very bad indeed, sir." + +She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we +waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what +remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these +lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into +disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great +our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other +things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not +escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we +commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will +not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over +Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." +Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is +dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts." + +One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my +return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, +and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." +I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came +downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before +she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before +sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor +arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little +child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was +given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were +glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing +grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she +was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were +collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains +undone! How will they get on without me!" + +I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and +expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving +wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of +sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when +they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And +during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her +dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not +be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but +it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the +price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered +with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed +with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember +the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of +the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral +procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on +a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line +and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on +my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old +church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn +village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees +showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were +discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's +arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the +grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the +altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked +unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, +impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into +that comfortless hole. + +The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the +deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable +and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those +who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology +to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered +to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely +disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young +corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, +larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we +approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded +pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at +the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that +anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to +cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, +dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its +way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had +loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a +shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the +pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered +that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her +he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely +personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the +world offering to its creatures. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BRING IN THE LAMP + + +For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the +landscape reminds me of a somnambulist--the same silence, the same +mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even +the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The +hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, +the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night +a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were +few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars +hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last +days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. +At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no +doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves +hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, +and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say +whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the +blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks +in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, +benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a +painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are +forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins +in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or +little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last +seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, +or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of +pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his +writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are +written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker +green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when +his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh +forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his +garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than +the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories +any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? +Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium +which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and +his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the +easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will +seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the +horse is pumping water--water is necessary; but art, even if his work +is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary +to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world +can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that +is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have +to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts +say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, +otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He +asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an +idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! +Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His +thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It +would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South +America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. +He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to +horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by +the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping +through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by +leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the +air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But +if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can +the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? +His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the +evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell +of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. +No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to +write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story +shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it +forming part of the procession of things? The best part of +story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of +church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long +tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the +homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps +the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage +enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire +lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch +of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in +his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze +of the flesh the spirit awakes. What--is the story coming now? Yes; it +is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take +shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he +sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young +men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to +the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a +waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him--a +waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since +forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he +able to remember that _coda_, and it comes with a scent of +violets in it--the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she +dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice +was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear _crepe de +chime_, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill +about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after +marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of +the world, from America--Baltimore will do as well as any other, +perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion +whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by +mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her +come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street--Cathedral +Street--there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of +the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose +Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an +informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her +husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be +dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass +between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the +dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and +women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the +women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon +her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook +between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. +She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or +jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are +these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should +take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her +dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to +keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A +little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material +existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that +one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the +Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no +denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious +than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is +rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what +we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is +going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are +going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as +he passes the _concierge's_ lodge, pitying the poor couple +asleep--what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience +the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, +words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his +writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song +moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume--the +handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a +rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her +tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him--where? No better place +for lovers than the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite. His night passes +in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking +he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how +carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him +better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet +or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and +what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five +going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and +forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite? He knows +she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at +ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the +nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another +occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the +prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of +existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. +He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have +done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the +gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in +black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover +going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, +hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to +breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common +pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on +the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of +the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her +that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is +whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going +to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been +there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place +where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be +again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they +go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast. + +The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding--like +gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining--all is +omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What +a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance +in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket--he must read +it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty +years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees +and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon--for +all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is +made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object +of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, +to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. +Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the +blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable +setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits--the dreamer +can see her on the warm grass--hidden as well as she can hide herself +behind some bushes, the black crepe dress hiding her feet or +pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears +white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little +black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; +the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young +man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem +pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her +affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the +night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him +many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to +bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the +beauty of her blond hair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + May flowers are not more sweet + Than the shower of loosened hair + That will fall around my feet. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "The golden curls they paint, + Round the forehead of a saint, + Ne'er glittered half so bright + As thy enchanted hair, + Full of shadow, full of light. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair, + And weave a web of gold + Of thy enchanted hair, + Till all be in its hold. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair." + +"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by +'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a +web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'--do you mean unloose my hair?" + + "Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds + Qui sont si lourds et si longs. + +"How well it goes with French!" + +"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you +know, I like it very much!" + +It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the +mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that +it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he +sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers +the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly +sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries +to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was +reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked +him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he +must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had +she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is +not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote +that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the +phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should +think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man +prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be +paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her +hair unwreathed. + +"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" +and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer +can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, +how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! +On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be +doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he +refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of +Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has +just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a +bench at a little distance. + +"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us." + +"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, +before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed." + +Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away +even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. +The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He +insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from +him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the +season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get +something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet. + +Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this +restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a _cabinet +particulier_, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, +would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over +with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear +reader, if you are expecting a _cabinet particulier_ in this +story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page +at once--you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains +nothing that will shock your--shall I say your "prudish +susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured +American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the +great long _salle_ lined with tables, and they were attended by +an army of waiters weary of their leisure. + +There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it +and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes +of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty +reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished +story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, +how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a +sensual _denouement_ be a better end than, let us say, that the +lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an +accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at +the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers +of Vincennes rushing into one of the _concierge's_ lodges at the +gates of the villas. + +"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon." + +But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three +umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for +herself. + +"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes." + +"No more I do." + +"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that +Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)." + +"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go--it will be +rather fun." + +"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?" + +"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?" + +The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex +mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them +clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the +villa to the _perron_--an explicit word that the English language +lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at +Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both +a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? +A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their +host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered +sofas and chairs. + +A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller +could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller +would see at once that _le bon bourgeois et sa dame_ and the +children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for +the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that +the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the +rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers +from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After +dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of +neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose +than that it was _la bourgeoise's_ evening at home? The young +couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own +sweet selves. _Le bourgeois et sa dame_ would watch them with +kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there +were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined +that they must depart, _le bourgeois_ and _la bourgeoise_ +would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no +possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little +situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage--on the +French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman +to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with +the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, +"did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in +allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished +story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had +acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not +being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say +how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous +thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The +situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not +happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that +the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their +adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made +to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or +the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already +taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end +of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between +us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a +big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It +would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' +invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an +impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun +again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the +train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did +not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all +with the _bourgeois et sa dame_, and the dear little widow might +never have known her fate--O happy fate!--until the time came for them +to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the +rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come +back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he +must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should +give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in +the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next +time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the +story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a +year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know +that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief +which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps +some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am +sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had +taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he +wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so +well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was +not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty +years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, +and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but +change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always +overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a +stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are +pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the +unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there +is no hope, not a particle. + + * * * * * + +I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my +feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there +no light? Bring in the lamp!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + + +Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? +Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or +ten at the Cafe Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on +the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on +the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the +tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps +spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we +will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the +reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the +unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives +resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom +and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely +thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we +are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are +together. + +At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to +put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if +he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom +shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and +after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the +northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's +Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who +will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round +of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin +with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is +interesting company he seeks. + +It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how +different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was +Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins +about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that +evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had +enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences +refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and +the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass +the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was +to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in +St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had +fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been +divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along +the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or +seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of landscape- +gardening is more akin to the art of a musician than to that of +a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The +formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by +Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the +Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a +boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, +but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but +after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the +silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight +stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the +shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so +beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy +to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, +ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled +shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. +Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead--that was his fault; but +Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the +pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows +are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great +designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples--those +pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? +Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist +and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from +Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his +own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say. + +Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the +tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in +illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to +look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards +shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I +may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what +interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's +Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset--there is the lake, and, +led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of +Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts +occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of +the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little +life of the ponds--the ducks going hither and thither, every duck +intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely +fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more +beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of +the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage +hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the +ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century +couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was +to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies +are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, +too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main +business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all +returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was +surely because it was part of me--not that part known to my friends; +our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they +discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or +herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply +interested in the fact when attention was called to it.... + +I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying--solemnly silent +and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a +breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! +In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more +beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very +subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness +did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like +plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the +deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park +for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. +But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures +flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of +festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which +all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered +dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that +they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the +sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, +great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the +fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing +and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, +the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the +satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged +for a guitar. + +As the twilight gathered under the plane trees my vision became more +mixed and morbid, and I hardly knew if the picture I saw was the +picture in the Dulwich Gallery or the exquisite picture in the Louvre, +"Une Assemblee dans la Parc." We all know that picture, the gallants +and the ladies by the water-side, and the blue evening showing through +the tall trees. The picture before me was like that picture, only the +placing of the trees and the slope of the greensward did not admit of +so extended a composition. A rough tree-trunk, from which a great +branch had been broken or lopped off, stood out suddenly in very +nineteenth-century naturalness, awaking the ghost of a picture which I +recognised at once as Corot. Behind the tree a tender, evanescent sky, +pure and transparent as the very heart of a flower, rose up, filling +the park with romance, and as the sunset drooped upon the water, my +soul said, "The Lake!" Ah, the pensive shadow that falls from the +hills on either side of "The Lake," leaving the middle of the picture +suffused with a long stream of light, narrowing as it approached the +low horizon. But the line of the trees on the hither side of this +London lake was heavier than the spiritual trees in the picture +entitled "By the Water-side," and there was not anywhere the beauty of +the broken birch that leans over the lake in "Le Lac de Garde." Then I +thought of "The Ravine," for the darkening island reminded me of the +hillside in the picture. But the St. James's Park sky lacked the +refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, +low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the +right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the +difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is +anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity--self! Therefore +not quite so interesting as a good Corot. + +So did I chatter to myself as I walked toward the bridge, that dear +bridge, thrown straight as a plank across the lake, with numerous +water-fowl collected there, a black swan driving the ducks about, +snatching more than his due share of bread, and little children +staring stolidly, afraid of the swan, and constantly reproved by their +mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A +little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the +waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their +webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round +the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with +outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into +the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, which +the night instantly obliterated. + +An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. +One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise +after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we +like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all +our poets and priests. + +The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding +me that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining +alone I should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had +not lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, +and meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the +absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting +with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it +would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the +dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one +appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young +man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we +went to a restaurant to talk art. + +"After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about +the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women +hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them +all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an +enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the +ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me +extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last +that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all +socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which +obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that +somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight +London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent +Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of +his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." + + * * * * * + +The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken +sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... +I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I +said: + +"He reminds me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping +sensualities of his phrase--his one phrase--how descriptive it is of +the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's +muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on +silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of +embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries of bronze lamps. Or, +maybe, the scene passes on a terrace overlooking a dark river. Behind +the domes and minarets a yellow moon dreams like an odalisque, her +hand on the circle of her breast; and through the torrid silence of +the garden, through the odour of over-ripe fruit and the falling sound +thereof, comes the melancholy warble of a fountain. Or is it the +sorrow of lilies rising through the languid air to the sky? The night +is blue and breathless; the spasms of the lightning are intermittent +among the minarets and the domes; the hot, fierce fever of the garden +waxes in the almond scent of peaches and the white odalisques +advancing, sleek oracles of mood.... He reminds me of the dark-eyed +Bohemian who comes into a tavern silently, and, standing in a corner, +plays long, wild, ravishing strains. I see him not, I hardly hear him; +my thoughts are far away; my soul slumbers, desiring nothing. I care +not to lift my head. Why should I break the spell of my meditations? +But I feel that his dark eyes are fixed upon me, and little by little, +in spite of my will, my senses awake; a strange germination is in +progress within me; thoughts and desires that I dread, of whose +existence in myself I was not aware, whose existence in myself I would +fain deny, come swiftly and come slowly, and settle and absorb and +become part of me.... Fear is upon me, but I may not pause; I am +hurried on; repudiation is impossible, supplication and the wringing +of hands are vain; God has abandoned me; my worst nature is uppermost. +I see it floating up from the depths of my being, a viscous scum. But +I can do nothing to check or control.... God has abandoned me.... I am +the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable +fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him +all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The +Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and +forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, +its mankind and its godkind--surely it is nearer to life! Or go into +the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! +We are nearer life lying by a shady brook, hearing the quail in the +meadows and the yellow-hammer in the thicket, than we are now, under +this oppressive sky. This street is like Klinsor's garden; here, too, +are flower-maidens--patchouli, jessamine, violet. Here is the +languorous atmosphere of "Parsifal." Come, let us go; let us seek the +country, the moon-haunted dells we shall see through Piccadilly +railings. Have you ever stood in the dip of Piccadilly and watched the +moonlight among the trees, and imagined a comedy by Wycherley acted +there, a goodly company of gallants and fine ladies seated under the +trees watching it? Every one has come there in painted sedan-chairs; +the bearers are gathered together at a little distance." + +"My dear friend, you're talking so much that you don't see those who +are passing us. That girl, she who has just turned to look back, +favours heliotrope; it is delicious still upon the air; she is as +pretty a girl as any that ever came in a sedan-chair to see a comedy +by Wycherley. The comedy varies very little: it is always the same +comedy, and it is always interesting. The circus in a sultry summer +night under a full moon is very like Klinsor's garden. Come, if you be +not _Parsifal_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RESURGAM + + +I was in London when my brother wrote telling me that mother was ill. +She was not in any immediate danger, he said, but if a change for the +worse were to take place, and it were necessary for me to come over, +he would send a telegram. A few hours after a telegram was handed to +me. It contained four words: "_Come at once.--Maurice._" "So +mother is dying," I muttered to myself, and I stood at gaze, +foreseeing myself taken into her room by a nurse and given a chair by +the bedside, foreseeing a hand lying outside the bed which I should +have to hold until I heard the death-rattle and saw her face become +quiet for ever. + +This was my first vision, but in the midst of my packing, I remembered +that mother might linger for days. The dear friend who lies in the +church-yard under the downs lingered for weeks; every day her husband +and her children saw her dying under their eyes: why should not this +misfortune be mine? I know not to what God, but I prayed all night in +the train, and on board the boat; I got into the train at the +Broadstone praying. It is impossible, at least for me, to find words +to express adequately the agony of mind I endured on that journey. +Words can only hint at it, but I think that any one possessed of any +experience of life, or who has any gift of imagination, will be able +to guess at the terror that haunted me--terror of what?--not so much +that my mother might die, nor hope that she might live, but just that +I might arrive in time to see her die. In this confession I am afraid +I shall seem hard and selfish to some; that will be because many +people lack imagination, or the leisure to try to understand that +there are not only many degrees of sensibility, but many kinds, and it +is doubtful if any reader can say with truth any more than that my +sensibility is not his or hers. It is my privilege to be sympathetic +with ideas I do not share, and in certain moods I approach those who +take a sad pleasure in last words, good-byes, and at looking on the +dead. In my present mood it seems to me that it is not unlikely that +my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in +imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can +be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of +what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our +perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. +There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we +should not be able to live at all. + +But to the journey. How shall I tell it? The third part must have been +the most painful, so clearly do I remember it: the curious agony of +mind caused by a sudden recognition of objects long forgotten--a tree +or a bit of bog-land. The familiar country, evocative of a great part +of my childhood, carried my thoughts hither and thither. My thoughts +ranged like the swallows; the birds had no doubt just arrived, and in +swift elliptical flights they hunted for gnats along the banks of the +old weedy canal. That weedy canal along which the train travelled took +my thoughts back to the very beginning of my life, when I stood at the +carriage window and plagued my father and mother with questions +regarding the life of the barges passing up and down. And it was the +sudden awakenings from these memories that were so terrible--the +sudden thrust of the thought that I was going westward to see my +mother die, and that nothing could save her from death or me from +seeing her die. Perhaps to find one's self suddenly deprived of all +will is the greatest suffering of all. How many times did I say to +myself, "Nothing can save me unless I get out at the next station," +and I imagined myself taking a car and driving away through the +country! But if I did such a thing I should be looked upon as a +madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think +how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were +selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it +all, must be perhaps the greatest part of their pain. + +The morning was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I used +to catch myself thinking out a picturesque expression to describe it. +It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked +so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast +feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton +made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to +provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on +instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself +plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility of keeping one's +thoughts fixed on any one subject for any considerable length of time. +At the end of these reflections I fell back, wondering, again asking +if I were really destined to watch by my mother's death-bed. That day +I seemed to become a sheer mentality, a sort of buzz of thought, and I +could think of myself only as of a fly climbing a glass dome. It +seemed to me that I was like a fly climbing and falling back, buzzing, +and climbing again. "Never," I said to myself, "have I been more than +a fly buzzing in a glass dome. And, good Lord, who made the glass +dome?" How often did I ask myself that question, and why it was made, +and if it were going to endure for ever! + +In such sore perplexity of mind questions from anybody would be +intolerable, and I shrank back into the corner of the carriage +whenever a passer-by reminded me, however vaguely, of anybody I had +ever known; the mental strain increased mile after mile, for the names +of the stations grew more familiar. I began to try to remember how +many there were before we arrived at Claremorris, the station at which +I was going to get out. Half an hour afterward the train slackened, +the porter cried out "Ballyhaunis." The next would be Claremorris, and +I watched every field, foreseeing the long road, myself on one side of +the car, the driver on the other; a two hours' drive in silence or in +talk--in talk, for I should have to tell him my errand.... He might be +able to tell me about my mother, if the news of her illness had got as +far as Claremorris. At the public-house where I went to get a car I +made inquiries, but nothing was known. My mother must have fallen ill +suddenly--of what? I had not heard she was ailing; I did not remember +her ever to have been ill. At that moment some trees reminded me that +we were close to Ballyglass, and my thoughts wandered away to the long +road on the other side of the hill, and I saw there (for do we not +often see things in memory as plainly as if they were before us?) the +two cream-coloured ponies, Ivory and Primrose, she used to drive, and +the phaeton, and myself in it, a little child in frocks, anxious, +above all things, to see the mail-coach go by. A great sight it was to +see it go by with mail-bags and luggage, the guard blowing a horn, the +horses trotting splendidly, the lengthy reins swinging, and the +driver, his head leaned a little on one side to save his hat from +being blown away--he used to wear a grey beaver hat. The great event +of that time was the day that we went to Ballyglass, not to see the +coach go by, but to get into it, for in those days the railway stopped +at Athenry. And that was the day I saw the canal, and heard with +astonishment that there was a time long ago, no doubt in my father's +youth, when people used to go to Dublin in a barge. Those memories +were like a stupor, and awaking suddenly I saw that more than two and +a half miles lay between me and my mother. In half an hour more I +should know whether she were alive or dead, and I watched the horse +trotting, interested in his shambling gait, or not at all interested +in it--I do not know which. On occasions of great nervous tension one +observes everything.... Everything I remembered best appeared with +mechanical regularity; now it was a wood, a while afterward somebody's +farmyard, later on a line of cottages, another wood, one of my own +gate lodges. An old sawyer lived in it now--looking after it for me; +and I hoped that the wheels of the car would not bring him out, for it +would distress me to see him. The firs in the low-lying land had grown +a little within the last thirty years, but not much. We came to the +bridge; we left it behind us; the gate lodge and the drive from it; +the plantation that I knew so well, the lilac bushes, the laburnums +--good Heavens! How terrible was all this resurrection! Mists hide the +mountains from us, the present hides the past; but there are times +when the present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared +away, and the past confronts us in naked outline, and that perhaps is +why it is so painful to me to return home. The little hill at the +beginning of the drive is but a little hill, but to me it is much +more, so intimately is it associated with all the pains and troubles +of childhood. All this park was once a fairyland to me; now it is but +a thin reality, a book which I have read, and the very thought of +which bores me, so well do I know it. There is the lilac bush! I used +to go there with my mother thirty years ago at this time of year, and +we used to come home with our hands full of bloom. Two more turnings +and we should be within sight of the house! This is how men feel when +condemned to death. I am sure of it. At the last hill the driver +allowed his horse to fall into a walk, but I begged of him to drive on +the horse, for I saw some peasants about the steps of the hall door; +they were waiting, no doubt, for news, or perhaps they had news. "We +have bad news for you," they cried in the wailing tones of the West. + +"Not altogether bad news," I said to myself; "my mother is dead, but I +have been saved the useless pain, the torture of spirit, I should have +endured if I had arrived in time." China roses used to grow over the +railings; very few blooms were left. I noticed just a few as I ran up +the high steps, asking myself why I could not put the past behind me. +If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but +never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I +opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and +painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that +corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying, +showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will +show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning +of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to +spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see +his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put +his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country, +and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How +the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning +my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which +the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear! + +In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was +there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died +that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of +our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness +unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is +why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a +little shocked at my own insensibility. This was stupid of me, for I +knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately +after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But +in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect; +one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable +as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister +could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's +goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It +even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she +might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the +specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had +blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have +submitted to an operation. + +While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk +of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A +Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her +husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I +at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her +suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the +butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready. How these incidents +jar our finer feelings! They seem to degrade life, and to such a point +that we are ashamed of living, and are tempted to regard life itself +as a disgrace. + +I foresaw that the same interruptions, the same devagations, would +happen among ourselves in the square Georgian house standing on a +hill-top overlooking a long winding lake, as had happened among my +friends in the Italian house under the downs amid bunches of evergreen +oaks. Nor had I to wait long for one of these unhappy devagations. My +sister had to tell me who was staying in the house: an aunt was there, +my mother's sister, and an uncle, my mother's brother, was coming over +next day. It is easy to guess how the very mention of these names +beguiled us from what should be the subject of our thought. And the +room itself supplied plenty of distractions: all the old furniture, +the colour of the walls, the very atmosphere of the room took my +thought back to my childhood. The sofa on which my sister was sitting +had been broken years ago, and I unwittingly remembered how it had +been broken. It had been taken away to a lumber-room; somebody had had +it mended. I began to wonder who had done this--mother, most likely; +she looked after every thing. I have said that I had just arrived +after a long journey. I had eaten nothing since the night before. My +sister spoke of lunch and we went into the dining-room, and in the +middle of the meal my brother came in looking so very solemn that I +began to wonder if he had assumed the expression he thought +appropriate to the occasion--I mean if he had involuntarily +exaggerated the expression of grief he would naturally wear. We are so +constituted that the true and the false overlap each other, and so +subtly that no analysis can determine where one ends and the other +begins. I remembered how the relatives and the friends on the day of +the funeral in Sussex arrived, each one with a very grave face, +perchance interrupting us in the middle of some trivial conversation; +if so, we instantly became grave and talked of the dead woman +sympathetically for a few minutes; then on the first opportunity, and +with a feeling of relief, we began to talk of indifferent things; and +with every fresh arrival the comedy was re-acted. Returning from the +past to the present, I listened to my brother, who was speaking of the +blunder that had been made: how a wrong doctor had come down owing +to--the fault was laid upon somebody, no matter upon whom; the subject +was a painful one and might well have been dropped, but he did not +dare to talk of anything but our mother, and we all strove to carry on +the conversation as long as possible. But my brother and I had not +seen each other for years; he had come back from India after a long +absence. Nor, I think, had I seen my sister since she was married, and +that was a long while ago; she had had children; I had not seen her +before in middle age. We were anxious to ask each other questions, to +hear each other's news, and we were anxious to see the landscape that +we had not seen, at least not together, for many years; and I remember +how we were tempted out of the house by the soft sunlight floating on +the lawn. The same gentle day full of mist and sunlight that I had +watched since early morning had been prolonged, and the evening +differed hardly from the morning; the exaltation in the air was a +little more intense. My mother died certainly on the most beautiful +day I had ever seen, the most winsome, the most white, the most +wanton, as full of love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a +spray of hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I wonder why +death should have come to any one on such a bridal-like day. That we +should expect Nature to prepare a decoration in accordance with our +moods is part of the old savagery. Through reason we know that Nature +cares for us not at all, that our sufferings concern her not in the +least, but our instincts conform to the time when the sun stood still +and angels were about. It was impossible for us not to wonder why the +black shadow of death should have fallen across the white radiant day. +I say "us," for my brother no doubt pondered the coincidence, though +he did not speak his thoughts to me. No one dares to speak such +thoughts; they are the foolish substance of ourselves which we try to +conceal from others, forgetting that we are all alike. The day moved +slowly from afternoon to evening, like a bride hidden within a white +veil, her hands and her veil filled with white blossom; but a black +bird, tiny like a humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, +and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister black speck that +had intruded itself upon it. No doubt I could think of something +better were I to set my mind upon doing so, but that is how I thought +the day I walked on the lawn with my brother, ashamed and yet +compelled to talk of what our lives had been during the years that +separated us. How could one be overpowered with grief amid so many +distracting circumstances? Everything I saw was at once new and old. I +had come among my brother and sister suddenly, not having seen them, +as I have said, for many years; this was our first meeting since +childhood, and we were assembled in the house where we had all been +born. The ivy grown all over one side of the house, the disappearance +of the laburnum, the gap in the woods--these things were new; but the +lake that I had not seen since a little child I did not need to look +at, so well did I know how every shore was bent, and the place of +every island. My first adventures began on that long yellow strand; I +did not need to turn my head to see it, for I knew that trees +intervened and I knew the twisting path through the wood. That yellow +strand speckled with tufts of rushes was my first playground. But when +my brother proposed that we should walk there, I found some excuse; +why go? The reality would destroy the dream. What reality could equal +my memory of the firs where the rabbits burrowed, of the drain where +we fished for minnows, of the long strand with the lake far away in +summertime? How well I remember that yellow sand, hard and level in +some places as the floor of a ball-room. The water there is so shallow +that our governess used to allow us to wander at will, to run on ahead +in pursuit of a sandpiper. The bird used to fly round with little +cries; and we often used to think it was wounded; perhaps it pretended +to be wounded in order to lead us away from its nest. We did not think +it possible to see the lake in any new aspect, yet there it lay as we +had never seen it before, so still, so soft, so grey, like a white +muslin scarf flowing out, winding past island and headland. The +silence was so intense that one thought of the fairy-books of long +ago, of sleeping woods and haunted castles; there were the castles on +islands lying in misted water, faint as dreams. Now and then a bird +uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall +larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft +murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. +Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island +seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror--a mirror that somebody had +breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about +the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear eternity murmuring its sad +monotony. + +The lake curves inland, forming a pleasant bay among the woods; there +is a sandy spit where some pines have found roothold, and they live on +somehow despite the harsh sallies of the wind in winter. Along the +shore dead reeds lie in rows three feet deep among the rushes; had +they been placed there by hand they could not have been placed with +more regularity; and there is an old cart-track, with hawthorns +growing out of a tumbled wall. The hillside is planted--beautiful +beeches and hollies at one end, and at the other some lawny +interspaces with tall larches swaying tasselled branches shedding +faint shadows. These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads +through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a +seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some +reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a +child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the +knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the +end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was +taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my +father was taken there. + +What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear +again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up +with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman +no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others +with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all +wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon +they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a +funeral! + +Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked +that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the +elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer +lingered there. And the interval between her death and her burial I +spent along the lake's shore. The same weather continued day after +day, and it is almost impossible to find words to express the beauty +of the grey reflection of the islands and the reeds, and the faint +evanescent shores floating away, disappearing in the sun-haze, and the +silence about the shores, a kind of enchanted silence, interrupted, as +I have said, only by the low gurgle of the water about the limestone +shingle. Now and then the song of a bird would break out, and all was +silence again.... "A silence that seems to come out of the very heart +of things!" I said, and I stopped to listen, like one at the world's +end; I walked on, wondering, through the rushes and tussocked grass +and juniper bushes which grew along the wilding shore, along the edge +of the wood. Coming from the town, I could not but admire the +emptiness of the country; hardly ever did I hear the sound of a human +voice or a footstep; only once did I meet some wood-gatherers, poor +women carrying bundles of faggots, bent under their loads. And +thinking that perchance I knew them--they were evidently from the +village; if so, I must have known them when I was a boy--I was +suddenly seized by an unaccountable dread or a shyness, occasioned no +doubt by the sense of the immense difference that time had effected in +us: they were the same, but I was different. The books I had pondered +and the pictures I had seen had estranged me from them, simple souls +that they were; and the consciousness of the injustice of the human +lot made it a pain to me to look into their eyes. So I was glad to be +able to pass behind some bushes, and to escape into the wood without +their perceiving me. + +And coming upon pleasant interspaces, pleasanter even than those that +lingered in my memory, I lay down, for, though the days were the first +days of May, the grass was long and warm and ready for the scythe, the +tasselled branches of the tall larches swung faintly in a delicious +breeze, and the words of the old Irish poet came into my mind, "The +wood was like a harp in the hands of a harper." To see the boughs, to +listen to them, seemed a sufficient delight, and I began to admire the +low sky full of cotton-like clouds, and the white flower that was +beginning to light up the little leaves of the hedgerow, and I suppose +it was the May-flower that drew down upon me a sudden thought of the +beloved girl lost to me for ever. My mother's death had closed that +wound a little, but in a moment all my grief reappeared, the wound +gaped again, and it was impossible to stanch the bleeding. + +A man cannot lament two women at the same time, and only a month ago +the most beautiful thing that had ever appeared in my life, an idea +which I knew from the first I was destined to follow, had appeared to +me, had stayed with me for a while, and had passed from me. All the +partial loves of my youth seemed to find expression at last in a +passion that would know no change. Who shall explain the mystery of +love that time cannot change? Fate is the only word that conveys any +idea of it, for of what use to say that her hair was blond and thick, +that her eyes were grey and blue? I had known many women before her, +and many had hair and eyes as fine and as deep as hers. But never one +but she had had the indispensable quality of making me feel I was more +intensely alive when she was by me than I was when she was away. It +is that tingle of life that we are always seeking, and that perhaps we +must lose in order to retain. On such a day, under the swaying +branches of the larches, the whiteness of the lake curving so +beautifully amid low shores could not fail to remind me of her body, +and its mystery reminded me of her mystery; but the melancholy line of +mountains rippling down the southern sky was not like her at all. One +forgets what is unlike, caring only to dwell upon what is like.... +Thinking of her my senses grow dizzy, a sort of madness creeps up +behind the eyes. What an exquisite despair is this--that one shall +never possess that beautiful personality again, sweet-scented as the +May-time, that I shall never hold that dainty oval face in my hands +again, shall look into those beautiful eyes no more, that all the +intimacy of her person is now but a memory never to be renewed by +actual presence--in these moments of passionate memory one experiences +real grief, a pang that never has found expression perchance except in +Niobe; even that concentration of features is more an expression of +despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that +prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned +her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her +virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I +lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, +her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I +should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now, +intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking, +the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost +in losing her. + +We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the +pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of +our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best +thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if +her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be +beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be +loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of +her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him +for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to +him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was +thinking of myself when shame prevented me from going to meet the poor +wood-gatherers; they would not have thought at all of the injustice of +having been left to the labour of the fields while I had gone forth to +enjoy the world; they would have been interested to see me again, and +a few kind words would have made their load seem easier on their +backs. Called back by a sudden association of ideas, I began to +consider that shameful injustice is undoubtedly a part of our human +lot, for we may only grieve passionately for the casual, or what seems +the merely casual; perhaps because the ultimate law is hidden from us; +I am thinking now of her who comes suddenly into our lives tempting us +with colour, fugitive as that of a flower, luring us with light as +rapid as the light shed from the wings of a dove. Why, I asked myself, +as I lay under the larches, are we to mourn transitory delight so +intensely, why should it possess us more entirely than the sorrow that +we experience for her who endured the labour of child-bearing, who +nourished us perchance at her breast, whose devotion to us was +unceasing, and who grew kindlier and more divorced from every thought +of self as the years went by? From injustice there can be no escape, +not a particle. At best we can, indeed we must, acquiesce in the fact +that the only sorrow to be found in our hearts for aged persons is a +sort of gentle sorrow, such as the year itself administers to our +senses in autumn, when we come home with our hands full of the +beautiful single dahlias that the Dutchmen loved and painted, bound up +with sprays of reddening creepers; we come home along the sunny roads +over which the yellow beeches lean so pathetically, and we are sad for +the year, but we do not grieve passionately; our hearts do not break. + +Then again we cannot grieve as the conventions would have us +grieve--in strange dress; the very fact of wearing crepe and black +gloves alienates us from our real selves; we are no longer ourselves, +we are mummers engaged in the performance of a masque. I could have +mourned my mother better without crepe. "There never has been invented +anything so horrible as the modern funeral," I cried out. A picture of +the hearse and the mutes rose up in my mind, and it was at that very +moment that the song of the bird broke out again, and just above my +head in the larches an ugly, shrilling song of about a dozen notes +with an accent on the two last, a stupid, tiresome stave that never +varied. "What bird can it be," I cried out, "that comes to interrupt +my meditations?" and getting up I tried to discover it amid the +branches of the tree under which I had been lying. It broke out again +in another tree a little farther away, and again in another. I +followed it, and it led me round the wood towards the hilltop to the +foot of the steps, two short flights; the second flight, or part of it +at least, has to be removed when the vault is opened. It consists, no +doubt, of a single chamber with shelves along either side; curiosity +leads few into vaults not more than a hundred years old; above the +vault is the monument, a very simple one, a sort of table built in, +and when my father was buried, a priest scrambled up or was lifted up +by the crowd, and he delivered a funeral oration from the top of it. + +That day the box edgings were trampled under foot, and all the flowers +in the beds. My mother, perhaps, cared little for flowers, or she did +not live here sufficiently long to see that this garden was carefully +tended; for years there were no children to come here for a walk, and +it was thought sufficient to keep in repair the boundary wall so that +cattle should not get in. No trees were cut here when the Woods were +thinned, and the pines and the yews have grown so thickly that the +place is overshadowed; and the sepulchral dark is never lifted even at +midday. At the back of the tomb, in the wood behind it, the headstones +of old graves show above the ground, though the earth has nearly +claimed them; only a few inches show above the dead leaves; all this +hillside must have been a graveyard once, hundreds of years ago, and +this ancient graveyard has never been forgotten by me, principally on +account of something that happened long ago when I was a little child. +The mystery of the wood used to appeal to my curiosity, but I never +dared to scramble over the low wall until one day, leaving my +governess, who was praying by the tomb, I discovered a gap through +which I could climb. My wanderings were suddenly brought to an end by +the appearance, or the fancied appearance, of somebody in a brown +dress--a woman I thought it must be; she seemed to float along the +ground, and I hurried back, falling and hurting myself severely in my +hurry to escape through the gap. So great was my fear that I spoke not +of my hurt to my governess, but of the being I had seen, beseeching of +her to come back; but she would not come back, and this fact impressed +me greatly. I said to myself, "If she didn't believe somebody was +there she'd come back." The fear endured for long afterwards; and I +used to beg of her not to cross the open space between the last shift +of the wood and the tomb itself. We can re-live in imagination an +emotion already experienced. Everything I had felt when I was a child +about the mysterious hollows in the beech wood behind the tomb and the +old stone there, and the being I had seen clothed in a brown cloak, I +could re-live again, but the wood enkindled no new emotion in me. +Everything seemed very trivial. The steps leading to the tomb, the +tomb itself, the boundary wall, and the enchanted wood was now no more +than a mere ordinary plantation. There were a few old stones showing +through the leaves, that is all. Marvels never cease; in youth one +finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner +life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I +should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down +to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery +also a dream, an imagination? Which is the truth--that experience robs +the earth of its mystery, or that we have changed so that the +evanescent emanations which we used suddenly to grow aware of, and +which sometimes used to take shape, are still there, only our eyes are +no longer capable of perceiving them? May not this be so?--for as one +sense develops, another declines. The mystic who lives on the hillside +in the edge of a cave, pondering eternal rather than ephemeral things, +obtains glimpses, just as the child does, of a life outside this life +of ours. Or do we think these things because man will not consent to +die like a plant? Wondering if a glimpse of another life had once been +vouchsafed to me when my senses were more finely wrought, I descended +the hillside; the bird, probably a chaffinch, repeated its cry without +any variation. I went down the hillside and lay in the shadow of the +tasselled larches, trying to convince myself that I had not hoped to +see the brown lady, if it were a lady I had seen, bending over the +stones of the old burial-ground. + + +One day the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of a mason's +hammer, and on making inquiry from a passing workman--his hodman +probably--I learned that on opening the vault it had been discovered +that there was not room for another coffin. But no enlargement of the +vault was necessary; a couple of more shelves was all that would be +wanted for many a year to come. His meaning was not to be +mistaken--when two more shelves had been added there would be room for +my brothers, myself, and my sister, but the next generation would have +to order that a further excavation be made in the hill or look out for +a new burial-ground. He stood looking at me, and I watched for a +moment a fine young man whose eyes were pale as the landscape, and I +wondered if he expected me to say that I was glad that things had +turned out very well.... The sound of the mason's hammer got upon my +nerves, and feeling the wood to be no longer a place for meditation, I +wandered round the shore as far as the old boat-house, wondering how +it was that the words of a simple peasant could have succeeded in +producing such a strange revulsion of feeling in me. No doubt it was +the intensity with which I realised the fact that we are never far +from death, none of us, that made it seem as if I were thinking on +this subject for the first time. As soon as we reach the age of +reflection the thought of death is never long out of our minds. It is +a subject on which we are always thinking. We go to bed thinking that +another day has gone, that we are another day nearer our graves. Any +incident suffices to remind us of death. That very morning I had seen +two old blue-bottles huddled together in the corner of a pane, and at +once remembered that a term of life is set out for all things--a few +months for the blue-bottle, a few years for me. One forgets how one +thought twenty years ago, but I am prone to think that even the young +meditate very often upon death; it must be so, for all their books +contain verses on the mutability of things, and as we advance in years +it would seem that we think more and more on this one subject, for +what is all modern literature but a reek of regret that we are but +bubbles on a stream? I thought that nothing that could be said on this +old subject could move me, but that boy from Derryanny had brought +home to me the thought that follows us from youth to age better than +literature could have done; he had exceeded all the poets, not by any +single phrase--it was more his attitude of mind towards death (towards +my death) that had startled me--and as I walked along the shore I +tried to remember his words. They were simple enough, no doubt, so +simple that I could not remember them, only that he had reminded me +that Michael Malia, that was the mason's name, had known me since I +was a little boy; I do not know how he got it out; I should not have +been able to express the idea myself, but without choosing his words, +without being aware of them, speaking unconsciously, just as he +breathed, he had told me that if my heart were set on any particular +place I had only to tell Michael Malia and he would keep it for me; +there would be a convenient place for me just above my grandfather +when they had got the new shelf up; he had heard we were both writers. + +That country boy took it out of me as perhaps no poet had ever done! I +shall never forget him as I saw him going away stolidly through the +green wood, his bag of lime on his back. + +And sitting down in front of the tranquil lake I said, "In twenty or +thirty years I shall certainly join the others in that horrible vault; +nothing can save me," and again the present slipped away from me and +my mind became again clear as glass; the present is only subconscious; +were it not so we could not live. I have said all this before; again I +seemed to myself like a fly crawling up a pane of glass, falling back, +buzzing, and crawling again. Every expedient that I explored proved +illusory, every one led to the same conclusion that the dead are +powerless. "The living do with us what they like," I muttered, and I +thought of all my Catholic relations, every one of whom believes in +the intervention of priests and holy water, the Immaculate Conception, +the Pope's Indulgences, and a host of other things which I could not +remember, so great was my anguish of mind at the thought that my poor +pagan body should be delivered helpless into their pious hands. I +remembered their faces, I could hear their voices--that of my dear +brother, whom I shall always think of as a strayed cardinal rather +than as a colonel; I could see his pale eyes moist with faith in the +intercession of the Virgin--one can always tell a Catholic at sight, +just as one can tell a consumptive. The curving lake, the pale +mountains, the low shores, the sunlight, and the haze contributed not +a little to frighten me; the country looked intensely Catholic at that +moment. My thoughts swerved, and I began to wonder if the face of a +country takes its character from the ideas of those living in it. "How +shall I escape from that vault?" I cried out suddenly. Michael Malia's +hodman had said that they might place me just above my grandfather, +and my grandfather was a man of letters, a historian whose histories I +had not read; and in the midst of the horror my probable burial +inspired in me, I found some amusement in the admission that I should +like the old gentleman whose portrait hung in the dining-room to have +read my novels. This being so, it was not improbable that he would +like me to read his histories, and I began to speculate on what the +author of a history of the French Revolution[1] would think of "Esther +Waters." The colour of the chocolate coat he wears in his picture +fixed itself in my mind's eye, and I began to compare it with the +colour of the brown garment worn by the ghost I had seen in the wood. +Good Heavens, if it were his ghost I had seen! + +[Footnote 1: Still unpublished.] + +And listening to the lapping of the lake water I imagined a horrible +colloquy in that vault. It all came into my mind, his dialogue and my +dialogue. "Great God," I cried out, "something must be done to +escape!" and my eyes were strained out on the lake, upon the island on +which a Welshman had built a castle. I saw all the woods reaching down +to the water's edge, and the woods I did not see I remembered; all the +larch trees that grew on the hillsides came into my mind suddenly, and +I thought what a splendid pyre might be built out of them. No trees +had been cut for the last thirty years; I might live for another +thirty. What splendid timber there would then be to build a pyre for +me!--a pyre fifty feet high, saturated with scented oils, and me lying +on the top of it with all my books (they would make a nice pillow for +my head). The ancient heroes used to be laid with their arms beside +them; their horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be +free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My +pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen +for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body +would become a sort of beacon-fire--the beacon of the pagan future +awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be +anything too excessive--a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a +thousand larches and a few barrels of scented oil and the great feast: +for while I was roasting, my mourners should eat roast meat and drink +wine and wear gay dresses--the men as well as the women; and the +gayest music would be played. The "Marriage of Figaro" and some +Offenbach would be pleasing to my spirit, the ride of the Valkyrie +would be an appropriate piece; but I am improvising a selection, and +that is a thing that requires careful consideration. It would be a +fine thing indeed if such a funeral--I hate the word--such a burning +as this could be undertaken, and there is no reason why it should not +be, unless the law interdicts public burnings of human bodies. And +then my face clouded, and my soul too; I grew melancholy as the lake, +as the southern mountains that rippled down the sky plaintive as an +Irish melody, for the burning I had dreamed of so splendidly might +never take place. I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium +in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the +belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to +myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral +liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen," +and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin. + +It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my +interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed +as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who +would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should +catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of +so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological +reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a +fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the +Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in +the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor +would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there +would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up +whatever will I was minded to make. In order to secure the burial of +my body, my notion was to leave all my property, lands, money, +pictures, and furniture to my brother, Colonel Maurice Moore on the +condition that I should be burnt and the ashes disposed of without the +humiliation of Christian rites; that if the conditions that the +inheritance carried with it were so disagreeable to Colonel Maurice +Moore that he could not bring himself to see that the disposal of my +remains was carried out according to my wishes, my property, lands, +money, pictures, and furniture, should go to my brother Augustus +Moore; that in the event of his declining to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all my property should go to my +brother Julian Moore; that if he should refuse to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all the said property should go +to my friend Sir William Eden, who would, I felt sure, take a sad +pleasure in giving effect to the wishes of his old friend. A will +drawn up on these lines would secure me against all chance of being +buried with my ancestors in Kiltoon, and during the next two days I +pondered my own burning. My brother might think that he was put to a +good deal of expense, but he would not fail me. He had taken off my +hands the disagreeable task of seeing the undertakers and making +arrangements for the saying of Masses, etc., arrangements which would +be intensely disagreeable to me to make so. I had plenty of time to +think out the details of my burning; and I grew happy in the thought +that I had escaped from the disgrace of Christian burial--a disgrace +which was never, until the last two days, wholly realised by me, but +which was nevertheless always suspected. No doubt it was the dread of +Kiltoon that had inspired that thought of death from which in late +years I had never seemed able to escape. I am of the romantic +temperament, and it would be a pity to forgo the burning I had +imagined. I delighted in the vision that had come upon me of the +felling of the larch trees on the hillside and the building of the +pyre about the old castle. It would reach much higher; I imagined it +at least fifty feet high. I saw it flaming in imagination, and when +half of it was burnt, the mourners would have to take to the boats, so +intense would be the heat. What a splendid spectacle! Never did any +man imagine a more splendid funeral! It would be a pity if the law +obliged me to forgo it. But there was no use hoping that the law would +not; there was a law against the burning of human remains, and I might +have to fall back on the Public Crematorium: it only remained for me +to decide what I would wish to be done with the ashes. In a moment of +happy inspiration I conceived the idea of a Greek vase as the only +suitable repository for my ashes, and I began to remember all the +Greek vases I had seen: all are beautiful, even the Roman Greek; these +are sometimes clumsy and heavy, but the sculpture is finely designed +and executed. Any Greek vase I decided would satisfy me, provided, of +course, that the relief represented Bacchanals dancing, and nearly +every Greek vase is decorated in this way. The purchase of the vase +would be an additional expense; no doubt I was running my brother in +for a good deal of money; it is becoming more and more difficult to +buy original Greek sculpture! and in a moment of posthumous parsimony +my thoughts turned to a copy of a Greek vase in granite, granite being +more durable than marble, and I wanted the vase to last for a long +time. It was delightful to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and to +draw all that I remembered of the different vases I had seen, +different riots of lusty men carrying horns of wine, intermingled with +graceful girls dancing gracefully, youths playing on pipes, and amidst +them fauns, the lovely animality of the woods, of the landscape ages, +when men first began to milk their goats, and when one man out of the +tribe, more pensive, more meditative than the others, went down to the +river's bank and cut a reed and found music within it. The vase I +remembered best has upright handles springing from the necks of swans. +It stands about two feet high, perhaps a little more, and its cavity +should be capable of containing all that remains of me after my +burning. None would have thought, from the happy smile upon my lips, +that I was thinking of a Grecian urn and a little pile of white ashes. +"O death, where is thy sting?" I murmured, and the pencil dropped from +my hand, for my memory was more beautiful than anything I could +realise upon paper. I could only remember one side of a youth, that +side of him next to an impulsive maiden; her delight gives her wings; +his left arm is about her shoulder. She is more impulsive than he, and +I wondered at his wistfulness--whether he was thinking of another love +or a volume of poems that he loved better. Little by little many of +the figures in the dance were remembered, for the sculpture was so +well done that the years had only clouded my memory. The clouds +dispersed, and I saw this time one whole figure, that of a +dancing-girl; her right arm is extended, her left arm is bent, she +holds a scarf as she dances, and the muscles of the arms are placed so +well, and the breasts too, that one thinks that the girl must have +been before the sculptor as he worked. Ingres and Antiquity alone knew +how to simplify. There is little, but that little is so correct that +detail is unnecessary, and I exulted in remembrance of the dainty +design of the belly, half hidden, half revealed by little liquid +folds. "How exquisite," I said, "is that thigh! how well it advances! +And we poor moderns have lived upon that beauty now well-nigh two +thousand years? But how vainly we have attempted to imitate that +drapery flowing about the ankles, like foam breaking on the crest of a +wave." A slender youth stands next; his shoulders are raised, for the +pipes are to his lips, his feet are drawn close together, and by him a +satyr dances wildly, clashing cymbals as he dances. He is followed, I +think--it is difficult to say whether this be a recollection of +another vase or whether the figure is included in the same group--by a +faun tempting the teeth and claws of a panther with a bunch of grapes. +And it was this winsome faun that decided me to select this vase as +the repository of my ashes. And I determined to stipulate in my will +that this vase be chosen. But my will must not be too complicated, +otherwise it might be contested. All that is not common can easily be +argued to be madness by a loquacious lawyer before a stupid jury. Who +except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to +what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees +with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour +that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead +coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because +men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs +insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The +common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our +remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It +is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander +away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor +humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at +least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that +might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some +little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every +one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of +the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is +served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of +crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I +am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last +manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have +I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have +done in this order for my tomb. One trouble, however, still remained +upon my mind. Where should the vase be placed? Not in Westminster +Abbey. Fie upon all places of Christian burial! A museum inspires +lofty thoughts in a few; Gouncourt speaks of the icy admiration of +crowds. The vase might stand in the stone wall, and in the very corner +where I learned to spin my top? But sooner or later a housemaid would +break it. The house itself will become the property of another family, +and the stranger will look upon the vase with idle curiosity, or +perhaps think it depressing to have me in the hall. An order for my +removal to a garret might be made out. + +The disposal of the vase caused me a great deal of anxiety, and I +foresaw that unless I hit upon some idea whereby I could safeguard it +from injury for ever, my project would be deprived of half its value. +As I sat thinking I heard a noise of feet suddenly on the staircase. +"They are bringing down my mother's coffin," I said, and at that +moment the door was opened and I was told that the funeral procession +was waiting for me. My brother, and various relatives and friends, +were waiting in the hall; black gloves were on every hand, crepe +streamed from every hat, "All the paraphernalia of grief," I muttered; +"nothing is wanting." My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why +should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far +be it from me to criticise such a desire!" + +The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up +to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first +understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to +understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant +follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that +there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain +themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try +to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were +any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the +chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, +we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the +wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing +about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; +Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of +what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to +prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with +scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the +point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people, +I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But +Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against +violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the +Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed? + +Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they +chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking +that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very +moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of +the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase +containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it +would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless +depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made +without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel +of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods, +man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some +millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase +containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some +secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless +desert that the earth will then be). + +Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and +maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the +extinct sea of an extinct planet. Millions of years will pass away, +and the earth, after having lain dead for a long winter, as it does +now for a few weeks under frost and snow, will, with all other +revolving planets, become absorbed in the sun, and the sun itself will +become absorbed in greater suns, Sirius and his like. In the matters +of grave moment, millions of years are but seconds; billions convey +very little to our minds. At the end of, let us say, some billion +years the ultimate moment towards which everything from the beginning +has been moving will be reached; and from that moment the tide will +begin to flow out again, the eternal dispersal of things will begin +again; suns will be scattered abroad, and in tremendous sun-quakes +planets will be thrown off; in loud earth-quakes these planets will +throw off moons. Millions of years will pass away, the earth will +become cool, and out of the primal mud life will begin again in the +shape of plants, and then of fish, and then of animals. It is like +madness, but is it madder than Christian doctrine? and I believe that +billions of years hence, billions and billions of years hence, I shall +be sitting in the same room as I sit now, writing the same lines as I +am now writing: I believe that again, a few years later, my ashes will +swing in the moveless and silent depths of the Pacific Ocean, and that +the same figures, the same nymphs, and the same fauns will dance +around me again. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + +This file should be named 7mmdl10.txt or 7mmdl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7mmdl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7mmdl10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Memoirs of My Dead Life + +Author: George Moore + +Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7789] +[This file was first posted on May 17, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + + + + +Eric Eldred, Cam Venezuela, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + +BY + +GEORGE MOORE + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +I. SPRING IN LONDON + +II. FLOWERING NORMANDY + +III. A WAITRESS + +IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + +V. LA BUTTE + +VI. SPENT LOVES + +VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE + +VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + +IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + +X. A REMEMBRANCE + +XI. BRING IN THE LAMP + +XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + +XIII. RESURGAM + + + + +APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS + +[_The_ APOLOGIA _which follows needs, perhaps, a word of +explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful, +as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this +present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever +written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published. +When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of +Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East," +first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these +"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s +library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy +they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of +a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a +certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among +the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the +publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his_ Mayflower +_ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of +Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so +beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet +in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East" +that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted +the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake. +And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called +publishers, gave way on condition that this _APOLOGIA_ should +appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration +of an Ibsen comma, and if the _Mayflower_ "weeds" mere instrumental +in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew_.--THE +PUBLISHER.] + +Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader +will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that +one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me +personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm +he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were +omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," +--Messrs. Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the +other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was +not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a +certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question, +and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had +been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed +his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the +right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions +or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life" +and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they +depict him. + +"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly +imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to +put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental +grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are +concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the +ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run +continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which +may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You +range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander. + +"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak +of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but +interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last +analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call +illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I _do_ want to +know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do +you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned, +explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to +cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all +women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his +aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl +by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution +of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be +inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your +own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?" + + * * * * * + +The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on +the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever +this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much +a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to +think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he +would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart, +nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea. +"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not +say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of +the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I +imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he +shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with +nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along +which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing +table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my +real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself +in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I +was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these +questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of +view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather +like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began +my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the +same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even +suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have +written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying +the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that +I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads, +deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see +that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a +personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a +woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and +the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial. +Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching +of the roads, and the best way I can serve him is by drawing his +attention to the fallacy, which till now he has accepted as a truth, +that there is one immutable standard of conduct for all men and all +women." But the difficulty of writing a sufficient letter on a subject +so large and so intricate puzzled me and I sat smiling, for an odd +thought had dropped suddenly into my mind. My correspondent was a +Bible reader, no doubt, and it would be amusing to refer him to the +chapter in Genesis where God is angry with our first parents because +they had eaten of the tree of good and evil. "This passage" I said to +myself, "has never been properly understood. Why was God angry? For no +other reason except that they had set up a moral standard and could be +happy no longer, even in Paradise. According to this chapter the moral +standard is the origin of all our woe. God himself summoned our first +parents before him, and in what plight did they appear? We know how +ridiculous the diminutive fig leaf makes a statue seem in our museums; +think of the poor man and woman attired in fig leaves just plucked +from the trees! I experienced a thrill of satisfaction that I should +have been the first to understand a text that men have been studying +for thousands of years, turning each word over and over, worrying over +it, all in vain, yet through no fault of the scribe who certainly +underlined his intention. Could he have done it better than by +exhibiting our first parents covering themselves with fig leaves, and +telling how after getting a severe talking to from the Almighty they +escaped from Paradise pursued by an angel? The story can have no other +meaning, and that I am the first to expound it is due to no +superiority of intelligence, but because my mind is free. But I must +not appear to my correspondent as an exegetist. Turning to his letter +again I read: + +"I am sorely puzzled. Is your life all of a piece? Are your 'Memoirs' +a pose? I can't think the latter, for you seem sincere and frank to +the verge of brutality (or over). But what is your standard of +conduct? Is there a right and a wrong? Is everything open to any man? +Can you refer me now to any other book of yours in which you view life +steadily and view it whole from our standpoint? Forgive my intrusion. +You see I don't set myself as a judge, but you sweep away apparently +all my standards. And you take your reader so quietly and closely into +your confidence that you tempt a response. I see your many admirable +points, but your center of living is not mine, and I do want to know +as a matter of enormous human interest what your subsumptions are. I +cannot analyze or express myself with literary point as you do, but +you may see what I aim at. It is a bigger question to me than the +value or force of your book. It goes right to the core of the big +things, and I approach you as one man of limited outlook to another of +wider range." + +The reader will not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these +quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man +paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to +do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, +hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's +heart"--but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him +... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. +But if my view of him is right, my task is a more subtle one than +merely to point out that he will seek in vain for a moral standard +whether he seeks it in the book of Nature or in the book of God. I +should not move him by pointing out that in the Old Testament we are +told an eye for an eye is our due, and in the New the rede is to turn +the left cheek after receiving a blow on the right. Nor would he be +moved by referring him to the history of mankind, to the Boer War, for +instance, or the massacres which occur daily in Russia; everybody +knows more or less the history of mankind, and to know it at all is to +know that every virtue has at some time or other been a vice. But man +cannot live by negation alone, and to persuade my correspondent over +to our side it might be well to tell him that if there be no moral +standard he will nevertheless find a moral idea if he looks for it in +Nature. I reflected how I would tell him that he must not be +disappointed because the idea changes and adapts itself to +circumstance, and sometimes leaves us for long intervals; if he would +make progress he must learn to understand that the moral world only +becomes beautiful when we relinquish our ridiculous standards of what +is right and wrong, just as the firmament became a thousand times more +wonderful and beautiful when Galileo discovered that the earth moved. +Had Kant lived before the astronomer he would have been a great +metaphysician, but he would not have written the celebrated passage +"Two things fill the soul with undying and ever-increasing admiration, +the night with its heaven of stars above us and in our hearts the +moral law." The only fault I find with this passage is that I read the +word "law" where I expected to read the word "idea," for the word +"law" seems to imply a Standard, and Kant knew there is none. Is the +fault with the translator or with Kant, who did not pick his words +carefully? The metaphysician spent ten years thinking out the +"Critique of Pure Reason" and only six months writing it; no doubt his +text might be emendated with advantage. If there was a moral standard +the world within us would be as insignificant as the firmament was +when the earth was the center of the universe and all the stars were +little candles and Jehovah sat above them, a God who changed his mind +and repented, a whimsical, fanciful God who ordered the waters to rise +so that his creatures might be overwhelmed in the flood, all except +one family (I need not repeat here the story of Noah's Ark and the +doctrine of the Atonement) if there was one fixed standard of right +and wrong, applicable to everybody, black, white, yellow, and red men +alike, an eternal standard that circumstance could not change. Those +who believe in spite of every proof to the contrary that there is a +moral standard cannot appreciate the beautiful analogy which Kant +drew, the moral idea within the heart and the night with its heaven of +stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on +worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after +the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison +rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office +after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant +thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize +within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not +sufficient to lead my correspondent out of the narrow lanes of +conventions and prejudices into the open field of inquiry. Turning to +his letter, I read it again, misjudging him, perhaps ... but the +reader shall form his own estimate. + +"I honestly felt and feel a big difficulty in reading and thinking +over your 'Memoirs' for you are a propagandist whether you recognize +that as a conscious mission or not. There is in your book a +challenging standard of life which will not wave placidly by the side +of the standard which is generally looked up to as his regimental +colors by the average man. One must go down. And it was because I felt +the necessity of choosing that I wrote to you. + +"'Memoirs' is clearly to me a sincere book. You have built your life +on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that +sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for +instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward +for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say +that limitation has no other sanction than convention--race +inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it +so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is +the best? Men have been hunting the best all their history long by a +process of trial and error. Surely the build of things condemns the +murderer, the liar, the sensualist, and the coward! and how do you +come by 'natural goodness' if your moral is merely your customary? No, +with all respect for your immense ability and your cultured outlook, I +do not recognize the lawless variability of the right and the wrong +standard which you posit. How get you your evidence? From human +actions? But it is the most familiar of facts that men do things they +feel to be wrong. I have known a thief who stole every time in pangs +of conscience; not merely in the fear of detection. There is a higher +and a lower in morals, but the lower is recognized as a lower, and +does not appeal to a surface reading of the code of an aboriginal in +discussing morals. That, I think is only fair. Your artistic sense is +finely developed, but it is none the less firmly based, although there +are Victorian back parlors and paper roses. + +"You see you are a preacher, not merely an artist. Every glimpse of +the beautiful urges the beholder to imitation and _vice versa_. +And that is why your 'Memoirs' are not merely 'an exhibition' of the +immoral; they are 'an incitement' to the immoral. Don't you think so? +And thinking so would you not honestly admit, that society (in the +wide sense, of course--civilization) would relapse, go down, +deliquesce, if all of us were George Moores as depicted in your book?" + +His letter dropped from my hand, and I sat muttering, "How +superficially men think!" How little they trouble themselves to +discover the truth! While declaring that truth is all important, they +accept any prejudice and convention they happen to meet, fastening on +to it like barnacles. How disappointing is that passage about the +murderer, the sensualist, the liar, and the coward; but of what use +would it be to remind my correspondent of Judith who went into the +tent of Holofernes to lie with him, and after the love feast drove a +nail into the forehead of the sleeping man. She is in Scripture held +up to our admiration as a heroine, the saviour of our nation. +Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath, yet who regards Charlotte +Corday as anything else but a heroine? In Russia men know that the +fugitives lie hidden in the cave, yet they tell the Cossack soldiers +they have taken the path across the hill--would my correspondent +reprove them and call them liars? I am afraid he has a lot of leeway +to make up, and it is beyond my power to help him. + +Picking up his letter I glanced through it for some mention of "Esther +Waters," for in answer to the question if I could recommend him to any +book of mine in which I viewed life--I cannot bring myself to +transcribe that tag from Matthew Arnold--I referred him to "Esther +Waters," saying that a critic had spoken of it as a beautiful +amplification of the beatitudes. Of the book he makes no mention in +his letter, but he writes: "There is a challenging standard of life in +your book which will not wave placidly by the side of the standard +which is generally looked up to as his regimental colors by the +average man." The idea besets him, and he refers to it again in the +last paragraph; he says: "You see, you are a preacher, not merely an +artist." And very likely he is right; there is a messianic aspect in +my writings, and I fell to thinking over "Esther Waters"; and reading +between the lines for the first time, I understood that it was that +desire to standardize morality that had caused the poor girl to be +treated so shamefully. Once Catholicism took upon itself to torture +and then to burn all those it could lay hands upon who refused to +believe with its doctrines, and now in the twentieth century +Protestantism persecutes those who act or think in opposition to its +moralities. Even the saintly Mrs. Barfield did not dare to keep +Esther; but if she sent her servant away, she spoke kindly, giving her +enough money to see her through her trouble; there are good people +among Christians. The usual Christian attitude would be to tell Esther +that she must go into a reformatory after the birth of her child, for +the idea of punishment is never long out of the Christian's thoughts. +It is not necessary to recapitulate here how Esther, escaping from the +network of snares spread for her destruction, takes refuge in a +workhouse, and lives there till her child is reared; how she works +fifteen hours a day in a lodging house, sleeping in corners of +garrets, living upon insufficient food; or how, after years of +struggle, she meets William, now separated from his wife, and consents +to live with him that her child may have a father. For this second +"transgression," so said a clergyman in a review of the book, Esther +could not be regarded as a moral woman. His moral sense, dwarfed by +doctrine, did not enable him to see that the whole evil came out of +standard morality and the whole good out of the instinct incarnate in +her; and he must have read the book without perceiving its theme, the +revelation in the life of an outcast servant girl of the instinct on +which the whole world rests. + +Not until writing these lines did I ever think of "Esther Waters" as a +book of doctrine; but it is one, I see that now, and that there is a +messianic aspect in my writings. My correspondent did well to point +that out, and no blame attaches to him because he seems to fail to see +that I may be an admirable moralist while depreciating Christian +morality and advocating a return to Nature's. He belonged to the +traditions yesterday, today he is among those who are seekers, and +to-morrow I doubt not he will be among those prone to think that +perhaps Christianity is, after all, retrograde. His lips will curl +contemptuously to-morrow when he hears the cruelty of the circus +denounced by men who would, if they were allowed, relight the bon +fires of the Inquisition; ... he is a Protestant, I had forgotten. +Gladiators have begun to appear to us less cruel than monks, and +everybody who can think has begun to think that some return to pagan +morality is desirable. That is so; awaking out of the great slumber of +Christianity, we are all asking if the qualities which once we deemed +our exclusive possession have not been discovered among pagans--pride, +courage, and heroism. Our contention has become that no superiority is +claimed in any respect but one; it appears that it must be admitted +that Christians are more chaste than pagans, at all events that +chastity flourishes among Christian communities as it has never +flourished among pagan. The Christian's boast is that all sexual +indulgence outside of the marriage bed is looked upon as sinful, and +he would seem to think that if he proclaims this opinion loudly, its +proclamation makes amends for many transgressions of the ethical law. +All he understands is the law; nothing of the subtler idea that the +ethical impulse is always invading the ethical law finds a way into +his mind. Women are hurried from Regent Street to Vine Street, and his +conscience is soothed by these raids; the owners of the houses in +which these women live are fined, and he congratulates himself that +vice is not licensed in England, that, in fact, its existence is +unrecognized. Prostitution thrives, nevertheless; but numbers do not +discourage the moralist, and when he reads in the newspapers of +degraded females, "unfortunates," he breathes a sigh; and if these +reports contain descriptions of miserable circumstance and human +grief, he mutters "how very sad!" + +But the assurance that the women are wretched and despised soothes his +conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish +prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It +would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of +men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish--you +would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was +once respected and honored, and the world was as beautiful then as +now, and as noble men lived in it. In many ways the world was more +moral than when your ideas began to prevail." He asks me to explain, +and I tell him that with the degradation of the courtesan the moral +standard has fallen, for as we degrade her we disgrace the act of +love. We have come to speak of it as part of our lower nature, +permissible, it is true, if certain conditions are complied with, but +always looked upon askance; and continuing the same strain of +argument, I tell him that the act of love was once deemed a sacred +rite, and that I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and +exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused +men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels +instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he +asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too +old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; +"a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort +necessary to understand me if I were to tell him, for instance, that +the desire of beauty is in itself a morality." It was, perhaps, the +only morality the Greeks knew, and upon the memory of Greece we have +been living ever since. In becoming _hetairae_, Aspasia, Lais, +Phryne, and Sappho became the distributors of that desire of beauty +necessary in a state which had already begun to dream the temples of +Minerva and Zeus. + +The words of Blake come into my mind, "the daring of the lion or the +submission of the ox." With these words I should have headed my letter +to the secretary of the charitable institution, and I should have told +him that many books which he would regard as licentious are looked +upon by me as sacred. "Mademoiselle de Maupin," "the golden book of +spirit and sense," Swinburne has called it, I have always looked upon +as a sacred book from the very beginning of my life. It cleansed me of +the belief that man has a lower nature, and I learned from it that the +spirit and the flesh are equal, "that earth is as beautiful as heaven, +and that perfection of form is virtue." "Mademoiselle de Maupin" was a +great purifying influence, a lustral water dashed by a sacred hand, +and the words are forever ringing in my ear, "by exaltation of the +spirit and the flesh thou shalt live." This book would be regarded by +my correspondent as he regards my "Memoirs," and its publication has +been interdicted in England. How could it be permitted to circulate in +a country in which the kingdom of heaven is (in theory) regarded as +more important than the kingdom of earth? A few pages back the idea +came up under my pen that the aim of practical morality was to render +illicit love as unattractive as possible, and I suppose, though he has +never thought the matter out, the Christian moralist would regard +Gautier as the most pernicious of writers, for his theme is always +praise of the visible world, of all that we can touch and see; and in +this book art and sex are not estranged. I have often wondered if the +estrangement of the twain so noticeable in English literature is not +the origin of this strange belief that bodily love is part of our +lower nature. Our appreciation of the mauve flush dying in the west +has been indefinitely heightened by descriptions seen in pictures and +read in poems, and I cannot but think that if the lover's exaltation +before the curve of his mistress's breast had not been forbidden, the +ugly thought that the lover's ardor is inferior to the poet's would +never have obtained credence. There is but one energy, and the vital +fluid, whether expended in love or in a poem, is the same. The poet +and the lover are creators, they participate and carry on the great +work begun billions of years ago when the great Breath breathing out +of chaos summoned the stars into being. But why do I address myself +like this to the average moralist? How little will he understand me! +In the Orelay adventure which horrified him there was an appreciation +of beauty which he has, I am afraid, rendered himself incapable of. +Myself and Doris were spiritual gainers by the Orelay adventure, +Doris's rendering of "The Moonlight Sonata," till she went to Orelay, +was merely brilliant and effective; and have not all the critics in +England agreed that the story in which I relate her contains some of +the best pages of prose I have written? But why talk of myself when +there is Wagner's experience to speak about? Did he not write to +Madame Wasendonck, "I owe you Tristan for all eternity"? She has not +left any written record of her debt to Wagner, perhaps because she +could not find words to give the reader any idea how great it was. + +Histories of human civilization there are in abundance, but I do not +know of any history of the human intelligence. But when this comes to +be written--if it ever should come to be written--the writer will +hesitate, at least I can imagine him hesitating, how much of the +genius of artists he would be justified in tracing back to sexual +impulses. Goethe, as my correspondent informs me, looked upon love of +woman as a means of increasing his aesthetic sensibilities, and my +correspondent seems to think that he did them wrong thereby, whereas I +think he honored them exceedingly. Balzac held the contrary belief, so +Gautier tells us, maintaining that great spiritual elation could be +gained by restraint, and when inquiry was made into his precise +beliefs on this point he confessed that he could not allow an author +more than half an hour once a year with his beloved; he placed no +restriction, however, on correspondence, "for that helped to form a +style." When Gautier mentioned the names of certain great men whose +lives offered a striking refutation of this theory, Balzac answered +they would have written better if they had lived chastely. Gautier +seems to have left the question there, and so will we, remarking only +that Balzac was prone to formulating laws out of his single +experience. I remember having written, or having heard somebody say, +"in other writers we discover this or that thing, but everything +exists in Balzac." And in his conversation with Gautier we do not find +him praising chastity as a virtue, but extolling the results that may +be gotten from chastity as a Yogi might. It is said that English +missionaries in India sometimes drive out in their pony chaises to +visit a holy man who has left his womenfolk, plentiful food, and a +luxurious dwelling for a cave in some lonely ravine. The pony chaise +only takes the parson to the mouth of the ravine, and leaving his wife +and children in charge of his servant, the parson ascends the rocky +way on foot, meeting, perchance, a fat peasant priest from Maynooth +bent on the same mission as himself--the conversion of the Yogi. It is +amusing for a moment to imagine these two Western barbarians sitting +with the emaciated saint on the ledge in front of the cave. Thinking +to win his sympathy, they tell him that on one point they are all +agreed. The Brahman's eyes would dilate; how can this thing be? his +eyes would seem to ask, and it is easy to imagine how contemptuously +he would raise his eyes when he gathered gradually from their +discourse that his visitors believed that chastity was incumbent upon +all men. "But all men are not the same," he would answer, if he +answered his visitors; "I dwell in solitude and in silence, and am +chaste, and live upon the rice that the pious leave on the rocks for +me, but I do not regard chastity and abstinence as possessed of any +inherent merits; as virtues, they are but a means to an end. How would +you impose chastity upon all men, since every man brings a different +idea into the world with him? There are men who would die if forced to +live chaste lives, and there are men who would choose death rather +than live unchaste, and many a woman if she were forced to live with +one husband would make him very unhappy, whereas if she lived with two +men she would make them both supremely happy. But the news has reached +me even here that in the West you seek a moral standard, and this +quest always fills me with wonder. There are priests among you, I can +see that, and soldiers, and fishermen, and artists and princes and +folk who labor in the fields--now do you expect all these men, living +in different conditions of life, to live under the same rule? I am +afraid that the East and the West will never understand each other. +The sun is setting, my time for speech is over," and the wise man, +rising from the stone on which he has been sitting, enters into the +cave, leaving the priest and the parson to descend the rocks together +in the twilight, their differences hushed for the moment, to break +forth again the next day. + +Schopenhauer has a fine phrase, one that has haunted my mind these +many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime +wisdom of the East like bullets fired against a cliff. + +How can it be otherwise? For when we were naked savages the Brahmans +were learned philosophers, and had seen as far into every mystery as +mortal eyes will ever see. We have progressed a little lately; our +universities, it is true, are a few hundred years old, but in +comparison with the East we are still savages; our culture is but +rudimentary, and my correspondent's letter is proof of it. It is +characteristic of the ideas that still flourish on the banks of the +Thames, ideas that have changed only a little since the +_Mayflower_ sailed. It would have been better if Columbus had +delayed his discovery for, let us say, a thousand years. I am afraid +the _Mayflower_ carried over a great many intellectual weeds +which have caught root and flourished exceedingly in your +States--Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A letter arrived +from Washington some two or three months ago. The writer was a lady +who used to write to me on all subjects under the sun; about fifteen +years ago we had ceased to write to each other, so she began her +letter, not unnaturally, by speaking of the surprise she guessed her +handwriting would cause me. She had broken the long silence, for she +had been reading "The Lake," and had been much interested in the book. +It would have been impolite to write to me without alluding to the +aesthetic pleasure the book had given her, but her interest was mainly +a religious one. About five years ago she had become a Roman Catholic, +she was writing a book on the subject of her conversion, and would +like to find out from me why I had made Father Gogarty's conversion +turn upon his love of woman, "for it seems to me clear, unless I have +misunderstood your book, that you intended to represent Gogarty as an +intellectual man." It is difficult to trace one's motives back, but I +remember the irritation her letter caused me, and how I felt it would +not be dignified for me to explain; my book was there for her to +interpret or misinterpret, as she pleased; added to which her +"conversion" to Rome was an annoying piece of news. Fifteen years ago +she was an intelligent woman and a beautiful woman, if photographs do +not lie, and it was disagreeable for me to think of her going on her +knees in a confessional, receiving the sacraments, wearing scapulars, +trying to persuade herself that she believed in the Pope's +indulgences. She must now be middle-aged, but the decay of physical +beauty is not so sad a spectacle as the mind's declension. "She began +to think," I said, "of another world only when she found herself +unable to enjoy this one any longer; weariness of this world produces +what the theologians call 'faith.' How often have we heard the phrase +'You will believe when you are dying'? She would have had," I said, +"Father Gogarty leave his church for doctrinal rather than natural +reasons, believing scrolls to be more intellectual than the instincts; +Father Gogarty poring over some early edition of the Scriptures in his +little house on the hilltop, reading by the light of the lamp at +midnight and deciding that he would go out of his parish because, +according to recent exegesis, a certain verset in the Gospel had been +added three hundred years after the death of Christ." I fell to +thinking how dry, common, and uninteresting the tale would be had it +been written on these doctrinal lines. Carlyle said that Cardinal +Newman had the brain of a half-grown rabbit, and he was right; Newman +never got further than a scroll, and man must think with his body, as +well as with his brain. To think well the whole man must think, and it +seems to me that Father Gogarty thought in this complete way. Rose +Leicester revealed to him the enchantment and the grace of life, and +his quest became life. Had it been Hose Leicester herself the story +would have merely been a sensual incident. The instinct to go rose up +within him, he could not tell how or whence it came, and he went as +the bird goes, finding his way toward a country where he had never +been, led as the bird is led by some nostalgic instinct. And I do not +doubt that he found life, whether in the form of political or literary +ambition or in some other woman who would remind him of the woman he +had lost; perhaps he found it in all these things, perhaps in none. +Told as I told it the story seems to me a true and human one, and one +that might easily occur in these modern days; much more easily than +the story my correspondent would have had me write. The story of a +priest abandoning his parish for theological reasons is not an +improbable one, but I think such a story would be more typical of the +sixteenth century, when men were more interested in the authenticity +of the Biblical texts than they are in the twentieth. The Bible has +been sifted again and again; its history is known, every word has been +weighed, and it is difficult to imagine the most scrupulous exegetist +throwing a search light into any unexplored corner. Even Catholic +scholarship, if Loisy can be regarded as a Catholic, has abandoned the +theory that the gospels were written by the Apostles. The earliest, +that of Mark, was written sixty years after the death of Christ, and +it is the only one for which any scholar claims the faintest +historical value. With this knowledge of history in our possession +belief has become in modern times merely a matter of temperament, +entirely dissociated from the intellect. Some painter once said that +Nature put him out. The theologian can say the same about the +intellect--it puts him out. Out of a great deal of temperament and a +minimum of intellect he gets a precipitate, if I may be permitted to +drop into the parlance of the chemist, for dregs would be an impolite +word to use, and the precipitate always delights in the fetich. There +will always be men and women, the cleric has discovered, who will +barter their souls for the sake of rosaries and scapulars and the +Pope's indulgences. The two great enemies of religion, as the clerics +know well, are the desire to live and the desire to know. We find this +in Genesis: God: i. e., the clerics, was angry because his creatures +ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of +the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of +the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of +the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was +written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men +from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so +anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this +tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the +ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics +were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent +herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit +of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected +were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great +feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always +ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great +depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the +tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter +fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it +has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no +conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The +origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the +glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... +The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another +instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now +directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of +knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among +themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may +always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups +to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were +infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this +fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the +earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken +when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have +involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the +Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done +all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful +that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been +written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as +heaven," and Gautier's phrase, _"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle +que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la +vertu,"_ has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to +the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual +spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of +doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather +than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of +mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more +serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So +leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on. + +My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did +more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be +vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of +an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part +of the book which interested us the least was that very part which +would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am +alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's +room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted, +for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been +seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did +he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his +own imagination made visible by some prodigy to him. For a still +briefer space Rosette shared Albert's dream, and man and wife remained +faithful to each other. It is easy to imagine the vileness which a +prosecuting counsel could extract from these beautiful pages made +entirely of vision and ecstasy. How false and shameful is the whole +business. We are allowed to state that we prefer pagan morality to +Christian, but are interdicted from illustrating our beliefs by +incident. So long as we confine ourselves to theory we are unmolested. +But these are subtleties which do not trouble the minds of the members +of vigilance associations, the men and women who gather together in +back parlors with lead pencils to mark out passages which they +consider "un-Kur-istean" (a good strong accent on the second +syllable). Their thoughts pursue beaten tracks. Books like +"Mademoiselle de Maupin" they hold would act directly on the +temperament, and we know that they do not do this, we know that the +things of the intellect belong to the intellect and the things of the +flesh to the flesh. Were it otherwise Rose Leicester, the pretty +school mistress, might have been left out of my story entitled "The +Lake," and her place taken by a book. My lady correspondent, it will +be remembered, was in favor of some doctrinal difficulty. My second +correspondent, the secretary of the charitable institution, would have +chosen as the cause of Father Oliver's flight a sensual book. His +choice might have been Burton's "Arabian Nights"; better still +Casanova's "Memoirs," for this is a book written almost entirely with +the senses; the intellect hardly ever intrudes itself; and instead of +an emaciated priest poring over a dusty folio we should have had an +inflamed young man curled up in an armchair reading eagerly, walking +up and down the room from time to time, unable to contain himself, and +eventually throwing the book aside, he would find his way down to the +lake. + +These two versions of "The Lake," as it might have been written by my +correspondents, will convince, I think, almost anyone, even them, that +the desire of life which set Father Gogarty free could have been +inspired only by a woman's personality. It was not necessary that he +should go after the woman herself--but that point has already been +explained. What concerns us now to understand is how the strange idea +could have come into men's minds that literature is a more potent +influence than life itself. The solving of this problem has beguiled +many an hour, but the solution seems as far away as ever, and I have +never got nearer than the supposition that perhaps this fear of +literature is a survival of the very legitimate fear that prevailed in +the Middle Ages against writing. In my childhood I remember hearing an +old woman say that writing was an invention of the devil, and what an +old woman believed forty years ago in outlying districts was almost +the universal opinion of the Middle Ages. Denunciations and burnings +of books were frequent, and ideas die slowly, finding a slow +extinction many generations after the reason for their existence has +ceased. In the famous trial of Gille de Rais we have it on record that +the Breton baron was asked by his ecclesiastical judges if pagan +literature had inspired the strange crimes of which he was accused, if +he had read of them in--I have forgotten the names of the Latin +authors mentioned, but I remember Gille de Rais' quite simple answer +that his own heart had inspired the crimes. Whereupon the judges not +unnaturally were shocked, for the conclusion was forced upon them that +if Gille's confession were true they were not trying a man who had +been perverted by outward influence but one who had been born +perverted. Who then was responsible for his crimes? Lunacy sometimes +in these modern days serves as a scapegoat, but the knowledge of +lunacy in the fifteenth century was not so complete as it is now and +the judges preferred to believe that Gille was lying. And about ten +years ago London found itself in the same moral quandary. Three or +four little boys were discovered to have planned the murder of one of +their comrades--sixpence, I think, was the object of the murder; not +one was over eight, yet they planned the crime skillfully and very +nearly succeeded in avoiding detection. To credit these little boys +with instinctive crime was intolerable, and just as in the Middle Ages +a scapegoat had to be found. Apuleius and his Ass were out of the +question, but the little boys admitted having read penny dreadfuls; +London breathed again, the way now was clear, these newspapers must be +prosecuted, and this recrudescence of wickedness in the heart of a +little boy would never be heard of again. A little later or maybe it +was a little earlier, I relate these things in the order in which they +come into my mind, the London Vigilance Association instituted a +prosecution against Mr. Henry Vizetelly, a man of letters and the +publisher of Zola's novels. With the exception of Mr. Robert Buchanan +and myself not a single man of letters could be found to speak in Mr. +Vizetelly's defense. Everybody urged some excuse, his wife was ill, +his children were at the seaside and he had to go down to see them, or +that he had never cared much about naturalistic literature; whereas, +if the prosecution had been directed against something romantic, +etc.--Stranger still is the fact that it was almost impossible to find +a counsel willing to defend Mr. Vizetelly. One man threw up the case, +giving as his reason that he would have to read the books, another +said that it would be impossible to adequately defend Mr. Vizetelly's +case because no one could say what one had a right to put into a book. +This remark seemed to me at the time contemptible, but there was more +in it than I thought, for will it be believed that when the case came +into court the judge ruled that the fact that standard writers had +availed themselves of a great deal of license could not be taken as a +proof that such license was permissible? Two wrongs do not make a +right he said. In these circumstances perhaps counsel was wise to tell +Mr. Vizetelly to plead guilty to having published an indecent libel; +but the advice seemed so cruel that, justly or unjustly, I suspect the +lawyer of a wish to escape the odium that would have attached to him +if he had defended a book accused of immorality. The old man was +heavily fined. On going out of court he set to work to have the books +revised, spending hundreds of pounds having the plates altered, but +the Vigilance Association attacked him again, and this time they +succeeded in killing him. Mr. Vizetelly was over seventy years of age +when he went to prison, and the shame, anxiety, and three months of +prison life killed him. Five years afterwards the Authors' Society, +who would not say a word in his favor, voted a great banquet for Zola +when he came to London. Zola received every homage that could be paid +to a man of letters. The Vigilance Association raised no protest, and +I do not blame them. None would have been heard. But while the +banquets were held and the speeches were published in the newspapers +some of the members of the Association must have meditated sadly on +the futility of their efforts and the death of Mr. Vizetelly. It +requires a heavy blow of a very heavy mallet to get anything into some +people's heads, and nothing short of the reception that was given to +Zola could have affected the minds of the Vigilance Association. The +significance of the judge's words that the fact that classical writers +had availed themselves of a certain license could not be taken as +proof that such license was permissible escaped them altogether, for +some time afterwards the question of immorality in literature arose +again--I have forgotten the circumstances of this case--but I remember +that Mr. Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if +Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr. +Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the +Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he +answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral +doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed +himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote +beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and +the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of +duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all +those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members +and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they +must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's +moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies +with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits." +Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr. +Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of +the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again +that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be +acquitted. We must consider the question impartially. It is true that +a magistrate may be found presiding at Bow Street who will refuse to +issue a warrant against the publishers, let us say of Byron, Sterne, +the Restoration, and the Elizabethan dramatists. The Association will +have to risk the refusal; but I would not discourage the Association +from the adventure. It must not abandon the tope of finding a +magistrate who, anxious to prove himself no moral laggard, will do all +that is asked of him. A very pretty selection of "spicy bits" can be +picked from "Don Juan," and toward this compilation every member, male +and female, might contribute. The reading of these selections in Bow +Street in a crowded court would prove quite a literary entertainment, +and if the magistrate refused to issue a warrant he could only do so +on the pretext that the book had been published a long while, a +pretext which can hardly be held to be more valid than the pretext put +forward by Mr. Coote for not prosecuting Shakespeare. Of one thing +only would I warn the Society which I seem to be taking under my wing, +and that is, even if it should succeed in interdicting two-thirds of +English literature its task will still be only half accomplished. The +newspaper question will still have to be faced. Books are relatively +expensive, but the newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and it +will be admitted that no author is as indecent as the common reporter. +The reader thinks that I am going to draw his attention to some +celebrated divorce case, an account of which was reported in full in +the columns of some daily paper under a large heading "Painful +Details," the details being the account the chambermaid gave the +outraged husband of--I will spare my reader. + +About fifteen years ago I was asked if I would care to go over to ---- +College to see the sports. We walked across the downs, and while +watching the racing I was accosted by the head master, who asked me if +I would like to see the college. The sports were more interesting than +refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse +and we went together. No doubt we visited the kitchens and the chapel, +but what I remember was a long hall wainscoted with oak and furnished +with oak tables and chairs and benches, In this hall there were some +thirty or forty boys, of ages varying from twelve to eighteen, reading +the newspapers, reading the reports of the Oscar Wilde trial; each +daily paper contained three or four columns of it. I asked the head +master if it were right to allow the boys to read such reports and he +answered that lately the newspapers contained a great deal of +objectionable matter, "But how am I to keep the daily papers out of +the college?" Now I am not easily scandalized, but I could not help +feeling that a grave scandal was being committed in allowing these +boys to read the newspapers during the week of that trial. But if you +admit the newspapers one day how can you forbid them on another +occasion? And while appreciating the head master's difficulty I walked +out into the open air unable to take any further interest in the +sports. Nor has time obliterated anything of the shame I felt that +day. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to pose as a moralist, +but I cannot help thinking that while newspapers continue to be +published, the Vigilance Society need not trouble lest certain books +should fall into the hands of young people. My correspondent forgot +that thousands of newspapers are published to-day when he wrote to me +saying that my book roused sensuality. I am afraid I omitted the +passage in which these words occur, fearing to burden my article with +quotation. Here it is: + +"The perusal of the episodes (Doris' Orelay experiences) does +certainly not ennoble me, it rouses sensuality, it lowers woman from a +friend and helpmeet into a convenience and a minister to pleasure. I +am less able and less willing to think 'high' after your book; poetry +is distasteful, art is narrowed, I look out for the licentious, the +suggestive, the low, and the mean; and don't you? You seem in passage +after passage to be world-weary in a sense that no sane man ought to +be, sated, disgusted, tired of life--is it not so? You see I speak +from what I am sure you will regard as a narrow platform, my ideals +are certainly not yours but I am simply and frankly curious as to the +ultimates in your book and in yourself." + +Let us suppose now that the Vigilance Association after a sharp +crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all +reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the +newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all +reports of sexual crimes and misdemeanors. And having extended our +imagination so far we may presume as the sequence a world of such +highly developed moral susceptibilities that Miss Austen's novels are +beginning to cause uneasiness. Miss Austen's novels are still +permitted, but in current literature nothing is said that would lead +the reader to suppose that men and women are not of the same sex. But +men and women still continue to meet and hold conversation. Only some +advanced members of the Association are in favor of that complete +separation of the sexes which obtains in Ireland in the rural +districts. In the imaginary time of which I am writing the Association +has only obtained complete control over literature. The theaters are +either closed or given over to the representation of plays on +religious subjects; but private life has not been invaded by the +Puritan missionary, and waltz tunes are still heard and figures seen +whirling past lighted windows in Grosvenor Square and Fifth Avenue. +Mr. Coote has at this time become a moderate, he is no longer among +the progressives, and is in danger of losing his post, so I have no +difficulty in imagining what he would do in such a dilemma. He would +disguise himself as a waiter and at the next meeting of the Society +tell how he had until now showed some reluctance to--the sentence +would be a difficult one to finish, perhaps Mr. Coote would break off +and say--reluctance to put restraint on the action of men and women as +long as they kept within their own doors, but after what he has seen, +he finds himself obliged to pass from the moderates to the +progressives. What has Mr. Coote seen. How would he tell his tale? + +He would tell of the length and the breadth of the ball room, of the +parquet floor usually covered with an aubusson carpet but the carpet +had been lifted and the gilded furniture taken away; the windows and +the recesses had been filled with flowers, and to keep these fresh, +great blocks of ice had been placed in the niches. He would tell of +the lighting arrangements, for are not flowers and lights incentives +to immorality? But his descriptions of the roses and the lilies would +only lead up to his descriptions of the shameless animality that came +up the staircase between twelve and one. A half-naked lady, the +hostess, stood at the head of the stairs receiving her guests with +smiles and words of welcome. The dresses the women wore resembled the +dress worn by the hostess; young and old alike went about their +pleasure with necks and bosoms and arms uncovered, and he saw these +undressed creatures slip into the arms of men who whirled them round +and round; it was but a whirling of silk ankles and a shuffling of +glazed shoes; and every now and then the men and women looked into +each other's eyes, and the whole scene was reflected shamelessly in +tall mirrors. Notwithstanding the fact that most of Mr. Coote's time +was spent behind the buffet serving out ices, he nevertheless +contrived to find a spare moment for investigation. On the pretext of +seeking a lady who had dropped a handkerchief he had crossed the ball +room and was therefore in a position to give an accurate account of +the waltzes he had heard, dulcet, undulating, capricious measures, far +more provocative than Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" which Tolstoy has +denounced. The lady that Mr. Coote sought was not in the ball room, +and so he had an opportunity of investigating all the retiring rooms, +and I need not describe the pensive and shocked faces that listened to +his descriptions of the shady nooks. Sometimes it was a screen, +sometimes it was a palm that was employed to hide the couple from +observation. Mr. Coote at last discovered the owner of the +handkerchief in one of those shady nooks, she was there with a +gentleman.... Mr. Coote, of course, would refuse to relate what he +saw, he would hesitate, but the members of his Association would +insist upon knowing everything, and he would at last confess: "Well, +the gentleman had kissed the lady on the point of her shoulder." From +this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered +of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had +worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets, +chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not +acquainted with. + +Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his +description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I +imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the +dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen +for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I +cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr. +Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the +conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their +pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex. + +We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved +by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that +dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half +a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a +woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's +"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have +prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war +cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what +is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long +consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance +Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as +completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go +by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one +night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we +are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and +the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book +rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring +day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring +days. Yet how infinitely more pernicious is their influence than any +book! What thoughts they put into the hearts of lads and lasses! and +perforce even the moralist has to accept the irrepressible feeling of +union and growth, the loosening of the earth about the hyacinth shoots +and the birds going about their amorous business, and the white clouds +floating up gladly through the blue air. Why, then, should he look +askance at my book, which is no more than memories of my spring days? +If the thing itself cannot be suppressed, why is it worth while to +interfere with the recollection? What strange twist in his mind leads +him to decry in art what he accepts in nature? A strange twist indeed, +one which may be described as a sort of inverted sexuality, finding +its pleasure not in the spring day, but in odd corners of ancient +literature read only for the sake of passages which he declares to be +disgusting, and in spying on modern literature, seeking out passages +and expressions which might be denounced in the newspapers or +proceeded against in the police court. The psychology of one of these +purity mongers is more interesting to the alienist than to a man of +letters. Let us take a typical case, that of the late Lord ----. Forty +or fifty years ago he was one of the most strenuous advocates of +purity in literature, and more shops were raided at his instigation +than at any other; yet when he died his library was found to contain +the finest collection of impure literature in Europe, and his +executors were left wondering whether the prosecutions were prompted +by a desire to increase the value of his collection by the destruction +of rare books, copies of which were in his possession, or whether he +had been moved by conscientious scruples; a man might bamboozle +himself in this way: "I am a man of letters and possess these books +because they are rare, a curious corner of literature, but it would be +highly inexpedient for others to possess them." His conscience might +take a still more curious turn, leading to a dizzier height: "I am a +sinner; that, alas! is so; but I can prevent others from sinning +likewise." No doubt the greater part of the literature which the noble +lord collected with so much industry was of that frankly indecent kind +which is debarred from every library, Continental as well as English +and American. There is a literature which does not come within the +scope of the present inquiry, and there is what may perhaps be called +a border literature, books which are found in public libraries in the +German, the French, and the Italian texts. It seems pertinent to ask +why a little knowledge of French and German and Italian should procure +the right to read Brantôme's "Femmes Gallantes." It would be difficult +for anybody to say that this book is not frankly obscene, and yet in +the French text I suppose every library contains it. Casanova's +"Memoirs" is another book of the same kind; I am not aware of any +complete translation of Boccaccio's tales, but every library possesses +an edition in the original Italian. The only reason that can be put +forward for the suppression of a book is that it is harmful, and if +Brantôme, Casanova, and Boccaccio are harmful in English, they do harm +to those who can read them in the original texts. But perhaps I have +pointed out enough inconsistencies, and the reader, growing weary, may +say: "Are you so young, then, that you don't know that the world is a +mass of contradictions? that life is no more than a tale told by an +idiot full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing?" Shakespeare did +no more than to put into eloquent language every man's belief, that we +are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is +mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of +the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book +morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, +and can anything be less consequent than--we need look no further back +than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the +English people as one of the most immoral of writers; for twenty years +at least this opinion obtained in the press, and even among men of +letters; suddenly the opinion disappeared, it went out like the flame +of a candle; the text is the same, not a comma has been changed, yet +now everybody reads it differently. But I must not allow myself to be +drawn into speaking of the moral crusades directed against other +writers; the task is tempting, and I hope it will be undertaken one of +these days. Here, at all events, my concern is with my own writings, +as indicated by the title of the article, and it is doubtful if +reference to any book would make my point clearer than the tale of +what happened in America to my own book, "Esther Waters." The proof +sheets were sent in turn to three leading firms, Scribner, Harper, and +Appleton, and all three refused the book on the ground that, while +recognizing, etc., they did not think it was exactly the kind of book, +etc. Even experts make mistakes; this is not denied; what makes my +story so remarkable is that all three firms offered to publish an +authorized edition of the book as soon as news of its success in +England had been cabled to New York. Mr. Appleton, whom I met in +Paris, expressed his regret that expert opinion regarding this book +had been at fault. "The book," he said, "was quite a proper book to +publish, a most admirable book, which would do honor to any firm." I +answered: "Very likely all you say, Mr. Appleton, is true, but three +weeks ago the experts thought differently. How is it that an immoral +book can become moral in three weeks?" My next book, "Evelyn Innes," +disturbed the house of Appleton as much as "Esther Waters," and a +gentleman of leisure connected with the firm was deputed to mark out +not the passages to which he himself took exception, but to which, +being an expert, he felt sure that others would take exception. The +gentleman was kind enough to insist on submitting his marked copy to +me, and my wonderment increased as I turned over the pages, and it +reached a climax when I happened upon the following passage, which had +been marked to be omitted by the American printer. The passage was: +"... in her stage life Evelyn was an agent of the sensual passion, not +only with her voice, but in her arms, her neck, and hair, and in every +expression of her face; and it was the craving music that had thrown +her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her how much more would it +subjugate and hold within its persuasion the listener--the listener, +who perceived in the music nothing but its sensuality?" "But for what +reason," I asked the expert, "do you suggest the elimination of this +passage? This is the Puritan point of view. I thought that your +proposal was to draw my attention to the passages to which you thought +the Puritan would object." "Ah," he said, "that is how I began, but as +I got on with the work I thought it better to mark every passage that +might give offense." "And to whom would this passage give offense?" I +said. "Certainly not to any religious body?" "No," he answered, "not +to any religious body, but it would give offense to the subscribers to +the New Opera House. If parents read that the music of 'Tristan' threw +Evelyn Innes into the arms of Ulick Dean, they would not care to bring +their daughters to hear the opera, and might possibly discontinue +their subscriptions." Everybody will agree that "expert opinion" can +hardly go further, yet the folly which this "expert" was betrayed into +did not arise from any congenital stupidity; it is the mistake that +you and I, every one of us, would make when we seek the truth in our +casual experience instead of in our hearts. + +One would have thought that my pointing out the absurdity of this +expurgation of "Evelyn Innes" to the house of Appleton would have +saved it ever afterwards from similar folly, and forgetful that +experience is, as Coleridge describes it, only a lamp in a vessel's +stern which throws a light on the waters we have passed through, none +on those which lie before us, the publication of "The Lake" was issued +by Messrs. Appleton with my consent. The book, as the American public +already know, is free from all matter to which the most severe +moralist could take exception, yet the American edition did not +conform entirely with the English; a dedication written in French was +omitted, for what reason I do not know, but it was omitted. The matter +may seem a small one, and it may seem invidious to allude to it at +all, but on an occasion like the present nothing must be passed over. +The English proofs of the "Memoirs" were read, and the book was +accepted, but when it was set up in America it did not seem quite so +moral in the American type as it did in the English and difficulties +arose; these have been alluded to in the first paragraph of this +article, and perhaps wrongly I agreed that the two stories, "The +Lovers of Orelay" and "In the Luxembourg Gardens," should be left out. +On September 28th I wrote, suggesting that "In the Luxembourg Gardens" +might be retained, that it was only necessary to drop out a few +sentences to make it, as the expert would say, "acceptable to the +American public," but it never occurred to me that "The Lovers of +Orelay" could be published in any form except the form in which I +wrote it. This morning I received a letter from Mr. Sears. + +October 8, 1906. DEAR MR. MOORE: + +Your letter of September 28th has just arrived this morning. I hope +that by the time you receive this I shall have the open letter which +we are to print in "Memoirs of My Dead Life." The book is all ready, +waiting for it. As a matter of fact, we have not cut out either "In +the Luxembourg Gardens" or "The Lovers of Orelay." We simply have +taken out parts of each. Very truly yours, J. H. SEARS. + +"Simply have taken out parts of each!" My book, then, is a sort of +unfortunate animal, whose destiny was to be thrown on the American +vivisecting table and pieces taken out of it. Well, I raise no +objection. The promise that this preface will be published without +alteration soothes me (it is the anaesthetic), and after all, is it +not an honor to be Bowdlerized? Only the best are deemed dangerous.... +I am not aware that anybody ever took liberties with Miss Braddon's +texts. And the day of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one! Sooner or later +the original text is published. This is the rule, and I am confident I +shall not prove an exception to the rule. + +GEORGE MOORE. + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRING IN LONDON + + +As I sit at my window on Sunday morning, lazily watching the +sparrows--restless black dots that haunt the old tree at the corner of +King's Bench Walk--I begin to distinguish a faint green haze in the +branches of the old lime. Yes, there it is green in the branches; and +I'm moved by an impulse--the impulse of Spring is in my feet; +india-rubber seems to have come into the soles of my feet, and I would +see London. It is delightful to walk across Temple Gardens, to +stop--pigeons are sweeping down from the roofs--to call a hansom, and +to notice, as one passes, the sapling behind St. Clement's Danes. The +quality of the green is exquisite on the smoke-black wall. London can +be seen better on Sundays than on week-days; lying back in a hansom, +one is alone with London. London is beautiful in that narrow street, +celebrated for licentious literature. The blue and white sky shows +above a seventeenth-century gable, and a few moments after we are in +Drury Lane. The fine weather has enticed the population out of grim +courts and alleys; skipping-ropes are whirling everywhere. The +children hardly escape being run over. Coster girls sit wrapped in +shawls, contentedly, like rabbits at the edge of a burrow; the men +smoke their pipes in sullen groups, their eyes on the closed doors of +the public house. At the corner of the great theatre a vendor of cheap +ices is rapidly absorbing the few spare pennies of the neighbourhood. +The hansom turns out of the lane into the great thoroughfare, a bright +glow like the sunset fills the roadway, and upon it a triangular block +of masonry and St. Giles's church rise, the spire aloft in the faint +blue and delicate air. Spires are so beautiful that we would fain +believe that they will outlast creeds; religion or no religion we must +have spires, and in town and country--spires showing between trees and +rising out of the city purlieus. + +The spring tide is rising; the almond trees are in bloom, that one +growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the +wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light +up--how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in +the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the +spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing +together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How +exciting! It melts on the lips in fond kisses, instilling a delicate +gluttony of life. It would be pleasant in these gardens walking +through shadowy alleys, lit here and there by a ray, to see girls +walking hand in hand, catching at branches, as girls do when dreaming +of lovers. But alas! the gardens are empty; only some daffodils! But +how beautiful is the curve of the flower when seen in profile, and +still more beautiful is the starry yellow when the flower is seen full +face. That antique flower carries my mind back--not to Greek times, +for the daffodil has lost something of its ancient loveliness; it is +more reminiscent of a Wedgwood than of a Greek vase. My nonsense +thoughts amuse me; I follow my thoughts as a child follows +butterflies; and all this ecstasy in and about me, is the joy of +health--my health and the health of the world. This April day has set +brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old +canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; +an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of--well, I do not know of +what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours +waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal does +nothing. + +Here comes a boat! The canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has +interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the +last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, +the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at +the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me +of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first +wonder. We all remember the wonder with which we watched the first +barge, the wonder which the smoke coming out of the funnel excited. +When my father asked me why I'd like to go to Dublin better by canal +than by railroad, I couldn't tell him. Nor could I tell any one to-day +why I love a canal. One never loses one's fondness for canals. The +boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he +strains, sticking his toes into the path! + +There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always +women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining +light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round +Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets +full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank +historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away, +and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius. +Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach +to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is +peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original +marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and +mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image; +till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white +Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it +has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs +are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her +veiled face and read. I have only to fix my thoughts to +decipher--what? I know not. Something ... perhaps. But I cannot +control my thoughts. I am absorbed in turn by the beauty of the Marble +Arch and the perspective of the Bayswater Road, fading like an +apparition amid the romance of great trees. + +As I turn away, for the wind thrills and obliges me to walk rapidly, I +think how fortunate I am to experience these emotions in Hyde Park, +whereas my fellows have to go to Switzerland and to climb up Mont +Blanc, to feel half what I am feeling now, as I stand looking across +the level park watching the sunset, a dusky one. The last red bar of +light fades, and nothing remains but the grey park with the blue of +the suburb behind it, flowing away full of mist and people, dim and +mournful to the pallid lights of Kensington; and its crowds are like +strips of black tape scattered here and there. By the railings the +tape has been wound into a black ball, and, no doubt, the peg on which +it is wound is some preacher promising human nature deliverance from +evil if it will forego the spring time. But the spring time continues, +despite the preacher, over yonder, under branches swelling with leaf +and noisy with sparrows; the spring is there amid the boys and girls, +boys dressed in ill-fitting suits of broadcloth, daffodils in their +buttonholes; girls hardly less coarse, creatures made for work, +escaped for a while from the thraldom of the kitchen, now doing the +business of the world better than the preacher; poor servants of +sacred Spring. A woman in a close-fitting green cloth dress passes me +to meet a young man; a rich fur hangs from her shoulders; and they go +towards Park Lane, towards the wilful little houses with low balconies +and pendent flower-baskets swinging in the areas. Circumspect little +gardens! There is one, Greek as an eighteenth-century engraving, and +the woman in the close-fitting green cloth dress, rich fur hanging +from her shoulders, almost hiding the pleasant waist, enters one of +these. She is Park Lane. Park Lane supper parties and divorce are +written in her eyes and manner. The old beau, walking swiftly lest he +should catch cold, his moustache clearly dyed, his waist certainly +pinched by a belt, he, too, is Park Lane. And those two young men, +talking joyously--admirable specimens of Anglo-Saxons, slender feet, +varnished boots, health and abundant youth--they, too, are +characteristic of Park Lane. + +Park Lane dips in a narrow and old-fashioned way as it enters +Piccadilly. Piccadilly has not yet grown vulgar, only a little modern, +a little out of keeping with the beauty of the Green Park, of that +beautiful dell, about whose mounds I should like to see a comedy of +the Restoration acted. + +I used to stand here, at this very spot, twenty years ago, to watch +the moonlight between the trees, and the shadows of the trees floating +over that beautiful dell; I used to think of Wycherly's comedy, "Love +in St. James's Park," and I think of it still. In those days the +Argyle Rooms, Kate Hamilton's in Panton Street, and the Café de la +Régence were the fashion. But Paris drew me from these, towards other +pleasures, towards the Nouvelle Athènes and the Elysée Montmartre; and +when I returned to London after an absence of ten years I found a new +London, a less English London. Paris draws me still, and I shall be +there in three weeks, when the chestnuts are in bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FLOWERING NORMANDY + + +On my arrival in Paris, though the hour was that stupid hour of seven +in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was +filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed +like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which +the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life +itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed +into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were +due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a +line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky, +one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound +except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the +fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails +only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange +crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I +remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere +could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in +the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral, +the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof +disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full +of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and +courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there +in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour +we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the +green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten +years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were +visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy +movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the +train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a +quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides +breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless +and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I +say of their beauty when the first faint lights appeared, when the +first rose clouds appeared above the hills? Orchard succeeded orchard, +and the farmhouses were all asleep. There is no such journey in the +world as the journey from Dieppe to Paris on a fine May morning. Never +shall I forget the first glimpse of Rouen Cathedral in the diamond +air, the branching river, and the tall ships anchored in the deep +current. I was dreaming of the cathedral when we had left Rouen far +behind us, and when I awoke from my dream we were in the midst of a +flat green country, the river winding about islands and through fields +in which stood solitary poplar-trees, formerly haunts of Corot and +Daubigny. I could see the spots where they had set their easels--that +slight rise with the solitary poplar for Corot, that rich river bank +and shady backwater for Daubigny. Soon after I saw the first weir, and +then the first hay-boat; and at every moment the river grew more +serene, more gracious, it passed its arms about a flat, green-wooded +island, on which there was a rookery; and sometimes we saw it ahead of +us, looping up the verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running +through it like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown +disappearing in fine muslin vapours, drawn about the low horizon. + +I did not weary of this landscape, and was sorry when the first villa +appeared. Another and then another showed between the chestnut-trees +in bloom; and there were often blue vases on the steps and sometimes +lanterns in metalwork hung from wooden balconies. The shutters were +not yet open, those heavy French shutters that we all know so well, +and that give the French houses such a look of comfort, of ease, of +long tradition. Suddenly the aspect of a street struck me as a place I +had known, and I said, "Is it possible that we are passing through +Asnières?" The name flitted past, and I was glad I had recognised +Asnières, for at the end of that very long road is the restaurant +where we used to dine, and between it and the bridge is the _bal_ +where we used to dance. It was there I saw the beautiful Blanche +D'Antigny surrounded by her admirers. It was there she used to sit by +the side of the composer of the musical follies which she sang--in +those days I thought she sang enchantingly. Those were the days of +L'Oeil, Crevé, and Chilpéric. She once passed under the chestnut-trees +of that dusty little _bal de banlieue_ with me by her side, proud +of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has +outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It +would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in +the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her +sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light +of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great +poets have voiced her woe and decadence. + +Not five minutes from that _bal_ was the little house in which +Hervé lived, and to which he used to invite us to supper; and where, +after supper, he used to play to us the last music he had composed. We +listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken +all the tinkle out of it, and the poor _compositeur toqué_ never +caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, +believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the +Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for +a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, +cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the great goddess of folly, +used to come down there to sing the songs which were intended to +revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and +Hervé's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly +did he seize the conductor's _bâton_; the days of their glory had +gone. Now Asnières itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen +another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled +down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor +scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages +came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense +and Blanche and Julia. + +But after all I am in Paris. Almost the same Paris; almost the same +George Moore, my senses awake as before to all enjoyment, my soul as +enwrapped as ever in the divine sensation of life. Once my youth moved +through thy whiteness, O City, and its dreams lay down to dreams in +the freedom of thy fields! Years come and years go, but every year I +see city and plain in the happy exaltation of Spring, and departing +before the cuckoo, while the blossom is still bright on the bough, it +has come to me to think that Paris and May are one. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WAITRESS + + +Feeling that he would never see Scotland again, Stevenson wrote in a +preface to "Catriona":--"I see like a vision the youth of my father, +and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there +far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out +in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I +admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny." Does not this +sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile +emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it +reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however +vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be +remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget +the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler +phrase will form itself in our memories. The emotion that Stevenson +had to express transpires only in the words, "romance of destiny, +ultimate islands." Who does not feel his destiny to be a romance, and +who does not admire the ultimate island whither his destiny will cast +him? Giacomo Cenci, whom the Pope ordered to be flayed alive, no doubt +admired the romance of destiny that laid him on his ultimate island, a +raised plank, so that the executioner might conveniently roll up the +skin of his belly like an apron. And a hare that I once saw beating a +tambourine in Regent Street looked at me so wistfully that I am sure +it admired in some remote way the romance of destiny that had taken it +from the woodland and cast it upon its ultimate island--in this case a +barrow. But neither of these strange examples of the romance of +destiny seems to me more wonderful than the destiny of a wistful Irish +girl whom I saw serving drinks to students in a certain ultimate café +in the Latin Quarter; she, too, no doubt, admired the destiny which +had cast her out, ordaining that she should die amid tobacco smoke, +serving drinks to students, entertaining them with whatever +conversation they desired. + +Gervex, Mademoiselle D'Avary, and I had gone to this café after the +theatre for half an hour's distraction; I had thought that the place +seemed too rough for Mademoiselle D'Avary, but Gervex had said that we +should find a quiet corner, and we had happened to choose one in +charge of a thin, delicate girl, a girl touched with languor, +weakness, and a grace which interested and moved me; her cheeks were +thin, and the deep grey eyes were wistful as a drawing of Rossetti; +her waving brown hair fell over the temples, and was looped up low +over the neck after the Rossetti fashion. I had noticed how the two +women looked at each other, one woman healthful and rich, the other +poor and ailing; I had guessed the thought that passed across their +minds. Each had doubtless asked and wondered why life had come to them +so differently. But first I must tell who was Mademoiselle D'Avary, +and how I came to know her. I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated +cafe at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. +When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is +recorded that he said: "Now I've done with music, it has served its +turn, and I'm going to dine every day at Tortoni's." Even in my time +Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one +was there at five o'clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in +Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. +Tortoni was a sort of publication. At Tortoni I had discovered a young +man, one of my oldest friends, a painter of talent--he had a picture +in the Luxembourg--and a man who was beloved by women. Gervex, for it +was he, had seized me by the hand, and with voluble eagerness had told +me that I was the person he was seeking: he had heard of my coming and +had sought me in every cafe from the Madeleine to Tortoni. He had been +seeking me because he wished to ask me to dinner to meet Mademoiselle +D'Avary; we were to fetch her in the Rue des Capucines. I write the +name of the street, not because it matters to my little story in what +street she lived, but because the name is an evocation. Those who like +Paris like to hear the names of the streets, and the long staircase +turning closely up the painted walls, the brown painted doors on the +landings, and the bell rope, are evocative of Parisian life; and +Mademoiselle D'Avary is herself an evocation, for she was an actress +of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of +those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of +life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work +is done, _nous pouvons faire la fête ensemble_." But however +defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for +it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I +looked round the drawing-room admiring it--a drawing-room furnished +with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, _étagères_ +covered with silver ornaments, three drawings by Boucher--Boucher in +three periods, a French Boucher, a Flemish Boucher, and an Italian +Boucher--that I must not think that any of these things were presents +from him, and from saying when she came into the room that the +bracelet on her arm was not from him. It had seemed to me in slightly +bad taste that he should remind her that he made no presents, for his +remark had clouded her joyousness; I could see that she was not so +happy at the thought of going out to dine with him as she had been. + +It was _chez Foyoz_ that we dined, an old-fashioned restaurant +still free from the new taste that likes walls painted white and gold, +electric lamps and fiddlers. After dinner we had gone to see a play +next door at the Odéon, a play in which shepherds spoke to each other +about singing brooks, and stabbed each other for false women, a play +diversified with vintages, processions, wains, and songs. Nevertheless +it had not interested us. And during the _entr'actes_ Gervex had +paid visits in various parts of the house, leaving Mademoiselle +D'Avary to make herself agreeable to me. I dearly love to walk by the +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers. After the +play he had said, "Allons boire un bock," and we had turned into a +students' café, a café furnished with tapestries and oak tables, and +old-time jugs and Medicis gowns, a café in which a student +occasionally caught up a tall bock in his teeth, emptied it at a gulp, +and after turning head over heels, walked out without having smiled. +Mademoiselle D'Avary's beauty and fashion had drawn the wild eyes of +all the students gathered there. She wore a flower-enwoven dress, and +from under the large hat her hair showed dark as night; and her +southern skin filled with rich tints, yellow and dark green where the +hair grew scanty on the neck; the shoulders drooped into opulent +suggestion in the lace bodice. And it was interesting to compare her +ripe beauty with the pale deciduous beauty of the waitress. +Mademoiselle D'Avary sat, her fan wide-spread across her bosom, her +lips parted, the small teeth showing between the red lips. The +waitress sat, her thin arms leaning on the table, joining very +prettily in the conversation, betraying only in one glance that she +knew that she was only a failure and Mademoiselle D'Avary a success. +It was some time before the ear caught the slight accent; an accent +that was difficult to trace to any country. Once I heard a southern +intonation, and then a northern; finally I heard an unmistakable +English intonation, and said: + +"But you're English." + +"I'm Irish. I'm from Dublin." + +And thinking of a girl reared in its Dublin conventions, but whom the +romance of destiny had cast upon this ultimate café, I asked her how +she had found her way here; and she told me she had left Dublin when +she was sixteen; she had come to Paris six years ago to take a +situation as nursery governess. She used to go with the children into +the Luxembourg Gardens and talk to them in English. One day a student +had sat on the bench beside her. The rest of the story is easily +guessed. But he had no money to keep her, and she had to come to this +café to earn her living. + +"It doesn't suit me, but what am I to do? One must live, and the +tobacco smoke makes me cough." I sat looking at her, and she must have +guessed what was passing in my mind, for she told me that one lung was +gone; and we spoke of health, of the South, and she said that the +doctor had advised her to go away south. + +Seeing that Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary were engaged in +conversation, I leaned forward and devoted all my attention to this +wistful Irish girl, so interesting in her phthisis, in her red Medicis +gown, her thin arms showing in the long rucked sleeves. I had to offer +her drink; to do so was the custom of the place. She said that drink +harmed her, but she would get into trouble if she refused drink; +perhaps I would not mind paying for a piece of beef-steak instead. She +had been ordered raw steak! I have only to close my eyes to see her +going over to the corner of the cafe and cutting a piece and putting +it away. She said she would eat it before going to bed, and that would +be two hours hence, about three. While talking to her I thought of a +cottage in the South amid olive and orange trees, an open window full +of fragrant air, and this girl sitting by it. + +"I should like to take you south and attend upon you." + +"I'm afraid you would grow weary of nursing me. And I should be able +to give you very little in return for your care. The doctor says I'm +not to love any one." + +We must have talked for some time, for it was like waking out of a +dream when Gervex and Mademoiselle D'Avary got up to go, and, seeing +how interested I was, he laughed, saying to Mademoiselle D'Avary that +it would be kind to leave me with my new friend. His pleasantry +jarred, and though I should like to have remained, I followed them +into the street, where the moon was shining over the Luxembourg +Gardens. And as I have said before, I dearly love to walk by a +perambulator in which Love is wheeling a pair of lovers: but it is sad +to find oneself alone on the pavement at midnight. Instead of going +back to the café I wandered on, thinking of the girl I had seen, and +of her certain death, for she could not live many months in that café. +We all want to think at midnight, under the moon, when the city looks +like a black Italian engraving, and poems come to us as we watch a +swirling river. Not only the idea of a poem came to me that night, but +on the Pont Neuf the words began to sing together, and I jotted down +the first lines before going to bed. Next morning I continued my poem, +and all day was passed in this little composition. + + We are alone! Listen, a little while, + And hear the reason why your weary smile + And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet, + And how my love of you is more complete + Than any love of any lover. They + Have only been attracted by the grey + Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim + And delicate form, or some such other whim, + The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I + For other reason. Listen whilst I try + To say. I joy to see the sunset slope + Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, + Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm + Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, + In mildly modulated phrases; thus + Your life shall fade like a voluptuous + Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die + Like some soft evening's sad serenity.... + I would possess your dying hours; indeed + My love is worthy of the gift, I plead + For them. Although I never loved as yet, + Methinks that I might love you; I would get + From out the knowledge that the time was brief, + That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, + And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm + Beyond all other loves, for now the arm + Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims + You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames + Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet + To see you fading like a violet, + Or some sweet thought, would be a very strange + And costly pleasure, far beyond the range + Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I + Will chose a country spot where fields of rye + And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains, + Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, + To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where + The porch and windows are festooned with fair + Green leaves of eglantine, and look upon + A shady garden where we'll walk alone + In the autumn summer evenings; each will see + Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree, + The garden's length, is far, and you will rest + From time to time, leaning upon my breast + Your languid lily face, then later still + Unto the sofa by the window-sill + Your wasted body I shall carry, so + That you may drink the last left lingering glow + Of evening, when the air is filled with scent + Of blossoms; and my spirits shall be rent + The while with many griefs. Like some blue day + That grows more lovely as it fades away, + Gaining that calm serenity and height + Of colour wanted, as the solemn night + Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep + For ever and for ever; I shall weep + A day and night large tears upon your face, + Laying you then beneath a rose-red place + Where I may muse and dedicate and dream + Volumes of poesy of you; and deem + It happiness to know that you are far + From any base desires as that fair star + Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. + Death takes but little, yea, your death has given + Me that deep peace and immaculate possession + Which man may never find in earthly passion. + +Good poetry of course not, but good verse, well turned every line +except the penultimate. The elision is not a happy one, and the mere +suppression of the "and" does not produce a satisfying line. + + Death takes but little, Death I thank for giving + Me a remembrance, and a pure possession + Of unrequited love. + +And mumbling the last lines of the poem, I hastened to the café near +the Luxembourg Gardens, wondering if I should find courage to ask the +girl to come away to the South and live, fearing that I should not, +fearing it was the idea rather than the deed that tempted me; for the +soul of a poet is not the soul of Florence Nightingale. I was sorry +for this wistful Irish girl, and was hastening to her, I knew not why; +not to show her the poem--the very thought was intolerable. Often did +I stop on the way to ask myself why I was going, and on what errand. +Without discovering an answer in my heart I hastened on, feeling, I +suppose, in some blind way that my quest was in my own heart. I would +know if it were capable of making a sacrifice; and sitting down at one +of her tables I waited, but she did not come, and I asked the student +by me if he knew the girl generally in charge of these tables. He said +he did, and told me about her case. There was no hope for her; only a +transfusion of blood could save her; she was almost bloodless. He +described how blood could be taken from the arm of a healthy man and +passed into the veins of the almost bloodless. But as he spoke things +began to get dim and his voice to grow faint; I heard some one saying, +"You're very pale," and he ordered some brandy for me. The South could +not save her; practically nothing could; and I returned home thinking +of her. + +Twenty years have passed, and I am thinking of her again. Poor little +Irish girl! Cast out in the end by a sudden freshet on an ultimate +café. Poor little heap of bones! And I bow my head and admire the +romance of destiny which ordained that I, who only saw her once, +should be the last to remember her. Perhaps I should have forgotten +her had it not been that I wrote a poem, a poem which I now inscribe +and dedicate to her nameless memory. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN + + +Octave Barrès liked his friends to come to his studio, and a few of us +who believed in his talent used to drop in during the afternoon, and +little by little I got to know every picture, every sketch; but one +never knows everything that a painter has done, and one day, coming +into the studio, I caught sight of a full-length portrait I had never +seen before on the easel. + +"It was in the back room turned to the wall," he said. "I took it out, +thinking that the Russian prince who ordered the Pegasus decoration +might buy it," and he turned away, not liking to hear my praise of it; +for it neither pleases a painter to hear his early works praised nor +abused. "I painted it before I knew how to paint," and standing before +me, his palette in his hand, he expounded his new aestheticism: that +up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all painting had been +done first in monochrome and then glazed, and what we know as solid +painting had been invented by Greuze. One day in the Louvre he had +perceived something in Delacroix, something not wholly satisfactory; +this something had set him thinking. It was Rubens, however, who had +revealed the secret! It was Rubens who had taught him how to paint! He +admitted that there was danger in retracing one's steps, in beginning +one's education over again; but what help was there for it, since +painting was not taught in the schools. + +I had heard all he had to say before, and could not change my belief +that every man must live in the ideas of his time, be they good or +bad. It is easy to say that we must only adopt Rubens's method and +jealously guard against any infringement on our personality; but in +art our personality is determined by the methods we employ, and +Octave's portrait interested me more than the Pegasus decoration, or +the three pink Venuses holding a basket of flowers above their heads. +The portrait was crude and violent, but so was the man that had +painted it; he had painted it when he was a disciple of Manet's, and +the methods of Manet were in agreement with my friend's temperament. +We are all impressionists to-day; we are eager to note down what we +feel and see; and the carefully prepared rhetorical manner of Rubens +was as incompatible with Octave's temperament as the manner of John +Milton is with mine. There was a thought of Goya in the background, in +the contrast between the grey and the black, and there was something +of Manet's simplifications in the face, but these echoes were faint, +nor did they matter, for they were of our time. In looking at his +model he had seen and felt something; he had noted this harshly, +crudely, but he noted it; and to do this, is after all the main thing. +His sitter had inspired him. The word "inspired" offended him; I +withdrew it; I said that he had been fortunate in his model, and he +admitted that: to see that thin, olive-complexioned girl with fine +delicate features and blue-black hair lying close about her head like +feathers--she wore her hair as a blackbird wears his wing--compelled +one to paint; and after admiring the face I admired the black silk +dress he had painted her in, a black silk dress covered with black +lace. She wore grey pearls in her ears, and pearls upon her neck. + +I was interested in the quality of the painting, so different from +Octave's present painting, but I was more interested in the woman +herself. The picture revealed to me something in human nature that I +had never seen before, something that I had never thought of. The soul +in this picture was so intense that I forgot the painting, and began +to think of her. She was unlike any one I had ever met in Octave +Barrès's studio; a studio beloved of women; the women one met there +seemed to be of all sorts, but in truth they were all of a sort. They +began to arrive about four o'clock in the afternoon, and they stayed +on until they were sent away. He allowed them to play the piano and +sing to him; he allowed them, as he would phrase it, to +_grouiller_ about the place, and they talked of the painters they +had sat to, of their gowns, and they showed us their shoes and their +garters. He heeded them hardly at all, walking to and fro thinking of +his painting, of his archaic painting. I often wondered if his +appearance counted for anything in his renunciation of modern methods, +and certainly his appearance was a link of association; he did not +look like a modern man, but like a sixteenth-century baron; his beard +and his broken nose and his hierarchial air contributed to the +resemblance; the jersey he wore reminded one of a cuirass, a coat of +mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively +to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of +which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and +the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the +middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. +Octave was always, as he would phrase it, _dans une dèche +épouvantable_, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the +stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as +the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, +mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and +many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as he rode +away. + +But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that +cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might +have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual +women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a +Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken +out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus +might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's +mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her +history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly +endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was +saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to +propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his +present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, +"and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." + +"Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to +sit. A _concierge's_ daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" +My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know +her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where +he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where +Alphonsine's was. + +"I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going +back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier +Bréda on her holiday. _Sacré nom!_ Half-past five, and I haven't +washed my brushes yet!" + +In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Bréda +for a holiday, he said: + +"I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." + +But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he +must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and +swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes +he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the +lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a +_peignoir_, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a +polished _parquet_ floor. We at last returned to the carriage, +but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He +scribbled notes in the lodges of the _concierges_, and between +whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This +delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was +the daughter of a _concierge_ on the Boulevard Extérieur. She had +run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysée Montmartre. + + Sa jupe avait des trous, + Elle aimait des voyous, + Ils ont des yeux si doux. + +But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built +her a palace in the Champs Elysées; but the Russian prince and his +palace bored her. + +The stopping of the carriage interrupted Octave's narrative. "Here we +are," he said, seizing a bell hanging on a jangling wire, and the +green door in the crumbling wall opened, and I saw an undersized +woman--I saw Alphonsine! And her portrait, a life-sized caricature +drawn by Octave, faced me from the white-washed wall of the hen-coop. +He had drawn her two cats purring about her legs, and had written +under it, "Ils viennent après le mou." Her garden was a gravelled +space; I think there was one tree in it. A tent had been stretched +from wall to wall; and a seedy-looking waiter laid the tables (there +were two), placing bottles of wine in front of each knife and fork, +and bread in long sticks at regular intervals. He was constantly +disturbed by the ringing of the bell, and had to run to the door to +admit the company. Here and there I recognised faces that I had +already seen in the studio; Clementine, who last year was studying the +part of Elsa and this year was singing, "La femme de feu, la cui, la +cui, la cuisinière," in a _café chantant_; and Margaret Byron, +who had just retreated from Russia--a disastrous campaign hers was +said to have been. The greater number were _hors concours_, for +Alphonsine's was to the aged courtesan what Chelsea Hospital is to the +aged soldier. It was a sort of human garden full of the sound and +colour of October. + +I scrutinised the crowd. How could any one of these women interest the +woman whose portrait I had seen in Barrès's studio? That one, for +instance, whom I saw every morning in the Rue des Martyres, in a +greasy _peignoir_, going marketing, a basket on her arm. Search +as I would I could not find a friend for Marie among the women nor a +lover among the men--neither of those two stout middle-aged men with +large whiskers, who had probably once been stockbrokers, nor the +withered journalist whom I heard speaking to Octave about a duel he +had fought recently; nor the little sandy Scotchman whose French was +not understood by the women and whose English was nearly +unintelligible to me; nor the man who looked like a head-waiter-- +Alphonsine's lover; he had been a waiter, and he told you with the air +of Napoleon describing Waterloo that he had "created" a certain +fashionable café on the Boulevard. I could not attribute any one of +these men to Marie; and Octave spoke of her with indifference; +she had interested him to paint, and now he hoped she would get the +Russian to buy her picture. + +"But she's not here," I said. + +"She'll be here presently," Octave answered, and he went on talking to +Clementine, a fair pretty woman whom one saw every night at the _Rat +Mort_. It was when the soup-plates were being taken away that I saw +a young woman dressed in black coming across the garden. + +It was she, Marie Pellegrin. + +She wore a dress similar to the one she wore in her portrait, a black +silk covered with lace, and her black hair was swathed about her +shapely little head. She was her portrait and something more. Her +smile was her own, a sad little smile that seemed to come out of a +depth of her being, and her voice was a little musical voice, +irresponsible as a bird's, and during dinner I noticed how she broke +into speech abruptly as a bird breaks into song, and she stopped as +abruptly. I never saw a woman so like herself, and sometimes her +beauty brought a little mist into my eyes, and I lost sight of her or +very nearly, and I went on eating mechanically. Dinner seemed to end +suddenly, and before I knew that it was over we were getting up from +table. + +As we went towards the house where coffee was being served, Marie +asked me if I played cards, but I excused myself, saying that I would +prefer to sit and look at her; and just then a thin woman with red +hair, who had arrived at the same time as Marie and who had sat next +her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was +Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever +Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as _La Glue_, her +real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, +but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red +hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of +_des petits verres de cognac_. Her sketch-book was being passed +round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear +stays and was dressed in old grey woollen. She lit cigarette after +cigarette, and leaned over Marie with her arm about her shoulder, +advising her what cards to play. The game was baccarat, and in a +little while I saw that Marie was losing a great deal of money, and a +little later I saw _La Glue_ trying to persuade her away from the +card-table. + +"One more deal." That deal lost her the last louis she had placed on +the table. "Some one will have to pay my cab," she said. + +We were going to the Elysée Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a +couple of louis, _pour passer sa soirée_, and we all went away in +carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the +plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was +in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high +steps leading from the street to the _bal_. + +"It's my last night," she said, "the last night I shall see the Elysée +for many a month." + +"You'll soon be back again?" + +"You see, I have been offered five hundred thousand francs to go to +Russia for three years. Fancy three years without seeing the Elysée," +and she looked round as an angel might look upon Paradise out of which +she is about to be driven. "The trees are beautiful," she said, +"they're like a fairy tale," and that is exactly what they were like, +rising into the summer darkness, unnaturally green above the electric +lights. In the middle of a circle of white globes the orchestra played +upon an _estrade_, and everyone whirled his partner as if she +were a top. "I always sit over there under the trees in the angle," +she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when +her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn +together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie +Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began +to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting +under her tree, she and _La Glue_ together, their friends about +them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little +procession suddenly formed under the trees and came towards her, and +Marie was presented with a great basket of flowers, and all her +company with bouquets; and a little cheer went up from different parts +of the _bal_, "Vive Marie Pellegrin, la reine de l'Elysée." + +The music began again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two +women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them +I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in +Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night +at the Elysée. A swishing sound was heard; the rocket rose to its +height high up in the thick sky. Then it dipped over, the star fell a +little way and burst: it melted into turquoise blue, and changed to +ruby red, beautiful as the colour of flowers, roses or tulips. The +falling fire changed again and again. And Marie stood on a chair and +watched till the last sparks vanished. + +"Doesn't she look like my picture now?" said Octave. + +"You seemed to have divined her soul." + +He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I'm not a psychologist; I +am a painter. But I must get a word with her," and with a carelessness +that was almost insolence, he pushed his way into the crowd and called +her, saying he wanted to speak to her; and they walked round the +_bal_ together. I could not understand his indifference to her +charm, and asked myself if he had always been so indifferent. In a +little while they returned. + +"I'll do my best," I heard her say; and she ran back to join her +companions. + +"I suppose you've seen enough of the Elysée?" + +"Ah! qu'elle est jolie ce soir; et elle ferait joliment marcher le +Russe." + +We walked on in silence. Octave did not notice that he had said +anything to jar my feelings; he was thinking of his portrait, and +presently he said that he was sorry she was going to Russia. + +"I should like to begin another portrait, now that I have learned to +paint." + +"Do you think she'll go to Russia?" + +"Yes, she'll go there; but she'll come back one of these days, and +I'll get her to sit again. It is extraordinary how little is known of +the art of painting; the art is forgotten. The old masters did +perfectly in two days what we spend weeks fumbling at. In two days +Rubens finished his _grisaille_, and the glazing was done with +certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more +depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much +paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's +none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it +doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and +Cézanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt." + +I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying +many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and +this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was +glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted. + +"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope +he'll buy the portrait." + +"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it." + +"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the +woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the +day after to-morrow?" + +"Yes," I said, "I'll come." + +"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture." + +Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian +had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely +settled yet. + +Marie had gone to St. Petersburg with the prince, and this was the +last news I had of her for many months. But a week rarely passed +without something happening to remind me of her. One day a books of +travels in Siberia opened at a passage telling how a boy belonging to +a tribe of Asiatic savages had been taken from his deserts, where he +had been found deserted and dying, and brought to Moscow. The +gentleman who had found him adopted and educated him, and the +reclaimed savage became in time a fashionable young man about town, +betraying no trace of his origin until one day he happened to meet one +of his tribe. The man had come to Moscow to sell skins; and the smell +of the skins awoke a longing for the desert. The reclaimed savage grew +melancholy; his adopted father tried in vain to overcome the original +instinct; presents of money did not soothe his homesickness. He +disappeared, and was not heard of for years until one day a caravan +came back with the news of a man among the savages who had betrayed +himself by speaking French. On being questioned, he denied any +knowledge of French; he said he had never been to St. Petersburg, nor +did he wish to go there. And what was this story but the story of +Marie Pellegrin, who, when weary of Russian princes and palaces, +returned for her holiday to the Quartier Bréda? + +A few days afterwards I heard in Barrès's studio that she had escaped +from Russia; and that evening I went to Alphonsine's to dinner, hoping +to see her there. But she was not there. There was no one there except +Clementine and the two stockbrokers; and I waited eagerly for news of +her. I did not like to mention her name, and the dreary dinner was +nearly over before her name was mentioned. I heard that she was ill; +no, not dying, but very ill. Alphonsine gave me her address; a little +higher up on the same side as the Cirque Fernando, nearly facing the +Elysée Montmartre. The number I could inquire out, she said, and I +went away in a cab up the steep and stony Rue des Martyres, noticing +the café and then the _brasserie_ and a little higher up the +fruit-seller and the photographer. When the mind is at stress one +notices the casual, and mine was at stress, and too agitated to think. +The first house we stopped at happened to be the right one, and the +_concierge_ said, "The fourth floor." As I went upstairs I +thought of _La Glue_, of her untidy dress and her red hair, and +it was she who answered the bell and asked me into an unfurnished +drawing-room, and we stood by the chimneypiece. + +"She's talking of going to the Elysée to-night. Won't you come in? +She'd like to see you. There are three or four of us here. You know +them. Clementine, Margaret Byron?" And she mentioned some other names +that I did not remember, and opening a door she cried: "Marie, here's +a visitor for you, a gentleman from Alphonsine's. You know, dear, the +Englishman, Octave Barrès's friend." + +She gave me her hand, and I held it a long while. + +"Comme les Anglais sont gentils. Dès qu'on est malade--" + +I don't think Marie finished the sentence, if she did I did not hear +her; but I remember quite well that she spoke of my distaste for +cards. + +"You didn't play that night at Alphonsine's when I lost all my money. +You preferred to look at Victorine's drawings. She has done some +better ones. Go and look at them, and let's finish our game. Then I'll +talk to you. So you heard about me at Alphonsine's? They say I'm very +ill, don't they? But now that I've come back I'll soon get well. I'm +always well at Montmartre, amn't I, Victorine?" "Nous ne sommes pas +installés encore," Marie said, referring to the scarcity of furniture, +and to the clock and candelabra which stood on the floor. But if there +were too few chairs, there was a good deal of money and jewellery +among the bed-clothes; and Marie toyed with this jewellery during the +games. She wore large lace sleeves, and the thin arms showed delicate +and slight when she raised them to change her ear-rings. Her small +beauty, fashioned like an ivory, contrasted with the coarse features +about her, and the little nose with beautifully shaped nostrils, above +all the mouth fading at the ends into faint indecisions. Every now and +then a tenderness came over her face; Octave had seen the essential in +her, whatever he might say; he had painted herself--her soul; and +Marie's soul rose up like a water-flower in her eyes, and then the +soul sank out of sight, and I saw another Marie, _une grue_, +playing cards with five others from Alphonsine's, losing her money and +her health. A bottle of absinthe stood on a beautiful Empire table +that her prince had given her, and Bijou, Clementine's little dog, +slept on an embroidered cushion. Bijou was one of those dear little +Japanese or Chinese spaniels, those dogs that are like the King +Charles. She was going to have puppies, and I was stroking her silky +coat thinking of her coming trouble, when I suddenly heard +Clementine's voice raised above the others, and looking up I saw a +great animation in her face; I heard that the cards had not been +fairly dealt, and then the women threw their cards aside, and _La +Glue_ told Clementine that she was not wanted, that _elle ferait +bien de débarrasser les planches_, that was the expression she +used. I heard further accusations, and among them the plaintive voice +of Marie begging of me not to believe what they said. The women caught +each other by the hair, and tore at each other's faces, and Marie +raised herself up in bed and implored them to cease; and then she fell +back crying. For a moment it seemed as if they were going to sit down +to cards again, but suddenly everybody snatched her own money and then +everybody snatched at the money within her reach; and, calling each +other thieves, they struggled through the door, and I heard them +quarrelling all the way down the staircase. Bijou jumped from her +chair and followed her mistress. + +"Help me to look," Marie said; and looking I saw her faint hands +seeking through the bed-clothes. Some jewellery was missing, a +bracelet and some pearls, as well as all her money. Marie fell back +among the pillows unable to speak, and every moment I dreaded a flow +of blood. She began to cry, and the little lace handkerchief was soon +soaking. I had to find her another. The money that had been taken had +been paid her by a _fournisseur_ in the _Quartier_, who had +given her two thousand francs for her _garniture de cheminée_. A +few francs were found among the bed-clothes, and these few francs, she +said, were sufficient _pour passer sa soirée_, and she begged me +to go the dressmaker to inquire for the gown that had been promised +for ten o'clock. + +"I shall be at the Elysée by eleven. _Au revoir, au revoir!_ Let +me rest a little now. I shall see you to-night. You know where I +always sit, in the left-hand corner; they always keep those seats for +me." + +Her eyes closed, I could see that she was already asleep, and her calm +and reasonable sleep reminded me of her agitated and unreasonable +life; and I stood looking at her, at this poor butterfly who was lying +here all alone, robbed by her friends and associates. But she slept +contentedly, having found a few francs that they had overlooked amid +the bedclothes, enough to enable her to pass her evening at the +Elysée! The prince might be written to; but he, no doubt, was weary of +her inability to lead a respectable life, and knew, no doubt, that if +he were to send her money, it would go as his last gift had gone. If +she lived, Marie would one day be selling fried potatoes on the +streets. And this decadence--was it her fault? Octave would say: +"Qu'est ce que cela peut nous faire, une fille plus ou moins fichue +... si je pouvais réussir un peu dans ce sacré métier!" This was how +he talked, but he thought more profoundly in his painting; his picture +of her was something more than mere sarcasm. + +She was going to the Elysée to-night. It was just six o'clock, so she +wanted her dress by ten. I must hasten away to the dressmaker at once; +it might be wiser not--she lay in bed peaceful and beautiful; at the +Elysée she would be drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes until +three in the morning. But I had promised: she wouldn't forgive me if I +didn't, and I went. + +The dressmaker said that Madame Pellegrin would have her dress by +nine, and at half-past ten I was at the Elysée waiting for her. + +How many times did I walk round the gravel path, wearying of the +unnatural green of the chestnut leaves and of the high kicking in the +quadrilles? Now and then there would be a rush of people, and then the +human tide would disperse again under the trees among the zinc chairs +and tables, for the enjoyment of bocks and cigars. I noticed that +Marie's friends spent their evening in the left-hand corner; but they +did not call me to drink with them, knowing well that I knew the money +they were spending was stolen money. + +I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had +not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she +had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, +for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the afternoon sitting to +him. + +We were in the middle of the sitting, he had just sketched in my head, +when we heard footsteps on the stairs. + +"Only some women," he said; "I've a mind not to open the door." + +"But do," I said, feeling sure the women were Marie's friends bringing +news of her. And it was so. She had been found dead on her balcony +dressed in the gown that had just come home from the dressmaker. + +I hoped that Octave would not try to pass the matter off with some +ribald jest, and I was surprised at his gravity. "Even Octave," I +said, "refrains, _on ne blague pas la mort_." + +"But what was she doing on the balcony?" he asked. "What I don't +understand is the balcony." + +We all stood looking at her picture, trying to read the face. + +"I suppose she went out to look at the fireworks; they begin about +eleven." + +It was one of the women who had spoken, and her remark seemed to +explain the picture. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LA BUTTE + + +To-morrow I shall drive to breakfast, seeing Paris continuously +unfolding, prospect after prospect, green swards, white buildings, +villas engarlanded; to-day I drive to breakfast through the white +torridities of Rue Blanche. The back of the coachman grows drowsier, +and would have rounded off into sleep long ago had it not been for the +great paving stones that swing the vehicle from side to side, and we +have to climb the Rue Lepic, and the poor little fainting animal will +never be able to draw me to the Butte. So I dismiss my carriage, half +out of pity, half out of a wish to study the Rue Lepic, so typical is +it of the upper lower classes. In the Rue Blanche there are +_portes-cochères_, but in Rue Lepic there are narrow doors, +partially grated, open on narrow passages at the end of which, +squeezed between the wall and the stairs, are small rooms where +_concierges_ sit, eternally _en camisole_, amid vegetables +and sewing. The wooden blinds are flung back on the faded yellow +walls, revealing a portion of white bed-curtain and a heavy +middle-aged woman, _en camisole_, passing between the cooking +stove, in which a rabbit in a tin pail lies steeping, and the men +sitting at their trades in the windows. The smell of leather follows +me for several steps; a few doors farther a girl sits trimming a +bonnet, her mother beside her. The girl looks up, pale with the +exhausting heat. At the corner of the next street there is the +_marchand de vins_, and opposite the dirty little _charbonnier_, +and standing about a little hole which he calls his _boutique_ +a group of women in discoloured _peignoirs_ and heavy carpet +slippers. They have baskets on their arms. Everywhere traces of +meagre and humble life, but nowhere do I see the demented wretch +common in our London streets--the man with bare feet, the furtive +and frightened creature, gnawing a crust and drawing a black, +tattered shirt about his consumptive chest. + +The asphalt is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, +my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer +neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow +has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the +street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above +the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill +is now a mute ornament, a sign for the _Bal du Moulin de la +Galette_. + +As I ascend the street grows whiter, and at the Butte it is empty of +everything except the white rays of noon. There are some dusty +streets, and silhouetting against the dim sky a dilapidated façade of +some broken pillars. Some stand in the midst of ruined gardens, +circled by high walls crumbling and white, and looking through a +broken gateway I see a fountain splashing, but nowhere the inhabitants +that correspond to these houses--only a workwoman, a grisette, a child +crying in the dust. The Butte Montmartre is full of suggestion; grand +folk must at some time have lived there. Could it be that this place +was once country? To-day it is full of romantic idleness and +abandonment. + +On my left an iron gateway, swinging on rusty hinges, leads on to a +large terrace, at the end of which is a row of houses. It is in one of +these houses that my friend lives, and as I pull the bell I think that +the pleasure of seeing him is worth the ascent, and my thoughts float +back over the long time I have known Paul. We have known each other +always, since we began to write. But Paul is not at home. The servant +comes to the door with a baby in her arms, another baby! and tells me +that Monsieur et Madame are gone out for the day. No breakfast, no +smoke, no talk about literature, only a long walk back--cabs are not +found at these heights--a long walk back through the roasting sun. And +it is no consolation to be told that I should have written and warned +them I was coming. + +But I must rest, and ask leave to do so, and the servant brings me in +some claret and a siphon. The study is better to sit in than the front +room, for in the front room, although the shutters are closed, the +white rays pierce through the chinks, and lie like sword-blades along +the floor. The study is pleasant and the wine refreshing. The house +seems built on the sheer hillside. Fifty feet--more than that--a +hundred feet under me there are gardens, gardens caught somehow in the +hollow of the hill, and planted with trees, tall trees, for swings +hang out of them, otherwise I should not know they were tall. From +this window they look like shrubs, and beyond the houses that surround +these gardens Paris spreads out over the plain, an endless tide of +bricks and stone, splashed with white when the sun shines on some +railway station or great boulevard: a dim reddish mass, like a +gigantic brickfield, and far away a line of hills, and above the plain +a sky as pale and faint as the blue ash of a cigarette. + +I can never look upon this city without strong emotion; it has been +all my life to me. I came here in my youth, I relinquished myself to +Paris, never extending once my adventure beyond Bas Meudon, Ville +d'Avray, Fontainebleau--and Paris has made me. How much of my mind do +I owe to Paris? And by thus acquiring a fatherland more ideal than the +one birth had arrogantly imposed, because deliberately chosen, I have +doubled my span of life. Do I not exist in two countries? Have I not +furnished myself with two sets of thoughts and sensations? Ah! the +delicate delight of owning _un pays ami_--a country where you may +go when you are weary to madness of the routine of life, sure of +finding there all the sensations of home, plus those of irresponsible +caprice. The pleasure of a literature that is yours without being +wholly your own, a literature that is like an exquisite mistress, in +whom you find consolation for all the commonplaces of life! The +comparison is perfect, for although I know these French folk better +than all else in the world, they must ever remain my pleasure, and not +my work in life. It is strange that this should be so, for in truth I +know them strangely well. I can see them living their lives from hour +to hour; I know what they would say on any given occasion. + +There is Paul. I understand nothing more completely than that man's +mind. I know its habitual colour and every varying shade, and yet I +may not make him the hero of a novel when I lay the scene in +Montmartre, though I know it so well. I know when he dresses, how long +he takes to dress, and what he wears. I know the breakfast he eats, +and the streets down which he passes--their shape, their colour, their +smell. I know exactly how life has come to him, how it has affected +him. The day I met him in London! Paul in London! He was there to meet +_une petite fermière_ with whom he had become infatuated when he +went to Normandy to finish his novel. Paul is _foncièrement bon; he +married her_, and this is their abode. There is the _salle-à-manger_, +furnished with a nice sideboard in oak, and six chairs to match; on the +left is their bedroom, and there is the baby's cot, a present from +_le grand, le cher et illustre maître_. + +Paul and Mrs. Paul get up at twelve, and they loiter over breakfast; +some friends come in and they loiter over les _petits verres_. +About four Paul begins to write his article, which he finishes or +nearly finishes before dinner. They loiter over dinner until it is +time for Paul to take his article to the newspaper. He loiters in the +printing office or the cafe until his proof is ready, and when that is +corrected he loiters in the many cafés of the Faubourg Montmartre, +smoking interminable cigars, finding his way back to the Butte between +three and four in the morning. Paul is fat and of an equable +temperament. He believes in naturalism all the day, particularly after +a breakfast over _les petits verres_. He never said an unkind +word to any one, and I am sure never thought one. He used to be fond +of grisettes, but since he married he has thought of no one but his +wife. _Il écrit des choses raides_, but no woman ever had a +better husband. And now you know him as well as I do. Here are his own +books, "The End of Lucie Pellegrin," the story that I have just +finished writing: I think I must explain how it was that I have come +to rewrite one of Paul's stories, the best he ever wrote. I remember +asking him why he called her Lucie, and he was surprised to hear her +name was Marie; he never knew her, he had never been to Alphonsine's, +and he had told the story as he had picked it up from the women who +turned into the Rat Mort at midnight for a _soupe à l'oignon_. He +said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I +could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in +the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had +never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have +done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a +miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully +shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the +blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so +why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my +friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on +her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that +every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism. + +I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the +author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Céard, Maupassant, Hennique, +etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who +tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les +Moralités Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by +Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I +suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their +authors do not visit here. + +And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation +except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists +than Paul. I am the youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the +symbolists. The naturalists affected the art of painting, the +symbolists the art of music; and since the symbolists there has been +no artistic manifestation--the game is played out. When Huysmans and +Paul and myself are dead, it will be as impossible to write a +naturalistic novel as to revive the megatherium. Where is Hennique? +When Monet is dead it will be as impossible to paint an +impressionistic picture as to revive the ichthyosaurus. A little world +of ideas goes by every five-and-twenty years, and the next that +emerges will be incomprehensible to me, as incomprehensible as Monet +was to Corot.... Was the young generation knocking at the door of the +Opéra Comique last night? If the music was the young generation, I am +sorry for it. It was the second time I had gone. I had been to hear +the music, and I left exasperated after the third act. A friend was +with me and he left, but for different reasons; he suffered in his +ears; it was my intelligence that suffered. Why did the flute play the +chromatic scale when the boy said, "Il faut que cela soit un grand +navire," and why were all the cellos in motion when the girl answered, +"Cela ou bien tout autre chose?" I suffered because of the divorce of +the orchestra and singers, uniting perhaps at the end of the scene. It +was speaking through music, no more, monotonous as the Sahara, league +after league, and I lost amid sands. A chord is heard in "Lohengrin" +to sustain Elsa's voice, and it performs its purpose; a motive is +heard to attract attention to a certain part of the story, and it +fills its purpose, when Ortrud shrieks out the motive of the secret, +and in its simplest form, at the church door, the method may be +criticised as crude, but the crudest melodrama is better than this +desert wandering. While I ponder on the music of the younger +generation, remembering the perplexity it had caused me, I hear a +vagrant singing on the other side of the terrace: + +[Illustration] + + Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + +and I say: "I hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one +who possibly has no _trou_ wherein to lay his head." _Et moi +aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y +reste, car mon trou est_--Richard Wagner. My _trou_ is the +Ring--the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of +Liszt and Wagner and Strauss was to write music. However long Wotan +might ponder on Mother Earth the moment comes when the violins begin +to sing; ah! how the spring uncloses in the orchestra, and the lovers +fly to the woods!... + +The vagrant continued his wail, and forgetful of Paul, forgetful of +all things but the philosophy of the minstrel of the Butte, I picked +my way down the tortuous streets repeating: + +[Illustration] + +Moi, je m'en fous, Je reste dans mon trou + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SPENT LOVES + + +I am going to see dear and affectionate friends. The train would take +me to them, that droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_, and it +seems a pity to miss the Gare St. Lazare, its Sunday morning tumult of +Parisians starting with their mistresses and their wives for a +favourite suburb. I never run up these wide stairways leading to the +great wide galleries full of bookstalls (charming yellow notes), and +pierced with little _guichets_ painted round with blue, without +experiencing a sensation of happy lightness--a light-headedness that I +associate with the month of May in Paris. But the tramway that passes +through the Place de la Concorde goes as far as Passy, and though I +love the droll little _chemin de fer de ceinture_ I love this +tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the +garden of the Champs Elysées, through miles of chestnut bloom, the +roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet +overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, +cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little +steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I +love this sprightly little river better than the melancholy Thames, +along whose banks saturnine immoralities flourish like bulrushes! +Behold the white architecture, the pillars, the balustraded steps, the +domes in the blue air, the monumented swards! Paris, like all pagan +cities, is full of statues. A little later we roll past gardens, +gaiety is in the air.... And then the streets of Passy begin to +appear, mean streets, like London streets. I like them not; but the +railway station is compensation; the little railway station like a +house of cards under toy trees, and the train steaming out into the +fanciful country. The bright wood along which it speeds is like the +season's millinery. + +It is pleasant to notice everything in Paris, the flymen asleep on +their box-seats, the little horses dozing beneath the chestnut trees, +the bloused workmen leaning over a green-painted table in an arbour, +drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre, the villas of Auteuil, rich +woodwork, rich iron railings, and the summer hush about villas +engarlanded. Auteuil is so French, its symbolism enchants me. Auteuil +is like a flower, its petals opening out to the kiss of the air, its +roots feeling for way among the rich earth. Ah, the land of France, +its vineyards and orchards, its earthly life! Thoughts come unbidden, +my thoughts sing together, and I hardly knowing what they are singing. +My thoughts are singing like the sun; do not ask me their meaning; +they mean as much and as little as the sun that I am part of--the +sun of France that I shall enjoy for thirty days. May takes me to dear +and affectionate friends who await me at Auteuil, and June takes me +away from them. There is the villa! And there amid the engarlanding +trees my friend, dressed in pale yellow, sits in front of his easel. +How the sunlight plays through the foliage, leaping through the rich, +long grass; and amid the rhododendrons in bloom sits a little girl of +four, his model, her frock and cap impossibly white under the great, +gaudy greenery. + +Year after year the same affectionate welcome, the same spontaneous +welcome in this garden of rhododendrons and chestnut bloom. I would +linger in the garden, but I may not, for breakfast is ready _et il +ne faut pas faire manquer la messe à Madame. La messe_! How gentle +the word is, much gentler than our word, mass, and it shocks us hardly +at all to see an old lady going away in her carriage _pour entendre +la messe_. Religion purged of faith is a pleasant, almost a pretty +thing. Some fruits are better dried than fresh; religion is such a +one, and religion, when nothing is left of it but the pleasant, +familiar habit, may be defended, for were it not for our habits life +would be unrecorded, it would be all on the flat, as we would say if +we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are +our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what +we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to +think the matter out--here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and +how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only +goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent +of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who +said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds +us of the beautiful goodness that floats over his face, a light from +Paradise. But why from Paradise? Paradise is an ugly ecclesiastical +invention, and angels are an ugly Hebrew invention. It is unpardonable +to think of angels in Auteuil; an angel is a prig compared to the dear +doctor, and an angel has wings. Well, so had this admirable chicken, a +bird that was grown for the use of the table, produced like a +vegetable. A dear bird that was never allowed to run about and weary +itself as our helpless English chicken is; it lived to get fat without +acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon +in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it +was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only +stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour +came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge +or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards +its predestined end--a delicious repast! What better end, what greater +glory than to be a fat chicken? The carcasses of sheep that hang in +butchers' shops are beginning to horrify the conscience of Europe. To +cut a sheep's throat is an offensive act, but to clip out a bird's +tongue with a long pair of scissors made for the purpose is genteel. +It is true that it beats its wings for a few moments, but we must not +allow ourselves to be disturbed by a mere flutter of feathers. Man is +merciful, and saved it from life. It grew like an asparagus! And +talking of asparagus, here are some from Argenteuil thick as umbrellas +and so succulent! A word about the wine. French red wines in England +always seem to taste like ink, but in France they taste of the sun. +Melons are better in June--that one comes, no doubt, from Algeria. It +is, however, the kind I like best, the rich, red melon that one eats +only in France; a thing of the moment, unrememberable; but the chicken +will never be forgotten; twenty years hence I shall be talking of a +chicken, that in becoming a fat chicken acquired twenty years of +immortality--which of us will acquire as many? + +As we rise from table the doctor calls me into his studio: for he +would give me an excellent cigar before he bids me good-bye, and +having lighted it I follow my friend to the studio at the end of the +garden, to that airy drawing-room which he has furnished in pale +yellow and dark blue. On the walls are examples of the great modern +masters--Manet and Monet. That view of a plain by Monet--is it not +facile? It flows like a Japanese water-colour: the low horizon +evaporating in the low light, the spire of the town visible in the +haze. And look at the celebrated "Leçon de Danse" by Degas--that +dancer descending the spiral staircase, only her legs are visible, the +staircase cutting the picture in twain. On the right is the dancing +class and the dancing master; something has gone wrong, and he holds +out his hands in entreaty; a group of dancers are seated on chairs in +the foreground, and their mothers are covering their shoulders with +shawls--good mothers anxious for their daughters' welfare, for their +advancement in life. + +This picture betrays a mind curious, inquisitive and mordant; and that +plaid shawl is as unexpected as an adjective of Flaubert's. A portrait +by Manet hangs close by, large, permanent and mysterious as nature. +Degas is more intellectual, but how little is intellect compared with +a gift like Manet's! Yesterday I was in the Louvre, and when wearied +with examination and debate--I had gone there on a special errand--I +turned into the Salle Carrée for relaxation, and there wandered about, +waiting to be attracted. Long ago the Mona Liza was my adventure, and +I remember how Titian's "Entombment" enchanted me; another year I +delighted in the smooth impartiality of a Terbourg interior; but this +year Rembrandt's portrait of his wife held me at gaze. The face tells +of her woman's life, her woman's weakness, and she seems conscious of +the burden of her sex, and of the burden of her own special lot--she +is Rembrandt's wife, a servant, a satellite, a watcher. The emotion +that this picture awakens is an almost physical emotion. It gets at +you like music, like a sudden breath of perfume. When I approach, her +eyes fade into brown shadow, but when I withdraw they begin telling +her story. The mouth is no more than a little shadow, but what wistful +tenderness there is in it! and the colour of the face is white, +faintly tinted with bitumen, and in the cheeks some rose madder comes +through the yellow. She wears a fur jacket, but the fur was no trouble +to Rembrandt; he did not strive for realism. It is fur, that is +sufficient. Grey pearls hang in her ears, there is a brooch upon her +breast, and a hand at the bottom of the picture passing out of the +frame, and that hand reminds one, as the chin does, of the old story +that God took a little clay and made man out of it. That chin and that +hand and arm are moulded without display of knowledge, as Nature +moulds. The picture seems as if it had been breathed upon the canvas. +Did not a great poet once say that God breathed into Adam? and here it +is even so. + +The other pictures seem dry, insignificant; the Mona Liza, celebrated +in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared +with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the +ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; +that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem +but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe +or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, +an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle +or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a +sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention +rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive +her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose +passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil paint, +that arid glazing of _terre verte_, and has come into her +possession of eternal life, into the immortality of Pater's prose. +Degas is wilting already; year after year he will wither, until one +day some great prose writer will arise and transfer his spirit into +its proper medium--literature. The Mona Liza and the "Leçon de Danse" +are intellectual pictures; they were painted with the brains rather +than with the temperaments; and what is any intellect compared with a +gift like Manet's! Leonardo made roads; Degas makes witticisms. +Yesterday I heard one that delighted me far more than any road would, +for I have given up bicycling. Somebody was saying he did not like +Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to +show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it, he +would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel he would +say with a sigh 'That is my fault!'" + +My reverie is broken by the piano; my friend is playing, and it is +pleasant to listen to music in this airy studio. But there are women I +must see, women whom I see every time I go to Paris, and too much time +has been spent in the studio--I must go. + +But where shall I go? My thoughts strike through the little streets of +Passy, measuring the distance between Passy and the Arc de Triomphe. +For a moment I think that I might sit under the trees and watch the +people returning from the races. Were she not dead I might stop at her +little house in the fortifications among the lilac trees. There is her +portrait by Manet on the wall, the very toque she used to wear. How +wonderful the touch is; the beads--how well they are rendered! And +while thinking of the extraordinary handicraft I remember his studio, +and the tall fair woman like a tea-rose coming into it: Mary Laurant! +The daughter of a peasant, and the mistress of all the great +men--perhaps I should have said of all the distinguished men. I used +to call her _toute la lyre_. + +The last time I saw her we talked about Manet. She said that every +year she took the first lilac to lay upon his grave. Is there one of +her many lovers who brings flowers to her grave? What was so +rememberable about her was her pleasure in life, and her desire to get +all the pleasure, and her consciousness of her desire to enjoy every +moment of her life. Evans, the great dentist, settled two thousand a +year upon her, and how angry he was one night on meeting Manet on the +staircase! In order to rid herself of her lover she invited him to +dinner, intending to plead a sick headache after dinner.... She must +go and lie down. But as soon as her guest was gone she took off the +_peignoir_ which hid her ball dress and signed to Manet, who was +waiting at the street corner, with her handkerchief. But as they went +downstairs together whom should they meet but the dentist _qui a +oublié ses carnets_. And he was so disappointed at meeting his +beautiful but deceitful mistress that he didn't visit her again for +three or four days. His anger mattered very little to Mary. Someone +else settled two thousand a year more upon her; and having four +thousand a year or thereabouts, she dedicated herself to the love and +conversation of those who wrote books and music and painted pictures. + +We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the +imagination, at least the imagination stimulates the senses, acting as +a sort of adjuvant. The barmaid falls in love with No. 1 because he +wipes a glass better than No. 2, and Mary fell in love with Coppée on +account of his sonnet "Le Lys," and she grew indifferent when he wrote +poems like "La Nourrice" or "Le petit épicier de Montrouge qui cassait +le sucre avec mélancolie." And it was at this time when their love +story was at wane that I became a competitor. But one day Madame +Albazi came to Manet's studio, a splendid creature in a carriage drawn +by Russian horses from the Steppes, so she said; but who can tell +whether a horse comes from the Steppes or from the horse-dealers? Nor +does it matter when the lady is extraordinarily attractive, when she +inspires the thought--a mistress for Attila! That is not exactly how +Manet saw her: but she looks like that in his pastel. In it she holds +a tortoiseshell fan widespread across her bosom, and it was on one of +the sticks of the fan that he signed his name. A great painter always +knows where to sign his pictures, and he never signs twice in the same +place. The merit of these Russians is that they never leave one in +doubt. She could not sit that day, she was going to the Bois, and +asked me and a young man who happened to be in Manet's studio at the +time to go there with her, and we went there drawn by the Russian +horses, the young man and I wondering all the while which was going to +be the countess's lover; we played hard for her; but that day I was +wiser than he; I let him talk and recite poetry and jingle out all the +aphorisms that he had been collecting for years, feeling his +witticisms were in vain, for she was dark as a raven and I was as gold +as a sunflower. It was at the corner of the Rue Pontière that we got +rid of him. Some days afterwards she sat to Manet. The pastel now +hangs in the room of a friend of mine; I bought it for him. + +The picture of a woman one knows is never so agreeable a companion as +the picture of a woman one has never seen. One's memory and the +painter's vision are in conflict, and I like to think better of the +long delicate nose, and the sparkling eyes, and a mouth like red +fruit. The pastel once belonged to me; it used to hang in my rooms; +for with that grace of mind which never left him, Manet said one day, +"I always promised you a picture," and searching among the pastels +that lined the wall he turned to me saying, "Now I think that this +comes to you by right." When I left Paris hurriedly, and left my +things to be sold, the countess came to the sale and bought her +picture, and then she sold it years afterwards to a picture-dealer, +tempted by the price that Manet's pictures were fetching. Hearing that +it was for sale, I bought it, as I have said, for a friend. And now I +have told the whole story, forgetting nothing except that it was years +afterwards, when I had written "Les Confessions d'un jeune Anglais" in +the _Revue Indépendante_, that Mary Laurant asked me--oh! she was +very enterprising; she sent the editor of the _Revue_ to me; an +appointment was made. She was wonderful in the garden. She said the +moment I arrived, "Now, my dear ----, you must go," and we walked +about, I listening to her aphorisms. Mary was beautiful, but she liked +one to love her for her wit, to admire her wit; and when I asked her +why she did not leave Evans, the great dentist, she said, "That would +be a base thing to do. I content myself by deceiving him," and +then--this confidence seemed to have a particular significance--"I am +not a woman," she said, "that is made love to in a garden." Her garden +was a nook at the fortifications, hidden among lilac bushes. She +wished to show me her house, and we talked for a long time in her +boudoir. But I knew she was Mallarmé's mistress at the time, so +nothing came of this _caprice littéraire_. + +My thoughts run upon women, and why not? On what would you have them +run? on copper mines? Woman is the legitimate subject of all men's +thoughts. We pretend to be interested in other things. In the +smoking-rooms I have listened to men talking about hunting, and I have +said to myself, "Your interest is a pretence: of what woman are you +thinking?" We forget women for a little while when we are thinking +about art, but only for a while. The legitimate occupation of man's +mind is woman; and listening to my friend who is playing music--music +I do not care to hear, Brahms--I fall to thinking which of the women I +have known in years past would interest me most to visit. + +In the spring weather the walk from Passy to the Champs Elysées would +be pleasant and not too far; I like to see the swards and the poplars +and the villas, the tall iron railings, and the flower vases hidden in +bouquets of trees. These things are Paris; the mind of the country, +that mind which comes out of a long past, and which may be defined as +a sort of ancestral beauty and energy is manifested everywhere in +Paris; and a more beautiful day for seeing the tall, white houses and +the villas and the trees and the swards can hardly be imagined. I +should be interested in all these things, but my real interest would +be in one little hillside, a line of houses, eight or nine, close by +the Arc de Triomphe, the most ordinary in the avenue. She liked the +ordinary, and I have often wondered what was the link of association? +Was it no more than her blonde hair drawn up from the neck, her +fragrant skin, or her perverse subtle senses? It was something more, +but you must not ask me to explain further. I like to remember the +rustle of a flowered dress she wore as she moved, drifting like a +perfume, passing from her frivolous bedroom into the drawing-room. A +room without taste, stiff and middle-class, notwithstanding the crowns +placed over the tall portraits. I see a picture of two children; but +she is the fairer, and in her pale eyes and thinly-curved lips there +is a mixture of yearning and restlessness. As the child was, so is the +woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom +with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. +The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her +slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes +are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one +and cotillon favours for the other. + +We often sat on her bedroom balcony reading, talking, or watching the +sky growing pale beyond Mount Valerian, the shadow drifting and +defining and shaping the hill. In hours like the present, dreaming in +a studio, we remember those who deceived us, those who made us suffer, +and in these hours faces, fragments of faces, rise out of a past, the +line of a bent neck, the whiteness of a hand, and the eyes. I remember +her eyes; one day in an orchard, in the lush and luxuriance of June, +her husband was walking in front with a friend, and I was pleading. +"Well," she said, raising her eyes, "you can kiss me now." But her +husband was in front, and he was a thick-set man, and there was a +stream, and I foresaw a struggle--and an unpleasant one: confess and +be done with it!--I didn't dare to kiss her, and I don't think she +ever forgave me that lack of courage. All this is twenty years ago, +and is it not silly to spend the afternoon thinking of such rubbish? +But it is of such rubbish that our lives are made. Shall I go to her +now and see her in her decadence? Grey hair has not begun to appear +yet in the blonde, it will never turn grey, but she was shrivelling a +little the last time I saw her. And next year she will be older. At +her age a year counts for double. Others are more worthy of a visit. +If I do not go to her this year, shall I go next? + +In imagination I go past her house, thinking of a man she used to talk +about, "the man she left her 'ome for"; that is how the London street +girl would word it. He had been the centre of a disgraceful scandal in +his old age, a sordid but characteristic end for the Don Juan of the +nineteenth century. Perhaps she loved the big, bearded man whose +photograph she had once shown me. He killed himself for not having +enough money to live as he wished to live. That was her explanation. I +think there was some blackmail; she had to pay some money to the dead +man's relations for letters. These sensual American women are like +orchids, and who would hesitate between an orchid and a rose? It was +twenty years ago since she turned round on me in the gloom of her +brougham unexpectedly, and it was as if some sensual spirit had come +out of a world of perfume and lace. + + * * * * * + +In imagination I have descended the Champs Elysées, and have crossed +the Place de la Concorde, and the Seine is flowing past just as it +flowed when the workmen were building Notre Dame, just as it will flow +a thousand years hence. A thousand years hence men will stand watching +its current, thinking of little blonde women, and the shudder they can +send through the flesh; they can, but not twenty years afterwards. The +Reverend Donne has it that certain ghosts do not raise the hair but +the flesh; mine do no more than to set me thinking that rivers were +not created to bear ships to the sea, but to set our memories flowing. +Full many a time have I crossed the Pont Neuf on my way to see another +woman--an American! The time comes when desire wilts and dies, but the +sexual interest never dies, and we take pleasure in thinking in middle +life of those we enjoyed in youth. She, of whom I am thinking, lives +far away in the Latin Quarter, in an ill-paven street. How it used to +throw my carriage from side to side! I have been there so often that I +know all the shops, and where the shops end, and there is a +whitewashed wall opposite her house; the street bends there. The +_concierge_ is the same, a little thicker, a little heavier; she +always used to have a baby in her arms, now there are no more babies; +her children, I suppose, have grown up and have gone away. There used +to be a darkness at the foot of the stairs, and I used to slip on +those stairs, so great was my haste; the very tinkle of the bell I +remember, and the trepidation with which I waited. + +Her rooms looked as if they had never been sat in; even the studio was +formal, and the richly-bound volumes on the tables looked as if they +had never been opened. She only kept one servant, a little, redheaded +girl, and seeing this girl back again after an absence of many years, +I spoke to Lizzie of the old days. Lizzie told me her servant's story. +She had gone away to be married, and after ten years of misfortune she +had returned to her old mistress, this demure, discreet and sly New +Englander, who concealed a fierce sensuality under a homely +appearance. Lizzie must have had many lovers, but I knew nothing of +her except her sensuality, for she had to let me into that secret. + +She was a religious woman, a devout Protestant, and thinking of her my +thoughts are carried across the sea, and I am in the National Gallery +looking at Van Eyke's picture, studying the grave sensuality of the +man's face--he speaks with uplifted hand like one in a pulpit, and the +gesture and expression tell us as plainly as if we heard him that he +is admonishing his wife (he is given to admonition), informing her +that her condition--her new pregnancy--is an act of the Divine Will. +She listens, but how curiously! with a sort of partial comprehension +afloat upon her face, more of the guinea-pig than of the rabbit type. +The twain are sharply differentiated, and one of the objects of the +painter seems to have been to show us how far one human being may be +removed from another. The husband is painfully clear to himself, the +wife is happily unconscious of herself. Now everything in the picture +suggests order; the man's face tells a mind the same from day to day, +from year to year, the same passions, the same prayers; his apparel, +the wide-brimmed hat, the cloak falling in long straight folds, the +peaked shoon, are an habitual part of him. We see little of the room, +but every one remembers the chandelier hanging from the ceiling +reflected in the mirror opposite. These reflections have lasted for +three hundred years; they are the same to-day as the day they were +painted, and so is the man; he lives again, he is a type that Nature +never wearies of reproducing, for I suppose he is essential to life. +This sober Flemish interior expresses my mistress's character almost +as well as her own apartment used to do. I always experienced a chill, +a sense of formality, when the door was opened, and while I stood +waiting for her in the prim drawing-room. Every chair was in its +appointed place, large, gilt-edged, illustrated books lay upon the +tables.... There was not much light in her rooms; heavy curtains clung +about the windows, and tapestries covered the walls. In the passage +there were oak chests, and you can imagine, reader, this woman waiting +for me by an oak table, a little ashamed of her thoughts, but unable +to overcome them. Once I heard her playing the piano, and it struck me +as an affectation. As I let my thoughts run back things forgotten +emerge; here comes one of her gowns! a dark-green gown, the very same +olive green as the man's cloak. She wore her hair short like a boy's, +and though it ran all over her head in little curls, it did not +detract at all from the New England type, the woman in whose speech +Biblical phraseology still lingers. Lizzie was a miraculous survival +of the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic in the _Mayflower_ and +settled in New England. Paris had not changed her. She was _le grave +Puritan du tableau_. The reader will notice that I write _le +grave Puritan_, for of his submissive, childlike wife there was +nothing in Lizzie except her sex. As her instinct was in conflict with +her ideals, her manner was studied, and she affected a certain +cheerfulness which she dared not allow to subside. She never +relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we +always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions +and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells +us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs +and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, +and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles +away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and +real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day; +she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the +homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years +ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation +is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during +these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the +changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her +figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a +good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have +thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year +she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me +disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has +loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially +when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly +young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said. She asked me my age; +the question was unpleasant, and before I was aware of it I had told +her a lie, and I hate those who force me to tell lies. The interview +grew painful, and to bring it to a close she asked me if I would care +to see her husband. + +We found the old man alone in his studio, looking at an engraving +under the light of the lamp, much more like a picture than any of his +paintings. She asked him if he remembered me, and he got up muttering +something, and to help him I mentioned that I had been one of his +pupils. The dear old man said of course he remembered, and that he +would like to show me his pictures, but Lizzie said--I suppose it was +nervousness that made her say it, but it was a strangely tactless +remark--"I don't think, dear, that Mr. ---- cares for your pictures." +However celebrated one may be, it is always mortifying to hear that +some one, however humble the person may be, does not care for one's +art. But I saved the situation, and I think my remarks were judicious +and witty. It is not always that one thinks of the right words at the +right moment, but it would be hard to improve on the admonition that +she did me a wrong, that, like every one who liked art, I had changed +my opinion many times, but after many wanderings had come back to the +truth, and in order to deceive the old man I spoke of Ingres. I had +never failed in that love, and how could I love Ingres without loving +him? The contrary was the truth, but the old man's answer was very +sweet. Forgetful of his own high position, he answered, "We may both +like Ingres, but it is not probable that we like the same Ingres." I +said I did not know any Ingres I did not admire, and asked him which +he admired, and we had a pleasant conversation about the Apotheosis of +Homer, and the pictures in the Musée de Montauban. Then the old man +said, "I must show Mr. ---- my pictures." No doubt he had been +thinking of them all through the conversation about the Musée de +Montauban. "I must show you my Virgin," and he explained that the face +of the Infant Jesus was not yet finished. + +It was wonderful to see this old man, who must have been nearly +eighty, taking the same interest in his pictures as he took fifty +years ago. Some stupid reader will think, perchance, that it mattered +that I had once loved his wife. But how could such a thing matter? +Think for a moment, dear reader, for all readers are dear, even the +stupidest, and you will see that you are still entangled in +conventions and prejudices. Perhaps, dear reader, you think she and I +should have dropped on our knees and confessed. Had we done so, he +would have thought us two rude people, and nothing more. + +What will happen to her when he dies? Will she return to Boston? Shall +I ever see her again? Last year I vowed that I would not, and I think +it would please her as well if I stayed away.... And she is right, for +so long as I am not by her she is with me. But in the same room, amid +the familiar furniture, we are divided by the insuperable past, and to +retain her I must send her away. The idea is an amusing one; I think I +have read it somewhere, it seems to me like something I have read. Did +I ever read of a man who sent his mistress away so that his possession +might be more complete? Whether I did or didn't matters little, the +idea is true to me to-day--in order to possess her I must never see +her again. A pretty adventure it would be, nevertheless, to spend a +week paying visits to those whom I loved about that time; and I can +imagine a sort of Beau Brummel of the emotions going every year to +Paris to spend a day with each of his mistresses. + +There were others about that time. There was Madame ----. The name is +in itself beautiful, characteristically French, and it takes me back +to the middle centuries, to the middle of France. I always imagined +that tall woman, who thought so quickly and spoke so sincerely, +dealing out her soul rapidly, as one might cards, must have been born +near Tours. She was so French that she must have come from the very +heart of France; she was French as the wine of France; as Balzac, who +also came from Tours; and her voice, and her thoughts, and her words +transported one; by her side one was really in France; and, as her +lover, one lived through every circumstance of a French love story. +She lived in what is called in Paris an hotel; it had its own +_concierge_, and it was nice to hear the man say, "Oui, monsieur, +Madame la Marquise est chez elle," to walk across a courtyard and wait +in a boudoir stretched with blue silk, to sit under a Louis XVI. rock +crystal chandelier. She said one day, "I'm afraid you're thinking of +me a great deal," and she leaned her hands on the back of the chair, +making it easy for me to take them. She said her hands had not done +any kitchen work for five hundred years, and at the time that seemed a +very witty thing to say. The drawing-room opened onto a conservatory +twenty feet high; it nearly filled the garden, and the marquise used +to receive her visitors there. I do not remember who was the +marquise's lover when the last fête was given, nor what play was +acted; only that the ordinary guests lingered over their light +refreshments, scenting the supper, and that to get rid of them we had +to bid the marquise ostentatiously goodnight. Creeping round by the +back of the house, we gained the bedrooms by the servants' staircase, +and hid there until the ordinary guests in decency could delay no +longer. As soon as the last one was gone the stage was removed, and +the supper tables were laid out. Shall I ever forget the moment when +the glass roof of the conservatory began to turn blue, and the +shrilling of awakening sparrows! How haggard we all were, but we +remained till eight in the morning. That fête was paid for with the +last remnant of the poor marquise's fortune. Afterwards she was very +poor, and Suzanne, her daughter, went on the stage and discovered a +certain talent for acting which has been her fortune to this day. I +will go to the Vaudeville to-night to see her; we might arrange to go +together to see her mother's grave. To visit the grave, and to strew +azaleas upon it, would be a pretty piece of sentimental mockery. But +for my adventure there should be seven visits; Madame ---- would make +a fourth; I hear that she is losing her sight, and lives in a chateau +about fifty miles from Paris, a chateau built in the time of Louis +XIII., with high-pitched roofs and many shutters, and formal gardens +with balustrades and fish-ponds, yes _et des charmilles--charmilles_ +--what is that in English?--avenues of clipped limes. To walk in an avenue +of clipped limes with a woman who is nearly blind, and talk to her of the +past, would be indeed an adventure far "beyond the range of formal man's +emotion." + +Madame ---- interrupted our love story. She would be another--that +would be five--and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I +must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a +straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last +notes trickle out--somebody has been playing the prelude to +"Tristan"--I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on +art and women--and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow +will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again +meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied with +what I once heard dear old M'Cormac, Bishop of Galway, describe in his +sermon as 'the degrading passion of "loave."'" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NINON'S TABLE D'HÔTE + + +The day dies in sultry languor. A warm night breathes upon the town, +and in the exhaustion of light and hush of sound, life strikes sharply +on the ear and brain. + +It was early in the evening when I returned home, and, sitting in the +window, I read till surprised by the dusk; and when my eyes could no +longer follow the printed page, holding the book between finger and +thumb, my face resting on the other hand, I looked out on the garden, +allowing my heart to fill with dreams. The book that had interested me +dealt with the complex technique of the art of the Low Countries--a +book written by a painter. It has awakened in me memories of all +kinds, heartrending struggles, youthful passion, bitter +disappointments; it has called into mind a multitude of thoughts and +things, and, wearied with admiring many pictures and arguing with +myself, I am now glad to exchange my book for the gentle +hallucinations of the twilight. + +I see a line of leafage drawn across the Thames, but the line dips, +revealing a slip of grey water with no gleam upon it. Warehouses and a +factory chimney rise ghostly and grey, and so cold is that grey tint +that it might be obtained with black and white; hardly is the warmth +of umber needed. Behind the warehouses and the factory chimney the sky +is murky and motionless, but higher up it is creamy white, and there +is some cloud movement. Four lamps, two on either side of the factory +chimney, look across the river; one constantly goes out--always the +same lamp--and a moment after it springs into its place again. Across +my window a beautiful branch waves like a feather fan. It is the only +part of the picture worked out in detail. I watch its soft and almost +imperceptible swaying, and am tempted to count the leaves. Below it, +and a little beyond it, between it and the river, night gathers in the +gardens; and there, amid serious greens, passes the black stain of a +man's coat, and, in a line with the coat, in the beautifully swaying +branch, a belated sparrow is hopping from twig to twig, awakening his +mates in search for a satisfactory resting-place. In the sharp towers +of Temple Gardens the pigeons have gone to sleep. I can see the cots +under the conical caps of slate. + +The gross, jaded, uncouth present has slipped from me as a garment +might, and I see the past like a little show, struggles and +heartbreakings of long ago, and watch it with the same indifferent +curiosity as I would the regulated mimicry of a stage play. Pictures +from the past come and go without an effort of will; many are habitual +memories, but the one before me rises for the first time--for fifteen +years it has lain submerged, and now like a water weed or flower it +rises--the Countess Ninon de Calvador's boudoir! Her boudoir or her +drawing-room, be that as it may, the room into which I was ushered +many years ago when I went to see her. I was then a young man, very +thin, with sloping shoulders, and that pale gold hair that Manet +used to like to paint. I had come with a great bouquet for Ninon, +for it was _son jour de fête_, and was surprised and somewhat +disappointed to meet a large brunette with many creases in her neck, a +loose and unstayed bosom; one could hardly imagine Ninon dressed +otherwise than in a _peignoir_--a blue _peignoir_ seemed inevitable. +She was sitting by a dark, broad-shouldered young man when I came +in; they were sitting close together; he rose out of a corner and +showed me an impressionistic picture of a railway station. He was +one of the many young men who at that time thought the substitution of +dots of pink and yellow for the grey and slate and square brushwork of +Bastien Lepage was the certain way to paint well. I learned +afterwards, during the course of the evening, that he was looked at +askance, for even in Montmartre it was regarded as a dishonour to +allow the lady with whom you lived to pay for your dinner. Villiers de +L'Isle Adam, who had once been Ninon's lover, answered the reproaches +levelled against him for having accepted too largely of her +hospitality with, "Que de bruit pour quelques côtelettes!" and his +transgressions were forgiven him for the sake of the _mot_ which +seemed to summarise the moral endeavour and difficulties of the entire +quarter. When Villiers was her lover Villiers was middle-aged, and +Ninon was a young woman; but when I knew her she was interested in the +young generation, yet she kept friends with all her old lovers, never +denying them her board. How funny was the impressionist's indignation +against Villiers! He charged him with having squandered a great part +of Ninon's fortune, but Villiers's answer to the young man was, "He +talks like the _concierge_ in my story of 'Les Demoiselles de +Bienfillatre.'" + +Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's +temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room +testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had +been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand +francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for +it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open +house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in +Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but +when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all +hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the +_ratés_ she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in +Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysées? Any friend could introduce +another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a +restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another +unless the newcomer was a _raté_--in other words, unless he had +written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not +appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the +taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there. + +The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my +expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew +there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked +about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the +companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches +and strutted across the swards. I came upon a badger and her brood, +and at my approach they disappeared into an enormous excavation, and +behind the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated +hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. +"That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the +different parts--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we +were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until +suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that +had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the +ventilation did not prove sufficient. Augusta and her admirers had to +leave the piano, and they came from the house glad to breathe the +evening air. How dear to me are flowered gowns and evening skies and +women with scarfs about their shoulders. Ah! what a beautiful evening +it was! And how well do I remember the poet comparing the darkening +sky to a blue veil with the moon like a gold beetle upon it. One of +the women had brought a guitar with her, and again Augusta's voice +streamed up through the stillness, till, compelled by the beauty of +the singing, we drew nearer; as the composer sang her songs attitudes +grew more abandoned, and hands fell pensively. Among the half-seen +faces I caught sight of a woman of exceeding fairness; her hair had +only a faint tinge of gold in it; and Ninon remembered that she was a +cousin of hers, one whom she had not seen for many years. How Clare +had discovered her in the Rue la Moine she could not tell. It was +whispered that she was the wife of a rich _commerçant_ at Tours. +This added to the mystery, and later in the evening the lady told me +she had never been in artistic society before, and begged me to point +out to her the celebrities present, and to tell her why they were +celebrated. + +"Who is he--that one slouching towards the pond, that one wearing grey +trousers and a black jacket?--oh!" + +My companion's exclamation was caused by a new sight of Verlaine; at +that moment he had lifted off his hat (the evening was still warm), +and the great bald skull, hanging like a cliff over the shaggy +eyebrows, shaggy as furze bushes, frightened her. The poet continued +his walk round the pond, and, turning suddenly towards us, he stopped +to speak to me. I was but a pretext; he clearly wished to speak to my +companion. But how strangely did he suit his conversation to her, yet +how characteristic of his genius were the words I heard as I turned +away, thinking to leave them together--"If I were in love with a young +girl or with a young man?" My companion ran forward quickly and seized +my arm. "You must not leave me with him," she said. On account of his +genius Verlaine was a little slow to see things outside of +himself--all that was within him was clear, all without him obscure; +so we had some difficulty in getting rid of him, and as soon as he was +out of hearing my companion inquired eagerly who he was, and I was +astonished at the perception she showed. "Is he a priest? I mean, was +he ever a priest?" "A sort of cross between a thieves' kitchen and a +presbytery. He is the poet Verlaine. The singer of the sweetest verses +in the French language--a sort of ambling song like a robin's. You +have heard the robin singing on a coral hedge in autumn-tide; the +robin confesses his little soul from the topmost twig; his song is but +a tracery of his soul, and so is Verlaine's. His gift is a vision of +his own soul, and he makes a tracery as you might of a drawing with a +lead pencil, never troubling himself to inquire if what he traces is +good or ill. He knows that society regards him as an outcast, but +society's point of view is not the only one, that he knows too, and +also, though he be a lecher, a crapulous and bestial fellow at times, +at other times he is a poet, a visionary, the only poet that +Catholicism has produced since Dante. Huysmans, the apologist of +Gilles de Rais,--there he is over yonder, talking to the impressionist +painter, that small thin man with hair growing thickly, low down on +his forehead--Huysmans somewhere in his description of the trial of +the fifteenth-century monster, the prototype, so it is said, of the +nursery tale of Blue Beard, speaks of the white soul of the Middle +Ages; he must have had Verlaine on his mind, for Verlaine has spoken +of himself as a mediaeval Catholic, that is to say a Catholic in whom +sinning and repentance alternates regularly as night and day. Verlaine +has not cut the throats of so many little boys as Gilles de Rais, but +Gilles de Rais always declared himself to be a good Catholic. Verlaine +abandons himself to the Church as a child to a fairy tale; he does +trouble to argue whether the Conception of the Virgin was Immaculate; +the mediaeval sculptors have represented her attired very prettily in +cloaks with long folds, they have put graceful crowns upon her head, +and Verlaine likes these things; they inspire him to write, he feels +that belief in the Church is part of himself, and his poetical genius +is to tell his own story; he is one of the great soul-tellers. From a +literary point of view there is a good deal to be said in favour of +faith when it is not joined with practice; acceptation of dogma +shields one from controversy; it allows Verlaine to concentrate +himself entirely upon things; it weans him away from ideas--the curse +of modern literature--and makes him a sort of divine vagrant living +his life in the tavern and in the hospital. It is only those who have +freed themselves from all prejudice that get close to life, who get +the real taste of life--the aroma as from a wine that has been many +years in bottle. And Verlaine is aware that this is so. Sometimes he +thinks he might have written a little more poetry, and he sighs, but +he quickly recovers. 'After all, I have written a good many volumes.' +'And what would art be without life, without love?' He has a verse on +that subject; I wish I could remember it for you. His verse is always +so winsome, so delicate, slender as the birch tree, elegiac like it; a +birch bending over a lake's edge reminds me of Verlaine. He is a lake +poet, but the lake is in a suburb not far from a casino. What makes me +speak about the lake is that for a long time I thought these verses, + + Ton âme est un lac d'amour + Dont mes pensêes sont les cygnes. + Vois comme ils font le tour.... + +were Verlaine's, but they are much less original; their beauty, for +they are beautiful, is conventional; numbers of poets might have +written them, whereas nobody but Verlaine could have written any of +his, really his own, poetry. His desires go sometimes as high as the +crucifix; very often they are in the gutter, hardly poetry at all, +having hardly any beauty except that of truth, and of course the +beauty of a versification that haunts in his ear, for he hears a song +in French verse that no French poet has ever heard before, and a song +so fluent, ranging from the ecstasy of the nightingale to the robin's +little homily. + + Oui, c'était par un soir joyeux de cabaret, + Un de ces soirs plutôt trop chauds où l'on dirait + Que le gaz du plafond conspire à notre perte + Avec le vin du zinc, saveur naïve et verte. + On s'amusait beaucoup dans la boutique et on + Entendait des soupirs voisins d'accordéon + Que ponctuaient des pieds frappant presque en cadence. + Quand la porte s'ouvrit de la salle de danse + Vomissant tout un flot dont toi, vers où j'étais, + Et de ta voix fait que soudain je me tais, + S'il te plaît de me donner un ordre péremptoire. + Tu t'écrias 'Dieu, qu'il fait chaud! Patron, à boire!' + +"She was from Picardy; and he tells of her horrible accent, and in +elegy number five he continues the confession, telling how his well +beloved used to get drunk. + + "Tu fis le saut de ... Seine et, depuis morte-vive, + Tu gardes le vertige et le goût du néant." + +"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we +stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, +cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking +at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I +said: + +"Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed +of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. +It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all +written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." + +"In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the _commerçant's_ +wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went +towards her pocket. + +"No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of +vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three +years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and +renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil +somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these +hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will +not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a +caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with +these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine +preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he +drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing +beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling +in love with drabs." + + Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouvé l'ange + Qu'il eût fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi! + L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy, + Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle; + Elle ne m'adressa guère qu'une parole + Et c'était d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait, + En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre, + Une troisième, recemment chanteuse au Havre, + Affectait de dandinement des matelots + Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots, + Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacrédié, quel dommage + La quatrième était sage comme une image, + Châtain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois: + Le diantre soit de ses sacrés signes de croix! + Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma mémoire + Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire + Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'îlot" + Tantôt bien, tantôt moins, le clair café falot + Les terasses l'été, l'hiver les brasseries + Et par degrés l'humble trottoir en théories + En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants + Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants + _Qutorum ego parva pars erim_, me disais-je. + Mais toutes, comme la première du cortège, + Dès avant la bougie éteinte et le rideau + Tiré, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau." + +"In the verses I have just quoted, you remember, he says that the +fourth was chaste as an image, her hair was pale brown, she had +scarcely any bosom, and prayed to God sometimes. He always hated piety +when it interfered with his pleasure, and in the next verse he says, +'The devil take those sacred signs of the Cross!'" + +"But do you know any of these women?" + +"Oh, yes; we all know the terrible Sara. She beats him." + +The _commerçante's_ wife asked if she were here. + +"He wanted to bring her here, in fact he did bring her once, only she +was so drunk that she could not get beyond the threshold, and Ninon's +lover, the painter you saw painting the steam engines, was charged to +explain to the poet that Sara's intemperance rendered her impossible +in respectable society. 'I know Sara has her faults,' he murmured in +reply to all argument, and it was impossible to make him see that +others did not see Sara with his eyes. 'I know she has her faults,' he +repeated, 'and so have others. We all have our faults.' And it was a +long time before he could be induced to come back: hunger has brought +him." + +"And who is that hollow-chested man? How pathetic he looks with his +goat-like beard." + +"That is the celebrated Cabaner. He will tell you, if you speak to +him, that his father was a man like Napoleon, only more so. He is the +author of many aphorisms; 'that three military bands would be +necessary to give the impression of silence in music' is one. He comes +every night to the Nouvelle Athènes, and is a sort of rallying-point; +he will tell you that his ballad of 'The Salt Herring' is written in a +way that perhaps Wagner would not, but which Liszt certainly would +understand." + +"Is his music ever played? Does it sell? How does he live? Not by his +music, I suppose?" + +"Yes, by his music, by playing waltzes and polkas in the Avenue de la +Motte Piquet. His earnings are five francs a day, and for thirty-five +francs a month he has a room where many of the disinherited ones of +art, many of those you see here, sleep. His room is furnished--ah, you +should see it! If Cabaner wants a chest of drawers he buys a fountain, +and he broke off the head of the Vénus de Milo, saying that now she no +longer reminded him of the people he met in the streets; he could +henceforth admire her without being troubled by any sordid +recollection. I could talk to you for hours about his unselfishness, +his love of art, his strange music, and his stranger poems, for his +music accompanies his own verses." + +"Is he too clever for the public, or not clever enough?" + +"Now you're asking me the question we've been asking ourselves for the +last ten years.... The man fumbling at his shirt collar over yonder is +the celebrated Villiers de L'Isle Adam." + +And I remember how it pleased me to tell this simple-minded woman all +I knew about Villiers. + +"He has no talent whatever, only genius, and that is why he is a +raté," I said. + +But the woman was not so simple as I had imagined, and one or two +questions she put to me led me to tell her that Villiers's genius only +appeared in streaks, like gold in quartz. + +"The comparison is an old one, but there is no better one to explain +Villiers, for when he is not inspired his writing is very like +quartz." + +"His great name----" + +"His name is part of his genius. He chose it, and it has influenced +his writings. Have I not heard him say, 'Car je porte en moi les +richesses stériles d'un grand nombre de rois oubliés.'" + +"But is he a legitimate descendant?" + +"Legitimate in the sense that he desired the name more than any of +those who ever bore it legitimately." + +At that moment Villiers passed by me, and I introduced him to her, and +very soon he began to tell us that his _Eve_ had just been +published, and the success of it was great. + +"On m'a dit hier de passer à la caisse ... l'edition était épuisée, +vous voyez--il paraît, la fortune est venue ... même à moi." + +But Villiers was often tiresomely talkative about trifles, and as soon +as I got the chance I asked him if he were going to tell us one of his +stories, reminding him of one I had heard he had been telling lately +in the _brasseries_ about a man in quest of a quiet village where +he could get rest, a tired composer, something of that kind. Had he +written it? No, he had not written it yet, but now that he knew I +liked it he would get up earlier to-morrow. Some one took him away +from us, and I had to tell my companion the story. + +"Better," I said, "he should never write it, for half of it exists in +his voice, and in his gestures, and every year he gets less and less +of himself onto the paper. One has to hear him tell his stories in the +café--how well he tells them! You must hear him tell how a man, +recovering from a long illness, is advised by his doctor to seek rest +in the country, and how, seeing the name of a village on the map that +touches his imagination, he takes the train, feeling convinced he will +find there an Arcadian simplicity. But the village he catches sight of +from the carriage window is a morose and lonely village, in the midst +of desolate plains. And worse than Nature are the human beings he sees +at the station; they lurk in corners, they scrutinise his luggage, and +gradually he believes them all to be robbers and assassins. + +"He would escape but he dare not, for he is being followed, so turning +on his pursuers he asks them if they can direct him to a lodging. The +point of Villiers's story is how a suspicion begins in the man's mind, +how it grows like a cancer, and very soon the villagers are convinced +he is an anarchist, and that his trunks are full of material for the +manufacture of bombs. And this is why they dare not touch them. So +they follow him to the farmhouse whither they have directed him, and +tell their fears to the farmer and his wife. Villiers can improvise +the consultations in the kitchen; at midnight in the café, but when +morning comes he cannot write, his brain is empty. You must come some +night to the Nouvelle Athènes to hear him; leaning across the table he +will tell the terror of the hinds and farmer, how they are sure the +house is going to be blown up. The sound of their feet on the +staircase inspires terror in the wretched convalescent. He sits up in +bed, listening, great drops of sweat collected on his forehead. He +dare not get out of bed, but he must; and Villiers can suggest the +sound of feet on the creaking stairs--yes, and the madness of the man +piling furniture against the door, and the agony of those outside +hearing the noise within. When they break into the room they find a +dead man; for terror has killed him. You must come to the Nouvelle +Athènes to hear Villiers tell his story. I'll meet you there to-morrow +night.... Will you dine with me? The dinner there is not really too +bad; perhaps you'll be able to bear with it." + +The _commerçant's_ wife hesitated. She promised to come, and she +came; but she did not prove an interesting mistress; why, I cannot +remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think +of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in +which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the +years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue +eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of +sensual Christ? He, too, was after the _commerçant's_ wife. And +didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses--reassure +yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. + + "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or. + Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore." + +The _commerçant's_ wife, forgetful of me, charmed by the poet, by +the excitement of hearing herself made a subject of a poem, drew +nearer. Strange, is it not, that I should remember a few words here +and there? + + "Il m'aime, il m'aime pas, et selon l'antique rite + Elle effleurait la Marguerite." + +The women still sit, circlewise, as if enchanted, the night inspires +him, and he improvises trifle after trifle. One remembers fragments. +Some time afterwards Cabaner was singing the song of "The Salt +Herring." + + "He came along holding in his hands dirty, dirty, dirty, + A big nail pointed, pointed, pointed, + And a hammer heavy, heavy, heavy. + He placed the ladder high, high, high, + Against the wall white, white, white. + He went up the ladder high, high, high, + Placed the nail pointed, pointed, pointed + Against the wall--toc! toc! toc! + He tied to the nail a string long, long, long, + And at the end of it a salt herring, dry, dry, dry, + And letting fall the hammer heavy, heavy, heavy, + He got down from the ladder high, high, high, + And went away, away, away. + Since then at the end of the string long, long, long, + A salt herring dry, dry, dry, + Has been swinging slowly, slowly, slowly. + Now I have composed this story simple, simple, simple, + To make all serious men mad, mad, mad, + And to amuse children, little, little, little." + +This was the libretto on which Cabaner wrote music "that Wagner would +not understand, but which Liszt certainly would." Dear, dear Cabaner, +how well I can see thee with thy goat-like beard, and the ape in the +tree interrupting thee; he was not like Liszt, he chattered all night. +Poor ape, he broke his chain earlier in the evening, and it was found +impossible to persuade him to come down. The brute seemed somehow +determined that we should not hear Cabaner. Soon after the cocks began +answering each other, though it was but midnight; and so loud was +their shrilling that I awoke, surprised to find myself sitting at my +window in King's Bench Walk. A moment ago I was in Madame Ninon de +Calvador's garden, and every whit as much as I am now in King's Bench +Walk. Madame Ninon de Calvador--what has become of her? + +Is the rest of her story unknown? As I sit looking into the darkness, +a memory suddenly springs upon me. Villiers, who came in when dinner +was half over, brought a young man with him. Fumbling at his shirt +collar, apologising for being late, assuring us that he had dined, he +introduced his friend to the company as a young man of genius, of +extraordinary genius. Don't I remember Villiers's nervous, hysterical +voice! Don't I remember the journalist's voice when he asked Ninon's +lover if he sold his pictures, creating at once a bad impression? By +some accident a plate was given to him, out of which one of the cats +had been fed. The plate might have been given to any one else: +Villiers would not have minded, and as for Cabaner, he never knew what +he was eating; but it was given to the journalist. Now I remember the +young man misconducted himself badly; he struck the table with his +fist, and said, "Et bien, je casse tout." Yes, it was he who wrote the +article entitled "Ninon's Table d'hôte" in the _Gil Blas_, and +from it she learned for the first time how the world viewed her +hospitality, how misinterpreted were her efforts to benefit the arts +and the artists. Somebody told me this story: who I cannot tell; it is +all so long ago. But it seems to me that I remember hearing that it +was this article that killed her. + +The passing of things is always a moving subject for meditation, and +it is strange how accident will bring back a scene, explicit in every +detail--a tree taking shape upon the dawning sky, the hairy ugliness +of the ape in its branches, and along the grey grass a waddling squad +of the ducks betaking themselves to the pond, a poet talking to a +_commerçant's_ wife, Madame de Calvador leaning on a lover's arm. + +Had I a palette I could match the blue of the _peignoir_ with the +faint grey sky. I could make a picture out of that dusky suburb. Had I +a pen I could write verses about these people of old time, but the +picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream, and the +verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the +meditation, which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. +Better to sit by my window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the +memory. The mood has nearly passed, the desire of action is +approaching.... I would give much for another memory, but memory may +not be beckoned, and my mind is dark now, dark as that garden; the +swaying, fan-like bough by my window is nearly one mass of green; the +last sparrow has fallen asleep. I hear nothing.... I hear a horse +trotting in the Strand. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LOVERS OF ORELAY + + +I had come a thousand miles--rather more, nearly fifteen hundred--in +the hope of picking up the thread of a love story that had got +entangled some years before and had been broken off abruptly. A +strange misadventure our love story had been; for Doris had given a +great deal of herself while denying me much, so much that at last, in +despair, I fled from a one-sided love affair; too one-sided to be +borne any longer, at least by me. And it was difficult to fly from her +pretty, inveigling face, delightful and winsome as the faces one finds +on the panels of the early German masters. One may look for her face +and find it on an oak panel in the Frankfort Gallery, painted in pale +tints, the cheeks faintly touched with carmine. In the background of +these pictures there are all sorts of curious things; very often a +gold bower with roses clambering up everywhere. Who was that master +who painted cunning virgins in rose bowers? The master of Cologne, was +it not? I have forgotten. No matter. Doris's hair was darker than the +hair of those virgins, a rich gold hair, a mane of hair growing as +luxuriously as the meadows in June. And the golden note was continued +everywhere, in the eyebrows, in the pupils of the eyes, in the +freckles along her little nose so firmly and beautifully modelled +about the nostrils; never was there a more lovely or affectionate +mouth, weak and beautiful as a flower; and the long hands were curved +like lilies. + +There is her portrait, dear reader, prettily and truthfully and +faithfully painted by me, the portrait of a girl I left one afternoon +in London more than seventeen years ago, and whom I had lost sight of, +I feared for ever. Thought of her? Yes, I thought of her occasionally. +Time went by, and I wondered if she were married. What her husband was +like, and why I never wrote. It were surely unkind not to write.... +Reader, you know those little regrets. Perhaps life would be all on +the flat without regret. Regret is like a mountaintop from which we +survey our dead life, a mountaintop on which we pause and ponder, and +very often looking into the twilight we ask ourselves whether it would +be well to send a letter or some token. Now we had agreed upon one +which should be used in case of an estrangement--a few bars of +Schumann's melody, "The Nut Bush," should be sent, and the one who +received it should at once hurry to the side of the other and all +difference should be healed. But this token was never sent by me, +perhaps because I did not know how to scribble the musical phrase: +pride perhaps kept her from sending it; in any case five years are a +long while, and she seemed to have died out of my life altogether; but +one day the sight of a woman who had known her, brought her before my +eyes, and I asked if Doris married. The woman could not tell me; she +had not seen her for many years; they, too, were estranged, and I went +home saying to myself: "Doris must be married. What sort of a husband +has she chosen? Is she happy? Has she a baby? Oh, shameful thought!" + +Do you remember, dear reader, how Balzac, when he had come to the last +page of "Massimilla Doni," declares that he dare not tell you the end +of this adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for the worshippers +of the ideal: "Massimilla Doni was expecting." Then in a passage that +is pleasanter to think about than to read--for Balzac when he spoke +about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the +passage is altogether grammatical--he tells how the ideas of all the +great artists, painters, and sculptors--the ideas they have wrought on +panels and in stone--escaped from their niches and their frames--all +these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept. It +would be as disgraceful for Doris to be "expecting" as it was for +Massimilla Doni, and I like to think of all the peris, the nymphs, the +sylphs, the fairies of ancient legend, all her kinsfolk gathering +about her bed, deploring her condition, regarding her as lost to +them--were such a thing to happen I should certainly kneel there in +spirit with them. And feeling just as Balzac did about Massimilla +Doni, that it was a sacrilege that Doris should be "expecting" or even +married, I wrote, omitting, however, to tell her why I had suddenly +resolved to break silence; I sent her a little note, only a few words, +that I was sorry not to have heard of her for so long a time; but +though we had been estranged she had not been forgotten; a little +commonplace note, relieved perhaps by a touch of wistfulness, of +regret. And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask +for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat +disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to +her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would +be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and +I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long +telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had +come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said, +"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the +least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was +better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing." +The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full +of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black +misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her +health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in +this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that +if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak +to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it +was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long +estrangement." And I sat pondering, trying to discover if she applied +the phrase to herself or to the place where she was staying. How could +it apply to the place? All places would be a paradise if---- + +At the close of a long December evening I wrote a letter, the answer +to which would decide whether I should go to her, whether I should +undertake the long journey. "The journey back will be detestable," I +muttered, and taking up the pen again I wrote: "Your letter contains a +phrase which fills me with dismay: you say, 'Virtue must be its own +reward,' and this would seem that you are determined to be more +aggressively Platonic than ever. Doris, this is ill news indeed; you +would not have me consider it good news, would you?" + +Other letters followed, but I doubt if I knew more of Doris's +intentions when I got into the train than I did when I sat pondering +by my fireside, trying to discover her meaning when she wrote that +vile phrase, "Virtue must be its own reward." But somehow I seemed to +have come to a decision, and that was the main thing. We act obeying a +law deep down in our being, a law which in normal circumstances we are +not aware of. I asked myself as I drove to the station, if it were +possible that I was going to undertake a journey of more than a +thousand miles in quest--of what? Doris's pretty face! It might be +pretty no longer; yet she could not have changed much. She had said +she was sure that in ten minutes we should be talking just as in old +times. Even so, none but madmen travel a thousand miles in search of a +pretty face. And it was the madman that is in us all that was +propelling me, or was it the primitive man who crouches in some jungle +of our being? Of one thing I was sure, that I was no longer a +conventional citizen of the nineteenth century; I had gone back two or +three thousand years, for all characteristic traits, everything +whereby I knew myself, had disappeared! Yet I seemed to have met +myself somewhere, in some book or poem or opera.... I could not +remember at first, but after some time I began to perceive a shadowy +similarity between myself and--dare I mention the names?--the heroes +of ancient legend--Menelaus or Jason--which? Both had gone a thousand +miles on Beauty's quest. The colour of Helen's hair isn't mentioned in +either the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey." Jason's quest was a golden +fleece, and so was mine. And it was the primitive hero that I had +discovered in myself that helped me to face the idea of the journey, +for there is nothing that wearies me so much as a long journey in the +train. + +When I was twenty I started with the intention of long travel, but the +train journey from Calais to Paris wearied me so much that I had +rested in Paris for eight years, to return home then on account of +some financial embarrassments. During those eight years I thought +often of Italy and the south of France, but the train journey of +sixteen or seventeen or eighteen hours to the Italian frontier always +seemed so much like what purgatory must be, that the heaven of Italy +on the other side never tempted me sufficiently to undertake it. A +companion would be of no use; one cannot talk for fifteen or sixteen +hours, and while debating with myself whether I should go to Plessy, I +often glanced down the long perspective of hours. Everything, pleasure +and pain alike, are greater in imagination than in reality--there is +always a reaction, and having anticipated more than mortal weariness, +I was surprised to find that the first two hours in the train passed +very pleasantly. It seemed that I had only been in the train quite a +little while when it stopped, yet Laroche is more than an hour from +Paris, quite a countryside station, and it seems strange that the +_Côte d'Azur_ should stop there. That was the grand name of the +train that I was travelling by. Think of any English company running a +train and calling it "The Azure Shore"! Think of going to Euston or to +Charing Cross, saying you are going by "The Azure Shore"! So long as +the name of this train endures, it is impossible to doubt that the +French mind is more picturesque than the English, and one no longer +wonders why the French school of painting, etc. + +A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just +before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the +train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in +the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of +glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought +a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many +various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the +bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I +began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed +to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The +directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should +exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to +examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that +would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter +to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like +ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The +French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune +no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on +how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way +of remedying abuses. + +I don't think we stopped again till we got to Lyons, and all the way +there I sat at the window looking at the landscape--the long, long +plain that the French peasant cultivates unceasingly. Out of that long +plain came all the money that was lost in Panama, and all the money +invested in Russian bonds--fine milliards came out of the French +peasants' stockings. We passed through La Beauce. I believe it was +there that Zola went to study the French peasant before he wrote "La +Terre." Huysmans, with that benevolent malice so characteristic of +him, used to say that Zola's investigation was limited to going out +once for a drive in a carriage with Madame Zola. The primitive man +that had risen out of some jungle of my being did not view this +immense and highly cultivated plain sympathetically. It seemed to him +to differ little from the town, so utterly was nature dominated by man +and portioned out. On a subject like this one can meditate for a long +time, and I meditated till my meditation was broken by the stopping of +the train. We were at Lyons. The tall white-painted houses reminded me +of Paris--Lyons, as seen from the windows of _La Côte d'Azur_ at +the end of a grey December day might be Paris. The climate seemed the +same; the sky was as sloppy and as grey. At last the train stopped at +a place from which I could look down a side street, and I decided that +Lyons wore a more provincial look than Paris, and I thought of the +great silk trade and the dull minds of the merchants ... their dinner +parties, etc. I noticed everything there was to notice in order to +pass the time; but there was so little of interest that I wrote out a +telegram and ran with it to the office, for Doris did not know what +train I was coming by, and it is pleasant to be met at a station, to +meet one familiar face, not to find oneself amid a crowd of strangers. +Very nearly did I miss the train; my foot was on the footboard when +the guard blew his whistle. "Just fancy if I had missed the train," I +said, and settling myself in my seat I added, "now, let us study the +landscape; such an opportunity as this may never occur again." + +The long plain cultivated with tedious regularity that we had been +passing through before we came to Lyons, flowed on field after field; +it seemed as if we should never reach the end of it, and looking on +those same fields, for they were the same, I said to myself: "If I +were an economist that plain would interest me, but since I got +Doris's letter I am primitive man, and he abhors the brown and the +waving field, and 'the spirit in his feet' leads him to some grassy +glen where he follows his flocks, listening to the song of the wilding +bee that sings as it labours amid the gorse. What a soulless race that +plain must breed," I thought; "what soulless days are lived there; +peasants going forth at dusk to plough, and turning home at dusk to +eat, procreate and sleep." At last a river appeared flowing amid +sparse and stunted trees and reeds, a great wide sluggish river with +low banks, flowing so slowly that it hardly seemed to flow at all. +Rooks flew past, but they are hardly wilding birds; a crow--yes, we +saw one; and I thought of a heron rising slowly out of one of the +reedy islands; maybe an otter or two survives the persecution of the +peasant, and I liked to think of a poacher picking up a rabbit here +and there; hares must have almost disappeared, even the flock and the +shepherd. France is not as picturesque a country as England; only +Normandy seems to have pasturage, there alone the shepherd survives +along the banks of the Seine. Picardy, though a swamp, never conveys +an idea of the wild; and the middle of France, which I looked at then +for the first time, shocked me, for primitive man, as I have said, was +uppermost in me, and I turned away from the long plain, "Dreary," I +said, "uneventful as a boarding-house." + +But it is a long plain that has no hill in it, and when I looked out +again a whole range showed so picturesquely that I could not refrain, +but turned to a travelling companion to ask its name. It was the +Esterelles; and never shall I forget the picturesqueness of one +moment--the jagged end of the Esterelles projecting over the valley, +showing against what remained of the sunset, one or two bars of dusky +red, disappearing rapidly amid heavy clouds massing themselves as if +for a storm, and soon after night closed over the landscape. + +"Henceforth," I said, "I shall have to look to my own thoughts for +amusement," and in my circumstances there was nothing reasonable for me +to think of but Doris. Some time before midnight I should catch sight +of her on the platform. It seemed to me wonderful that it should be +so, and I must have been dreaming, for the voice of the guard, crying +out that dinner was served awoke me with a start. + +It is said to be the habit of my countrymen never to get into +conversation with strangers in the train, but I doubt if that be so. +Everything depends on the tact of him who first breaks silence; if his +manner inspires confidence in his fellow-traveller he will receive +such answers as will carry the conversation on for a minute or two, +and in that time both will have come to a conclusion whether the +conversation should be continued or dropped. A pleasant little book +might be written about train acquaintances. If I were writing such a +book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with +whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should +have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette +of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the +quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection +in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting +people I met at dinner on board _La Côte d'Azur_, though some +readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman +was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the +upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas +the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or +would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more, +being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he +took off his hat I could see that he had come from the tropics-- +Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less +stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look +like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the +desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained +by his long residence among the Arabs. He had lived in the desert +since he was fourteen. "Almost a Saharian," I said to him. And during +dinner, and long after dinner we sat talking of the difference +between the Oriental races and the European; of the various Arab +_patois_. He spoke the Tunisean _patois_ and wrote the language +of the Koran, which is understood all over the Sahara and the +Soudan, as well as in Mecca. What interested me, perhaps even more +than the language question, was the wilding's enterprise in attempting +to cultivate the desert. He had already enlarged his estate by the +discovery of two ancient Roman wells, and he had no doubt that all +that part of the desert lying between the three oases could be brought +into cultivation. In ancient times there were not three oases but one; +the wells had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of acres had +been laid waste by the Numidians in order, I think he told me, to save +themselves from the Saracens who were following them. He spent eight +months of every year in his oasis, and begged of me, as soon as I had +wearied of Cannes, to take the boat from Marseilles--I suppose it was +from Marseilles--and spend some time with him in the wild. + +"Visitors," he said, "are rare. You'll be very welcome. The railway +will take you within a hundred miles; the last hundred miles will be +accomplished on the back of a dromedary; I shall send you a fleet one +and an escort." + +"Splendid," I answered. "I see myself arriving sitting high up on the +hump gathering dates--I suppose there are date palms where you are? +Yes?--and wearing a turban and a bournous." + +"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise +he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only +shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. +When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out +for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father +had brought home from the East. Nothing else would have satisfied me; +my father led the pony, and I have always thought this fantasy +exceedingly characteristic; it must be so, for it awoke in me twenty +years afterwards; and fanciful and absurd as it may appear, I +certainly should have liked to have worn my travelling companion's +bournous in the train if only for a few minutes. All this is twelve +years ago, and I have not yet gone to visit him in his oasis, but how +many times have I done so in my imagination, seeing myself arriving on +the back of a dromedary crying out, "Allah! Allah! And Mohammed is his +prophet!" But though one can go on thinking year after year about a +bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; +and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my +friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as +Fromentin says, _chez lui_, I was glad to say good-bye to my +friends at Marseilles. + +I was still quite far from the end of my journey, and so weary of talk +that at first I was doubtful whether or not it would be worth while to +engage again in conversation, but a pleasant gentleman had got into my +carriage, and he required little encouragement to tell me his story. +His beginnings were very humble, but he was now a rich merchant. It is +always interesting to hear how the office boy gets his first chance; +the first steps are the interesting ones, and I should be able to tell +his story here if we had not been interrupted in the middle of it by +his little girl. She had wearied of her mother, who was in the next +carriage, and had come in to sit on her father's knee. Her hair hung +about her shoulders just as Doris's had done five years ago, taking +the date from the day that I journeyed in quest of the golden fleece. +She was a winsome child, with a little fluttering smile about her lips +and a curious intelligence in her eyes. She admitted that she was +tired, but had not been ill, and her father told me that long train +journeys produced the same effect on her as a sea journey. She spoke +with a pretty abruptness, and went away suddenly, I thought for good, +but she returned half an hour afterwards looking a little faint, I +thought, green about the mouth, and smiling less frequently. One +cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these +people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in +about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should +have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey +dragged itself out very wearily. + +Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting +for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not +even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and +the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I +congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the +telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel +than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same +pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in +Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to +tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little +paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile +inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform +talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There +was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink. +"She is going to tell me that I cannot come to her hotel. Why did I +send that telegram from Lyons?" Had it not been for that telegram I +could have gone straight to her hotel. It was just the telegram that +had brought her to the station, and she had come to tell me that it +was impossible for me to stay at her hotel. + +After thirty hours of travel it mattered little which hotel I stayed +at, but to-morrow and the next day, the long week we were to spend +together passed before my eyes, the tedium of the afternoons, the +irritation and emptiness of Platonic evenings--"Heavens! what have I +let myself in for," I thought, and my mind went back over the long +journey and the prospect of returning _bredouille_, as the +sportsmen say. But to argue about details with a woman, to get angry, +is a thing that no one versed in the arts of love ever does. We are in +the hands of women always; it is they who decide, and our best plan is +to accept the different hotel without betraying disappointment, or as +little as possible. But we had not seen each other for so long that we +could not part at once. Doris said that I must come to her hotel and +eat some supper. No; I had dined on board the train, and all she could +persuade me to have was a cup of chocolate. Over that cup of chocolate +we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon +looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling +very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my +heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however, +and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come +quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning +when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves +symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight +flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to +jump out of bed at once and to throw open _les croisées_. And +what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim, +alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as +the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere. +And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous +gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer +wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I +think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the +morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the +sea. + +Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I +breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees; +remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is +this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed +more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted +among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see +when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, +nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the +golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to +pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so +much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell +we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never +grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at +last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly +happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more +than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so +surprised as I did that morning. The _valet de chambre_ brought +in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of +him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find +the sunlight a bewitchment. But who would not be bewitched by the +pretty sunlight that finds its way into the gardens of Plessy? I knew +I was going to walk with Doris by a sea blue as any drop-curtain, and +for a moment Doris seemed to be but a figure on a drop-curtain. Am I +very cynical? But are we not all figures on drop-curtains, and is not +everything comic opera, and "La Belle Hélène" perhaps the only true +reality? Amused by the idea of Jason or Paris or Menelaus in Plessy, I +asked Doris what music was played by the local orchestra, and she told +me it played "The March of Aïda" every evening. "Oh, the cornet," I +said, and I understood that the mission of Plessy was to redeem one +from the coil of one's daily existence, from Hebrew literature and its +concomitants, bishops, vicars, and curates--all these, especially +bishops, are regarded as being serious; whereas French novels and +their concomitants, pretty girls, are supposed to represent the +trivial side of life. A girl becomes serious only when she is engaged +to be married; the hiring of the house in which the family is reared +is regarded as serious; in fact all prejudices are serious; every +deflection from the normal, from the herd, is looked upon as trivial; +and I suppose that this is right: the world could not do without the +herd nor could the herd do without us--the eccentrics who go to Plessy +in quest of a golden fleece instead of putting stoves in the parish +churches (stoves and organs are always regarded as too devilishly +serious for words). + +Once I had a long conversation with my archbishop concerning the Book +of Daniel, and were I to write out his lordship's erudition I might +even be deemed sufficiently serious for a review in the _Church +Gazette_. But looking back on this interview and judging it with +all the impartiality of which my nature is capable, I cannot in truth +say that I regard it as more serious than pretty Doris's fluent +conversation, or the melancholy aspect of his lordship's cathedral as +more serious than the pretty Southern sunlight glancing along the +seashore, lighting up the painted houses, and causing Doris to open +her parasol. What a splendid article I might write on the trivial side +of seriousness, but discussion is always trivial; I shall be much more +serious in trying to recall the graceful movement of the opening of +her parasol, and how prettily it enframed her face. True that almost +every face is pretty against the distended silk full of sunlight and +shadow, but Doris's, I swear to you, was as pretty as any medieval +virgin despite its modernness. Memline himself never designed a more +appealing little face. Think of the enchantment of such a face after a +long journey, by the sea that the Romans and the Greeks used to cross +in galleys, that I used to read about when I was a boy. There it was, +and on the other side the shore on which Carthage used to stand; there +it was, a blue bay with long red hills reaching out, reminding me of +hills I had seen somewhere, I think in a battle piece by Salvator +Rosa. It seemed to me that I had seen those hills before--no, not in a +picture; had I dreamed them, or was there some remembrance of a +previous existence struggling in my brain? There was a memory +somewhere, a broken memory, and I sought for the lost thread as well +as I could, for Doris rarely ceased talking. + +"And there is the restaurant," she said, flinging up her parasol, +"built at the end of those rocks." + +We were the first swallows to arrive; the flocks would not be here for +about three weeks. So we had the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter +and doubtless the cook; and they gave us all their attention. Would we +have breakfast in the glass pavilion? How shall I otherwise describe +it, for it seemed to be all glass? The scent of the sea came through +the window, and the air was like a cordial--it intoxicated; and +looking across the bay one seemed to be looking on the very thing that +Whistler had sought for in his Nocturnes, and that Steer had nearly +caught in that picture of children paddling, that dim, optimistic blue +that allures and puts the world behind one, the dream of the +opium-eater, the phrase of the syrens in "Tannhäuser," the phrase +which begins like a barcarolle; but the accompaniment tears underneath +until we thrill with expectation. + +As I looked across the bay, Doris seemed but a little thing, almost +insignificant, and the thought came that I had not come for nothing +even if I did not succeed in winning her. + +"Doris, dear, forgive me if I am looking at this bay instead of you, +but I've never seen anything like this before," and feeling I was +doing very poor justice to the emotions I was experiencing, I said: +"Is it not strange that all this is at once to me new and old? I seem, +as it were, to have come into my inheritance." + +"Your inheritance! Am I not----" + +"Dearest, you are. Say that you are my inheritance, my beautiful +inheritance; how many years have I waited for it?" As I took her in my +arms she caught sight of the waiter, and turning from her I looked +across the bay, and my desire nearly died in the infinite sweetness +blowing across the bay. + +"Azure hills, not blue; hitherto I have only seen blue." + +"They're blue to-day because there is a slight mist, but they are in +reality red." + +"A red-hilled bay," I said, "and all the slopes flecked with the white +sides of villas." + +"Peeping through olive trees." + +"Olive trees, of course. I have never yet seen the olive; the olive +begins at Avignon or thereabouts, doesn't it? It was dark night when +we passed through Avignon." + +"You'll see very few trees here; only olives and ilex." + +"The ilex I know, and there is no more beautiful tree than the ilex." + + "Were not the crocuses that grew + Under that ilex tree, + As beautiful in scent and hue + As ever fed the bee?" + +"Whose verses are those?" + +"Shelley's. I know no others. Are the lines very wonderful? They seem +no more than a statement, yet they hang about my memory. I am glad I +shall see the ilex tree." + +"And the eucalyptus--plenty of eucalyptus trees." + +"That was the scent that followed us this morning as we came through +the gardens." + +"Yes, as we passed from our hotel one hung over the garden wall, and +the wind carried its scent after us." + +The arrival of the waiter with _hors d'oeuvres_ distracted our +attention from the olive tree to its fruit, I rarely touch olives, but +that morning I ate many. Should we have mutton cutlets or lamb? Doris +said the Southern mutton was detestable. "Then we'll have lamb." An +idea came into my head, and it was this, that I had been mistaken +about Doris's beauty. Hers was not like any face that one may find in +a panel by Memline. She was like something, but I could not lay my +thoughts on what she was like. + +"A sail would spoil the beauty of the bay," I said when the waiter +brought in the coffee, and left us--we hoped for the last time. Taking +hands and going to the window we sat looking across the sailless bay. +"How is it that no ships come here? Is the bay looked upon as a mere +ornament and reserved exclusively for the appreciation of visitors? +Those hills, too, look as if they had been designed in a like +intent.... How much more beautiful the bay is without a sail--why I +cannot tell, but----" + +"But what?" + +"A great galley rowed by fifty men would look well in this bay.... The +bay is antiquity, and those hills; all the morning while talking to +you a memory or a shadow of a memory has fretted in my mind like a fly +on a pane. Now I know why I have been expecting a nymph to rise out of +those waves during breakfast. For a thousand years men believed that +nymphs came up on those rocks, and that satyrs and their progeny might +be met in the woods and on the hillsides. Only a thin varnish has been +passed over these beliefs. One has only to come here to look down into +that blue sea-water to believe that nymphs swim about those rocks; and +when we go for a drive among those hillsides we'll keep a sharp +lookout for satyrs. Now I know why I like this country. It is heathen. +Those mountains--how different from the shambling Irish hills from +whence I have come! And you, Doris, you might have been dug up +yesterday, though you are but two-and-twenty. You are a thing of +yester age, not a bit like the little Memline head which I imagined +you to be like when I was coming here in the train, nor like anything +done by the Nuremberg painters. You are a Tanagra figure, and one of +the finest. In you I read all the winsomeness of antiquity. But I must +look at the bay now, for I may never see anything like it again; never +have I seen anything like it before. Forgive me, remember that three +days ago I was in Ireland, the day before yesterday I was in England, +yesterday I was in Paris. I have come out of the greyness of the +North. When I left Paris all was grey, and when the train passed +through Lyons a grey night was gathering; now I see no cloud at all: +the change is so wonderful. You cannot appreciate my admiration. You +have been looking at the bay for the last three weeks, and _La côte +d'azur_ has become nothing to you now but palms and promenades. To +me it is still quite different. I shall always see you beautiful, +whereas Plessy may lose her beauty in a few days. Let me enjoy it +while I may." + +"Perhaps I shall not outlast Plessy." + +"Yes, you will. Do you know, Doris, that you don't look a day older +since the first time I saw you walking across the room to the piano in +your white dress, your gold hair hanging down over your shoulders. It +has darkened a little, that is all." + +"It is provoking you should see me when I am thin. I wish you had seen +me last year when I came from the rest cure. I went up more than a +stone in weight. Every one said that I didn't look more than sixteen. +I know I didn't, for all the women were jealous of me." + +As I sat watching the dissolving line of the horizon, lost in a dream, +I heard my companion say: + +"Of what are you thinking?" + +"I'm thinking of something that happened long ago in that very bay." + +"Tell me about it;" and her hand sought mine for a moment. + +"Would you like to hear it? I'd like to tell it, but it's a long, long +story, and to remember it would be an effort. The colour of the sea +and the sky is enough; the warmth of the sunlight penetrates me; I +feel like a plant; the only difference between me and one of those +palm trees----" + +"I am sure those poor palms are shivering. There is not enough heat +here for them; they come from the south, and you come from the north." + +"I suppose that is so. They grow, but they don't flourish here. +However, my mood is not philanthropic; I cannot pity even a palm tree +at the present moment. See how my cigar smoke curls and goes out! It +is strange, Doris, that I should meet you here, for some years ago it +was arranged that I should come here----" + +"With a woman?" + +"Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? Our lives are woven along +and across with women. Some men find the reality of their lives in +women, others, as we were saying just now, in bishops." + +"Tell me about the woman who asked you to come here? Did you love her? +And what prevented you from coming here with her?" + +"It is one of the oddest stories--odd only because it is like myself. +Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each +spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, +such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a +long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with +her, and her letter was most welcome, for I had no plans for that +evening. I do not know if you know that curious dread of life which +steals through the twilight; it had just laid its finger on my +shoulder when the bell rang, and I said: 'My visitor is welcome, +whoever she or he may be.' The visitor would have only spent a few +minutes perhaps with me, but Gertrude's letter--that was her name--was +a promise of a long and pleasant evening, for it was more than a mere +invitation to dinner. She wrote: 'I have not asked any one to meet +you, but you will not mind dining alone with me. I hope you will be +able to come, for I want to consult you on a matter about which I +think you will be able to advise me.' As I dressed I wondered what she +could have to propose, and with my curiosity enkindled I walked to her +house. The evening was fine--I remember it--and she did not live far +from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and +I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had +never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to +her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be +Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of +forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners +still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French +gowns and underwear that cost a little fortune made her a woman that +one would still take a pleasure in making love to. It would be +pleasant to be her lover for many reasons. There were disadvantages, +however, for Gertrude, though never vulgar herself, liked vulgar +things. Her friends were vulgar; her flat, for she had just left her +husband, was opulent, overdecorated; the windows were too heavily +curtained, the electric light seemed to be always turned on, and as +for the pictures--well, we won't talk of them; Gertrude was the only +one worth looking at. And she was rather like a Salon picture, a +Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as +vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white +dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't +you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour +of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her +bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought +that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my +hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been +doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I +have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or +intentional." + +"Probably a little of both," Doris said. + +"I see you understand. You always understand." + +"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her +bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,' +and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company +and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two +men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking +to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist." + +"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations." + +"Yes, I think I can. You have not changed; I have not forgotten you +though we have not seen each other for five years; and now go on, tell +me about Gertrude." + +"Well, sitting beside her on the sofa----" + +"Under the shaded electric light," interrupted Doris. + +"I tried to discover--not the reason of this invitation to dinner; of +course it was natural that old friends should dine together, but she +had said in her letter that she wished to talk to me about some matter +on which she thought I could advise her. The servant would come in a +moment to announce that dinner was ready, and if Gertrude did not tell +me at once I might, if the story were a long one, have to wait till +dinner was over; her reluctance to confide in me seemed to point to +pecuniary help. Was it possible that Gertrude was going to ask me to +lend her money! If so, the loan would be a heavy one, more than I +could afford to lend. That is the advantage of knowing rich people; +when they ask for money they ask for more than one can afford to lend, +and one can say with truth: 'Were I to lend you five hundred pounds, +I should not be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.' Her +reluctance to confide in me seemed incomprehensible, unless indeed she +wanted to borrow money. But Gertrude was not that kind, and she was a +rich woman. At last, just before the servant came into the room, she +turned round saying that she had sent for me because she wished to +speak to me about a yacht. Imagine my surprise. To speak to me about a +yacht! If it had been about the picture. + +"The door opened, the servant announced that dinner was ready, and we +had to talk in French during dinner, for her news was that she had +hired a yacht for the winter in order that she might visit Greece and +the Greek Islands. But she did not dare to travel in Greece alone for +six months, and it was difficult to find a man who was free and whom +one could trust. She thought she could trust me, and remembering that +I had once liked her, it had occurred to her to ask me if I would like +to go with her. I shall never forget how Gertrude confided her plan to +me, the charming modesty with which she murmured: 'Perhaps you do +still, and you will not bore me by claiming rights over me. I don't +mind your making love to me, but I don't like rights. You know what I +mean. When we return to England you will not pursue me. You know what +I have suffered from such pursuits; you know all about it?' Is it not +curious how a woman will sometimes paint her portrait in a single +phrase; not paint, but indicate in half-a-dozen lines her whole moral +nature? Gertrude exists in the words I have quoted just as God made +her. And now I have to tell you about the pursuit. When Gertrude +mentioned it I had forgotten it; a blankness came into my face, and +she said: 'Don't you remember?' 'Of course, of course,' I said, and +this is the story within the story. + +"One day after lunch Gertrude, getting up, walked unconsciously +towards me, and quite naturally I took her in my arms, and when I had +told her how much I liked her, and the pleasure I took in her company, +she promised to meet me at a hotel in Lincoln. We were to meet there +in a fortnight's time; but two days before she sent for me, and told +me that she would have to send me away. I really did like Gertrude, +and I was quite overcome, and a long hour was spent begging of her to +tell why she had come to this determination. One of course says unjust +things, one accuses a woman of cruelty; what could be the meaning of +it? Did she like to play with a man as a cat plays with a mouse? But +Gertrude, though she seemed distressed at my accusations, refused to +give me any explanation of her conduct; tears came into her eyes--they +seemed like genuine tears--and it was difficult to believe that she +had taken all this trouble merely to arrive at this inexplicable and +most disagreeable end. Months passed without my hearing anything of +Gertrude, till one day she sent me a little present, and in response +to a letter she invited me to come to see her in the country. And, +walking through some beautiful woods, she told me the reason why she +had not gone to Lincoln. A Pole whom she had met at the gambling +tables at Monte Carlo was pursuing her, threatening her that if he saw +her with any other man he would murder her and her lover. This at +first seemed an incredible tale, but when she entered into details, +there could be no doubt that she was telling the truth, for had she +not on one occasion very nearly lost her life through this man? They +were in Germany together, she and the Pole, and he had locked her up +in her room without food for many hours, and coming in suddenly he had +pressed the muzzle of a pistol against her temple and pulled the +trigger. Fortunately, it did not go off. 'It was a very near thing,' +she said; 'the cartridge was indented, and I made up my mind that if +things went any further, I should have to tell my husband.' 'But +things can't go further than an indented cartridge,' I answered. 'What +you tell me is terrible'; and we talked for a long time, walking about +the woods, fearing that the Pole might spring from behind every bush, +the pistol in his hand. But he did not appear; she evidently knew +where he was, or had made some compact with him. Nevertheless, at the +close of the day, I drove through the summer evening not having got +anything from Gertrude except a promise that if she should find +herself free, she would send for me. Weeks and months went by during +which I saw Gertrude occasionally; you see love stories, once they get +entangled, remain entangled; that is what makes me fear that we shall +never be able to pick the knot that you have tied our love story into. +Misadventure followed misadventure. It seems to me that I behaved very +stupidly on many occasions; it would take too long to tell you +how--when I met her at the theatre I did not do exactly what I should +have done; and on another occasion when I met her driving in a suburb, +I did not stop her cab, and so on and so on until, resolved to bring +matters to a crisis, Gertrude had sent me an invitation to dinner, and +her plan was the charming one which I have told you, that we should +spend six months sailing about the Greek Islands in a yacht. We left +the dining-room and returned to the drawing-room, she telling me that +the yacht had been paid for--the schooner, the captain, the crew, +everything for six months; but I not unnaturally pointed out to her +that I could not accept her hospitality for so long a time, and the +greater part of the evening was spent in trying to persuade her to +allow me to pay--Gertrude was the richer--at least a third of the +upkeep of the yacht must come out of my pocket. + +"The prospect of a six months' cruise among the Greek Islands kindled +my imagination, and while listening to Gertrude I was often in spirit +far away, landing perchance at Cyprus, exalted at the prospect of +visiting the Cyprians' temple; or perchance standing with Gertrude on +the deck of the yacht watching the stars growing dim in the east; the +sailors would be singing at the time, and out of the ashen stillness a +wind would come, and again we would hear the ripple of the water +parting as the jib filled and drew the schooner eastward. I imagined +how half an hour later an island would appear against the golden sky, +a lofty island lined with white buildings, perchance ancient fanes. +'What a delicious book my six months with Gertrude will be!' I said as +I walked home, and the title of the book was an inspiration, 'An +Unsentimental Journey.' It was Gertrude's own words that had suggested +it. Had she not said that she did not mind my making love to her, but +she did not like rights? She couldn't complain if I wrote a book, and +I imagined how every evening when the lover left her, the chronicler +would sit for an hour recording his impressions. Very often he would +continue writing until the pencil dropped from his hand, till he fell +asleep in the chair. An immediate note-taking would be necessary, so +fugitive are impressions, and an analysis of his feelings, their +waxing and their waning; he would observe himself as an astronomer +observes the course of a somewhat erratic star, and his descriptions +of himself and of her would be interwoven with descriptions of the +seas across which Menelaus had gone after Helen's beauty--beauty, the +noblest of men's quests. + +"For once Nature seemed to me to put into the hands of the artist a +subject perfect in its every part; the end especially delighted me, +and I imagined our good-byes at Plymouth or Portsmouth or Hull, +wherever we might land. 'Well, Gertrude, goodbye. We have spent a very +pleasant six months together; I shall never forget our excursion. But +this is not a rupture; I may hope to see you some time during the +season? You will allow me to call about tea-time?' And she would +answer: 'Yes, you may call. You have been very nice.' Each would turn +away sighing, conscious of a little melancholy in the heart, for all +partings are sad; but at the bottom of the heart there would be a +sense of relief, of gladness--that gladness which the bird feels when +it leaves its roost: there is nothing more delicious perhaps than the +first beat of the wings. I forget now whether I looked forward most to +the lady or to the book.... If the winds had been more propitious, I +might have written a book that would have compared favourably with the +eighteenth-century literature, for the eighteenth century was cynical +in love; while making love to a woman, a gallant would often consider +a plan for her subsequent humiliation. Gouncourt----" + +"But, dear one, finish about the yacht." + +"Well, it seemed quite decided that Gertrude and I were to go to +Marseilles to meet the schooner; but the voyage from the Bay of Biscay +is a stormy and a tedious one; the weather was rough all the way, and +she took a long time to get to Gibraltar. She passed the strait +signalling to Lloyd's; we got a telegram; everything was ready; I had +ordered yachting clothes, shoes, and quantities of things; but after +that telegram no news came, and one evening Gertrude told me she was +beginning to feel anxious; the yacht ought to have arrived at +Marseilles. Three or four days passed, and then we read in the +paper--the _Evening Standard_, I think it was--the _Ring-Dove_, +a large schooner, had sunk off the coast while making for the Bay +of Plessy. Had she passed that point over yonder, no doubt she +would have been saved; all hands were lost, the captain, seven +men, and my book." + +"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were +you never her lover?" + +"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in +love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores +her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms." + +At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the +sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months' +cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I +loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that +my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and +taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't +know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had +anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing +questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in +love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though +not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that +since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once +incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a +_liaison_ that had lasted many years and had come to an end at +last. Fearing that Doris would ask if it had come to an end through +weariness, it seemed well to add that the lady had a daughter growing +up, and it was for the girl's sake we had agreed to bring our love +story to a close. We had, however, promised to remain friends. + +Doris's silence embarrassed me a little, for she didn't ask any +questions about the lady and her daughter; and it was impossible to +tell from her manner whether she believed that this lady comprised the +whole of my love life for the last five years, and if she thought I +had really broken with her. For a moment or two I did not dare to look +at Doris, and then I felt that her disbelief mattered little, so long +as it did not enter as an influencing factor into the present +situation. Under a sky as blue and amid nature poetical as a +drop-curtain, one's moral nature dozes. No doubt that was it. There is +an English church at Plessy, but really! Dear little town, town of my +heart, where the local orchestra plays "The March of Aida" and "La +Belle Hélène"! If I could inoculate you, reader, with the sentiment of +the delicious pastoral you would understand why, all the time I was at +Plessy, I looked upon myself as a hero of legend, whether of the +Argonauts or the siege of Troy matters little. Returning from Mount +Ida after a long absence, after presenting in imagination the fairest +of women with the apple, I said: + +"You asked me whom I had been in love with; now tell me with whom have +you been in love?" + +"For the last three years I have been engaged to be married." + +"And you are still engaged?" + +She nodded, her eyes fixed on the blue sea, and I said laughing, that +it was not of a marriage or an engagement to be married that I spoke, +but of the beautiful, irrepressible caprice. + +"You wouldn't have me believe that no passion has caught you and +dragged you about for the last five years, just as a cat drags a +little mouse about?" + +"It is strange that you should ask me that, for that is exactly what +happened." + +"Really?" + +"Only that I suffered much more than any mouse ever suffered." + +"Doris, tell me. You know how sympathetic I am; you know I shall +understand. All things human interest me. If you have loved as much as +you say, your story will ... I must hear it." + +"Why should I tell it?" and her eyes filled with tears. "I suffered +horribly. Don't speak to me about it. What is the good of going over +it all again?" + +"Yes, there is good; very much good comes of speaking, if this love +story is over, if there is no possibility of reviving it. Tell it, and +in telling, the bitterness will pass from you. Who was this man? How +did you meet him?" + +"He was a friend of Albert's. Albert introduced him." + +"Albert is the man you are engaged to? The old story, the very oldest. +Why should it always be the friend? There are so many other men, but +it is always the friend who attracts." And I told Doris the story of a +friend who had once robbed me, and my story had the effect of drying +her tears. But they began again as soon as she tried to tell her own +story. There could be no doubt that she had suffered. Things are +interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; +Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it +may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert +was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have +suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed +with tears. As I looked at her tears I said: "It is strange that she +should weep so, for her story differs nowise from the many stories +happening daily in the lives of men and women. She will tell me the +old and beautiful story of lovers forced asunder by cruel fate, and +this spot is no doubt a choice one to hear her story." And raising my +eyes I admired once again the drooping shore, the serrated line of +mountains sweeping round the bay. And the colour was so intense that +it overpowered the senses like a perfume, "like musk," I thought. When +I turned to Doris I could see she was wholly immersed in her own +sorrow, and it took all my art to persuade her to tell it, or it +seemed as if all my art of persuasion were necessary. + +"As soon as you knew you loved him, you resolved to see him no more?" + +Doris nodded. + +"You sent him away before you yielded to him?" + +She nodded, and looking at me her eyes filled with tears, but which +only seemed to make them still more beautiful, she told me that they +had both felt that it was impossible to deceive Albert. + + * * * * * + +All love stories are alike in this; they all contain what the +reviewers call "sordid details." But if Tristan had not taken +advantage of King Mark's absence on a hunting expedition, the world +would have been the poorer of a great love story; and what, after all, +does King Mark's happiness matter to us--a poor passing thing, whose +life was only useful in this, that it gave us an immortal love story? +And if Wagner had not loved Madame Wasendonck, and if Madame +Wasendonck had not been unfaithful to her husband, we should not have +had "Tristan." Who then would, for the sake of Wasendonck's honour, +destroy the score of "Tristan"? Nor is the story of "Tristan" the only +one, nor the most famous. There is also the story of Helen. If +Menelaus's wife had not been unfaithful to him, the world would have +been the poorer of the greatest of all poems, the "Iliad" and the +"Odyssey." Dear me, when one thinks of it, one must admit that art +owes a great deal to adultery. Children are born of the marriage, +stories of the adulterous bed, and the world needs both--stories as +well as children. Even my little tale would not exist if Doris had +been a prudent maiden, nor would it have interested me to listen to +her that day by the sea if she had naught to tell me but her +unswerving love for Albert. Her story is not what the world calls a +great story, and it would be absurd to pretend that if a shorthand +writer had taken it down his report would compare with the stories of +Isolde and Helen, but I heard it from her lips, and her tears and her +beauty replaced the language of Wagner and of Homer; and so well did +they do this that I am not sure that the emotion I experienced in +listening to her was less than that which I have experienced before a +work of art. + +"Do you know," she began, "perhaps you don't, perhaps you've never +loved enough to know the anxiety one may feel for the absent. We had +been together all day once, and when we bade each other good-bye we +agreed that we should not see each other for two days, till Thursday; +but that night in bed an extraordinary desire took hold of me to know +what had become of him. I felt I must hear from him; one word would be +enough. But we had promised. It was stupid, it was madness, yet I had +to take down the telephone, and when I got into communication what do +you think the answer was?--'Thank God you telephoned! I've been +walking about the room nearly out of my mind, feeling that I should go +mad if the miracle did not happen.'" + +"If you loved Ralph better than Albert----" + +"Why didn't I give up Albert? Albert's life would have been broken and +ruined if I had done that. You see he has loved me so many years that +his life has become centred in me. He is not one of those men who like +many women. Outside of his work nothing exists but me. He doesn't care +much for reading, but he reads the books I like. I don't know that he +cares much about music for its own sake, but he likes to hear me sing +just because it is me. He never notices other women; I don't think +that he knows what they wear, but he likes my dresses, not because +they are in good taste, but because I wear them. One can't sacrifice a +man like that. What would one think of oneself? One would die of +remorse. So there was nothing to be done but for Ralph to go away. It +nearly killed me." + +"I'm afraid I can give you no such love; my affection for you will +prove very tepid after such violent emotions." + +"I don't want such emotions again; I could not bear them, they would +kill me; even a part would kill me. Two months after Ralph left I was +but a little shadow. I was thinner than I am now, I was worn to a +thread, I could hardly keep body and skirt together." + +We laughed at Doris's little joke; and we watched it curling and going +out like a wreath of cigarette smoke. + +"But did you get no happiness at all out of this great love?" + +"We were happy only a very little while." + +"How long?" + +Doris reflected. + +"We had about six weeks of what I should call real happiness, the time +while Albert was away. When he came back the misery and remorse began +again. I had to see him--not Albert, the other--every day; and Albert +began to notice that I was different. We used to go out together, we +three, and at last the sham became too great and Albert said he could +not stand it any longer. 'I prefer you should go out with him alone, +and if it be for your happiness I'll give you up.'" + +"So you nearly died of love! Well, now you must live for love, liking +things as they go by. Life is beautiful at the moment, sad when we +look back, fearful when we look forward; but I suppose it's hopeless +to expect a little Christian like you to live without drawing +conclusions, liking things as they go by as the nymphs do. Dry those +tears; forget that man. You tell me it is over and done. Remember +nothing except that the sky and the sea are blue, that it is a luxury +to feel alive here by the sea-shore. My happiness would be to make you +happy, to see you put the past out of your mind, to close your eyes to +the future. That will be easy to do by this beautiful sea-shore, under +those blue skies with flowers everywhere and drives among the +mountains awaiting us. We create our own worlds. Chance has left you +here and sent me to you. I want you to eat a great deal and to sleep +and to get fatter and to dream and to read Theocritus, so that when we +go to the mountains we shall be transported into antiquity. You must +forget Albert and him who made you unhappy--he allowed you to look +back and forwards." + +"I think I deserve some happiness; you see I have sacrificed so much." + +At these words my hopes rose--shall I say like a balloon out of which +a great weight of ballast has been thrown?--and so high did they go +that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. +"She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. +Her words could bear no other interpretation; she had spoken without +thought, and instinctively. Albert was away; why should she not take +this happiness which I offered her? Would she understand that distance +made a difference, that it was one thing to deceive Albert if he were +with her, and another when she was a thousand miles away? It was as if +we were in a foreign country; we were under palm trees, we were by the +Mediterranean. With Albert a thousand miles away it would be so easy +for her to love me. She had said there was no question of her marrying +any one but Albert--and to be unfaithful is not to be inconstant. +These were the arguments which I would use if I found that I had +misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it +would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, +feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being +able to think of anything more plausible: + +"You spoke, didn't you, of going for a drive?" + +"We were speaking of happiness--but if you'd like to go for a drive. +There's no happiness like driving." + +"Isn't there?" + +She pinched my arm, and with a choking sensation in the throat I asked +her if I should send for a carriage. + +"There will be time for a short drive before the sun setting. You said +you admired the hills--one day we will go to a hill town. There is a +beautiful one--Florac is the name of it--but we must start early in +the morning. To-day there will be only time to drive as far as the +point you have been admiring all the morning. The road winds through +the rocks, and you want to see the ilex trees." + +"My dear, I want to see you." + +"Well, you're looking at me. Come, don't be disagreeable." + +"Disagreeable, Doris! I never felt more kindly in my life. I'm still +absorbed in the strange piece of luck which has brought us together, +and in such a well-chosen spot; no other would have pleased me as +much." + +"Now why do you like the landscape? Tell me." + +"I cannot think of the landscape now, Doris: I'm thinking of you, of +what you said just now." + +"What did I say?" + +"You said--I tried to remember the words at the time, but I have +forgotten them, so many thoughts have passed through my mind +since--you said--how did you word it?--after having suffered as much +as you did, some share of happiness----" + +"No, I didn't say that; I said, having sacrificed so much, I thought I +deserved a little happiness." + +"So she knew what she was saying," I said to myself. "Her words were +not casual," but not daring to ask her if she intended to make me her +happiness, I spoke about the landscape. "You ask me why I like the +landscape? Because it carries me back into past times when men +believed in nymphs and in satyrs. I have always thought it must be a +wonderful thing to believe in the dryad. Do you know that men +wandering in the woods sometimes used to catch sight of a white breast +between the leaves, and henceforth they could love no mortal woman? +The beautiful name of their malady was nympholepsy. A disease that +every one would like to catch." + +"But if you were to catch it you wouldn't be able to love me, so I'll +not bring you to the mountains. Some peasant girl----" + +"Fie! Doris, I have never liked peasant girls." + +"Your antiquity is eighteenth-century antiquity. There are many +alcoves in it." + +"I don't know that the alcove was an invention of the eighteenth +century. There were alcoves at all times. But, Doris, good heavens! +what are those trees? Never did I see anything so ghastly; they are +like ghosts. Not only have they no leaves, but they have no bark nor +any twigs; nothing but great white trunks and branches." + +"I think they are called plantains." + +"That won't do, you are only guessing; I must ask the coachman." + +"I think, sir, they are called plantains." + +"You only think. Stop and I'll ask those people." + +"Sont des plantains, Monsieur." + +"Well, I told you so," Doris said, laughing. + +Beyond this spectral avenue, on either side of us there were fields, +and Doris murmured: + +"See how flat the country is, to the very feet of the hills, and the +folk working in the fields are pleasant to watch." + +I declared that I could not watch them, nor could you, reader, if you +had been sitting by Doris. I had risen and come away from long months +of toil; and I remember how I told Doris as we drove across those +fields towards the hills, that it was not her beauty alone that +interested me; her beauty would not be itself were it not illumed by +her wit and her love of art. What would she be, for instance, if she +were not a musician? Or would her face be the same face if it were +robbed of its mirth? But mirth is enchanting only when the source of +it is the intelligence. Vacuous laughter is the most tiresome of +things; a face of stone is more inveigling. But Doris prided herself +on her beauty more than on her wit, and she was disinclined to admit +the contention that beauty is dependent upon the intelligence. Our +talk rambled on, now in one direction, now in another. + +Lovers are divided into two kinds, the babbling and the silent. + +We meet specimens of the silent kind on a Thames back-water--the punt +drawn up under the shady bank with the twain lying side by side, their +arms about each other all the afternoon. When evening comes, and it is +time to return home, her fellow gets out the sculls, and they part +saying: "Well, dear, next Sunday, at the same time." "Yes, at the same +time next Sunday." + +We were of the babbling kind, as the small part of our conversation +that appears in this story shows. + +"My dear, my dear, remember that we are in an open carriage." + +"What do those folks matter to us?" + +"My dear, if I don't like it?" + +To justify my desire of her lips I began to compare her beauty with +that of a Greek head on a vase, saying that hers was a cameo-like +beauty, as dainty as any Tanagra figure. + +"And to see you and not to claim you, not to hold your face in my +hands just as one holds a vase, is----" + +"Is what?" + +"A kind of misery. What else shall I say? Fancy my disappointment if, +on digging among these mountains, I were to find a beautiful vase, and +some one were to say: 'You can look at it but not touch it.'" + +"Do you love me as well as that?" she answered, somewhat moved, for my +words expressed a genuine emotion. + +"I do indeed, Doris." + +"We might get out here. I want you to see the view from the hilltop." + +And, telling the driver that he need not follow us, to stay there and +rest his panting horse, we walked on. Whether Doris was thinking of +the view I know not; I only know that I thought only of kissing Doris. +To do so would be pleasant--in a way--even on this cold hillside, and +I noticed that the road bent round the shoulder of the mount. We soon +reached the hilltop, and we could see the road enter the village in +the dip between the hills, a double line of houses--not much +more--facing the sea, a village where we might go to have breakfast; +we might never go there; however that might be, we certainly should +remember that village and the road streaming out of it on the other +side towards the hills. Now and then we lost sight of the road; it +doubled round some rock or was hidden behind a group of trees; and +then we caught sight of it a little farther on, ascending the hills in +front of us, and no doubt on the other side it entered another +village, and so on around the coast of Italy. Even with the thought of +Doris's kisses in my mind, I could admire the road and the curves of +the bay. I felt in my pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil. The +colour was as beautiful as a Brabizon; there were many tints of blue, +no doubt, but the twilight had gathered the sea and sky into one tone, +or what seemed to be one tone. + +"You wanted to see olive trees--those are olives." + +"So those are olives! Do I at last look upon olives?" + +"Are you disappointed?" + +"Yes and no. The white gnarled trunk makes even the young trees seem +old. The olive is like an old man with skimpy legs. It seems to me a +pathetic tree. One does not like to say it is ugly; it is not ugly, +but it would be puzzling to say wherein lies its charm, for it throws +no shade, and is so grey--nothing is so grey as the olive. I like the +ilex better." + +Where the road dipped there was a group of ilex trees, and it was in +their shade that I kissed Doris, and the beauty of the trees helps me +to appreciate the sentiment of those kisses. And I remember that road +and those ilex trees as I might remember a passage in Theocritus. +Doris--her very name suggests antiquity, and it was well that she was +kissed by me for the first time under ilex trees; true that I had +kissed her before, but that earlier love story has not found a +chronicler, and probably it never will. I like to think that the +beauty of the ilex is answerable, perhaps, for Doris's kisses--in a +measure. Her dainty grace, her Tanagra beauty, seemed to harmonise +with that of the ilex, for there is an antique beauty in this tree +that we find in none other. Theocritus must have composed many a poem +beneath it. It is the only tree that the ancient world could have +cared to notice; and if it were possible to carve statues of trees, I +am sure that the ilex is the tree sculptors would choose. The beech +and the birch, all the other trees, only began to be beautiful when +men invented painting. No other tree shapes itself out so beautifully +as the ilex, lifting itself up to the sky so abundantly and with such +dignity--a very queen in a velvet gown is the ilex tree; and we stood +looking at the group, admiring its glossy thickness, till suddenly the +ilex tree went out of my mind, and I thought of the lonely night that +awaited me. + +"Doris, dear, it is more than flesh and blood can bear. My folly lay +in sending the telegram. Had I not sent it you wouldn't have known by +what train I was coming; you would have been fast asleep in your bed, +and I should have gone straight to your hotel." + +"But, darling, you wouldn't compromise me. Every one would know that +we stayed at the same hotel." + +"Dearest, it might happen by accident, and were it to happen by +accident what could you do?" + +"All I can say is that it would be a most unfortunate accident." + +"Then I have come a thousand miles for nothing. This is worse than the +time in London when I left you for your strictness. Can nothing be +done?" + +"Am I not devoted to you? We have spent the whole day together. Now I +don't think it's at all nice of you to reproach me with having brought +you on a fool's errand." + +"I didn't say that," and we quarrelled a little until we reached the +carriage. Doris was angry, and when she spoke again it was to say: + +"If you are not satisfied, you can go back. I'm sorry. I think it's +most unreasonable that you should ask me to compromise myself." + +"And I think it's unkind of you to suggest that I should go back, for +how can I go back?" + +She did not ask me why--she was too angry at the moment--and it was +well she did not, for I should have been embarrassed to tell her that +I was fairly caught. + +I had come a thousand miles to see her, and I could not say I was +going to take the _Côte d'azur_ back again, because she would not +let me stay at her hotel; to do so would be too childish, too futile. +The misery of the journey back would be unendurable. There was nothing +to do but to wait, and hope that life, which is always full of +accidents, would favour us. Better think no more about it. For it is +thinking that makes one miserable. + +There were many little things which helped to pass the time away. +Doris went every evening to a certain shop to fetch two eggs that had +been laid that morning. It was necessary for her health that she +should eat eggs beaten up with milk between the first and second +breakfast. We went there, and it was amusing to pick my way through +the streets, carrying her eggs back to the hotel for her. She knew a +few people--strange folk, I thought them--elderly spinsters living +_en pension_ at different hotels. We dined with her friends, and +after dinner Doris sang, and when she had played many things that she +used to play to me in the old days, it was time for her to go to bed, +for she rarely slept after six o'clock, so she said. + +"Good-night. Ah, no, the hour is ill," I murmured to myself as I +wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything +that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to +say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at +night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's +head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain +argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more +Christian spirit--all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads +and satyrs and fauns frightened her. In the heat of the moment one +says more than one intends, though it is quite true that, as a rule, +it is well to insist that there is no such thing as our lower nature, +that everything about us is divine. So constituted are we that the +mind accepts the convention, and what we have to do is to keep to the +convention, just as in opera. Singing appears natural so long as the +characters do not speak. Once they speak they cannot go back to music; +the convention has been broken. As in Art so it is in Life. Tell a +woman that she is a nymph, and she must not expect any more from you +than she would from a faun, that all you know is the joy of the +sunlight, that you have no dreams beyond the worship of the perfect +circle of her breast, and the desire to gather grapes for her, and she +will give herself to you unconscious of sin. I must have fallen asleep +thinking of these things, and I must have slept soundly, for I +remembered nothing until the servant came in with my bath, and I saw +again the pretty sunlight flickering along the wall-paper. Before +parting the previous night, Doris and I had arranged that I was to +call an hour earlier than usual at the hotel; I was to be there at +half-past ten. She had promised to be ready. We were going to drive to +Florac, to one of the hill towns, and it would take two hours to get +there. We were going to breakfast there, and while I dressed, and in +the carriage going there, I cherished the hope that perhaps I might be +able to persuade Doris to breakfast in a private room, though feeling +all the while that it would be difficult to do so, for the public room +would be empty, and crowds of waiters would gather about us like +rooks, each trying to entice us towards his table. + +The village of Florac is high up among the hills, built along certain +ledges of rock overlooking the valley, and going south in the train +one catches sight of many towns, like it built among mountain +declivities, hanging out like nests over the edge of precipices, +showing against a red background, crowning the rocky hill. No doubt +these mediaeval towns were built in these strange places because of +the security that summit gives against raiders. One can think of no +other reason, for it is hard to believe that in the fifteenth century +men were so captivated with the picturesque that for the sake of it +they would drag every necessary of life up these hills, several +hundred feet above the plain, probably by difficult paths--the +excellent road that wound along the edge of the hills, now to the +right, now to the left, looping itself round every sudden ascent like +a grey ribbon round a hat, did not exist when Florac was built. On the +left the ground shelves away into the valley, down towards the sea, +and olives were growing down all these hillsides. Above us were olive +trees, with here and there an orange orchard, and the golden fruit +shining among the dark leaves continued to interest me. Every now and +again some sudden aspect interrupted our conversation; the bay as it +swept round the carved mountains, looking in the distance more than +ever like an old Italian picture of a time before painters began to +think about values and truth of effect, when the minds of men were +concerned with beauty; as mine was, for every time I looked at Doris +it occurred to me that I had never seen anything prettier, and not +only her face but her talk still continued to enchant me. She was +always so eager to tell me things, that she must interrupt, and these +interruptions were pleasant. I identified them with her, and so +closely that I can remember how our talk began when we got out of the +suburbs. By the last villa there was a eucalyptus tree growing; the +sun was shining, and Doris had asked me to hold her parasol for her; +but the road zigzagged so constantly that I never shifted the parasol +in time, and a ray would catch her just in the face, adding perhaps to +the freckles--there were just a few down that little nose which was +always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our +talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those +little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only +from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest +us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear +Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I +have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember +suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, +that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch +and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in +the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down +the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where +one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going +to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I +should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I +agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is +only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... + +"But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." + +"I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am +amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is +amused, whether somebody is making love to her." + +"Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to +anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, +the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, +only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the +sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." + +"My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been +there." + +"Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up +two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The +seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who +suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb +the Matterhorn." + +"The Matterhorn!" + +"Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, +glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him +saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and +would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he +answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arrêter pour +vous expliquer les trois passés.'" + +Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years +ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the +_fussent_ and the _eussent, été_, and when our language of +the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we +had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days +in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course. + +"I'm not sure at all that mountain air would not do me good. Plessy +lies very low and is very relaxing." + +"Very." + +But though I convinced her that it would have been better if she had +gone at once to stop at Florac, I could do nothing to persuade her to +pass three days with me in the inn there. As we drove up through the +town the only hope that remained in my mind was that I might induce +her to take breakfast in a private room. But the _salle du +restaurant_ was fifty feet long by thirty feet wide, it contained a +hundred tables, maybe more, the floor was polished oak, and the +ceilings were painted and gilded, and there were fifty waiters waiting +for the swallows that would soon arrive from the north; we were the +van birds. + +"Shall we breakfast in a private room?" I whispered humbly. + +"Good heavens! no! I wouldn't dare to go into a private room before +all these waiters." + +My heart sank again, and when Doris said, "Where shall we sit?" I +answered, "Anywhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter." + +It had taken two hours for the horses to crawl up to the mountain +town, and as I had no early breakfast I was ravenously hungry. A box +of sardines and a plate of butter, and the prospect of an omelette and +a steak, put all thoughts of Doris for the moment out of my head, and +that was a good thing. We babbled on, and it was impossible to say +which was the more interested, which enjoyed talking most; and the +pleasure which each took in talking and hearing the other talk became +noticeable. + +"I didn't interrupt you just now, I thought it would be cruel, for you +were enjoying yourself so much," said Doris, laughing. + +"Well, I promise not to interrupt the next time--you were in the midst +of one of your stories." + +It was not long before she was telling me another story, for Doris was +full of stories. She observed life as it went by, and could recall +what she had seen. Our talk had gone back to years before, to the +evening when I first saw her cross the drawing-room in a white dress, +her gold hair hanging over her shoulders; and in that moment, as she +crossed the room, I had noticed a look of recognition in her eyes; the +look was purely instinctive; she was not aware of it herself, but I +could not help understanding it as a look whereby she recognised me as +one of her kin. I had often spoken to her of that look, and we liked +speaking about it, and about the time when we became friends in Paris. +She had written asking me to go to see her and her mother. I had found +them in a strange little hotel, just starting for some distant suburb, +going there to buy presents from an old couple, dealers in china and +glass, from whom, Doris's mother explained, she would be able to buy +her presents fifty per cent, cheaper than elsewhere. She was one of +those women who would spend three shillings on a cab in order to save +twopence on a vase. + +"It took us two hours to get to that old, forgotten quarter, to the +old quaint street where they lived. They were old-world Jews who read +the Talmud, and seemed to be quite isolated, out of touch with the +modern world. It was like going back to the Middle Ages; this queer +old couple moving like goblins among the china and glass. Do you ever +see them now? Are they dead?" + +"Let me tell you," cried Doris, "what happened. The old man died two +years ago, and his wife, who had lived with him for forty years, could +not bear to live alone, so what do you think she did? She sent for her +brother-in-law----" + +"To marry him?" + +"No, not to marry him, but to talk to him about her husband. You see +this couple had lived together for so many years that she had become +ingrained, as it were, in the personality of her late husband, her +habits had become his habits, his thoughts had become hers. The story +really is very funny," and Doris burst out laughing, and for some time +she could not speak with laughing. "I am sorry for the poor man," she +said at last. + +"For whom? For the brother-in-law?" + +"Yes; you see he is dyspeptic, and he can't eat the dishes at all that +his brother used to like, but the wife can't and won't cook anything +else." + +"In other words," I said, "the souvenir of brother Isaac is poisoning +brother Jacob." + +"That is it." + +"What a strange place this world is!" And then my mind drifted back +suddenly. "O Doris, I'm so unhappy--this place--I wish I had never +come." + +"Now, now, have a little patience. Everything comes right in the end." + +"We shall never be alone." + +"Yes, we shall. Why do you think that?" + +"Because I can't think of anything else." + +"Well, you must think of something else. We're going to the factory +where they make perfume, and I'm going to buy a great many bottles of +scent for myself, and presents for friends. We shall be able to buy +the perfume twenty-five per cent. or fifty per cent. cheaper." + +"Don't you think we might go to see the pictures? There are some in a +church here." + +On inquiry we heard that they had been taken away, and I followed +Doris through the perfume factory. Very little work was doing; the +superintendent told us that they were waiting for the violets. A few +old women were stirring caldrons, and I listened wearily, for it did +not interest me in the least, particularly at that moment, to hear +that the flowers were laid upon layers of grease, that the grease +absorbed the perfume, and then the grease was got rid of by means of +alcohol. The workrooms were cold and draughty, and the choice of what +perfumes we were to buy took a long time. However, at last, Doris +decided that she would prefer three bottles of this, three bottles of +that, four of these, and two of those. Her perfume was heliotrope; she +always used it. + +"And you like it, don't you dear?" + +"Yes, but what does it matter what I like?" + +"Now, don't be cross. Don't look so sad." + +"I don't mind the purchase you made for your friends, but the purchase +of heliotrope is really too cynical." + +"Cynical! Why is it cynical?" + +"Because, dear, it is evocative of you, of that slender body moving +among fragrances of scented cambrics, and breathing its own dear odour +as I come forward to greet you. Why do you seek to torment me?" + +"But, dear one----" + +I was not to be appeased, and sat gloomily in the corner of the +carriage away from her. But she put out her hand, and the silken palm +calmed my nervous irritation, and we descended the steep roads, the +driver putting on and taking off the brake. The evening was growing +chilly, so I asked Doris if I might tell the coachman to stop his +horses and to put up the hood of the carriage. In a close carriage one +is nearly alone. But every moment I was reminded that people were +passing, and between her kisses the thought passed that I must go back +to Paris, however unkind it might be. It would be unkind to leave her, +for she was not very strong; she would require somebody to look after +her. As I was debating the question in my mind Doris said: + +"You don't mind, dear, but before we go back to the hotel, I have a +visit to pay." + +In the three weeks' time she had spent at Plessy before I came there, +Doris had made the acquaintance of all kinds of elderly spinsters, who +lived in the different hotels _en pension_, and who would go away +as soon as the visitors arrived, to seek another "resort" where the +season had not yet commenced, and where they could be boarded and +bedded for ten francs a day. I had made the acquaintance of Miss Tubbs +and Miss Whitworth, and we were dining with them that night. Doris had +explained that we could not refuse to dine with them at least once. + +"But as we're going to spend the evening with them, I don't see the +necessity----" + +"Of course not, dear, but don't you remember you promised to go to see +the Formans with me?" + +Miss Forman had dined with us last night, but her mother had not been +able to come, and that was a relief to me whatever it may have been to +Doris; I had heard that Mrs. Forman was a very old woman, and as her +daughter struck me as an ineffectual person, I said as I sat down to +dinner, "One of the family is enough." What her mother's age could be +I could not guess, for Miss Forman herself might pass for seventy. But +after speaking to her for a little while one saw that she was not so +old as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those +who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is +generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to +narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions +age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see +from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her +life for a long while, and I imagined her at once to be one of those +daughters that one finds abroad in different provincial towns, living +with their mothers on small incomes. "The daughter's tragedy is +written all over her face," I said, and while speaking to her I +scrutinised her, reading in her everything that goes to make up that +tragedy. She had the face of those heroines, for they are +heroines--the broad low brow, the high nose, the sympathetic eyes, +grey and expressive of duty and sacrifice of self. Her dress and her +manners were as significant as her face, and seemed to hint at the +life she had lived. She wore a black silk gown which looked +old-fashioned--why I cannot say. Was it the gown or the piece of black +lace that she wore on her head, or the Victorian earrings that hung +from her ears down her dust-coloured neck, that gave her a sort of +bygone appearance, the look of an old photograph? Her manners took me +farther back in the century even than the photograph did; she seemed +to have come out of the pages of some trite and uninteresting novel, a +rather listless book written at the end of the eighteenth century, +before the art of novel-writing had been found out. She listened, and +her listening was in itself a politeness, and she never lost her +politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished +speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind +was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most +trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and +sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her +ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking +of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it +wonderful that her mother had read--shall we say, "The Three +Musketeers?" three times. She was interested in all her mother's +characteristics, and her habit was to speak of her mother as her +mamma. She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she +pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to +understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a +colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be +forgiven. "The daughter's tragedy," I muttered, and considering it, +philosophising according to my wont, I tried to reconcile myself to +this visit. "After all," I said, "I am on my own business, therefore I +have no right to grumble." + +I wished to see what Miss Forman was like in her own house; above all, +I wished to see if her mother were as typical of the mother who +accepts her daughter's sacrifice, as Miss Forman was of the daughter +that has been sacrificed. From the daughter's appearance I had +imagined Mrs. Forman to be a tall, good-looking, distinguished woman, +lying upon a sofa, wearing a cap upon her white hair, her feet covered +with a shawl, and Miss Forman arranging it from time to time. Nature +is always surprising; she follows a rhythm of her own; we beat one, +two, three, four, but the invisible leader of the orchestra sets a +more subtle rhythm. But though Nature's rhythm is irregular, its +irregularity is more apparent than real, for when we listen we hear +that everything goes to a beat, and in looking at Mrs. Forman I +recognised that she was the inevitable mother of such a daughter, and +that Nature's combination was more harmonious than mine. The first +thing that struck me was that the personal energy I had missed in the +daughter survived in the mother, notwithstanding her seventy-five +years. The daughter reminded me now of a tree that had been +overshadowed; Miss Forman had remained a child, nor could she have +grown to womanhood unless somebody had taken her away; no doubt +somebody had wanted to marry her; there is nobody that has not had her +love affair, very few at least, and I imagined Miss Forman giving up +hers for the sake of her mamma, and I could hear her mamma--that +short, thick woman, looking more like a ball of lard than anything +else in the world, alert notwithstanding her sciatica, with two small +beady eyes in the glaring whiteness of her face--forgetful of her +daughter's sacrifice, saying to her some evening as they warmed their +shins over the fire: + +"Well, Caroline, I never understood how it was that you didn't marry +Mr. So-and-so, I think he would have suited you very well." + +My interest in these two women who had lived side by side all their +lives was slight; it was just animated by a slight curiosity to see if +Miss Forman would be as much interested in her mother in her own house +by her mother's side as she had been in the hotel among strangers. I +waited to hear her call her mother mamma; nor had I to wait long, for +as soon as the conversation turned on the house which the Formans had +lately purchased, and the land which Mrs. Forman was buying up and +planting with orange trees, Miss Forman broke in, and in her +high-pitched voice she told us enthusiastically that mamma was so +energetic; she never could be induced to sit down and be quiet; even +her sciatica could not keep her in her chair. A few moments after Miss +Forman told us that they did not leave Plessy even during the summer +heat. Mamma could not be induced to go away. The last time they had +gone to a hill village intending to spend some three or four weeks +there, but the food did not suit mamma at all, and Miss Forman +explained how the critical moment came and she had said to her mamma, +"Well, mamma, this place does not suit you; I think we had better go +home again"; and they had come home after six days in the hill +village, probably never to leave Plessy again; and turning to her +mother with a look of admiration on her face Miss Forman said: "I +always tell mamma that she will never be able to get away from here +until balloon travelling comes into fashion. If a balloon were to come +down to mamma's balcony, mamma might get into it and be induced to go +away for a little while for a change of air. She would not be afraid. +I don't think mamma was ever afraid of anything." Her voice seemed to +me to attain a certain ecstasy in the words, "I don't think mamma was +ever afraid of anything," and I said, "She is proud of her ideal, and +it is well that she should be, for there is no other in the world, not +for her at least," and noticing that the three women were talking +together, that I was no longer observed, I got up with a view to +studying the surroundings in which Mrs. Forman and her daughter lived. + +On the wall facing the fireplace there were two portraits--two +engravings--and I did not need to look at the date to know that they +had been done in 1840; one was her Majesty Queen Victoria, the other +her Royal Consort, Prince Albert. Shall I be believed if I say that in +my little excursions round the room and the next room I discovered a +small rosewood table on which stood some wax fruit, a small sofa +covered with rep and antimacassars, just as in old days? More +characteristic still was the harmonium, with a hymn-book on the music +rest, and every Sunday, no doubt, Miss Forman played hymns with her +stiff, crooked fingers, and they said prayers together, the same +old-fashioned English prayers for which I always hanker a little. + +Satisfied with the result of my quest, and fearing that it might be +regarded as an impertinence if I stayed away any longer, I returned to +the back drawing-room, only to accompany the Formans and Doris back +again to the front drawing-room. There was a piano there. The Formans +had persuaded Doris to sing, and she was going to do so to please +them. "They don't know anything about singing," she whispered to me; +"but what does that matter? You see, poor things, they have so little +to distract them in their lives; it will be quite a little event for +them to hear me sing," and she went to the piano and sang song after +song. + +"It is kind indeed of you to sing to us, to an old woman and a +middle-aged woman," Mrs. Forman said, "and I hope you will come to see +us again, both of you." + +"What should bring me to see them again?" I asked myself as I tried to +get Doris away, for she lingered about the doorway with them, making +impossible plans, asking them to come to see her when they came to +England, telling them that if her health required it and she came to +Plessy again she would rush to see them. "Why should she go on like +that, knowing well that we shall never see them again, never in this +world?" I thought. Mrs. Forman insisted that her daughter should +accompany us to the gate, and all the way there Doris begged of Miss +Forman to come to dine with us; we were dining with Miss Tubbs and +Miss Whitworth, friends of hers; it would be so nice if she would +come. The carriage would be sent back for her; it would be so easy to +send it back. I offered up a prayer that Miss Forman might refuse, and +she did refuse many times; but Doris was so pressing that she +consented; but when we got into the carriage a thought struck her. +"No," she said, "I cannot go, for the dressmaker is coming this +evening to try on mamma's dress, and mamma is very particular about +her gowns; she hates any fulness in the waist; the last time the gown +had to go back--you must excuse me." + +"Good-bye, dear, good-bye," I heard Doris crying, and I said to +myself, "How kind she is!" + +"Now, my dear, aren't you glad that you came to see them? Aren't they +nice? Isn't she good? And you like goodness." + +"Dear Doris, I like goodness, and I like to discover your kind heart. +Don't you remember my saying that your pretty face was dependent upon +your intelligence; that without your music and without your wit your +face would lose half its charm? Well, now, do you know that it seems +to me that it would only lose a third of its charm; for a third of my +love for you is my admiration of your good heart. You remember how, +years ago, I used to catch you doing acts of kindness? What has become +of the two blind women you used to help?" + +"So you haven't forgotten them. You used to say that it was wonderful +that a blind woman should be able to get her living." + +"Of course it is. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that any +one should be able to earn his living." + +"You see, dear, you have not been forced to get yours, and you do not +realise that ninety per cent of men and women have to get theirs." + +"But a blind woman! To get up in the morning and go out to earn enough +money to pay for her dinner; think of it! Getting up in the dark, +knowing that she must earn four, five, ten shillings a day, whatever +it is. Every day the problem presents itself, and she always in the +dark." + +"Do you remember her story?" + +"I think so. She was once rich, wasn't she? In fairly easy +circumstances, and she lost her fortune. It all went away from her bit +by bit. It is all coming back to me, how Fate in the story as you told +it seemed like a black shadow stretching out a paw, grabbing some part +of her income again and again till the last farthing was taken. Even +then Fate was not satisfied, and your friend must catch the smallpox +and lose her eyes. But as soon as she was well she decided to come to +England and learn to be a masseuse. I suppose she did not want to stop +in Australia, where she was known. How attractive courage is! And +where shall we find an example of courage equal to that of this blind +woman coming to England to learn to be a masseuse? What I don't +understand is bearing with her life in the dark, going out to her work +every day to earn her dinner, and very often robbed by the girl who +led her about? + +"How well you remember, dear." + +"Of course I do. Now, how was it? Her next misfortune was a +sentimental one. There was some sort of a love story in this blind +woman's life, not the conventional, sentimental story which never +happens, but a hint, a suggestion, of that passion which takes a +hundred thousand shapes, finding its way even to a blind woman's life. +Now don't tell me; it's all coming back to me. Something about a +student who lived in the same house as she did; a very young man; and +they made acquaintance on the stairs; they took to visiting each +other; they became friends, but it was not with him she fell in love. +This student had a pal who came to share his rooms, an older man with +serious tastes, a great classical scholar, and he used to go down to +read to the blind woman in the evening. It really was a very pretty +story, and very true. He used to translate the Greek tragedies aloud +to her. I wonder if she expected him to marry her?" + +"No, she knew he could not marry her, but that made no difference." + +"You're quite right. It was just the one interest in her life, and it +was taken from her. He was a doctor, wasn't he?" + +Doris nodded, and I remembered how he had gone out to Africa. "No +sooner did he get there than he caught a fever, one of the worst +kinds. The poor blind masseuse did not hear anything of her loss for a +long time. The friend upstairs didn't dare to come down to tell her. +But at last the truth could be hidden from her no longer. It's +extraordinary how tragedy follows some." + +"Isn't it?" + +"And now she sits alone in the dark. No one comes to read to her. But +she bears with her solitude rather than put up with the pious people +who would interest themselves in her. You said there were no +interesting books written for the blind, only pieties. The charitable +are often no better than Shylocks, they want their money's worth. I +only see her, of course, through your description, but if I see her +truly she was one of those who loved life, and life took everything +from her!" + +"Do you remember the story of the other blind woman?" + +"Yes and no, vaguely. She was a singer, wasn't she?" Doris nodded. +"And I think she was born blind, or lost her sight when she was three +or four years old. You described her to me as a tall, handsome woman +with dark, crinkly hair, and a mouth like red velvet." + +"I don't think I said like red velvet, dear." + +"Well, it doesn't sound like a woman's description of another woman, +but I think you told me that she had had love affairs, and it was that +that made me give her a mouth like red velvet. Why should she not have +love affairs? She was as much a woman as another; only one doesn't +realise until one hears a story of this kind what the life of the +blind must be, how differently they must think and feel about things +from those who see. Her lover must have been a wonder to her, +something strange, mysterious; the blind must be more capable of love +than anybody else. She wouldn't know if he were a man of forty or one +of twenty. And what difference could it make to her?" + +"Ah, the blind are very sensitive, much more so than we are." + +"Perhaps." + +"I think Judith would have known the difference between a young man +and a middle-aged. There was little she didn't know." + +"I daresay you're quite right. But still everything must have been +more intense and vague. When the blind woman's lover is not speaking +to her he is away; she is unable to follow him, and sitting at home +she imagines him in society surrounded by others who are not blind. +She doesn't know what eyes are, but she imagines them like--what? +anyhow she imagines them more beautiful than they are. No, Doris, no +eyes are more beautiful than yours; she imagines every one with eyes +like yours. I have not thought of her much lately, but I used to think +of her when you told me the story, as standing on a platform in front +of the public, calm as a caryatid. She must have had a beautiful voice +to have been able to get an engagement; and the great courage that +these blind women have! Fancy the struggle to get an engagement, a +difficult thing to do in any circumstances--but in hers! And when her +voice began to fail her she must have suffered, for her voice was her +one possession, the one thing that distinguished her from others, the +one thing she knew herself by, her personality as it were. She didn't +know her face as other women know theirs; she only knew herself when +she sang, then she became an entity, as it were. Nor could teaching +recompense her for what she had lost, however intelligent her pupils +might be, or however well they paid her. How did she lose her pupils?" + +"I don't think there was any reason. She lost her pupils in the +ordinary way; she was unlucky. As you were just saying, it was more +difficult for her to earn her living than for those who could see, and +Judith is no longer as young as she was; she isn't old, she is still a +handsome woman, but in a few years.... If old-age pensions are to be +granted to people, they surely ought to be granted to blind women." + +"Yes, I remember; the sentiment of the whole story is in my mind; only +I am a little confused about the facts. I remember you wrote a lot of +letters--how was it?" + +"Well, I just felt that the thing to do was to get an annuity for +Judith; I could not afford to give her one myself; so after a great +deal of trouble I got into communication with a rich woman who was +interested in the blind and wanted to found one." + +"You are quite right, that was it. You must have written dozens of +letters." + +"Yes, indeed, and all to no purpose. Judith knew the trouble I was +taking, but she couldn't bear with her loneliness any longer; the +dread of the long evenings by herself began to prey upon her nerves, +and she went off to Peckham to marry a blind man--quite an elderly +man; he was over sixty. They had known each other for some time, and +he taught music like her; but though he only earned forty or fifty +pounds a year, still she preferred to have somebody to live with than +the annuity." + +"But I don't see why she should lose her annuity." + +"Don't you remember, dear? This to me is the point of the story. The +charitable woman drew back, not from any sordid motive, because she +regretted her money, but for a fixed idea; she had learned from +somebody that blind people shouldn't marry, and she did not feel +herself justified in giving her money to encouraging such marriages." + +"Was there ever anything so extraordinary as human nature? Its +goodness, its stupidity, its cruelty! The woman meant well; one can't +even hate her for it; it was just a lack of perception, a desire to +live up to principles. That is what sets every one agog, trying to +live up to principles, abstract ideas. If they only think of what they +are and what others are! The folly of it! This puzzle-headed woman--I +mean the charitable woman pondering over the fate of the race, as if +she could do anything to advance or retard its destiny!" + +"You always liked those stories, dear. You said that you would write +them." + +"Yes, but I'm afraid the pathos is a little deeper than I could reach; +only Turgenieff could write them. But here we are at the Dog's Home." + +"Don't talk like that--it's unkind." + +"I don't mean to be unkind, but I have to try to realise things before +I can appreciate them." + +It seemed not a little incongruous that these two little spinsters +should pay for our dinners, and I tried to induce Doris to agree to +some modification in the present arrangements, but she said it was +their wish to entertain us. + +The evening I spent in that hotel hearing Doris sing, and myself +talking literature to a company of about a dozen spinsters, all plain +and elderly, all trying to live upon incomes varying from a hundred +and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, comes up before my mind, every +incident. Life is full of incidents, only our intelligence is not +always sufficiently trained to perceive them; and the incident I am +about to mention was important in the life I am describing. Miss Tubbs +had asked me what wine I would drink. And in a moment of inadvertence +I said "Vin Ordinaire," forgetting that the two shillings the wine +would cost would probably mean that Miss Tubbs would very likely have +to go without her cup of tea at five o'clock next day in order that +her expenditure should not exceed her limit, and I thought how +difficult life must be on these slippery rocks, incomes of one hundred +and fifty a year. Poor little gentlefolk, roving about from one +boarding-house to another, always in search of the cheapest, sometimes +getting into boarding-houses where the cheapness of the food +necessitates sending for the doctor, so the gain on one side is a loss +on the other. Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, +the pence and threepenny bits of human life! + +That Doris's singing should have provoked remarks painfully +inadequate, mattered little. Inadequate remarks about singing and +about the other arts are as common in London drawing-rooms as in +hotels and boarding-houses (all hotels are boarding-houses; there is +really no difference), and the company I found in these winter resorts +would have interested me at any other time. I can be interested in the +woman who collects stamps, in the gentle soul who keeps a botany book +in which all kinds of quaint entries are found, in the lady who writes +for the papers, and the one who is supposed to have a past. Wherever +human beings collect there is always to be found somebody of interest, +but when one's interest is centred in a lady, everybody else becomes +an enemy; and I looked upon all these harmless spinsters as my +enemies, and their proposals for excursions, and luncheons, and +dinners caused me much misgiving, not only because they separated me +from Doris, but because I felt that any incident, the proposed picnic, +might prove a shipwrecking reef. One cannot predict what will happen. +Life is so full of incidents; a woman's jealous tongue or the arrival +of some acquaintance might bring about a catastrophe. A love affair +hangs upon a gossamer thread, you know, and that is why I tried to +persuade Doris away from her friends. + +She was very kind and good and didn't inflict the society of these +people too much upon me. Perhaps she was conscious of the danger +herself, and we only visited the boarding-houses in the evening. But +these visits grew intolerable. The society of Miss Tubbs and Miss +Whitworth jarred the impressions of a long day spent in the open air, +in a landscape where once the temples of the gods had been, where men +had once lived who had seen, or at all events believed, in the fauns +and the dryads, in the grotto where the siren swims. + +One afternoon I said to Doris: "I'm afraid I can't go to see Miss +Tubbs this evening. Can't we devise something else? Another dinner in +a boarding-house would lead me to suicide, I think." + +"You would like to drown yourself in that bay and join the nymphs. Do +you think they would prove kinder than I?" + +I did not answer Doris. I suddenly seemed to despair; the exquisite +tenderness of the sky, and the inveigling curves of the bay seemed to +become detestable to me, theatrical, absurd. "Good God!" I thought: "I +shall never win her love. All my journey is in vain, and all this +love-making." The scene before me was the most beautiful in shape and +colour I had ever seen; but I am in no mood to describe the +Leonardo-like mountains enframing the azure bay. The reader must +imagine us leaning over a low wall watching the sea water gurgling +among the rocks. We had come to see some gardens. The waiter at my +hotel had told me of some, the property of a gentleman kind enough to +throw them open to the public twice a week; and I had taken his +advice, though gardens find little favour with me--now and again an +old English garden, but the well-kept horticultural is my abhorrence. +But one cannot tell a coachman to drive along the road, one must tell +him to go somewhere, so we had come to see what was to be seen. And +all was as I had imagined it, only worse; the tall wrought-iron gate +was twenty feet high, there was a naked pavilion behind it, and a +woman seated at a table with a cash-box in front of her. This woman +took a franc apiece, and told us that the money was to be devoted to a +charitable purpose; we were then free to wander down a gravel walk +twenty feet wide branching to the right and the left, along a line of +closely clipped shrubs, with a bunch of tall grasses here and a +foreign fir there; gardens that a painter would turn from in horror. I +said to Doris: + +"This is as tedious as a play at the _Comédie_, as tiresome as a +tragedy by Racine, and very like one. Let us seek out one of the +external walks overlooking the sea; even there I'm afraid the +knowledge that these shrubs are behind us will spoil our pleasure." + +Doris laughed; that was one of her charms, she could be amused; and it +was in this mood that we sat down on a seat placed in a low wall +overlooking the bay, looking at each other, basking in the rays of the +afternoon sun, and there we sat for some little while indolent as +lizards. Pointing to one at a little distance I said: + +"It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not +sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake +all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I +was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. +Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one +doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy." + +"But why, dear, do you allow yourself to be unhappy? Look at that +lizard. Isn't he nice? Isn't he satisfied? He desires nothing but what +he has got, light and warmth." + +"And, Doris, would you like me to be as content as that lizard--to +desire nothing more than light and warmth?" + +Doris looked at me, and thinking her eyes more beautiful even than the +sunlight, I said: + + "'And the sunlight clasps the earth, + And the moonbeams kiss the sea, + But what are all those kissings worth, + If thou kiss not me?' + +"That is the eternal song of the spheres and of the flowers. If I don't +become part of the great harmony, I must die." + +"But you do kiss me," Doris answered wilfully, "when the evening turns +cold and the coachman puts up the hood of the carriage." + +"Wilful Doris! Pretty puss cat!" + +"I'm not a puss cat; I'm not playing with you, dear. I do assure you I +feel the strain of these days; but what am I to do? You wouldn't have +me tell you to stay at my hotel and to compromise myself before all +these people?" + +"These people! Those boarding-houses are driving me mad! That Miss +Forman!" + +"I thought you liked her. You said she is good, 'a simple, kind +person, without pretensions.' And that is enough, according to +yesterday's creed. You were never nicer than you were yesterday +speaking of her (I remember your words): you said the flesh fades, the +intellect withers, only the heart remembers. Do you recant all this?" + +"No, I recant nothing; only yesterday's truth is not to-day's. One day +we are attracted by goodness, another day by beauty; and beauty has +been calling me day after day: at first the call was heard far away +like a horn in the woods, but now the call has become more imperative, +and all the landscape is musical. Yesterday standing by those ancient +ruins, it seemed to me as if I had been transported out of my present +nature back to my original nature of two thousand years ago. The sight +of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I +say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never +wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never +appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to +appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that +has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me. +That hat I would put away----" + +"Don't you like my hat?" + +"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two +thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the +nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes." + +"Why should you not see her, dear?" + +"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their +inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me. +I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am +saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me +of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite +clear to me." + +"But you do possess me, dear?" + +"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that +will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live, +but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the +squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard. If some way is not +found out of this horrible dilemma, I shall remember you as a +collector remembers a vase which a workman handed to him and which +slipped and was broken, or like a vase that was stolen from him; I +cannot find a perfect simile, at least not at this moment; my speech +is imperfect, but you will understand." + +"Yes, I understand, I think I understand." + +"If I do not get you, it will seem to me that I have lived in vain." + +"But, dear one, things are not so bad as that. We need not be in Paris +for some days yet, and though I cannot ask you to my hotel, there is +no reason why----" + +"Doris, do not raise up false hopes." + +"I was only going to say, dear, that it does not seem to be necessary +that we should go straight back to Paris." + +"You mean that we might stop somewhere at some old Roman town, at +Arles in an eighteenth-century house. O Doris, how enchanting this +would be! I hardly dare to think lest----" + +"Lest what, dear? Lest I should deceive you?" + +There was a delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot +be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired +by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the +eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the +nineteenth, and had reproduced its spirit. + +"Is it not strange that, in the midst of reality, artistic conceptions +always hang about me; but shall I ever possess you, Doris? Is it my +delicious fate to spend three days with you in an old Roman town?" + +"There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Where shall it be?" + +"Any town would be sufficient with you, Doris; but let us think of +some beautiful place"; and looking across the bay into the sunset, I +recalled as many names as I could; many of those old Roman towns rose +up before my eyes, classic remains mingling with mediaeval towers, +cathedral spires rising over walls on which Roman sentries had once +paced. We could only spend our honeymoon in a town with a beautiful +name--a beautiful name was essential--a name that it would be a +delight to remember for ever after; the name would have to express by +some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be +expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking +doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was +too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after +all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were +rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among +these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening +and the next we studied _L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer_. +"Armance," I said, interrupting Doris, who was telling me that we +should lose our tickets by the _Côte d'Azur_. For in Doris's +opinion it was necessary that we should leave Plessy by the _Côte +d'Azur_. Her friends would certainly come to the station to see her +off. "That is a matter of no moment," I said. "At Marseilles we can +catch an express train, which will be nearly as good. There are two +excellent trains; either will do, if you have decided to spend three +days at Armance." + +She asked me if Armance were a village or a town, and I answered, +"What matter?"--for everywhere in France there are good beds and good +food and good wine--ay, and omelettes. We should do very well in any +village in the south of France for three days. But suddenly two names +caught my eye, Orelay and Verlancourt, and we agreed that we preferred +either of these names to Armance. + +"Which name shall give shelter to two unfortunate lovers flying in +search of solitude?" + +"Orelay is a beautiful name." + +"Orelay it shall be," I said. "We shall be able to get there from +Marseilles in a few hours." + +"You see, dear, it would be impossible for me to travel all the way to +Paris--a journey of at least twenty-four hours would kill me, and I'm +not strong; nothing tires me more than railway traveling. We must stop +somewhere. Why not at Orelay?" + +As this history can have only one merit, that of absolute truth, I +must confess that the subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify +herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human +than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not +unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would +strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, +no more: where there is no subterfuge there is no life. + +This story will be read, no doubt, by the young and the old, the wise +and the foolish, by the temperate and the intemperate, but the subject +matter is so common to all men that it will interest every one, even +ecclesiastics, every one except certain gentlemen residing chiefly in +Constantinople, whose hostility to the lover on his errand is so well +known, and so easily understandable, that I must renounce all hope of +numbering them among the admirers of my own or Doris's frailty. But +happily these gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected +that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of +certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary +falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting +abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few +critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged +men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an interest in +a love story; in these modern days when the novel wanders even as far +as the nuns in their cells (I have good authority for making this +statement), perhaps I may be able to count upon an aged Mother Abbess +to be, outwardly perhaps a disapproving, but at heart a sympathetic +reader. Indeed, I count upon the ascetic more than upon any other +class for appreciation, for the imagination of those who have had no +experience in love adventures will enkindle, and they will appreciate +perhaps more intensely than any other the mental trouble that a +journey to Orelay with Doris would entail. + +It would take nearly five hours according to the time table to get +from Marseilles to Orelay; and these five hours would wear themselves +wearily away in conversation with Doris, in talking to her of every +subject except the subject uppermost in my mind. I should have kept a +notebook, just as I had arranged to do when I thought I was going on +the yachting excursion among the Greek Islands with Gertrude; but, +having no notes, I can only appeal to the reader's imagination. I must +ask him to remember the week of cruel abstinence I had been through, +and to take it into his consideration. My dear, dear reader, I am sure +you can see me if you try (in your mind's eye, of course) walking +about the corridors, seeking the guard, asking every one I meet: + +"How far away are we now from Orelay?" + +"Orelay? Nearly two hours from Orelay." + +Our heavy luggage had been sent on before, but we had a number of +dressing cases and bags with us, and there might not be time to remove +all these. The guard, who had promised to take them out of the +carriage for us, might not arrive in time. However this might be, +he was not to be found anywhere, and I sought him how many times +up and down the long length of the train. You can see me, reader, +can you not? walking about the train, imagining all kinds of +catastrophes--that the train might break down, or that it might not +stop at Orelay; or, a still more likely catastrophe, that the young +lady might change her mind. What if that were to happen at the last +moment! Ah, if that were to happen I should have perchance to throw +myself out of the train, unless peradventure I refrained for the sake +of writing the story of a lover's deception. The transitional stage is +an intolerable one, and I wondered if Doris felt it as keenly, and +every time I passed our carriage on my way up and down in search of +the guard, I stopped a moment to study her face; she sat with her eyes +closed, perhaps dozing. How prosaic of her to doze on the way to +Orelay! Why was she not as agitated as I? + +And the question presented itself suddenly, Do women attach the same +interest to love adventures as we do? Do women ask themselves as often +as we do if God, the Devil, or Calamitous Fate will intervene between +us and our pleasure? Will it be snatched out of our arms and from our +lips? Perhaps never before, only once in any case, did I experience an +excitement so lancinating as I experienced that day. And as I write +the sad thought floats past that such expectations will never be my +lot again. The delights of the moment are perhaps behind me, but why +should I feel sad for that? Life is always beautiful, in age as well +as in youth; the old have a joy that the youths do not know-- +recollection. It is through memory we know ourselves; without +memory it might be said we have hardly lived at all, or only like +animals. + +This is a point on which I would speak seriously to every reader, +especially to my young readers; for it is of the utmost importance +that every one should select adventures that not only please them at +the moment, but can be looked back upon with admiration, and for which +one can offer up a mute thanksgiving. My life would not have been +complete, a corner-stone would have been lacking if Doris had not come +to Orelay with me. Without her I should not have known the joy that +perfect beauty gives; that beauty which haunted in antiquity would +never have been known to me. But without more, as the lawyers say, we +will return to Doris. I asked her if she had been asleep? No, she had +not slept, only it rested her to keep her eyes closed, the sunlight +fatigued her. I did not like to hear her talk of fatigue, and to hide +from her what was passing in my mind I tried to invent some +conversation. Orelay--what a lovely name it was! Did she think the +town would vindicate or belie its name? She smiled faintly and said +she would not feel fatigued as soon as she got out of the train, and +there was some consolation in the thought that her health would not +allow her to get farther that day than Orelay. + +We decided to stay at the Hôtel des Valois. One of the passengers had +spoken to me of this hotel; he had never stayed there himself, but he +believed it to be an excellent hotel. But it was not his +recommendation that influenced me, it was the name--the Hôtel des +Valois. How splendid! And when we got out at Orelay I asked the +porters and the station-master if they could recommend a hotel. No, +but they agreed that the Hôtel des Valois was as good as any other. We +drove there wondering what it would be like. Everything had turned out +well up to the present, but everything would go for naught if the +Hôtel des Valois should prove unworthy of its name. And the first +sight of it was certainly disappointing. Its courtyard was +insignificant, only saved by a beautiful ilex tree growing in one +corner. The next moment I noticed that the porch of the hotel was +pretty and refined--a curious porch it was, giving the hotel for a +moment the look of an eighteenth-century English country house. There +were numerous windows with small panes, and one divined the hall +beyond the porch. The hall delighted us, and I said to Doris as we +passed through that the hotel must have been a nobleman's house some +long while ago, when Orelay had a society of its own, perhaps a +language, for in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century Provençal +or some other dialect must have been written or spoken at Orelay. We +admired the galleries overlooking the hall, and the staircase leading +to them. We seemed to have been transported into the eighteenth +century; the atmosphere was that of a Boucher, a provincial Boucher +perhaps, but an eighteenth-century artist for all that. The doves that +crowd round Aphrodite seemed to have led us right; and we foresaw a +large quiet bedroom with an Aubusson carpet in the middle of a parquet +floor, writing-tables in the corners of the room or in the +silken-curtained windows. + +This was the kind of room I had imagined--one as large as a +drawing-room, and furnished like a drawing-room, with sofas and +arm-chairs that we could draw around the fire, and myself and Doris +sitting there talking. Love is composed in a large measure of desire +of intimacy, and if the affection that birds experience in making +their nest be not imitated, love descends to the base satisfaction of +animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as +soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better +than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of +the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were +offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined +the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French +words _chambre meublée_ will convey an idea of the rooms we were +shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into the +corner, an eider-down on top, a tall dusty window facing the bed, with +skimpy red curtains and a vacant fireplace? There were, no doubt, a +few chairs--but what chairs! + +The scene was at once tragic and comic. It was of vital importance to +myself and Doris to find a room such as I have attempted to describe, +and it was of equal indifference to the waiter whether we did or +didn't. The appearance of each contributed to the character of the +scene. Doris's appearance I have tried to make clear to the reader; +mine must be imagined; it only remains for me to tell what the waiter +was like; an old man, short and thick, slow on the feet from long +service, enveloped in an enormous apron; one only saw the ends of his +trousers and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever +seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his +head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a +pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and +restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a +thick provincial accent--that alone amused me. + +"Have you no other rooms?" + +"Nous n'avons que cela." + +I quote his words in the language in which they were spoken, for I +remember how brutal they seemed, and how entirely in keeping with the +character of the room. No doubt the words will seem flat and tame to +the reader, but they never can seem that to me. "_Nous n'avons que +cela_" will always be to me as pregnant with meaning as the famous +_to be or not to be_. For it really amounted to that. I can see +Doris standing by me, charming, graceful as a little Tanagra +statuette, seemingly not aware of the degradation that the possession +of her love would mean in such a room as that which we stood in; and I +think I can honestly say that I wished we had never come to Orelay, +that we had gone straight on to Paris. It were better even to +sacrifice her love than that it should be degraded by vulgar +circumstances; and, instead of a holy rite, my honeymoon had come to +seem to me what the black mass must seem to the devout Christian. + +"The rooms will look better," Doris said, "when fires have been +lighted, and when our bags are unpacked. A skirt thrown over the arm +of a chair furnishes a room." + +Taking her hands in mine I kissed them, and was almost consoled; but +at that moment my eyes fell upon the beds, and I said: + +"Those beds! O Doris, those beds! yours is no better than mine." Women +are always satisfied, or they are kind, or they are wise; and accept +the inevitable without a murmur. + +"Dearest, ask the waiter to bring us some hot water." + +I did so, and while he was away I paced the room, unable to think of +anything but the high bed; it was impossible to put out of my sight +the ridiculous spectacle of a couple in a nightgown and pyjama suit +climbing into it. The vision of myself and Doris lying under that +eider-down, facing that tall window, with nothing to shut out the +light but those vulgar lace curtains, pursued me, and I paced the room +till the pink waiter returned with two jugs; and then, feeling very +miserable, I began to unpack my bag without getting further than the +removal of the brushes and comb; Doris unpacked a few things, and she +washed her hands, and I thought I might wash mine; but before I had +finished washing them I left the dreadful basin, and going to Doris +with dripping hands I said: + +"There is very little difference in the rooms. Perhaps you would like +to sleep in mine?" + +"I can see no difference. I think I'll remain where I am." + +Which room she slept in may seem insignificant to the reader, but this +is not so, for had we changed rooms this story would never have been +written. I can see myself even now walking to and fro like a caged +animal vainly seeking for a way of escape, till suddenly--my adventure +reminds me very much of the beginning of many romantic novels--the +tapestry that the wind had blown aside, the discovery of the secret +door--suddenly I discovered a door in the wall paper; it was +unlatched, and pushing through it I descended two steps, and lo! I was +in the room of my heart's desire; a large, richly-coloured saloon with +beautifully proportioned windows and red silk damask curtains hanging +from carved cornices, and all the old gilding still upon them. And the +silk fell into such graceful folds that the proportions of the windows +were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine +romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the +curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the +marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to +examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value +... it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago. + +"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and +seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom +likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high, +it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris, +"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But +the curtains hung well from _les ciels de lit_ (one cannot say +_cieux de lit_, I suppose)--the English word is, I think, +"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I +muttered, "but _à la rigueur ça peut marcher_." But pursuing my +quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two +windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have +satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable +Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various +perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed +should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my +head: + + "Madame, shall we undress you for the fight? + The wars are naked that you make to-night." + +And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with +a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a +crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.... He rarely painted +bedrooms. I do not remember any at this moment; but I remember many by +Fragonard, and Fragonard would have said: "I have no fault to find +with that bed." The carpet was not Aubusson, but it was nevertheless a +finely-designed carpet, and its colour was harmonious; the sofa was +shapely enough, and the Louis XVI. arm-chairs were filled with deep +cushions. I turned to the toilet-table fearing it might prove an +incongruity, but it was in perfect keeping with the room, and I began +at once to look forward to seeing it laid out with all the manifold +ivories and silver of Doris's dressing-case. + +Imagine my flight, dear reader, if you can, back to Doris, whom I had +left trying to make the best of that miserable square room; more like +a prison cell than a bedroom. + +"What is the matter, dearest?" she asked. + +But without answering her I said, "Give me your hand," and led her as +a prince leads his betrothed, in a fairy tale, through the +richly-coloured salon, lingering a moment for her to admire it, and +then I took her through my room, the double-bedded room, saying: "All +this is nothing; wait till you see your room." And Doris paused +overcome by the beauty of the bed, of the curtains falling from the +tester gracefully as laburnum or acacia branches in June. + +"The rooms are beautiful, but a little cheerless." + +"Doris, Doris, you don't deserve to lie there! The windows of course +must be opened, fresh air must be let in, and fires must be lighted. +But think of you and me sitting here side by side talking before our +bedtime." + +Fires were lighted quickly, servants came in bearing candelabra in +their hands, and among them, and with Doris by my side, I imagined +myself a prince, for who is a prince but he who possesses the most +desirable thing in the world, who finds himself in the most delectable +circumstances? And what circumstance is more delightful than sitting +in a great shadowy bedroom, watching the logs burning, shedding their +grateful heat through the room, for the logs that were brought to us, +as we soon discovered, were not the soft wood grown for consumption in +Parisian hotels; the logs that warmed our toes in Orelay were dense +and hard as iron, and burned like coal, only more fragrantly, and very +soon the bareness of the room disappeared; a petticoat, as Doris had +said, thrown over a chair gives an inhabited look to a room at once; +and the contents of her dressing-case, as I anticipated, took the room +back to one hundred years ago, when some great lady sat there in a +flowered silk gown before one of those inlaid dressing tables, filled +with pigments and powders and glasses. + +There was one of those tables in the room, and I drew it from the +corner and raised its lid, the lid with the looking-glass in it. And I +liked the unpacking of her dressing-case, the discovery of a multitude +of things for bodily use, the various sponges; the flat sponge for the +face, the round sponge for the body, and the little sponges; all the +scissors and the powder for the nails, and the scents, the soft silks, +the lace scarfs, and the long silk nightgown soon to droop over her +shoulders. My description by no means exhausts the many things she +produced from her dressing-case and bags, nor would the most complete +catalogue convey an impression of Doris's cleanliness of her little +body! One would have to see her arranging her things, with her long +curved hands and almond nails carefully cut--they were her immediate +care, and many powders and ointments and polishers were called into +requisition. Some reader will cry that all this is most unimportant, +but he is either hypocritical or stupid, for it is only with scent and +silk and artifices that we raise love from an instinct to a passion. + +"I am longing," said Doris, "to see that beautiful red drawing-room +with all the candelabra lighted and half a dozen logs blazing on the +hearth. It is extraordinary how cold it is." + +To procure an impartial mind, bodily ease is necessary, and we sat on +either side of a splendid fire warming our toes. At the bottom of his +heart every Christian feels, though he may not care to admit it in +these modern days, that every attempt to make love a beautiful and +pleasurable thing is a return to paganism. In his eyes the only excuse +for man's love of woman is that without it the world would come to an +end. Why he should consider the end of the world a misfortune I have +never been able to find out, for if his creed be a true one the +principal use of this world is to supply Hell with fuel. He is never +weary of telling us that very few indeed may hope to get to Heaven. + +"But France is not a Christian country, and yet you see the high bed +has not become extinct," said Doris. + +Doris, who was doubtless feeling a little tired, sat looking into the +fire. Her attitude encouraged reverie; dream linked into dream till at +last the chain of dreams was broken by the entrance of the pink waiter +bringing in our dinner. In the afternoon I had called him an imbecile, +which made him very angry, and he had explained that he was not an +imbecile, but if I hurried him he lost his head altogether. Of course +one is sorry for speaking rudely to a waiter; it is a shocking thing +to do, and nothing but the appearance of the bedroom we were shown +into would excuse me. His garrulousness, which was an irritation in +the afternoon, was an amusement as he laid the cloth and told me the +bill of fare; moreover, I had to consult him about the wine, and I +liked to hear him telling me in his strong Southern accent of a +certain wine of the country, as good as Pomard and as strong, and +which would be known all over the world, only it did not bear +transportation. Remembering how tired we were, and the verse-- + + "Quand on boit du Pomard on devient bon on aime, + On devient aussi bon que le Pomard lui-même--" + +we drank, hoping that the wine would awaken us. But the effect of that +strong Southern wine seemed to be more lethargic than exhilarating, +and when dinner was over and we had returned to our seats by the +fireside we were too weary to talk, and too nervous. + +The next morning, the coffee and the rolls and butter were ready +before Doris, and the vexation of seeing the breakfast growing cold +was recompensed by the pleasure of teasing her, urging her to pass her +arms into her dressing-gown, to come as she was, it did not matter +what she had on underneath. The waiter did not count; he was not a +man, he was a waiter, a pink creature, pinker than anything in the +world, except a baby's bottom, and looking very like that. + +"Hasten, dear, hasten!" and I went back to the salon and engaged in +chatter with the old provincial, my English accent contrasting +strangely with his. It was the first time I had heard the Southern +accent. At Plessy I had heard all accents, Swiss, German, Italian; +there was plenty of Parisian accent there, and I had told a Parisian +flower-woman, whose husband was a Savoyard, that I declined to believe +any more in the Southern accent _"C'est une blague qu'on m'a +faite"_; but at Orelay I had discovered the true accent, and I +listened to the old man for the sake of hearing it. He was asking me +for my appreciation of the wine we had drunk last night when Doris +entered in a foamy white dressing-gown. + +"You liked the wine, dear, didn't you? He wants to know if we will +have the same wine for twelve-o'clock breakfast." + +"Dear me, it's eleven o'clock now," Doris answered, and she looked at +the waiter. + +"Monsieur and Madame will go for a little walk; perhaps you would like +to breakfast at one?" + +We agreed that we could not breakfast before one, and our waiter +suggested a visit to the cathedral--it would fill up the time +pleasantly and profitably; but Doris, when she had had her coffee, +wanted to sit on my knee and to talk to me; and then there was a +piano, and she wanted to play me some things, or rather I wanted to +hear her. But the piano was a poor one; the notes did not come back, +she said, and we talked for some hours without perceiving that the +time was passing. After lunch the waiter again inquired if we intended +to go for a little walk; there were vespers about four in the +cathedral. + +"It would do Monsieur and Madame good." + +"The walk or the cathedral?" we inquired, and, a little embarrassed, +the old fellow began to tell us that he had not been to the cathedral +for some years, but the last time he was there he had been much +impressed by the darkness. It was all he could do to find his way from +pillar to pillar; he had nearly fallen over the few kneeling women who +crouched there listening to the clergy intoning Latin verses. +According to his account there were no windows anywhere except high up +in the dome. And leaning his hands on the table, looking like all the +waiters that ever existed or that will ever exist, his _tablier_, +reaching nearly to his chin, upheld by strings passed over the +shoulders, he told us that it was impossible to see what was happening +in the chancel; but there had seemed to be a great number of clergy +seated in the darkness at the back, for one heard voices behind the +tall pieces of furniture singing Latin verses; one only heard the +terminations of the words, an "us" and a "noster," and words ending in +"e," and the organ always coming in a little late. + +"My good man," I said, "your description leaves nothing to be desired. +Why should I go to the cathedral unless to verify your impressions? I +am sure the service is exactly as you describe it, and I would not for +the world destroy the picture you have evoked of those forgotten +priests intoning their vespers in the middle of the granite church +behind a three-branched candlestick." + +The poor man left the room very much disconcerted, feeling, Doris +said, as if he had lost one of the forks. + +"Thank Heaven that matter is done with--a great weight is off my +mind." + +"But there is the museum. You would like to see that?" said Doris, and +a change came into my face. + +"Well, Doris, the waiter has told us that there is a celebrated study +by David in the museum, 'The Nymph of Orelay.'" + +"But, dear one, am I not your nymph of Orelay?" and Doris slipped on +her knees and put her arms about me. "Will I not do as well as the +painted creature in the museum?" + +"Far better," I said, "far better. Now we are free, Doris, freed from +the cathedral and from the museum. All the day belongs to us, and +to-morrow we may pass as we like." + +"And so we will," Doris said meditatively; and so we did, dear reader, +and I consider the time was well spent, for by so doing we avoided +catching cold, a thing easy to do when a mistral is blowing. It was +not until the following evening we remembered that time was always on +the wing, that our little bags would have to be packed. Next morning +we were going. + +"Going away by the train," Doris said regretfully. "Would we were +going away in a carriage! We shall leave Orelay knowing nothing of it +but this suite of apartments." + +"There is no reason why we should not drive," and I stopped packing my +bag, and stood looking at her. + +"I wonder if we should have stayed three days if we had not discovered +these rooms? Dear one, I think I should not have meant so much to you +in those humbler rooms: you attach much importance to these cornices +and hangings." + +"I should have loved you always, Doris, but I think I can love you +better here," and with our bags in our hands we wandered from the +bedroom into the drawing-room and stood admiring its bygone splendour. +"Doris, dear, you must play me 'The Nut Bush.' I want to hear it on +that old piano. Tinkle it, dear, tinkle it, and don't play 'The Nut +Bush' too sentimentally, nor yet too gaily." + +"Which way will you have it?" she asked; "'a true love's truth or a +light love's art'?" + +"I would have it dainty and fantastic as Schumann wrote it, 'only the +song of a secret bird.'" + +"With a pathos of loneliness in it?" + +"That is it," I cried, "that is the right time to play it in, without +stress on either side.... No, you mustn't leave the piano, Doris. +Sing me some songs. Go on singing Schumann or Schubert; there are no +other songs. Let me hear you sing 'The Moonlight' or 'The +Lotus-flower.' Schumann and Schubert were the singing birds of the +fifties; I love their romantic sentimentalities, orange gardens, south +winds, a lake with a pinnace upon it, and a nightingale singing in a +dark wood by a lonely shore; that is how they felt, how they dreamed." + +And resigning herself to my humour, she sang song after song till at +last, awaking from a long reverie of music and old association of +memories, I said, "Play me a waltz, Doris; I would hear an old-time +waltz played in this room; its romantic flourishes will evoke the +departed spirits." And very soon, sitting in my chair with half-closed +eyes, it seemed to me that I saw crinolines faintly gliding over the +floor, and white-stockinged feet, sloping shoulders and glistening +necks with chignons--swan-like women, and long-whiskered cavaliers +wearing peg-top trousers and braided coats dancing or talking with +them.... The music suddenly stopped and Doris said: + +"If we are to catch our train we must go on with our packing." + +"You mustn't talk to me of trains," and overcome with a Schumann-like +longing and melancholy I took her in my arms, overcome by her beauty. +She was perfection. No Chelsea or Dresden figure was ever more dainty, +gayer, or brighter. She was Schumann and Dresden, but a Dresden of an +earlier period than Schumann; but why compare her to anything? She was +Doris, the very embodiment of her name. + +"Ah, Doris, why are we leaving here? Why can't we remain here for +ever?" + +"It is strange," she said; "I feel the charm of those old stately +rooms as much as you do. But, dearest, we have missed the train." + +The pink waiter came up, I promised to hasten, but my love of Doris +delayed us unduly, and we arrived at the station only to hear that the +train had gone away some ten minutes before. The train that had left +was the only good train in the day, and missing it had given us +another twenty-four hours in Orelay; but Doris was superstitious. "Our +three days are done," she said; "if we don't go today we shall go +to-morrow, and to go on the fourth day would be unlucky. What shall we +do all day? The spell has been broken. We have left our hotel. Let us +take a carriage," she pleaded, "and drive to the next station. The sun +is shining, and the country is beautiful; we saw it from the railway, +a strange red country grey with olives, olive orchards extending to +the very foot of the mountains, and mingling with the pine trees +descending the slopes." + +"The slopes!" I said, "the precipitous sides of that high rock! Shall +I ever forget it, beginning like the tail of a lion and rising up to +the sky, towering above the level landscape like a sphinx." + +"The drive would be delightful!" + +"And it would be a continuation of the romance of the old Empire +drawing-room. A post-chaise would be the thing if we could discover +one." + +Sometimes Nature seems to conspire to carry out an idea, and though no +veritable post-chaise of old time was discovered in the coach-house +behind the courtyard in which the ilex trees flourished, we happened +to catch sight of a carriage some twenty-five or thirty years old, a +cumbersome old thing hung upon C springs, of the security of which the +coachman seemed doubtful. He spoke disparagingly, telling us that the +proprietor had been trying to sell it, but no one would buy it, so +heavy was it on the horses' backs, so out of fashion one was ashamed +to go out in it. The coachman's notions of beauty did not concern us, +but Doris dreaded lest one of the wheels should come off; however, on +examination it was found to be roadworthy, and I said to Doris as I +helped her into it: + +"If it be no post-chaise, at all events ladies wearing crinolines have +sat inside it, that is certain, and gentlemen wearing peg-top trousers +with braid upon them. Good God, Doris, if you were to wear a crinoline +I should love you beyond hope of repentance. Don't I remember when I +was a boy every one wore white stockings; I had only heard of black +ones, and I always hoped to meet a lady wearing black stockings... now +my hope is to meet one wearing white." + +"We might have searched the town for a crinoline and a pair of white +stockings." + +"Yes, and I might have discovered a black silk stock. I wonder how I +should have looked in it. Doris," I said, "we have missed the best +part of our adventure. We forgot to dress for the part we are playing, +the lovers of Orelay." + +Who will disagree with me when I say that no adventure is complete +unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, +high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress +himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some +strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of +these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and +believe it to be natural--the comedy that Doris and I played in the +old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, where we hoped to +breakfast. + +We could hardly speak for excitement. Doris thought of how she would +look in a crinoline, and I remembered the illustrations in an early +edition of Balzac of which I am the happy possessor. How nice the men +looked in the light trousers and the black stockings of the period; +and crossing my legs I followed with interest the line of my calf. +Somebody did that in "Les Illusions Perdues." She and I lay back +thinking which story in "The Human Comedy" was the most applicable to +our case; and the only one we could think of was when Madame Bargeton, +a provincial blue-stocking, left Angoulême for Paris with Lucien de +Rubempré. There were no railways in the forties; they must have +travelled in a post-chaise. Yes, I remember their journey, faintly it +is true, but I remember it. Madame Bargeton was a woman of +five-and-thirty at least, and Doris was much younger. Lucien was only +one-and-twenty, and even at that time I was more than that. The names +of these people and of the people they met at the theatre and in the +Tuileries Gardens--Rastignac, Madame d'Espard, the Duchess of +Chaulieu, Madame de Rochefide, and Canalis--carried my mind back from +crinolines and white stockings, from peg-top trousers and braided +coats, to the slim trousers that were almost breeches and to the +high-breasted gowns of the Restoration. Our mothers and fathers wore +the crinolines and the peg-top trousers, and our grandfathers the +tight trousers and the black silk stocks. The remembrance of these +costumes filled me with a tenderness and a melancholy I could not +subdue, and I could see that Doris was thinking of the same subject as +myself. + +We were thinking of that subject which interested men before history +began, the mutability of human things, the vanishing of generations. +Young as she was, Doris was thinking of death; nor is it the least +extraordinary she should, for as soon as any one has reached the age +of reflection the thought of death may come upon him at any moment, +though he be in the middle of a ballroom or lying in the arms of his +mistress. If the scene be a ballroom he has only to look outside, and +the night will remind him that in a few years he will enter the +eternal night; or if the scene be a bedroom the beautiful face of his +mistress may perchance remind him of another whose face was equally +beautiful and who is now under the earth; lesser things will suffice +to recall his thoughts from life to death, a rose petal falling on a +marble table, a dead bird in the path as he walks in his garden. And +after the thought of death the most familiar thought is the decay of +the bodily vesture. The first grey hair may seem to us an amusing +accident, but very few years will pass before another and yet another +appear, and if these do not succeed in reminding us that decay has +begun, a black speck on a tooth cannot fail to do so; and when we go +to the dentist to have it stopped we have begun to repair artificially +the falling structure. The activity of youth soon passes, and its +slenderness. I remember still the shock I felt on hearing an athlete +say that he could no longer run races of a hundred yards; he was half +a second or a quarter of a second slower than he was last year. I +looked at him saying, "But you are only one-and-twenty," and he +answered, "Yes, that is it." A football player I believe is out of +date at eight-and-twenty. Out of date! What a pathos there is in the +words--out of date! _Suranné_, as the French say. How are we to +render it in English? By the beautiful but artificial word +"yester-year"? Yester-year perhaps, for a sorrow clings about it; it +conveys a sense of autumn, of "the long decline of roses." There is +something ghostlike in the out-of-date. The landscape about Plessy had +transported us back into antiquity, making us dream of nymphs and +dryads, but the gilt cornices and damask hangings and the salon at +Orelay had made us dream of a generation ago, of the youth of our +parents. Ancient conveys no personal meaning, but the out-of-date +transports us, as it were, to the stern of the vessel, throws us into +a mournful attitude; we lean our heads upon our hands and, looking +back, we see the white wake of the vessel with shores sinking in the +horizon and the crests of the mountains passing away into the clouds. + +While musing on these abstract questions raised by my remark that we +had not managed our adventure properly, since we had forgotten to +provide ourselves with proper costumes, the present suddenly thrust +itself upon me. + +"Good God!" I said to Doris, "let us look back, for we shall never see +Orelay again!" and she from one window, and I from the other, saw the +spires of Orelay for the last time. We could not tear ourselves away, +but fortunately the road turned; Orelay was blotted out from our sight +for ever, and we sank back to remember that a certain portion of our +lives was over and done, a beautiful part of our lives had been thrown +into the void, into the great rubble-heap of emotions that had been +lived through, that are no more. + +"Of what are you thinking, dear? You have been far away. This is the +first time we have been separated, and we are not yet five miles from +Orelay." + +"Five miles! Ah, if it were only five!" + +We did not speak for a long time, and watching the midday sun, I +thought that peradventure it was not farther from us than yesterday. +Were I to say so to Doris she would answer, "It will be the same in +Paris," but if she did it would be the first falsehood she had told +me, for we both knew that things are never the same; things +change--for better or worse, but they change. + +This last sentence seems to me somewhat trite, and if I were to +continue this story any further my pen would run into many other +superficial and facile observations, for my mind is no longer +engrossed with the story. I no longer remember it; I do not mean that +I do not remember whether we got to Verlancourt, whether we had +breakfast, or whether we drove all the way to Paris with relays of +horses. I am of course quite certain about the facts: we breakfasted +at Verlancourt, and after breakfast we asked the coachman whether he +would care to go on to Paris with us; he raised his eyes--"The +carriage is a very old one, surely, Monsieur----" Doris and I laughed, +for, truth to tell, we had been so abominably shaken that we were glad +to exchange the picturesque old coach of our fathers' generation for +the train. + +These stories are memories, not inventions, and an account of the days +I spent in Paris would interest nobody; all the details are forgotten, +and invention and remembrance do not agree any better than the goat +and the cabbage. So, omitting all that does not interest me--and if it +does not interest me how can it interest the reader?--I will tell +merely that my adventure with Doris was barren of scandal or +unpleasant consequences. Her mother, a dear unsuspicious +woman--whether her credulity was the depth of folly or the depth of +wisdom I know not; there are many such mothers, my blessing be upon +them!--took charge of her daughter, and Doris and her mother returned +to England. I am afraid that when I confess that I did not speak to +Doris of marriage I shall forfeit the good opinion of my reader, who +will, of course, think that a love story with such an agreeable +creature as Doris merited a lifetime of devotion; but I pray the +reader to discover an excuse for me in the fact that Doris had told me +when we were at Plessy that there was no question of her marrying any +one but Albert. Had she not sacrificed the great love of her life in +order that she might remain constant to Albert? Is it to be expected, +then, that having done that, she would put Albert aside and throw her +lot in with mine? She might have done this; men and women act +inconsequently. Having on one occasion refused to drop the mutton chop +for the shadow, on the next occasion they would drop it for the shadow +of the shadow; but Doris was made of sterner stuff, and some months +afterwards she wrote me a steady, sensible little letter telling me +that she was going to be married, and that it seemed to her quite +natural that she should marry Albert. Years have passed away, and +nothing has happened to lead me to believe that she has not proved a +true and loving wife. Albert has always told me that he found all the +qualities in her which he had foreseen from the first time he looked +upon her pretty, sparkling face. Frown not, reader; accuse me not of +superficial cynicism! Albert is part of the world's inheritance. You +may be Albert yourself--every one has been or will be Albert; Albert +is in us all, just as I am in you all. Doris, too, is in you, dear +lady who sit reading my book--Doris my three-days mistress at Orelay, +and Doris the faithful spouse of Albert for twenty years in a lonely +London suburb. + +Study and boudoir would like to know if Doris had any children. About +two years afterwards I heard that she was "expecting." The word came +up spontaneously in my mind, perhaps because I had written it in the +beginning of the story. Reader, do you remember in "Massimilla Doni" +how Balzac, when he came to the last pages, declares that he dare not +tell you the end of the adventure. One word, he says, will suffice for +the worshippers of the ideal--_Massimilla Doni_ was "expecting." +I have not read the story for many years, but the memory of it shines +in my mind bright--well, as the morning star; and I looked up this +last paragraph when I began to write this story, but had to excuse +myself for not translating it, my pretext being that I was baffled by +certain grammatical obscurities, or what seemed to me such. I seemed +to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that +"_les peuplades de cent cathédrales gothiques_" (which might be +rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals), +"_tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir à +vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques filles +incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent!_" What puzzles me is why statues should break their +forms (_form_ I suppose should be translated by _mould_)--break +their moulds--the expression seems very inadequate--break their +moulds "in order to go to you, great imaginative artists." How +could they break their moulds or their forms to go to the +imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift of +the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if +he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas +and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of +_Massimilla_ to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little +tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage: + +"Les péris, les ondines, les fées, les sylphides du vieux temps, les +muses de la Grèce, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le +Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le +premier mit au bas des tableaux d'église, et que Raphaël a faits si +divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gèle +a Dresde, les délicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'église de +San-Michele à Florence, les chœurs célestes du tombeau de Saint Sébald +à Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent +cathédrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur +forme pour venir à vous, artistes compréhensifs, toutes ces angéliques +filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y +pleurèrent." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS + + +There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I +remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of +Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool +in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, +of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the +foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the +picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my +copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been +promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has +abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some +Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a +sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, +and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking +of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it. + +After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half +satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that +awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the +Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for +breakfast in a queer little café; the meal cost us about a shilling. +On my return from this café soon after twelve--I had breakfasted early +that morning--I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could +not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and +the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw +myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in +the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, +smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself. + +Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, +whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards--the Rue de Rivoli, +the Rue de la Paix--knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April +playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great +stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts +embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city +that lies far away behind the Hôtel de Ville and behind the Boulevard +St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely +visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; +but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sévigné, and did not care +whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the +Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel +interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old +French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty +tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the +high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I +tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one +forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always +seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful +domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, +like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries +to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. +One cannot view it--I cannot, at least--without thinking of the great +monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have +learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his +"Étude de Catherine de Médicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and +I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de +Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte +Bouverand de la Loyère, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coëtlogon, +La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other +names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. +I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in +the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious +and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the +names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain +that others bearing equally noble names lived there. + +Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth +century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the +Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his +house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most +interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind +to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient +to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion +that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such +sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame +together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the +historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the +sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that +Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this +somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I +looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight +flickered. + +But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the +beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, +tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young +blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I +could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and +single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the +sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are +statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single +figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every +thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of +statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; +no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always +reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was +the only world. + +When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight +than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately +flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone +basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these +gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills +where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his +arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these +gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, +after admiring Frémiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, +appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved +to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken. + +"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, +idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've +been working all day." + +"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might +interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could +not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came +every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread +from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny +little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, +seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin +Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing +the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The +strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their +charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the +beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench +eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?--a model no doubt come from a +studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an _exalté_ or a +_fumist_; a very innocent _fumist_ if he were one, not one +of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know +that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the +frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met +an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, +playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty +April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, +telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to +dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first +opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the +life of the Quarter, in _le bal Bullier_, in my stories of +grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every +student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long +frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his +slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a +week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the +boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes +were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes +Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I +thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, +and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband +still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and +then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her +movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for +her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost +disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her +eyebrows were black, and they nearly met. + +The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner--we had come by +chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother +was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked +very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She +had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her +face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner +her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent +and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk." + +"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that +lovely two-step?" + +Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, +but she had not played many bars before her daughter said: + +"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us." + +I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; +an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not +want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any +opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn +Cake Walk," I said: + +"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?" + +The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague +expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it +was indifference or stupidity. + +"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She +plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life." + +"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate +and----" + +"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play +something for me. + +"I haven't got my keys--they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me +alone; I'm thinking of other things." + +Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred +looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the +illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about +foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a +small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much +better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not +know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else +why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met +some nice Englishmen, but Yankees--oh! Yankees! There was one at +Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are +they not? There was one at Cannes. + +"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I +am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was +given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be +upon me if I gave it away." + +"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her." + +"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always +get sick of me if they see me two days running." + +"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it." + +"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true." + +Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully +than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and +a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked +less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I +could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was +searching for an excuse to send her to bed. + +"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?" + +"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it." + +Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" +but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and +had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face +appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said: + +"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!" + +She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper: + +"Not a word. He's my fiancé, and mother doesn't know he's here. She +does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank +you; you played that sonata very nicely." + +"Won't you play, my dear?" + +"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day." + +And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room +to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when +she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened. + +"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiancé, +and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell +mamma. He said _'Foi de gentilhomme,_' so I suppose it's all +right." + +"Why not have your fiancé in here? I'm going to bed." + +"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my +bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't +matter what people say." + +A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my +shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me +through the open door she said: + +"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I +know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the +world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre +with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?" + +"I never split on any one." + +"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without +leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. +Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to +her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner." + +Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door. + +"_Entré!_" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for +you in the salon." + +When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married +Donald, or said she had. + +"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to +go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we +might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting +to-day?" + +"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never +seen Madame de Sévigné's house." + +"Who is she?" + +"The woman who wrote the famous letters." + +"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books." + +"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the +morning." + +There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out +with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human +that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I +told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sévigné's house. The reader +doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sévigné's +house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her +remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris +wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's +memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it +without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I +felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when +we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent +the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for +her. Madame de Sévigné and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated +ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity +of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that +evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat +in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April +sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these +things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my +mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just +when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens +with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet +we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows +how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the +gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, +thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, +and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and +statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to +find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little +mamma suspected anything. + +"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?" + +"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I +think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit." + +As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past +life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but +since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He +had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a +merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and +just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a +purse of five pounds. + +She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her +attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the +painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to +remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like +his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, +laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young +naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey +sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred +said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. +"He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: +I hate a little man." + +We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation +occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and +I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called +away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me +that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for +she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to +wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the +sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had +posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; +sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore +open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried +to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought +rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could +not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is +antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early +in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed +here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, +notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we +are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. +To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each +other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of +the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the +river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for +her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take +an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these +floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries--how could it be +otherwise since I was there with Mildred?--and I began to argue that +it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind +to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying +like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence. + +"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the +knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater +length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to +the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?" + +"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A +short tibia is not pretty." + +A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that +we are going to Italy next week?" + +"Yes, you told me." + +Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the +statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. +She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same +square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the +square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, +he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days +before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had +become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in +putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice. + +"But you like Donald much better than Toby?" + +"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all +about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do +look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made +Rodin put a woman in that position." + +She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. +Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the +statue was "La Danaide." + +"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his +sculpture may be sometimes called _l'article de Paris_. It is +occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great +exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the +back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the +same." + +"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. +Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about +lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of +these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all +these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no +change." + +"Do you think so? I wonder." + +"Do you doubt it?" + +"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my +life." + +"Not even Donald?" + +"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after +we arrived?" + +"Your wedding night?" + +"Yes, my wedding night." + +We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl +was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she +did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, +she seemed to indicate a type--type is hardly the word, for she was an +exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and +her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her +instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught +sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little +dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only +floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of +a stream. + +"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be +good. But really, if you read the Bible----Oh, must you go?--it has +been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you +to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma +will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my +nerves." + +"You play the violin, don't you?" + +"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think +was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if +this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or +to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the +hotel." + +"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would +amuse you." + +"I wish I were a grisette." + +"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have +to get on with my painting." + +That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the +morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and +as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away. + +"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, +and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told +you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here." + +"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in +yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to +everybody else as they are to you." + +"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the +first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was +because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that +you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way--" + +My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark +was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before +I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you +said--" + +"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like +to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it +would not have mattered to you if I had." + +She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her +seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender +it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or +if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her +fiddle-case with her? + +"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play +now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it." + +These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew +that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing +might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should +sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald. + +"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me." + +"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How +pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight +flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water +dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. +Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case." + +"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I +thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow +morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma +would want to accompany me." + +"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!" + +"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to +anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with +hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end +of the alley reciting his verses. + +"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him." + +"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; +I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour +for playing until your remark about--" + +"About what?" + +"You know very well," she answered. + +The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. +The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the +translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts +into another age. I began to see a picture--myself, the poet, and +this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to +make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet +intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading +his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose +lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed +the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini +whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a +man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why +describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because +its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I +dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive +suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my +pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred +to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must +happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without +sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of +violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and +in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, +advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played +the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined +the others, playing as she danced. + +"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if +they'll let me." + +Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred +as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander +and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up +their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. +Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these +three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one +enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a +noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at +last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode +of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house +which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking +together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the +fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of +mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would +not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune +awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust +the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She +stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so +much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that +God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. +This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be +danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges." + +"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the +youngest sister. + +"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, +and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the +Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine--the true gavotte as it was +danced when Madame de Sévigné drove up in a painted coach drawn by six +horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with +bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon." + +This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to +the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the +fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves +along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte +tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the +sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between +the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the +fashion of the time--the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! +How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old +women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until +the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. +After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing +a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before--in +church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long +phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of +Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its +way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has +desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred +could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing +that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? +Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an +echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious +self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged +in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by +another. + +She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and +then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to +play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it +seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady +in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred +Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been +unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows +not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the +ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament--how well Mildred played +it!--followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul +upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in +elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet +saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is +different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but +just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are +deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as +shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things +exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that +hears? + +A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the +great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as +well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of +the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing +and returned to me. + +"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?" + +"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't +play the 'Impassionata.'" + +"Why aren't you always like this?" + +"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I +play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great +deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it." + +We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at +all, thinking of the music. + +"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. +Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall +meet again some day." + +"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and +you're not often in the mood." + +"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better----" + +"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch +you?" + +"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money." + +"And you'll fall in love with some one else?" + +"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this +week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I +like those collars; they have just come out--those turned-down ones. +Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about +three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move +their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour +she liked best--violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor +Donald! He's so handsome." + +After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before +we reached the hotel she who had played--I cannot say for certain what +she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was +not then fully awakened; could it have been?--the names of Bach and +Chopin come up in my mind--"I can't speak about music," she said, as +we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel +possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to +play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," +as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she +looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the +line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic +look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the +hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday. + +"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the +office I saw a Yank--oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather +boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But +presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and +put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So +I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did." + + * * * * * + +I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of +her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose +individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived +many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to +me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing +anything to destroy the mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A REMEMBRANCE + + +It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the +first time--saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. +The next time was in her own home--a farm-house that had been rebuilt +and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy +thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of +harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be +coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted +with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the +parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his +pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down +their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was +effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned +eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day +I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to +study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the +value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of +interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she +passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere +belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had +wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The +Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared +that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest +of the family--another was invented which appealed more to their +imagination--but she held to the name she had given me, and during the +course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. + +There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these +people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we +seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly +there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth +was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw +and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds +when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl +and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was +aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, +and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred +yards--an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the +seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than +shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of +the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might +an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking +up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought +at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by +chance in London. + +Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had +left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was +the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, +walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came +upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part +and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; +life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become +distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was +surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had +appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an +age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and +effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years +older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought +each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became +companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I +liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in +the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded +poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an +old gipsy woman." + +"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet." + +She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. +"It is a regular show." + +"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I +like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to +Brighton." + +"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk." + +"I think I like you equally well at all times." + +We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our +friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you +half as much when I knew you first?" + +"How was that? I was quite a young woman then." + +"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that +time I was a mere boy--I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed +around me." + +"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw +in me was a woman with a grown-up son." + +Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she +said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on +the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate +teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on +that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of +age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I +admired. + +One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown +paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old +_Athenaeums_. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I +could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the +_Athenaeum_ in a house where never a book was read. I looked at +the dates--three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was +gathering some withering apples from the floor. + +"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the +_Athenaeum_ here?" + +"Oh, they are my _Athenaeums_," she said. "I always used to read +the _Athenaeum_ when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. +You must have heard of him--he wrote that famous book about the +Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used +to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built +over now." + +This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us +closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the +odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her +girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her. + +"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you +then I should have asked you to marry me." + +"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read +books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of +books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should +have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father +thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look +after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted +to help us." + +At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them +when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six +months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. +The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I +used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If +I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at +dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate +intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was +in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her +from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain +till this hour in the garden?" + +I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight +confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness +became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would +accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation +with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for +her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to +London. + +The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the +waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in +truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are +some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was +endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on +you over the brink of the grave. + +We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came +back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she +remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her +sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, +and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew +better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of +movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the +old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, +coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the +library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable +drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up +in pieces of paper. + +"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a +girl of fifteen." + +She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old +woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more +to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so +does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something +strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent +charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, +at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time +had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an +affection that formal man knows not of. + +I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. +Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought +it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent +long hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely +on her back, and we supplicated--I was the foremost among her +supplicators--that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and +fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and +to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one +of those who would do everything herself--who thought that if she did +not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of +her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, +everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to +make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work +where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it +became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our +friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, +and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that +with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the +present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I +spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, +looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be +saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to +her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting +through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the +fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in +in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her +husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw +the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, +soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been +married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used +all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I +remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, +Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the +little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet +the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful +with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking +out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, +with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who +was to die. + +"Is it then incurable?" + +"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only +stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, +and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end." + +"Then there is no hope?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Can she live for five years?" + +"I should think it extremely improbable." + +"What length of life do you give her?" + +"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year." + +The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly +sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. +That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, +very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: +"Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my +work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters +telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death +grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in +person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter +came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the +winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another +month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at +once." + +It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the +Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its +jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station +shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and +beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for +the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and +welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping +in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How +is she?" + +"Very bad indeed, sir." + +She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we +waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what +remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these +lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into +disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great +our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other +things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not +escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we +commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will +not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over +Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." +Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is +dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts." + +One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my +return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, +and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." +I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came +downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before +she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before +sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor +arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little +child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was +given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were +glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing +grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she +was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were +collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains +undone! How will they get on without me!" + +I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and +expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving +wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of +sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when +they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And +during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her +dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not +be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but +it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the +price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered +with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed +with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember +the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of +the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral +procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on +a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line +and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on +my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old +church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn +village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees +showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were +discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's +arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the +grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the +altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked +unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, +impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into +that comfortless hole. + +The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the +deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable +and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those +who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology +to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered +to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely +disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young +corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, +larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we +approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded +pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at +the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that +anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to +cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, +dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its +way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had +loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a +shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the +pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered +that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her +he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely +personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the +world offering to its creatures. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BRING IN THE LAMP + + +For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the +landscape reminds me of a somnambulist--the same silence, the same +mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even +the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The +hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, +the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night +a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were +few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars +hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last +days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. +At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no +doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves +hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, +and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say +whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the +blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks +in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, +benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a +painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are +forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins +in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or +little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last +seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, +or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of +pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his +writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are +written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker +green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when +his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh +forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his +garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than +the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories +any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? +Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium +which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and +his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the +easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will +seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the +horse is pumping water--water is necessary; but art, even if his work +is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary +to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world +can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that +is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have +to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts +say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, +otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He +asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an +idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! +Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His +thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It +would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South +America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. +He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to +horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by +the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping +through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by +leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the +air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But +if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can +the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? +His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the +evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell +of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. +No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to +write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story +shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it +forming part of the procession of things? The best part of +story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of +church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long +tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the +homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps +the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage +enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire +lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch +of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in +his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze +of the flesh the spirit awakes. What--is the story coming now? Yes; it +is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take +shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he +sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young +men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to +the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a +waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him--a +waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since +forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he +able to remember that _coda_, and it comes with a scent of +violets in it--the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she +dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice +was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear _crêpe de +chime_, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill +about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after +marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of +the world, from America--Baltimore will do as well as any other, +perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion +whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by +mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her +come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street--Cathedral +Street--there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of +the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose +Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an +informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her +husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be +dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass +between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the +dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and +women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the +women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon +her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook +between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. +She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or +jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are +these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should +take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her +dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to +keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A +little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material +existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that +one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the +Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no +denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious +than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is +rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what +we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is +going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are +going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as +he passes the _concierge's_ lodge, pitying the poor couple +asleep--what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience +the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, +words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his +writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song +moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume--the +handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a +rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her +tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him--where? No better place +for lovers than the garden of L'Église de la Trinité. His night passes +in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking +he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how +carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him +better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet +or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and +what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five +going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and +forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Église de la Trinité? He knows +she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at +ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the +nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another +occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the +prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of +existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. +He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have +done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the +gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in +black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover +going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, +hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to +breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common +pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on +the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of +the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her +that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is +whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going +to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been +there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place +where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be +again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they +go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast. + +The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding--like +gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining--all is +omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What +a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance +in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket--he must read +it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty +years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees +and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon--for +all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is +made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object +of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, +to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. +Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the +blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable +setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits--the dreamer +can see her on the warm grass--hidden as well as she can hide herself +behind some bushes, the black crêpe dress hiding her feet or +pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears +white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little +black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; +the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young +man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem +pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her +affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the +night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him +many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to +bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the +beauty of her blond hair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + May flowers are not more sweet + Than the shower of loosened hair + That will fall around my feet. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "The golden curls they paint, + Round the forehead of a saint, + Ne'er glittered half so bright + As thy enchanted hair, + Full of shadow, full of light. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair. + + "Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair, + And weave a web of gold + Of thy enchanted hair, + Till all be in its hold. + Lady, unwreath thy hair, + That is so long and fair." + +"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by +'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a +web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'--do you mean unloose my hair?" + + "Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds + Qui sont si lourds et si longs. + +"How well it goes with French!" + +"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you +know, I like it very much!" + +It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the +mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that +it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he +sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers +the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly +sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries +to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was +reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked +him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he +must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had +she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is +not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote +that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the +phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should +think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man +prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be +paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her +hair unwreathed. + +"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" +and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer +can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, +how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! +On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be +doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he +refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of +Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has +just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a +bench at a little distance. + +"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us." + +"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, +before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed." + +Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away +even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. +The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He +insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from +him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the +season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get +something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet. + +Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this +restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a _cabinet +particulier_, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, +would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over +with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear +reader, if you are expecting a _cabinet particulier_ in this +story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page +at once--you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains +nothing that will shock your--shall I say your "prudish +susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured +American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the +great long _salle_ lined with tables, and they were attended by +an army of waiters weary of their leisure. + +There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it +and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes +of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty +reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished +story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, +how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a +sensual _dénouement_ be a better end than, let us say, that the +lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an +accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at +the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers +of Vincennes rushing into one of the _concierge's_ lodges at the +gates of the villas. + +"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon." + +But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three +umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for +herself. + +"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes." + +"No more I do." + +"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that +Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)." + +"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go--it will be +rather fun." + +"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?" + +"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?" + +The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex +mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them +clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the +villa to the _perron_--an explicit word that the English language +lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at +Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both +a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? +A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their +host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered +sofas and chairs. + +A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller +could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller +would see at once that _le bon bourgeois et sa dame_ and the +children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for +the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that +the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the +rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers +from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After +dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of +neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose +than that it was _la bourgeoise's_ evening at home? The young +couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own +sweet selves. _Le bourgeois et sa dame_ would watch them with +kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there +were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined +that they must depart, _le bourgeois_ and _la bourgeoise_ +would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no +possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little +situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage--on the +French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman +to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with +the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, +"did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in +allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished +story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had +acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not +being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say +how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous +thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The +situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not +happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that +the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their +adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made +to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or +the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already +taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end +of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between +us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a +big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It +would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' +invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an +impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun +again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the +train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did +not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all +with the _bourgeois et sa dame_, and the dear little widow might +never have known her fate--O happy fate!--until the time came for them +to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the +rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come +back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he +must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should +give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in +the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next +time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the +story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a +year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know +that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief +which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps +some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am +sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had +taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he +wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so +well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was +not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty +years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, +and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but +change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always +overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a +stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are +pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the +unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there +is no hope, not a particle. + + * * * * * + +I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my +feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there +no light? Bring in the lamp!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON + + +Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? +Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or +ten at the Café Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on +the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on +the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the +tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps +spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we +will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the +reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the +unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives +resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom +and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely +thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we +are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are +together. + +At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to +put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if +he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom +shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and +after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the +northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's +Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who +will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round +of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin +with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is +interesting company he seeks. + +It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how +different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was +Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins +about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that +evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had +enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences +refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and +the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass +the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was +to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in +St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had +fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been +divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along +the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or +seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of landscape- +gardening is more akin to the art of a musician than to that of +a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The +formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by +Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the +Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a +boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, +but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but +after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the +silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight +stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the +shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so +beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy +to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, +ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled +shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. +Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead--that was his fault; but +Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the +pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows +are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great +designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples--those +pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? +Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist +and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from +Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his +own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say. + +Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the +tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in +illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to +look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards +shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I +may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what +interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's +Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset--there is the lake, and, +led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of +Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts +occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of +the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little +life of the ponds--the ducks going hither and thither, every duck +intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely +fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more +beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of +the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage +hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the +ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century +couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was +to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies +are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, +too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main +business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all +returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was +surely because it was part of me--not that part known to my friends; +our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they +discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or +herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply +interested in the fact when attention was called to it.... + +I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying--solemnly silent +and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a +breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! +In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more +beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very +subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness +did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like +plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the +deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park +for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. +But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures +flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of +festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which +all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered +dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that +they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the +sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, +great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the +fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing +and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, +the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the +satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged +for a guitar. + +As the twilight gathered under the plane trees my vision became more +mixed and morbid, and I hardly knew if the picture I saw was the +picture in the Dulwich Gallery or the exquisite picture in the Louvre, +"Une Assemblée dans la Parc." We all know that picture, the gallants +and the ladies by the water-side, and the blue evening showing through +the tall trees. The picture before me was like that picture, only the +placing of the trees and the slope of the greensward did not admit of +so extended a composition. A rough tree-trunk, from which a great +branch had been broken or lopped off, stood out suddenly in very +nineteenth-century naturalness, awaking the ghost of a picture which I +recognised at once as Corot. Behind the tree a tender, evanescent sky, +pure and transparent as the very heart of a flower, rose up, filling +the park with romance, and as the sunset drooped upon the water, my +soul said, "The Lake!" Ah, the pensive shadow that falls from the +hills on either side of "The Lake," leaving the middle of the picture +suffused with a long stream of light, narrowing as it approached the +low horizon. But the line of the trees on the hither side of this +London lake was heavier than the spiritual trees in the picture +entitled "By the Water-side," and there was not anywhere the beauty of +the broken birch that leans over the lake in "Le Lac de Garde." Then I +thought of "The Ravine," for the darkening island reminded me of the +hillside in the picture. But the St. James's Park sky lacked the +refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, +low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the +right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the +difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is +anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity--self! Therefore +not quite so interesting as a good Corot. + +So did I chatter to myself as I walked toward the bridge, that dear +bridge, thrown straight as a plank across the lake, with numerous +water-fowl collected there, a black swan driving the ducks about, +snatching more than his due share of bread, and little children +staring stolidly, afraid of the swan, and constantly reproved by their +mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A +little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the +waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their +webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round +the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with +outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into +the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, which +the night instantly obliterated. + +An impression of passing away, of the effacement of individual life. +One sighs, remembering that it is even so, that life passes, sunrise +after sunrise, moonlight upon moonlight, evening upon evening, and we +like May-flies on the surface of a stream, no more than they for all +our poets and priests. + +The clock struck seven, reminding me of the dinner-hour, reminding +me that I should have to dine alone that evening. To avoid dining +alone I should not have lingered in St. James's Park, but if I had +not lingered I should have missed an exquisite hour of meditation, +and meditations are as necessary to me as absinthe to the +absinthe-drinker. Only some little incident was wanting--a meeting +with one whom one has not seen for a long time, a man or a woman, it +would not matter which, a peg whereon to hang the description of the +dusk among the trees, but I had met no friend in the Park. But one +appeared on the threshold of St. James's Street. There I met a young +man, a painter, one whose pictures interested me sometimes, and we +went to a restaurant to talk art. + +"After dinner," I said, "we will get the best cigars and walk about +the circus. Every Sunday night it is crowded; we shall see the women +hurrying to and fro on love's quest. The warm night will bring them +all out in white dresses, and a white dress in the moonlight is an +enchantment. Don't you like the feather boas reaching almost to the +ground? I do. Lights-o'-love going about their business interest me +extraordinarily, for they and the tinkers and gipsies are the last +that remain of the old world when outlawry was common. Now we are all +socialists, more or less occupied with the performance of duties which +obtain every one's approval. Methinks it is a relief to know that +somebody lives out of society. I like all this London, this midnight +London, when the round moon rises above the gracious line of Regent +Street, and flaming Jupiter soars like a hawk, following some quest of +his own. We on our little, he on his greater quest." + + * * * * * + +The night was hot and breathless, like a fume, and upon a great silken +sky the circular and sonorous street circled like an amphitheatre.... +I threw open my light overcoat, and, seizing the arm of my friend, I +said: + +"He reminds me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping +sensualities of his phrase--his one phrase--how descriptive it is of +the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's +muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on +silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of +embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries of bronze lamps. Or, +maybe, the scene passes on a terrace overlooking a dark river. Behind +the domes and minarets a yellow moon dreams like an odalisque, her +hand on the circle of her breast; and through the torrid silence of +the garden, through the odour of over-ripe fruit and the falling sound +thereof, comes the melancholy warble of a fountain. Or is it the +sorrow of lilies rising through the languid air to the sky? The night +is blue and breathless; the spasms of the lightning are intermittent +among the minarets and the domes; the hot, fierce fever of the garden +waxes in the almond scent of peaches and the white odalisques +advancing, sleek oracles of mood.... He reminds me of the dark-eyed +Bohemian who comes into a tavern silently, and, standing in a corner, +plays long, wild, ravishing strains. I see him not, I hardly hear him; +my thoughts are far away; my soul slumbers, desiring nothing. I care +not to lift my head. Why should I break the spell of my meditations? +But I feel that his dark eyes are fixed upon me, and little by little, +in spite of my will, my senses awake; a strange germination is in +progress within me; thoughts and desires that I dread, of whose +existence in myself I was not aware, whose existence in myself I would +fain deny, come swiftly and come slowly, and settle and absorb and +become part of me.... Fear is upon me, but I may not pause; I am +hurried on; repudiation is impossible, supplication and the wringing +of hands are vain; God has abandoned me; my worst nature is uppermost. +I see it floating up from the depths of my being, a viscous scum. But +I can do nothing to check or control.... God has abandoned me.... I am +the prey to that dark, sensual-eyed Bohemian and his abominable +fiddle; and seizing my bank-notes, my gold and my silver, I throw him +all I have. I bid him cease, and fall back exhausted. Give me "The +Ring," give me "The Ring." Its cloud palaces, its sea-caves and +forests, and the animality therein, its giants and dwarfs and sirens, +its mankind and its godkind--surely it is nearer to life! Or go into +the meadows with Beethoven, and listen to the lark and the blackbird! +We are nearer life lying by a shady brook, hearing the quail in the +meadows and the yellow-hammer in the thicket, than we are now, under +this oppressive sky. This street is like Klinsor's garden; here, too, +are flower-maidens--patchouli, jessamine, violet. Here is the +languorous atmosphere of "Parsifal." Come, let us go; let us seek the +country, the moon-haunted dells we shall see through Piccadilly +railings. Have you ever stood in the dip of Piccadilly and watched the +moonlight among the trees, and imagined a comedy by Wycherley acted +there, a goodly company of gallants and fine ladies seated under the +trees watching it? Every one has come there in painted sedan-chairs; +the bearers are gathered together at a little distance." + +"My dear friend, you're talking so much that you don't see those who +are passing us. That girl, she who has just turned to look back, +favours heliotrope; it is delicious still upon the air; she is as +pretty a girl as any that ever came in a sedan-chair to see a comedy +by Wycherley. The comedy varies very little: it is always the same +comedy, and it is always interesting. The circus in a sultry summer +night under a full moon is very like Klinsor's garden. Come, if you be +not _Parsifal_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RESURGAM + + +I was in London when my brother wrote telling me that mother was ill. +She was not in any immediate danger, he said, but if a change for the +worse were to take place, and it were necessary for me to come over, +he would send a telegram. A few hours after a telegram was handed to +me. It contained four words: "_Come at once.--Maurice._" "So +mother is dying," I muttered to myself, and I stood at gaze, +foreseeing myself taken into her room by a nurse and given a chair by +the bedside, foreseeing a hand lying outside the bed which I should +have to hold until I heard the death-rattle and saw her face become +quiet for ever. + +This was my first vision, but in the midst of my packing, I remembered +that mother might linger for days. The dear friend who lies in the +church-yard under the downs lingered for weeks; every day her husband +and her children saw her dying under their eyes: why should not this +misfortune be mine? I know not to what God, but I prayed all night in +the train, and on board the boat; I got into the train at the +Broadstone praying. It is impossible, at least for me, to find words +to express adequately the agony of mind I endured on that journey. +Words can only hint at it, but I think that any one possessed of any +experience of life, or who has any gift of imagination, will be able +to guess at the terror that haunted me--terror of what?--not so much +that my mother might die, nor hope that she might live, but just that +I might arrive in time to see her die. In this confession I am afraid +I shall seem hard and selfish to some; that will be because many +people lack imagination, or the leisure to try to understand that +there are not only many degrees of sensibility, but many kinds, and it +is doubtful if any reader can say with truth any more than that my +sensibility is not his or hers. It is my privilege to be sympathetic +with ideas I do not share, and in certain moods I approach those who +take a sad pleasure in last words, good-byes, and at looking on the +dead. In my present mood it seems to me that it is not unlikely that +my mother's last good-bye and her death appeared to me more awful in +imagination than it would have ever done in reality. Indeed, there can +be hardly any doubt that this is so, for we are only half-conscious of +what is happening. Reality clouds, our actions mitigate, our +perception; we can see clearly only when we look back or forwards. +There is something very merciful about reality; if there were not, we +should not be able to live at all. + +But to the journey. How shall I tell it? The third part must have been +the most painful, so clearly do I remember it: the curious agony of +mind caused by a sudden recognition of objects long forgotten--a tree +or a bit of bog-land. The familiar country, evocative of a great part +of my childhood, carried my thoughts hither and thither. My thoughts +ranged like the swallows; the birds had no doubt just arrived, and in +swift elliptical flights they hunted for gnats along the banks of the +old weedy canal. That weedy canal along which the train travelled took +my thoughts back to the very beginning of my life, when I stood at the +carriage window and plagued my father and mother with questions +regarding the life of the barges passing up and down. And it was the +sudden awakenings from these memories that were so terrible--the +sudden thrust of the thought that I was going westward to see my +mother die, and that nothing could save her from death or me from +seeing her die. Perhaps to find one's self suddenly deprived of all +will is the greatest suffering of all. How many times did I say to +myself, "Nothing can save me unless I get out at the next station," +and I imagined myself taking a car and driving away through the +country! But if I did such a thing I should be looked upon as a +madman. "One is bound on a wheel," I muttered, and I began to think +how men under sentence of death must often wonder why they were +selected especially for such a fate, and the mystery, the riddle of it +all, must be perhaps the greatest part of their pain. + +The morning was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I used +to catch myself thinking out a picturesque expression to describe it. +It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked +so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast +feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton +made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to +provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on +instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself +plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility of keeping one's +thoughts fixed on any one subject for any considerable length of time. +At the end of these reflections I fell back, wondering, again asking +if I were really destined to watch by my mother's death-bed. That day +I seemed to become a sheer mentality, a sort of buzz of thought, and I +could think of myself only as of a fly climbing a glass dome. It +seemed to me that I was like a fly climbing and falling back, buzzing, +and climbing again. "Never," I said to myself, "have I been more than +a fly buzzing in a glass dome. And, good Lord, who made the glass +dome?" How often did I ask myself that question, and why it was made, +and if it were going to endure for ever! + +In such sore perplexity of mind questions from anybody would be +intolerable, and I shrank back into the corner of the carriage +whenever a passer-by reminded me, however vaguely, of anybody I had +ever known; the mental strain increased mile after mile, for the names +of the stations grew more familiar. I began to try to remember how +many there were before we arrived at Claremorris, the station at which +I was going to get out. Half an hour afterward the train slackened, +the porter cried out "Ballyhaunis." The next would be Claremorris, and +I watched every field, foreseeing the long road, myself on one side of +the car, the driver on the other; a two hours' drive in silence or in +talk--in talk, for I should have to tell him my errand.... He might be +able to tell me about my mother, if the news of her illness had got as +far as Claremorris. At the public-house where I went to get a car I +made inquiries, but nothing was known. My mother must have fallen ill +suddenly--of what? I had not heard she was ailing; I did not remember +her ever to have been ill. At that moment some trees reminded me that +we were close to Ballyglass, and my thoughts wandered away to the long +road on the other side of the hill, and I saw there (for do we not +often see things in memory as plainly as if they were before us?) the +two cream-coloured ponies, Ivory and Primrose, she used to drive, and +the phaeton, and myself in it, a little child in frocks, anxious, +above all things, to see the mail-coach go by. A great sight it was to +see it go by with mail-bags and luggage, the guard blowing a horn, the +horses trotting splendidly, the lengthy reins swinging, and the +driver, his head leaned a little on one side to save his hat from +being blown away--he used to wear a grey beaver hat. The great event +of that time was the day that we went to Ballyglass, not to see the +coach go by, but to get into it, for in those days the railway stopped +at Athenry. And that was the day I saw the canal, and heard with +astonishment that there was a time long ago, no doubt in my father's +youth, when people used to go to Dublin in a barge. Those memories +were like a stupor, and awaking suddenly I saw that more than two and +a half miles lay between me and my mother. In half an hour more I +should know whether she were alive or dead, and I watched the horse +trotting, interested in his shambling gait, or not at all interested +in it--I do not know which. On occasions of great nervous tension one +observes everything.... Everything I remembered best appeared with +mechanical regularity; now it was a wood, a while afterward somebody's +farmyard, later on a line of cottages, another wood, one of my own +gate lodges. An old sawyer lived in it now--looking after it for me; +and I hoped that the wheels of the car would not bring him out, for it +would distress me to see him. The firs in the low-lying land had grown +a little within the last thirty years, but not much. We came to the +bridge; we left it behind us; the gate lodge and the drive from it; +the plantation that I knew so well, the lilac bushes, the laburnums +--good Heavens! How terrible was all this resurrection! Mists hide the +mountains from us, the present hides the past; but there are times +when the present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared +away, and the past confronts us in naked outline, and that perhaps is +why it is so painful to me to return home. The little hill at the +beginning of the drive is but a little hill, but to me it is much +more, so intimately is it associated with all the pains and troubles +of childhood. All this park was once a fairyland to me; now it is but +a thin reality, a book which I have read, and the very thought of +which bores me, so well do I know it. There is the lilac bush! I used +to go there with my mother thirty years ago at this time of year, and +we used to come home with our hands full of bloom. Two more turnings +and we should be within sight of the house! This is how men feel when +condemned to death. I am sure of it. At the last hill the driver +allowed his horse to fall into a walk, but I begged of him to drive on +the horse, for I saw some peasants about the steps of the hall door; +they were waiting, no doubt, for news, or perhaps they had news. "We +have bad news for you," they cried in the wailing tones of the West. + +"Not altogether bad news," I said to myself; "my mother is dead, but I +have been saved the useless pain, the torture of spirit, I should have +endured if I had arrived in time." China roses used to grow over the +railings; very few blooms were left. I noticed just a few as I ran up +the high steps, asking myself why I could not put the past behind me. +If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but +never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I +opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and +painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that +corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying, +showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will +show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning +of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to +spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see +his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put +his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country, +and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How +the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning +my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which +the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear! + +In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was +there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died +that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of +our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness +unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is +why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a +little shocked at my own insensibility. This was stupid of me, for I +knew through experience that we do not begin to suffer immediately +after the accident; everything takes time, grief as well as pain. But +in a moment so awful as the one I am describing one does not reflect; +one falls back on the convention that grief and tears are inseparable +as fire and smoke. If I could not weep it were well that my sister +could, and I accepted her tears as a tribute paid to our mother's +goodness--a goodness which never failed, for it was instinctive. It +even seemed to me a pity that Nina had to dry her eyes so that she +might tell me the sad facts--when mother died, of her illness, and the +specialist that had not arrived in time. I learned that some one had +blundered--not that that mattered much, for mother would not have +submitted to an operation. + +While listening to her, I unwittingly remembered how we used to talk +of the dear woman whose funeral I described in the pages entitled "A +Remembrance." We used to talk, her daughters and her son and her +husband and I, of her who was dying upstairs. We were greatly moved--I +at least appreciated my love of her--yet our talk would drift from her +suddenly, and we would speak of indifferent things, or maybe the +butler would arrive to tell us lunch was ready. How these incidents +jar our finer feelings! They seem to degrade life, and to such a point +that we are ashamed of living, and are tempted to regard life itself +as a disgrace. + +I foresaw that the same interruptions, the same devagations, would +happen among ourselves in the square Georgian house standing on a +hill-top overlooking a long winding lake, as had happened among my +friends in the Italian house under the downs amid bunches of evergreen +oaks. Nor had I to wait long for one of these unhappy devagations. My +sister had to tell me who was staying in the house: an aunt was there, +my mother's sister, and an uncle, my mother's brother, was coming over +next day. It is easy to guess how the very mention of these names +beguiled us from what should be the subject of our thought. And the +room itself supplied plenty of distractions: all the old furniture, +the colour of the walls, the very atmosphere of the room took my +thought back to my childhood. The sofa on which my sister was sitting +had been broken years ago, and I unwittingly remembered how it had +been broken. It had been taken away to a lumber-room; somebody had had +it mended. I began to wonder who had done this--mother, most likely; +she looked after every thing. I have said that I had just arrived +after a long journey. I had eaten nothing since the night before. My +sister spoke of lunch and we went into the dining-room, and in the +middle of the meal my brother came in looking so very solemn that I +began to wonder if he had assumed the expression he thought +appropriate to the occasion--I mean if he had involuntarily +exaggerated the expression of grief he would naturally wear. We are so +constituted that the true and the false overlap each other, and so +subtly that no analysis can determine where one ends and the other +begins. I remembered how the relatives and the friends on the day of +the funeral in Sussex arrived, each one with a very grave face, +perchance interrupting us in the middle of some trivial conversation; +if so, we instantly became grave and talked of the dead woman +sympathetically for a few minutes; then on the first opportunity, and +with a feeling of relief, we began to talk of indifferent things; and +with every fresh arrival the comedy was re-acted. Returning from the +past to the present, I listened to my brother, who was speaking of the +blunder that had been made: how a wrong doctor had come down owing +to--the fault was laid upon somebody, no matter upon whom; the subject +was a painful one and might well have been dropped, but he did not +dare to talk of anything but our mother, and we all strove to carry on +the conversation as long as possible. But my brother and I had not +seen each other for years; he had come back from India after a long +absence. Nor, I think, had I seen my sister since she was married, and +that was a long while ago; she had had children; I had not seen her +before in middle age. We were anxious to ask each other questions, to +hear each other's news, and we were anxious to see the landscape that +we had not seen, at least not together, for many years; and I remember +how we were tempted out of the house by the soft sunlight floating on +the lawn. The same gentle day full of mist and sunlight that I had +watched since early morning had been prolonged, and the evening +differed hardly from the morning; the exaltation in the air was a +little more intense. My mother died certainly on the most beautiful +day I had ever seen, the most winsome, the most white, the most +wanton, as full of love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a +spray of hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I wonder why +death should have come to any one on such a bridal-like day. That we +should expect Nature to prepare a decoration in accordance with our +moods is part of the old savagery. Through reason we know that Nature +cares for us not at all, that our sufferings concern her not in the +least, but our instincts conform to the time when the sun stood still +and angels were about. It was impossible for us not to wonder why the +black shadow of death should have fallen across the white radiant day. +I say "us," for my brother no doubt pondered the coincidence, though +he did not speak his thoughts to me. No one dares to speak such +thoughts; they are the foolish substance of ourselves which we try to +conceal from others, forgetting that we are all alike. The day moved +slowly from afternoon to evening, like a bride hidden within a white +veil, her hands and her veil filled with white blossom; but a black +bird, tiny like a humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, +and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister black speck that +had intruded itself upon it. No doubt I could think of something +better were I to set my mind upon doing so, but that is how I thought +the day I walked on the lawn with my brother, ashamed and yet +compelled to talk of what our lives had been during the years that +separated us. How could one be overpowered with grief amid so many +distracting circumstances? Everything I saw was at once new and old. I +had come among my brother and sister suddenly, not having seen them, +as I have said, for many years; this was our first meeting since +childhood, and we were assembled in the house where we had all been +born. The ivy grown all over one side of the house, the disappearance +of the laburnum, the gap in the woods--these things were new; but the +lake that I had not seen since a little child I did not need to look +at, so well did I know how every shore was bent, and the place of +every island. My first adventures began on that long yellow strand; I +did not need to turn my head to see it, for I knew that trees +intervened and I knew the twisting path through the wood. That yellow +strand speckled with tufts of rushes was my first playground. But when +my brother proposed that we should walk there, I found some excuse; +why go? The reality would destroy the dream. What reality could equal +my memory of the firs where the rabbits burrowed, of the drain where +we fished for minnows, of the long strand with the lake far away in +summertime? How well I remember that yellow sand, hard and level in +some places as the floor of a ball-room. The water there is so shallow +that our governess used to allow us to wander at will, to run on ahead +in pursuit of a sandpiper. The bird used to fly round with little +cries; and we often used to think it was wounded; perhaps it pretended +to be wounded in order to lead us away from its nest. We did not think +it possible to see the lake in any new aspect, yet there it lay as we +had never seen it before, so still, so soft, so grey, like a white +muslin scarf flowing out, winding past island and headland. The +silence was so intense that one thought of the fairy-books of long +ago, of sleeping woods and haunted castles; there were the castles on +islands lying in misted water, faint as dreams. Now and then a bird +uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall +larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft +murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. +Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island +seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror--a mirror that somebody had +breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about +the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear eternity murmuring its sad +monotony. + +The lake curves inland, forming a pleasant bay among the woods; there +is a sandy spit where some pines have found roothold, and they live on +somehow despite the harsh sallies of the wind in winter. Along the +shore dead reeds lie in rows three feet deep among the rushes; had +they been placed there by hand they could not have been placed with +more regularity; and there is an old cart-track, with hawthorns +growing out of a tumbled wall. The hillside is planted--beautiful +beeches and hollies at one end, and at the other some lawny +interspaces with tall larches swaying tasselled branches shedding +faint shadows. These were the wonder of my childhood. A path leads +through the wood, and under the rugged pine somebody has placed a +seat, a roughly hewn stone supported by two upright stones. For some +reason unknown to me this seat always suggested, even when I was a +child, a pilgrim's seat. I suppose the suggestion came from the +knowledge that my grandmother used to go every day to the tomb at the +end of the wood where her husband and sons lay, and whither she was +taken herself long ago when I was in frocks; and twenty years after my +father was taken there. + +What a ceaseless recurrence of the same things! A hearse will appear +again in a few days, perhaps the same hearse, the horses covered up +with black made to look ridiculous with voluminous weed, the coachman +no better than a zany, the ominous superior mute directing the others +with a wand; there will be a procession of relatives and friends, all +wearing crepe and black gloves, and most of them thinking how soon +they can get back to their business: that masquerade which we call a +funeral! + +Fearing premature burial (a very common fear), my mother had asked +that her burial should be postponed until a natural change in the +elements of her body should leave no doubt that life no longer +lingered there. And the interval between her death and her burial I +spent along the lake's shore. The same weather continued day after +day, and it is almost impossible to find words to express the beauty +of the grey reflection of the islands and the reeds, and the faint +evanescent shores floating away, disappearing in the sun-haze, and the +silence about the shores, a kind of enchanted silence, interrupted, as +I have said, only by the low gurgle of the water about the limestone +shingle. Now and then the song of a bird would break out, and all was +silence again.... "A silence that seems to come out of the very heart +of things!" I said, and I stopped to listen, like one at the world's +end; I walked on, wondering, through the rushes and tussocked grass +and juniper bushes which grew along the wilding shore, along the edge +of the wood. Coming from the town, I could not but admire the +emptiness of the country; hardly ever did I hear the sound of a human +voice or a footstep; only once did I meet some wood-gatherers, poor +women carrying bundles of faggots, bent under their loads. And +thinking that perchance I knew them--they were evidently from the +village; if so, I must have known them when I was a boy--I was +suddenly seized by an unaccountable dread or a shyness, occasioned no +doubt by the sense of the immense difference that time had effected in +us: they were the same, but I was different. The books I had pondered +and the pictures I had seen had estranged me from them, simple souls +that they were; and the consciousness of the injustice of the human +lot made it a pain to me to look into their eyes. So I was glad to be +able to pass behind some bushes, and to escape into the wood without +their perceiving me. + +And coming upon pleasant interspaces, pleasanter even than those that +lingered in my memory, I lay down, for, though the days were the first +days of May, the grass was long and warm and ready for the scythe, the +tasselled branches of the tall larches swung faintly in a delicious +breeze, and the words of the old Irish poet came into my mind, "The +wood was like a harp in the hands of a harper." To see the boughs, to +listen to them, seemed a sufficient delight, and I began to admire the +low sky full of cotton-like clouds, and the white flower that was +beginning to light up the little leaves of the hedgerow, and I suppose +it was the May-flower that drew down upon me a sudden thought of the +beloved girl lost to me for ever. My mother's death had closed that +wound a little, but in a moment all my grief reappeared, the wound +gaped again, and it was impossible to stanch the bleeding. + +A man cannot lament two women at the same time, and only a month ago +the most beautiful thing that had ever appeared in my life, an idea +which I knew from the first I was destined to follow, had appeared to +me, had stayed with me for a while, and had passed from me. All the +partial loves of my youth seemed to find expression at last in a +passion that would know no change. Who shall explain the mystery of +love that time cannot change? Fate is the only word that conveys any +idea of it, for of what use to say that her hair was blond and thick, +that her eyes were grey and blue? I had known many women before her, +and many had hair and eyes as fine and as deep as hers. But never one +but she had had the indispensable quality of making me feel I was more +intensely alive when she was by me than I was when she was away. It +is that tingle of life that we are always seeking, and that perhaps we +must lose in order to retain. On such a day, under the swaying +branches of the larches, the whiteness of the lake curving so +beautifully amid low shores could not fail to remind me of her body, +and its mystery reminded me of her mystery; but the melancholy line of +mountains rippling down the southern sky was not like her at all. One +forgets what is unlike, caring only to dwell upon what is like.... +Thinking of her my senses grow dizzy, a sort of madness creeps up +behind the eyes. What an exquisite despair is this--that one shall +never possess that beautiful personality again, sweet-scented as the +May-time, that I shall never hold that dainty oval face in my hands +again, shall look into those beautiful eyes no more, that all the +intimacy of her person is now but a memory never to be renewed by +actual presence--in these moments of passionate memory one experiences +real grief, a pang that never has found expression perchance except in +Niobe; even that concentration of features is more an expression of +despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that +prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned +her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her +virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I +lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, +her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I +should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now, +intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking, +the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost +in losing her. + +We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the +pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of +our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best +thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if +her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be +beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be +loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of +her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him +for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to +him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was +thinking of myself when shame prevented me from going to meet the poor +wood-gatherers; they would not have thought at all of the injustice of +having been left to the labour of the fields while I had gone forth to +enjoy the world; they would have been interested to see me again, and +a few kind words would have made their load seem easier on their +backs. Called back by a sudden association of ideas, I began to +consider that shameful injustice is undoubtedly a part of our human +lot, for we may only grieve passionately for the casual, or what seems +the merely casual; perhaps because the ultimate law is hidden from us; +I am thinking now of her who comes suddenly into our lives tempting us +with colour, fugitive as that of a flower, luring us with light as +rapid as the light shed from the wings of a dove. Why, I asked myself, +as I lay under the larches, are we to mourn transitory delight so +intensely, why should it possess us more entirely than the sorrow that +we experience for her who endured the labour of child-bearing, who +nourished us perchance at her breast, whose devotion to us was +unceasing, and who grew kindlier and more divorced from every thought +of self as the years went by? From injustice there can be no escape, +not a particle. At best we can, indeed we must, acquiesce in the fact +that the only sorrow to be found in our hearts for aged persons is a +sort of gentle sorrow, such as the year itself administers to our +senses in autumn, when we come home with our hands full of the +beautiful single dahlias that the Dutchmen loved and painted, bound up +with sprays of reddening creepers; we come home along the sunny roads +over which the yellow beeches lean so pathetically, and we are sad for +the year, but we do not grieve passionately; our hearts do not break. + +Then again we cannot grieve as the conventions would have us +grieve--in strange dress; the very fact of wearing crepe and black +gloves alienates us from our real selves; we are no longer ourselves, +we are mummers engaged in the performance of a masque. I could have +mourned my mother better without crêpe. "There never has been invented +anything so horrible as the modern funeral," I cried out. A picture of +the hearse and the mutes rose up in my mind, and it was at that very +moment that the song of the bird broke out again, and just above my +head in the larches an ugly, shrilling song of about a dozen notes +with an accent on the two last, a stupid, tiresome stave that never +varied. "What bird can it be," I cried out, "that comes to interrupt +my meditations?" and getting up I tried to discover it amid the +branches of the tree under which I had been lying. It broke out again +in another tree a little farther away, and again in another. I +followed it, and it led me round the wood towards the hilltop to the +foot of the steps, two short flights; the second flight, or part of it +at least, has to be removed when the vault is opened. It consists, no +doubt, of a single chamber with shelves along either side; curiosity +leads few into vaults not more than a hundred years old; above the +vault is the monument, a very simple one, a sort of table built in, +and when my father was buried, a priest scrambled up or was lifted up +by the crowd, and he delivered a funeral oration from the top of it. + +That day the box edgings were trampled under foot, and all the flowers +in the beds. My mother, perhaps, cared little for flowers, or she did +not live here sufficiently long to see that this garden was carefully +tended; for years there were no children to come here for a walk, and +it was thought sufficient to keep in repair the boundary wall so that +cattle should not get in. No trees were cut here when the Woods were +thinned, and the pines and the yews have grown so thickly that the +place is overshadowed; and the sepulchral dark is never lifted even at +midday. At the back of the tomb, in the wood behind it, the headstones +of old graves show above the ground, though the earth has nearly +claimed them; only a few inches show above the dead leaves; all this +hillside must have been a graveyard once, hundreds of years ago, and +this ancient graveyard has never been forgotten by me, principally on +account of something that happened long ago when I was a little child. +The mystery of the wood used to appeal to my curiosity, but I never +dared to scramble over the low wall until one day, leaving my +governess, who was praying by the tomb, I discovered a gap through +which I could climb. My wanderings were suddenly brought to an end by +the appearance, or the fancied appearance, of somebody in a brown +dress--a woman I thought it must be; she seemed to float along the +ground, and I hurried back, falling and hurting myself severely in my +hurry to escape through the gap. So great was my fear that I spoke not +of my hurt to my governess, but of the being I had seen, beseeching of +her to come back; but she would not come back, and this fact impressed +me greatly. I said to myself, "If she didn't believe somebody was +there she'd come back." The fear endured for long afterwards; and I +used to beg of her not to cross the open space between the last shift +of the wood and the tomb itself. We can re-live in imagination an +emotion already experienced. Everything I had felt when I was a child +about the mysterious hollows in the beech wood behind the tomb and the +old stone there, and the being I had seen clothed in a brown cloak, I +could re-live again, but the wood enkindled no new emotion in me. +Everything seemed very trivial. The steps leading to the tomb, the +tomb itself, the boundary wall, and the enchanted wood was now no more +than a mere ordinary plantation. There were a few old stones showing +through the leaves, that is all. Marvels never cease; in youth one +finds the exterior world marvellous, later on one finds one's inner +life extraordinary, and what seemed marvellous to me now was that I +should have changed so much. The seeing of the ghost might be put down +to my fancy, but how explain the change in the wood--was its mystery +also a dream, an imagination? Which is the truth--that experience robs +the earth of its mystery, or that we have changed so that the +evanescent emanations which we used suddenly to grow aware of, and +which sometimes used to take shape, are still there, only our eyes are +no longer capable of perceiving them? May not this be so?--for as one +sense develops, another declines. The mystic who lives on the hillside +in the edge of a cave, pondering eternal rather than ephemeral things, +obtains glimpses, just as the child does, of a life outside this life +of ours. Or do we think these things because man will not consent to +die like a plant? Wondering if a glimpse of another life had once been +vouchsafed to me when my senses were more finely wrought, I descended +the hillside; the bird, probably a chaffinch, repeated its cry without +any variation. I went down the hillside and lay in the shadow of the +tasselled larches, trying to convince myself that I had not hoped to +see the brown lady, if it were a lady I had seen, bending over the +stones of the old burial-ground. + + +One day the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of a mason's +hammer, and on making inquiry from a passing workman--his hodman +probably--I learned that on opening the vault it had been discovered +that there was not room for another coffin. But no enlargement of the +vault was necessary; a couple of more shelves was all that would be +wanted for many a year to come. His meaning was not to be +mistaken--when two more shelves had been added there would be room for +my brothers, myself, and my sister, but the next generation would have +to order that a further excavation be made in the hill or look out for +a new burial-ground. He stood looking at me, and I watched for a +moment a fine young man whose eyes were pale as the landscape, and I +wondered if he expected me to say that I was glad that things had +turned out very well.... The sound of the mason's hammer got upon my +nerves, and feeling the wood to be no longer a place for meditation, I +wandered round the shore as far as the old boat-house, wondering how +it was that the words of a simple peasant could have succeeded in +producing such a strange revulsion of feeling in me. No doubt it was +the intensity with which I realised the fact that we are never far +from death, none of us, that made it seem as if I were thinking on +this subject for the first time. As soon as we reach the age of +reflection the thought of death is never long out of our minds. It is +a subject on which we are always thinking. We go to bed thinking that +another day has gone, that we are another day nearer our graves. Any +incident suffices to remind us of death. That very morning I had seen +two old blue-bottles huddled together in the corner of a pane, and at +once remembered that a term of life is set out for all things--a few +months for the blue-bottle, a few years for me. One forgets how one +thought twenty years ago, but I am prone to think that even the young +meditate very often upon death; it must be so, for all their books +contain verses on the mutability of things, and as we advance in years +it would seem that we think more and more on this one subject, for +what is all modern literature but a reek of regret that we are but +bubbles on a stream? I thought that nothing that could be said on this +old subject could move me, but that boy from Derryanny had brought +home to me the thought that follows us from youth to age better than +literature could have done; he had exceeded all the poets, not by any +single phrase--it was more his attitude of mind towards death (towards +my death) that had startled me--and as I walked along the shore I +tried to remember his words. They were simple enough, no doubt, so +simple that I could not remember them, only that he had reminded me +that Michael Malia, that was the mason's name, had known me since I +was a little boy; I do not know how he got it out; I should not have +been able to express the idea myself, but without choosing his words, +without being aware of them, speaking unconsciously, just as he +breathed, he had told me that if my heart were set on any particular +place I had only to tell Michael Malia and he would keep it for me; +there would be a convenient place for me just above my grandfather +when they had got the new shelf up; he had heard we were both writers. + +That country boy took it out of me as perhaps no poet had ever done! I +shall never forget him as I saw him going away stolidly through the +green wood, his bag of lime on his back. + +And sitting down in front of the tranquil lake I said, "In twenty or +thirty years I shall certainly join the others in that horrible vault; +nothing can save me," and again the present slipped away from me and +my mind became again clear as glass; the present is only subconscious; +were it not so we could not live. I have said all this before; again I +seemed to myself like a fly crawling up a pane of glass, falling back, +buzzing, and crawling again. Every expedient that I explored proved +illusory, every one led to the same conclusion that the dead are +powerless. "The living do with us what they like," I muttered, and I +thought of all my Catholic relations, every one of whom believes in +the intervention of priests and holy water, the Immaculate Conception, +the Pope's Indulgences, and a host of other things which I could not +remember, so great was my anguish of mind at the thought that my poor +pagan body should be delivered helpless into their pious hands. I +remembered their faces, I could hear their voices--that of my dear +brother, whom I shall always think of as a strayed cardinal rather +than as a colonel; I could see his pale eyes moist with faith in the +intercession of the Virgin--one can always tell a Catholic at sight, +just as one can tell a consumptive. The curving lake, the pale +mountains, the low shores, the sunlight, and the haze contributed not +a little to frighten me; the country looked intensely Catholic at that +moment. My thoughts swerved, and I began to wonder if the face of a +country takes its character from the ideas of those living in it. "How +shall I escape from that vault?" I cried out suddenly. Michael Malia's +hodman had said that they might place me just above my grandfather, +and my grandfather was a man of letters, a historian whose histories I +had not read; and in the midst of the horror my probable burial +inspired in me, I found some amusement in the admission that I should +like the old gentleman whose portrait hung in the dining-room to have +read my novels. This being so, it was not improbable that he would +like me to read his histories, and I began to speculate on what the +author of a history of the French Revolution[1] would think of "Esther +Waters." The colour of the chocolate coat he wears in his picture +fixed itself in my mind's eye, and I began to compare it with the +colour of the brown garment worn by the ghost I had seen in the wood. +Good Heavens, if it were his ghost I had seen! + +[Footnote 1: Still unpublished.] + +And listening to the lapping of the lake water I imagined a horrible +colloquy in that vault. It all came into my mind, his dialogue and my +dialogue. "Great God," I cried out, "something must be done to +escape!" and my eyes were strained out on the lake, upon the island on +which a Welshman had built a castle. I saw all the woods reaching down +to the water's edge, and the woods I did not see I remembered; all the +larch trees that grew on the hillsides came into my mind suddenly, and +I thought what a splendid pyre might be built out of them. No trees +had been cut for the last thirty years; I might live for another +thirty. What splendid timber there would then be to build a pyre for +me!--a pyre fifty feet high, saturated with scented oils, and me lying +on the top of it with all my books (they would make a nice pillow for +my head). The ancient heroes used to be laid with their arms beside +them; their horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be +free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My +pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen +for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body +would become a sort of beacon-fire--the beacon of the pagan future +awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be +anything too excessive--a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a +thousand larches and a few barrels of scented oil and the great feast: +for while I was roasting, my mourners should eat roast meat and drink +wine and wear gay dresses--the men as well as the women; and the +gayest music would be played. The "Marriage of Figaro" and some +Offenbach would be pleasing to my spirit, the ride of the Valkyrie +would be an appropriate piece; but I am improvising a selection, and +that is a thing that requires careful consideration. It would be a +fine thing indeed if such a funeral--I hate the word--such a burning +as this could be undertaken, and there is no reason why it should not +be, unless the law interdicts public burnings of human bodies. And +then my face clouded, and my soul too; I grew melancholy as the lake, +as the southern mountains that rippled down the sky plaintive as an +Irish melody, for the burning I had dreamed of so splendidly might +never take place. I might have to fall back on the Public Crematorium +in England--in Ireland there is no Crematorium; Ireland lingers in the +belief in the resurrection of the body. "Before I decide," I said to +myself, "what my own funeral shall be, I must find out what funeral +liberties the modern law and Christian morality permit the citizen," +and this I should not be able to discover until I returned to Dublin. + +It was by the side of dulcet Lough Cara that I began to imagine my +interview with the old family solicitor, prejudiced and white-headed +as the king in a certain kind of romantic play, a devout Catholic who +would certainly understand very little of my paganism; but I should +catch him on two well-sharpened horns--whether he should be guilty of +so unbusiness-like an act as to refuse to make a will for theological +reasons, or to do a violence to his conscience by assisting a +fellow-creature to dispose of his body in a way that would give the +Almighty much trouble to bring about the resurrection of the body in +the valley of Jehoshaphat. The embarrassment of the family solicitor +would be amusing, and if he declined to draw up my will for me there +would be plenty of other solicitors who would not hesitate to draw up +whatever will I was minded to make. In order to secure the burial of +my body, my notion was to leave all my property, lands, money, +pictures, and furniture to my brother, Colonel Maurice Moore on the +condition that I should be burnt and the ashes disposed of without the +humiliation of Christian rites; that if the conditions that the +inheritance carried with it were so disagreeable to Colonel Maurice +Moore that he could not bring himself to see that the disposal of my +remains was carried out according to my wishes, my property, lands, +money, pictures, and furniture, should go to my brother Augustus +Moore; that in the event of his declining to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all my property should go to my +brother Julian Moore; that if he should refuse to carry out my wishes +regarding the disposal of my remains, all the said property should go +to my friend Sir William Eden, who would, I felt sure, take a sad +pleasure in giving effect to the wishes of his old friend. A will +drawn up on these lines would secure me against all chance of being +buried with my ancestors in Kiltoon, and during the next two days I +pondered my own burning. My brother might think that he was put to a +good deal of expense, but he would not fail me. He had taken off my +hands the disagreeable task of seeing the undertakers and making +arrangements for the saying of Masses, etc., arrangements which would +be intensely disagreeable to me to make so. I had plenty of time to +think out the details of my burning; and I grew happy in the thought +that I had escaped from the disgrace of Christian burial--a disgrace +which was never, until the last two days, wholly realised by me, but +which was nevertheless always suspected. No doubt it was the dread of +Kiltoon that had inspired that thought of death from which in late +years I had never seemed able to escape. I am of the romantic +temperament, and it would be a pity to forgo the burning I had +imagined. I delighted in the vision that had come upon me of the +felling of the larch trees on the hillside and the building of the +pyre about the old castle. It would reach much higher; I imagined it +at least fifty feet high. I saw it flaming in imagination, and when +half of it was burnt, the mourners would have to take to the boats, so +intense would be the heat. What a splendid spectacle! Never did any +man imagine a more splendid funeral! It would be a pity if the law +obliged me to forgo it. But there was no use hoping that the law would +not; there was a law against the burning of human remains, and I might +have to fall back on the Public Crematorium: it only remained for me +to decide what I would wish to be done with the ashes. In a moment of +happy inspiration I conceived the idea of a Greek vase as the only +suitable repository for my ashes, and I began to remember all the +Greek vases I had seen: all are beautiful, even the Roman Greek; these +are sometimes clumsy and heavy, but the sculpture is finely designed +and executed. Any Greek vase I decided would satisfy me, provided, of +course, that the relief represented Bacchanals dancing, and nearly +every Greek vase is decorated in this way. The purchase of the vase +would be an additional expense; no doubt I was running my brother in +for a good deal of money; it is becoming more and more difficult to +buy original Greek sculpture! and in a moment of posthumous parsimony +my thoughts turned to a copy of a Greek vase in granite, granite being +more durable than marble, and I wanted the vase to last for a long +time. It was delightful to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and to +draw all that I remembered of the different vases I had seen, +different riots of lusty men carrying horns of wine, intermingled with +graceful girls dancing gracefully, youths playing on pipes, and amidst +them fauns, the lovely animality of the woods, of the landscape ages, +when men first began to milk their goats, and when one man out of the +tribe, more pensive, more meditative than the others, went down to the +river's bank and cut a reed and found music within it. The vase I +remembered best has upright handles springing from the necks of swans. +It stands about two feet high, perhaps a little more, and its cavity +should be capable of containing all that remains of me after my +burning. None would have thought, from the happy smile upon my lips, +that I was thinking of a Grecian urn and a little pile of white ashes. +"O death, where is thy sting?" I murmured, and the pencil dropped from +my hand, for my memory was more beautiful than anything I could +realise upon paper. I could only remember one side of a youth, that +side of him next to an impulsive maiden; her delight gives her wings; +his left arm is about her shoulder. She is more impulsive than he, and +I wondered at his wistfulness--whether he was thinking of another love +or a volume of poems that he loved better. Little by little many of +the figures in the dance were remembered, for the sculpture was so +well done that the years had only clouded my memory. The clouds +dispersed, and I saw this time one whole figure, that of a +dancing-girl; her right arm is extended, her left arm is bent, she +holds a scarf as she dances, and the muscles of the arms are placed so +well, and the breasts too, that one thinks that the girl must have +been before the sculptor as he worked. Ingres and Antiquity alone knew +how to simplify. There is little, but that little is so correct that +detail is unnecessary, and I exulted in remembrance of the dainty +design of the belly, half hidden, half revealed by little liquid +folds. "How exquisite," I said, "is that thigh! how well it advances! +And we poor moderns have lived upon that beauty now well-nigh two +thousand years? But how vainly we have attempted to imitate that +drapery flowing about the ankles, like foam breaking on the crest of a +wave." A slender youth stands next; his shoulders are raised, for the +pipes are to his lips, his feet are drawn close together, and by him a +satyr dances wildly, clashing cymbals as he dances. He is followed, I +think--it is difficult to say whether this be a recollection of +another vase or whether the figure is included in the same group--by a +faun tempting the teeth and claws of a panther with a bunch of grapes. +And it was this winsome faun that decided me to select this vase as +the repository of my ashes. And I determined to stipulate in my will +that this vase be chosen. But my will must not be too complicated, +otherwise it might be contested. All that is not common can easily be +argued to be madness by a loquacious lawyer before a stupid jury. Who +except a madman, asks the lawyer, would trouble to this extent as to +what shall be done with his remains? Everybody in the court agrees +with him, for every one in court is anxious to prove to his neighbour +that he is a good Christian. Everything is convention, and lead +coffins and oak coffins cannot be held as proof of insanity, because +men believe still in the resurrection of the body. Were the Pharaohs +insane? Was the building of the Great Pyramid an act of madness? The +common assurance is that it matters nothing at all what becomes of our +remains, yet the world has always been engaged in setting up tombs. It +is only those pretty satyrs who do not think of tombs. Satyrs wander +away into some hidden place when they feel death upon them. But poor +humanity desires to be remembered. The desire to be remembered for at +least some little while after death is as deep an instinct as any that +might be readily named, and our lives are applied to securing some +little immortality for ourselves. What more natural than that every +one should desire his death and burial to be, as it were, typical of +the ideas which he agreed to accept during life: what other purpose is +served by the consecration of plots of ground and the erection of +crosses? In this at least I am not different from other people; if I +am anxious about my burning, it is because I would to the last +manifest and express my ideas, and neither in my prose nor verse have +I ever traced out my thoughts as completely or as perfectly as I have +done in this order for my tomb. One trouble, however, still remained +upon my mind. Where should the vase be placed? Not in Westminster +Abbey. Fie upon all places of Christian burial! A museum inspires +lofty thoughts in a few; Gouncourt speaks of the icy admiration of +crowds. The vase might stand in the stone wall, and in the very corner +where I learned to spin my top? But sooner or later a housemaid would +break it. The house itself will become the property of another family, +and the stranger will look upon the vase with idle curiosity, or +perhaps think it depressing to have me in the hall. An order for my +removal to a garret might be made out. + +The disposal of the vase caused me a great deal of anxiety, and I +foresaw that unless I hit upon some idea whereby I could safeguard it +from injury for ever, my project would be deprived of half its value. +As I sat thinking I heard a noise of feet suddenly on the staircase. +"They are bringing down my mother's coffin," I said, and at that +moment the door was opened and I was told that the funeral procession +was waiting for me. My brother, and various relatives and friends, +were waiting in the hall; black gloves were on every hand, crepe +streamed from every hat, "All the paraphernalia of grief," I muttered; +"nothing is wanting." My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why +should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far +be it from me to criticise such a desire!" + +The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up +to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first +understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to +understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant +follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that +there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain +themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try +to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were +any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the +chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained, +we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the +wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing +about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain; +Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of +what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to +prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with +scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the +point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people, +I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase. But +Rameses the Second had not succeeded in securing his body against +violation; it had been unswathed; I had seen his photograph in the +Strand, and where he failed, how should I succeed? + +Twenty priests had been engaged to sing a Mass, and whilst they +chanted, my mind continued to roam, seeking the unattainable, seeking +that which Rameses had been unable to find. Unexpectedly, at the very +moment when the priest began to intone the Pater Noster, I thought of +the deep sea as the only clean and holy receptacle for the vase +containing my ashes. If it were dropped where the sea is deepest it +would not reach the bottom, but would hang suspended in dark, moveless +depths where only a few fishes range, in a cool, deep grave "made +without hands, in a world without stain," surrounded by a lovely revel +of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures from the woods, +man in his primitive animality. But nothing lasts for ever. In some +millions of years the sea will begin to wither, and the vase +containing me will sink (my hope is that it will sink down to some +secure foundation of rocks to stand in the airless and waterless +desert that the earth will then be). + +Rameses failed, but I shall succeed. Surrounded by dancing youths and +maidens, my tomb shall stand on a high rock in the solitude of the +extinct sea of an extinct planet. Millions of years will pass away, +and the earth, after having lain dead for a long winter, as it does +now for a few weeks under frost and snow, will, with all other +revolving planets, become absorbed in the sun, and the sun itself will +become absorbed in greater suns, Sirius and his like. In the matters +of grave moment, millions of years are but seconds; billions convey +very little to our minds. At the end of, let us say, some billion +years the ultimate moment towards which everything from the beginning +has been moving will be reached; and from that moment the tide will +begin to flow out again, the eternal dispersal of things will begin +again; suns will be scattered abroad, and in tremendous sun-quakes +planets will be thrown off; in loud earth-quakes these planets will +throw off moons. Millions of years will pass away, the earth will +become cool, and out of the primal mud life will begin again in the +shape of plants, and then of fish, and then of animals. It is like +madness, but is it madder than Christian doctrine? and I believe that +billions of years hence, billions and billions of years hence, I shall +be sitting in the same room as I sit now, writing the same lines as I +am now writing: I believe that again, a few years later, my ashes will +swing in the moveless and silent depths of the Pacific Ocean, and that +the same figures, the same nymphs, and the same fauns will dance +around me again. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE *** + +This file should be named 8mmdl10.txt or 8mmdl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8mmdl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8mmdl10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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