Asphodel

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

  Water was about her. The cold sea-pebbles and the wind in distant tree tops. Music. Not Walter’s music. But it was not true. She had said there were two kinds of music, Walter’s and other music, but now that Walter had returned to Paris, she must modify her statement. There were other kinds of music as many kinds as there were winds, cloud shapes or mountain torrents. This shape of music was something she had seen before, contemplated in her intensity, made her own. She had heard this a thousand times and a thousand times it had eluded her. People. Faces. Where had she so heard it? A diamond dart that caught a Gainsborough feather dropping gallantly over a wide hat brim recalled her. A diamond dart, faces, heads grey and brown and mouse-brown and pure white dressed immaculately with shell combs. Faces, the backs of heads somewhere. “I don’t exactly know—” Why did she speak? Other people were quiet. Why must she alone speak? It was somewhere different. She was not here. O, Darrington for a joke had asked her (was it for a joke?) perhaps to marry him. To consider him there anyhow for the taking. Music. The pebbles that shone and glinted in the mountain torrent, tortoise shell coloured pebbles. Yes that was the real colour of Walter’s eyes, not amber but tortoise shell. Hard like shell and light glazed across them. “I—have—a friend—in Paris.” A friend in Paris, music.

  “You mean you want to marry him?” “O God–no. Imagine him anyway asking me to do it? No, no, no, no, no. I mean the music.” “Aren’t you rather vague? Now just what is it?” He always spoke so banteringly with her as if each thing he said was nothing, as if the very fact of his so speaking nullified his statement. She had never heard seriousness overlaid with such indifference; she had never heard indifference stamped and moulded with sincerity. What of him was real? What lacquer? Part of him somehow wasn’t there, was vague like the rose light of these great peonies that reached up toward the invisible luminous atmosphere. Hermione felt herself grey, a grey mist beside the rose warm glow of him, the thing she couldn’t quite define but that seemed to draw her up, up out of some cold clear water like a closed rose-lotos bud toward sunlight. Something in him, of him, about him, that she had no words for. Was it seeing simply as God sees? Was he rose light, was rose-light about him? What he said or did would make no difference to it any more than what Walter said or did could alter the cold snow-white that was about him. Walter was snow ridged with glacial blue. Darrington was so different. “No. It’s the music simply.” “You think of him then when youre hearing music?” “No, no. That’s just it. I don’t think of him when I’m hearing music.” “What then were you thinking? You must tell me.” He spoke simply, sincerely this time. And in her mind, in her perception she saw again sincerely. Not rose glow and countless people and a diamond crescent catching a Gainsborough feather. Not the tea tables and the room beyond and the gay odd atmosphere and the knowledge that Regent Street outside was soft and fair with fog that flowed like a clean river. Not that. This simply. The lilting sweet and penetrating song of Solveig. “It was Solveig’s song that they just now finished, wasn’t it?” She knew in the moment of framing the question that it was. It was Solveig’s song and a face beside which other faces in the world must be blurred and mis-shapen. A face that destroyed other faces was before her. “You see I saw Fayne Rabb first in a play. A play called Galatea. She was Pygmalion.” “Yes?” “She came across a carpet, a dark carpet in sandals. She wore a robe flung over one shoulder and her knees were bare. No. That wasn’t the first time I saw her. The first time I saw her was at Nellie—Nellie Thorpe—yes her name was Thorpe. Her sister took a prize in Paris. They wanted Fayne to take the prix de Rome.” “Yes?” “There were other people there. Lots of people I knew, some I didn’t. Fayne Rabb lifted her hand and said Koeuthoi Moi Agaiachoio—no, she doesn’t know any Greek but she spoke that way. She lifted her hand simply—” “Yes and further?” “Further? It stretched before and behind. It stretches like a path on water toward the stars, a path that leads to the star Hesperus and that leads back again to the rocks and the small crabs and star-fish fastened to the low tide pools. The path she trod across the dark strip of carpet (it was a studio scene of Nellie Thorpe’s and there was a good touch, a tall azalea in a pseudo-classic wine-jar) and Fayne spoke. It was Solveig’s song upset me. They played it in the interval, before, after. I just don’t remember.” “I see.” “You see you gave me Greek books to read. Not too hard. Something in you understands all this. I don’t myself understand much of it. You know more Greek than I do.” “And am less.” “Perhaps you are less. You aren’t authentic fifth or even pre-fifth. You’re late, a sort of Graeco-Roman over flowering period.” “I am a bit florid at times. True British roast beef.” “No not that. In your soul flowering, flowering—” What was there to describe him? “Like these rose lights rather.” “Pink frilled lamp shade to modify the ardour of the Attic genius?” “Yes, that simply. You are that. I burn too high, too hard. Fayne would, I think, kill me sometime. I don’t see or think or feel—” She didn’t know what she thought or felt for her head bent forward. Her eyes were blurred, merciful blurr that turned the room to some odd unreality like seeing a garden through a window pane, opaque with driven rain drops. The music soft and tender, nothing much one way or the other and the feeling suddenly that she was lost and lonely. “I don’t really—miss—them—” Darrington was getting the bill. It wasn’t that he minded her making a scene but brushing her tears away most gallantly she saw that waiters stirred and moved about them. They were clearing the little tea tables and re-setting them for dinner. Everyone almost had now gone. “We’ll not let this go on much longer darling. You see I’m afraid your bed will suddenly turn into Zeus in the night—you’re the sort of thing that would draw God from heaven—and thwart me.”

  10

  Marry him. Marry him. Marry him? What is—marriage? Don’t marry him. Marry. Him. What is—“But you can’t marry him.” Who said that? Someone had said that somewhere. In an atelier that they had taken over the Seine. They lived over the Seine in the very rightest avenue. No. Clichy. That was Vérène. Marry him. Had Vérène married him? Who would marry him if Vérène didn’t marry him? Vérène married him. Vérène was the deep under-drone, the masculine bee-hum that married the stark and glittering bride veil of the Undine waters. Not waters. Walter. Vérènes violon-cello married Walter’s bride notes and that was marriage of the spirit. Marry him. Marry whom? “But you can’t marry him.” Who said that? Who kept on repeating that at shorter intervals, saying it from nowhere, from somewhere. Where was it that she said it. Who was it said it? Was it dear Eugenia. Marry him. Yes Eugenia said marry because they have a house on the Riviera. No. No. No. Eugenia would never say a thing so blankly. She said marry because he wanted babies—no because he didn’t want babies—no, because he has a degree from Munich and admires your verses. No not verses. He admires your intellect whatever he thinks he means by just that. Marry him. “But you can’t marry him.”

  Who couldn’t marry whom and what was it all about and who couldn’t whoever it was marry if she (or he) so wanted it? But did they want it (he or she) and whatever was it all about? There was all this fuss about marry, marry. Do. Don’t do. Marry. Do or don’t. But go about it neatly. All a matter of technique, your verses.

  What was the matter with her verses and who said it? It was George who had said it. He had taken other verses. Whose? Darrington’s sonnet sequence. But that was Darrington. A huge large name on a page. Looks well Jerrold Darrington. O that was it. Yes, it would look well Mrs. Jerrold Darrington. Marry whom? Look well, Mrs. Darrington. Nobody making faces because she was miss-miss-hit or miss. She was damn sick of it. Quaint. She was a quaint person. They would keep on saying it. Hit or miss. Well . . . she wouldn’t be a quaint . . . hit or miss. Mrs. Jerrold Darrington, a person. A person. Quaint, a hybrid. No hybrid.

  Someone said she was funny but no hybrid. “Throw-back. She belongs here.” Someone at a party said she belonged to England. Mrs. Jerrold Darrington. Was she funny but no hybrid? Did she (someone had said so a
t a party) then belong to England? Marry him. “But you can’t marry him.” O of course, she couldn’t. Now, now she had remembered. It was in a wrong street in the wrong part of Philadelphia. Fayne looked caline from under her thick fringe. There was a basket spilling flowers. “Mama gets such adoration from her girls. It’s shocking.” A basket spilling flowers. “But you can’t marry him.”

  No, of course she couldn’t marry George Lowndes. She should have known that from the start but she had to keep him on, to prod him on, actually went to his rooms and told him she was ready, to check-mate old Eugenia. She liked Darrington. Yes, it was Darrington who had asked her. She was on a bed, a great bed (a Zeus-bed he called it) not a boat and this was London. Of course this was London. A clock striking, that little church like a cheese-box George said. A church like a cheese box standing all arrogant just in the way of the traffic. Churches in London never moved an inch for all the traffic. That was the nice thing about them. That was the nice thing about London. Would Darrington be like that? Just there, rather square-set, a little heavy (when he wasn’t too hungry) with his damn-your-eyes attitude about parents and his understanding of Fayne Rabb. Would Darrington let her stay for Hermione (someone had said so at a party) was their someone out of Shakespeare and belonged here. She wanted an anchor. She wanted a haven. Would Darrington want her, understand when she told him about George Lowndes? After all, George had kissed and kissed her. Famished kisses like a desert wind full of sand, the wrong flowers, hybiscus, scarlet line of his really beautiful mouth. People said he was shockingly beautiful. She didn’t want to marry—“but you can’t marry him.” No, she couldn’t. She was glad though that Fay had told her. She was glad to know so exactly with such prescience that Fay did think of marriage . . . the room coming clear and her thoughts coming clear at the same time. Other clocks a little later took up the late one-two. One—two. Then another very far and far and far, one—two. Two o’clock and the street lamp from outside casting light across and up. Lights in London were all mysterious. Lights in the day, lights at night. There wasn’t any more any day or night and now it was February and it was odd there were wedges of crocus, wedges of crocuses and an almond against a wall. An almond had blossomed against a wall outside the park. She had seen it on the way to Delia’s. There was no winter in London. It was all spring. Spring. Spring. November had even seemed a sort of acrid spring. Water dripping. Spring. Spring. Spring. The Pirenian spring. Darrington said she could, must write. He had made her translate some things from the Anthology. I send you, Rhodocleia for your hair. I send you Rhodocleia this wreath for your hair. I send you this wreath, one open rose, open anemone, twisted narcissus stems. No that wasn’t it. She couldn’t get it quite right. It was just as well Fayne had been so clear about it for she couldn’t marry Darrington. Fayne had been so sure, so certain. Fayne had finished with—all—that. She seemed to know what she meant and said it. She said she had developed beyond that, wasn’t that low in the biologic scale or something like it. Fayne with her clear eyes and her sullen brow. “But I’m not going to marry him, Fayne Rabb.”

  “But I thought you were engaged to him and I thought you broke it off.” Was she engaged to him? Kisses arid but not here (in London) quite so full of desert heat and blinding wilting sand, met hers. Her mouth lifted and kisses bent and flowered upon it. The warmth of the tropic hybiscus red of George Lowndes was somehow tempered, somehow lost in this thing. The fog that drifted, that lifted, the late winter (or the early spring) bride veil of glistening, glamourous mist. “I love the mist, the fog. It seems I never was so happy.” Kisses nullified her, nullified her pain, there was no pain in her heart. She had forgotten simply. In London the desert sun was modified and the hyacinths lifted simply. Mist and glamour and the annihilating beauty. George Lowndes was beautiful. Here people did not laugh at George. People asked his opinion, a little reverently. It was funny watching people reverencing George. He had done a book on Dante and Provence and Renaissance Latin poetry. Georgio in London. His odd clothes not so odd, his little brush of a beard and his velvet coat and his cravats like flowers in mosaic of maroon and green and gilt and odd vermillion. George didn’t look odd though he looked more odd than ever. People seemed to understand, did not waste time commenting on his clothes. Said, “George Lowndes, odd fellow . . . he has a flair for beauty.”

  Georgio had a flair, had always had it. George being tender, thoughtful suddenly. “Getting enough to eat, Undine?” “O lots. Yes.” “I make a point of looking up old Mrs. Towers once a week to find out.” “Yes, George. She tells me when you drop in. She adores you.” “Had a room once years ago in my affluent days when we crossed with my damn aunt who just won’t pass out.” “O George. Don’t let poverty depress you.” “It ain’t my own exactly—” “Then whose is it?”

  George seemed to be on the point of telling her something and the studio was empty. It was really empty and the floating veils of the floating laughter and people’s funny clothes that yet looked right in London and their hostess, Katherine Farr. Katherine Farr whom they admired and a little despised with her huge circulation, with her one or two novels a year, all good, all a little better than anyone else’s and yet not good enough for them. Katherine was so kind, had paused especially to ask her. People were kind. “I want you especially to wait on. I want you and George to stay and have some supper.”

  Hermione had stayed with George in Katherine’s studio and it seemed perhaps the most beautiful of many, many beautiful studios, of many lovely afternoons that turned at a breath to evening and then turned (like Danaë in her sleep) to night. Mist and night and dawn took on significance. They held here personality, were people. Four o’clock was a person who entered somewhat briskly, five o’clock was announced in a hushed ambassadorial whisper. Six, seven and eight. Nine, ten and eleven. Was it the way clocks struck, muffled under mist like bells beneath sea water? The castle under the sea that Walter played to them in Clichy here took form, was something. People came and went but the people had less personality than hours, than things. Was it all haunted, here under the sea? England. Had anyone ever, could anyone ever have loved as she did?

  “People come like hours and hours transform themselves to people.” “Which hours? Which people?” “Well that frump on the New Era for example it seems to me must be three o’clock. A lost hour, an hour that’s somehow lost, hasn’t a lover.” “Yes. Three o’clock is somewhat that.” “I think of Mary Dalton as somehow always just about eleven. Something hectic before mid-night. An illicit extra cock-tail (but that’s not the time for cock-tails). What do I mean? I don’t associate her with wine but she sets me shaking as if I had been upset, as if someone had offered me a crème-de-menthe instead of early morning tea.” “Rather neat that.” “Katherine Farr here with her solid novels and her income and her kindness seems some inevitable but somehow rather stern hour. Which is it? Is it nine and all the day before one at a hard desk?” “Poor Katherine.” “You could make her, do, into something odd, a little quaint. She might be sometimes the hours moles crawl (she seems like a mole with eyes) out thinking it is night but finding dawn. Just as dawn breaks yet hadn’t the courage of its flowering.” “Katherine on the whole is the best fellow of the damn lot.” “I didn’t say she wasn’t. Perhaps that’s just it. I want her to like me. I feel somehow she doesn’t.” “But she goes out of her way. Asked you to stay this time.” “Yes, isn’t that a little guilty complex? She doesn’t really like me. She looks at me and thinks why don’t I like the little American Her Gart? She looks and wonders. She sees I’m not very old nor very horrible. She can’t say I’m actually a viper. She wants some excuse for her slight bewilderment. I’m apparently a nice girl and I’m living alone in Portman Square and it sounds a bit fishy about my expecting (perhaps) my mother soon to join me. She thinks I’m nice and I don’t do things nice girls do. This for instance.” “Katherine doesn’t know you do this.” “Yes, she does. Everybody does. Somehow everything one does here is everybody’s property
. I know and feel she must know. Why did she ask me to stay on here with you?” “Perhaps I asked her to.” “Does that alter it? Would a nice girl do it?” “Well we were—I mean—we—” “We were engaged. Whats that got to do with it? Its just the one reason according to ordinary standards I shouldn’t do this.” Famished and forgetting she lifted hyacinths to George’s kisses.