Asphodel
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Lady if you are a lady though they said you had one illegitimate child whom they called God, listen to me. Are you really a creature to bring and alleviate people’s odd numbing blackness? Are you really a mother and would you really understand? I always think the most awful thing in the world to be would be to be the mother of God. But maybe that’s because I’m afraid. George said there needn’t be any children. Must I ever, should I ever have one? George Lowndes said I would look like Maria della something or other, he was always rubbing in his filthy old Italians. Italians crowded the steerage of rotten second class boats . . . but they aren’t the same. Something tells me, Lady mea gratia, beata or whatever they are calling you that in Italy the mother of God is different. George . . . pearls on her gown. It is hemmed and she wears pearls. Florence is (Browning says orris root or doesn’t he?) and pearls are wound round and round the diadem of the baby that hadn’t even the dirty ragged pieces of a rose. Not a petal of a rose. Is that what you are meant for, beata domina regina or whatever they are calling you? Incense to numb out your pain but Christ wouldn’t take the sponge (O why, why didn’t he?) they offered Him. Chloroform I read in the Materia Medica doesn’t always help though sometimes—don’t let me scream. Don’t let me die. Perhaps it’s my Hell and must we all pass through it to get to meadows thick with water lilies? Meadows, thick with iris, I search the meadows for the mirrored iris. I don’t think Fayne Rabb realized . . . how I love her. Christ would understand. Jeanne d’Arc was more beautiful than Fayne, though I’m afraid her hands weren’t pretty. Couldn’t have been tending the swine or sheep or whatever it was she tended in Arc wherever that was or could ever have been. George said I was like the Madonna something or other della something and that all I wanted was a halo, a thin ring, he said of gold thread though that didn’t go with Undine. Undine, mother, lovely Nereid . . . “Sleeping?” “I don’t know.” “Crying?” “I don’t know.” “Praying?” “I don’t know . . . Josepha, you can’t whisper with this singing going on.” “Well, everyone else is. Shuffling their feet, blowing their noses on their petticoats.” “Where? What do you mean?” “There’s a crowd of gargoylesque, Rabelaisian peasants with market baskets and cheeses who have come to see the spectacle.” “What spectacle?” “Whatever it is that is going on here. Lets get out.” “Why get out?” “Mothers waiting outside in the sunshine. What’s the matter anyhow? Pretending? Showing off? Being emotional, hysterical, artistic? Being temperamental?” “A few of those things. Can’t you let me alone. You and your mother as thick as thieves, always crowding together and poking fun at me and then saying I’m not appreciative. Well, I am appreciative, damn you. Let me alone. This is my cathedral. Didn’t I get you to come here. Would you ever have heard of it if I hadn’t known Clifton Fennel?” “The Fennel, I think you told us. And if it hadn’t been for madre and me you would be now sunk in your New Jersey mud flat, swamped by your mangy relatives and eaten by mosquitoes.” “Well let’s call it quits then. Go away anyhow—” “Sulky. Pretty Miss Sulks who adores sentiment, hysteria.” Nereid, lovely mother . . . “I’m tired. You tire me. You wear me out. Can’t you let me alone. Kill me, do what you want with me, then leave me?” “Sweet perverse adulteress. It was you who started it.” “Started?” “Children, come outside. What are you quarrelling for? I’ve found a new sight—” Sights, sights. Sights. Sights. The clock so huge, the narrow arch and the cobbles that burnt and hurt the soles of her unsuitably clad feet. Court yards that had to be peered into. A little lunch room where a robust sophisticated creature (how did he get there) eyed Hermione and Fayne Rabb. “You girls—attract—attention.” “Well, it isn’t, is it, our fault, Clara.” “You don’t seem to have any—sense—of—proportion.” Whatever did she mean? Trudging along, meals at any hours. Sleep broken. Bugs in the bed. Having to get up and row the hotel people (they made Hermione do all the rowing in her sparse French) and people looking at them as much as to say well if you look like that and are off a transatlantic liner, why don’t you go to another, different hotel? Madame Dupont had given them a list of cheap hotels up the Seine all the way up the Seine even in Paris. Names of hotels, the kind French people go to, “don’t Mrs. Rabb let them cheat you,” just so much and just so much and just so much and don’t go over it or they’ll know you are foreigners though how anyhow could they help knowing it? “Pretend to be English. An English lady with daughters learning French. English people do. English people won’t let themselves be put on like you careless Americans.” Bugs in the bed. Huge room with heavy velvet curtains and they so tired eating plums out of a bag of plums for a few cents and that was what a livre was, a pound of plums not a book of plums. Going on and on. “And this is where Flaubert lived.” “Never heard of him.” Flaubert. Flaubert. Going up the Seine like the Sentimental Journey. Salammbô with ostrich feathers and a little person in tight silk drawers who danced but that was a little story in the Trois Contes. “Yes. He was the adopted father of de Maupassant. You know what I mean. I mean he made, de Maupassant—Guy his name was. How wonderful to be called Guy, you know Guy de Maupassant. He must have come here. I mean Flaubert lived here like a recluse and he taught Guy de Maupassant how to write. Boule de Souife. All ironical. Ironical. George Lowndes helped me to get books—” “O it was George Miss Showoff. You got it all out of George. Picked his brains and now pretending to know so much. Hateful little prig.” “I don’t. I didn’t. But how could one ever forget the woods burning and the smell of the smoke as the woods burnt—” “What woods burnt? Where did you see woods burnt?” “The woods you know. The tables were all laid for the banquet—” “Settlement Sunday School?” “No. No. No. No. No. I mean the banquet in Salammbô where the woods burnt—have another plum. No, there can’t be bugs in the bed. I never saw one in a bed though they always told me that was where to find them. And the clock on the mantel-piece actually is going but it can’t be half nine, we haven’t had our supper and they’re sprinkling the streets below, can you hear them.” “Don’t lean so far out of the window.” “What is it a little balcony high up over a street can do to one? It’s like a play. A scene in a play. Come look, Clara. All a little triangle and our clock isn’t right for listen to the boom (and the chime that goes with it) from the tower—” Christ in Heaven. Christ in Heaven, keep Jeanne d’Arc safe forever.
“I never saw one in a bed but O my God, it’s just as bad in this bed as the other, how they do bite and the smell is awful. No I don’t mind, Mrs. Rabb. No, I don’t mind but look at that one—O God Fayne, have you had—actually had practice—grr—how horrible—I shall be sick, vomit—horrible. O Clara how could she. And he walked as fast as a horse Fayne said.” Fayne had said the bed-bug walked as fast as a horse and it did rather, climbing the enormous peaks of the stiff rumpled sheet, climbing, tight and fast about his business, rather American, rather Chicago, going on and on, not minding anything. You would think the Mont Blanc of the bed edge where she had squirmed fastidiously a moment since would be his absolute Waterloo, his to be more exact across the Alps lies Italy or was it the other way round, Hannibal rushing up to the Alp that looked insurmountable. This was a veritable Hannibal. But how fast he did walk. Fayne was right. He was walking as fast as a horse. “O Fayne—splendid—I mean horrible—O Fayne—how could you, but how splendid of you like putting your own worm on the hook or pulling your own fish off, takes some kind of grit to smash a bed-bug, what were you saying Clara? But it wasn’t my fault. You should have told me Madame Dupont told us to ask for whatever you said she told of to ask for when you told me to ask for new rooms and where is it? Haven t you got it written down somewhere.”
“The thing to do is to put on all the lights.” “Well, Pauline, Paulet” (Clara would call Fayne, Paulet) “they drag in the mosquitoes and June bugs from outside.” “But they may not have, we don’t know, Mrs. Rabb mosquitoes and June bugs in France, anyhow the peril from within the city, I think is greater than without.” “Its not a thing, Hermione, to laugh at.” “I didn’t. I w
asn’t. I mean it is so funny. don’t, don’t please take it so hard, Clara.” “But what to you—is—funny—to—us—is—simply—” “O I know—” Hermione had heard all this before from Clara. “I know Clara. It’s serious. And really I’m not really thinking it funny. But if you will find out what I am to ask for, I’ll go row them again. Don’t get depressed Clara. It will soon be daylight and what an elegant little bug really. He is really no worse than a lady bug, you know fly away home. Lets forget that he is a viper, a monster of obscenity (for he is really). Lets forget he is a very devil and try to think of him as a lady-bird fly away home. You know how tiny and clean they look on a huge cabbage rose. My grandmother used to call them ribbon-roses, not cabbage roses, but the little almost wild ones that grew over the little old—place—at the back of their garden where we used much rather go than to the proper bathroom. Yes, do laugh. Ribbon roses. We can’t afford to be frantic. He’s only a sort of filthy lady-bug gone wrong, turned into a bed bug. Gods ways are inscrutable. No, I’m not hysterical, Josepha. I can’t possibly wake them at half past three in the morning though our clock is a half hour fast, didn’t I tell you. There the chimes again—Christ in Heaven—Christ in Heaven— No, no, no. I’m not being irreligious. Its the tune all the chimes say. Listen to it. In Rouen. All the church towers in Rouen say that simply. Christ in Heaven—Christ in Heav-en (you have to measure it out a little for yourself to suit each hour) keep Jeanne d’Arc safe for—ever. You have to measure it, make it Jeannedarc sometimes and Jean-nne-d-d-d-Arc other times to get the rhythm but you can see how it will work. Have you got the note book but why after all, that was easy enough. De fer. Iron beds, I suppose she meant. I don’t suppose they like these new fangled iron beds. Poor darlings. All collected, concentrated in our picturesque big bedroom. And I don’t think we can stay here for ever anyway. Yes. I think you’re right. We might as well pack now. O—O—O. Tired. Tired. But what Heaven. We’ll see the sun-rise—over—Rouen.”
“News from home—news from home—must go—Rouen lovely. Yes, we love your city. And couldn’t you, please, please, please garçon get us some hot milk and coffee, O please, please. I’m too tired to explain. No my friends aren’t ill simply—well to tell you the truth—we were kept awake—all night. Yes simply eaten.” “But who Mademoiselle could eat you?” “It was them simply. You know. The things we were rowing you about two days ago was it (when was it?) again. Have you got a dictionary? Creatures.” “Impossible. We have none in Rouen.” “Yes but do understand.” O how fish-like his face was but back of it something. He was understanding the whole time and the whole time making a careful calculation, was it worth his while to risk Hell getting them extra rations and what was Mademoiselle likely to tip him. Was the older lady her mother or was she a rather subtle entrepreneuse. He didn’t say, “Is Madame really your mother?” but it was written in every line of his face. What did he mean standing so thin and somehow right in his dirty apron. The garçon had stopped flicking glasses like a very fine actor in some very subtle play. The dawn rode in at the window fine and thin and outside in the narrow patch of garden Rouen lilies raised etherialized delft-blue cups to an invisible aurora. Aurora. Light lay like a crown on Rouen, light suspended in an invisible breath. Light that strode blatant from the sea-edge paused here subtly before embracing day. Light behind Rouen hill, cut off from Rouen. So dawn rose on Agincourt. . . where was it? Where was she? This was a play subtle and so exquisite that a breath might blow it away. A play yet back of the dreariest of sordid horrors. “Don’t you see. I really am serious.” “Mademoiselle, could one mistake you?” “I mean seriously. Will you get us something to eat. I know its only half past five. Can’t you see what I tell you is the truth.” “Yes. Creatures do eat you ladies. And leave them very thin, fresh at five in the morning. The thing to do is to order the—well—coffee de consolation—the night before. Say let me have my petit déjeuner at five or six simply. It must be forthcoming. I am taking a train to visit my poor old grandmother in the country and so on. I will try a little to instruct this so serious Miss.” “Wh-aat?” “I mean. Things in beds. Certainly. They do eat—” “O please. Eat. Me. Hungry. Dying. Café au lait. Lots of café. Lots of au lait. No. It doesn’t matter that the little breads aren’t fresh. O please—” Did one offer it francs and how many? One, two or three? Great Milords in novels produced five franc pieces. Clara always did this part of it. One, two or three. She felt cold horror, then hot horror rising to embrace the back of her neck. The shame seemed to reside at the back of her neck and the pit of her stomach. Some symbol. Money was some symbol. French money was more than ever a symbol. “My—my—aunt—” O then one could see the look in his eyes, it wasn’t the mother. “My aunt is waiting. Really will—pay—” How did one say it? “O please, please, here’s two francs. Do bring the coffee quickly.”
Two francs on the edge of the table. A shaft of light on the floor like light falling on an Easter morning altar. The sudden brilliance that was like the falling (oddly not the rising) of a golden curtain. Cloth of gold was suspended for a moment and then rolled a suitable background. A thin face was poised against that background. It might have risen from a pleated ruff. It might have kissed a sword hilt, a sword hilt set with brilliants, and knelt and laid the sword at her feet. A flower. Dawn. Rouen. This would never happen again. It would be always happening. This had never happened. When was it? Yesterday. “Yesterday is to-morrow.” “Mademoiselle’s French is charming (I will bring the small breads) but not always quite fresh.”
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“She’s like a great yellow rose though I don’t believe I am in love with her—” “Wh-aat?” “I mean the Correggio there is like a—like a—I mean I don’t think if I were the faun I would be in love with—in love with—” “What’s all this talk of being in love with, silly?” “I was talking to Clara. She has the Baedeker. Go look it out for yourself. It’s written anyhow on the bottom. Of the picture. Zeus and Antiope. I said I didn’t think I would be in love with the sleeping lady. She’s too fat yet there is something adorable (one feels there might be) in the soles of her feet and the underside of her elbow that doesn’t show. But she doesn’t look like—” “Don’t talk about pictures this way. Showing off. What’s the matter with you? Do you want lunch? Are you drunk simply? Why can’t you take things peaceably? This is only the Louvre.” “Fayne . . . go away. Leave me alone to find it—” “Find what, impressionable?” “Its—whatever it—is—”
O let me alone. God. God. This is worse than Cathedrals. Let me alone. Let me find for myself. Get away. Get lost. People going away and the Louvre getting empty. Cool. Long cold galleries and downstairs the marbles like ice, cut like ice, holding something in their shapes that people didn’t see, couldn’t see or they would go mad with it. Not always the most beautiful things, slid thus through the breasts of the Venus de Milo from the bench in the corner (the red plush bench, shabby against the wall) showed like two thin knife edges, edges of the crescent moon. The Venus de Milo was a little heavy but if you prowled and prowled and waited for different days, little effects of shadow and light and half light caught you; depending on how empty or how full the room was, you got caught by something. That was the answer to prayer. Prayer was asking, asking. Prayer was asking for something that was so terrible and so necessary that you had no words to ask for it. When you found the words, the prayer was already a faded thing. A prayer with words was like a plucked flower. Prayer without words was growing deep, deep in the ground, in the heart of everything. If you found words for your prayer, you had already separated your prayer from the thing you prayed to. Prayer, sitting on the shabby little bench in the corner listening to the guide explaining to the party from Kansas, wasn’t in words. The guide was saying “and here ladies and gentlemen in the glass case at the left” (he never varied his formula) “you have the authentic fragment of the foot, the bit of the hand and the arm and the lost apple.” How do you know it is an apple, how can you tell it is her hand or her foot?
You can’t but nobody ever asked such simple questions. They accepted the dogma as good presbyterians, good methodists, good nonconformists or even good catholics have a way of doing without question, without grace or without bickering. How did they come to do it? Religion of love-of-beauty wasn’t this thing. But still they wanted something, looked for something. O God don’t let me pity them, looking all lost towards a Cook’s Guide for beauty. Let me not despise or pity nor patronize them for your ways are inscrutable and when you led the fingers of Phidias along those two crescents, you already had my hands in yours. I can’t put it into words. You know what I’m saying. Before Phidias was, I am. Long ago when you struck white lightning from marble you had some of us already with you. No. I didn’t ever forget. Don’t let me go mad with this my first discovery. But I will—I will—I will go mad unless I go upstairs and look at Leonardo, look at Correggio, look at Fra Angelico. They are the most blatant shams. They are a curtain hiding reality.