Asphodel

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

  Drugged and drunk she said she had forgotten. Drugged with the hybiscus colour, with the odd tremors that the clock made striking, striking. Clocks were always striking and the colour of the mist was different. She was sure that each vibration of each clock sent shivers, tremors through the mist. Little paths of light. The bells of Saint Clement’s. Lemons. Not lemon light, silver rather, those high bell notes. Notes, bells . . . who is it in me, what is it in me, hears bells, notes? Morse code . . . Gart formula . . . Walter could you tell me? Bells made forms, notes, pictures were notes and bells made pictures, Walter said, so that he could play when she made a picture (he said) with the two candles against the grey-grey of the Clichy studio walls . . . suppressed, something suppressed that sees the very ring and quiver of the clock notes make strange pattern. O I am so happy. George . . . and people came in after supper and the candles make exquisite daffodils in the great brown studio. One had even understood Katherine Farr in that light. Katherine. Maybe someone, someone somewhere called her Katy when she was little. Katy did Katy didn’t. She was rather like a Katy did, small and compact, some little busy insect, chirping, scraping music out of its legs, not bird music, not frog music even, but music of a sort (everybody’s music of a sort) understanding other people. Yes, Katherine did understand, was not surprised when she had come back, found Her crouched low before the fire. Nothing mattered. Her had done nothing to matter. After all, George’s hybiscus red did make a warm coal glow somewhere in her heart. She had a heart. A red heart. Someone, everyone (who was it?) said she wasn’t like Undine as she had no heart. Who said that? Darrington. But Darrington didn’t matter. It was a pity about Darrington as she liked the Greek books. Darrington who helped her poetry. But what was poetry? George was right, had long ago, been right. You are a poem though your poem’s naught. Why should she have questioned. Striven. George would write for them both. No. She wasn’t any more engaged. Was she? Wasn’t she? Did it really matter? It was something George gave her here in London. The silver of the mist tempered the heat of Georgio. She didn’t any more care though of course she couldn’t marry him. “But you can’t of course marry him.” No, of course, she couldn’t. Ringing, ringing downstairs. She supposed she’d have to put on the lights, tidy her hair, too late to change. But that didn’t matter. People were polite, didn’t stare. People were all right. Even old Mrs. Towers since Lady Prescott (Delia) came to see her. Delia said the place was funny, frightfully “army.” What did “army” mean or “army” matter? Delia said this was and laughed to people in chairs all about, in tiny islands. Bridge. People being discreet. Lady Prescott.

  Nothing mattered, could matter. Light made the room a little common but did that matter (had she been asleep?) a knock and hot water. How funny hot water and no proper running water in the bath room. Baths but real baths not casual rushing in to wash your hands. Water in little pots with a clean towel to keep it warm. A clean towel and all as carefully set and timed as the morning tea-pot with its little fitted muffler. Hot water. Hot tea. All arranged and out of a book and somehow weird and somehow oddly civilized. Little things mattered, not the great things. Things that wracked and tore you were forgotten. Really great emotions were these things, clocks that struck and struck and left a trail of silver. A star on the sea left such a trail of silver. Star. Astraea. But she couldn’t marry. You couldn’t of course marry him. No. Of course not. Hybiscus red and . . . famished hyacinths.

  A volcanic rock shrivelled, opened, cracked, fell and hyacinths were about her, shrivelled, withered as the flowers dropped by Persephone. Riven hyacinths. She hadn’t asked any great thing, just to be let alone. Perhaps that was the great thing. She hadn’t asked nor walked into a volcano head on, seeing it, just for the sake of the sensation. She had been so happy. She thought she had never been so happy. Candles and Katherine Farr being kind. People and faces and all blurred and nobody being a sharp sword or an angel’s sword or any of those steely terrible, beautiful embodied images of stark pain. Pain had vanished. There was no pain. Pain had departed suddenly, had driven herself before it out of Hell. She had risen from Hell as Persephone from the underworld. She had crossed Styx. This was something unlawful. Terrible. This thing that burned in her hand— “the second bell’s been ringing some time miss.” “I’ll be late. I’ll be coming later,” the letter slipped under her door, the letter that had been slipped under her door. Who had slipped this under her door? “Shall I come in and turn the bed down now or later?” Now or later? Now or later? Something had to be done sometime, now or later. “O now.” Yes, now. She would see, Fayne would see, they would all see how she’d act about it. If she could stand up now and re-read the letter her whole life would be different. If she could re-read the letter she would be able to smile, to say yes, no. To say, no. To say, yes. Don’t marry him. Who had said that? Who had ranted (it was that simply) about marriage, talked about biologic necessities? And being beyond that. Who had done it? It was Fayne Rabb simply. It was Fayne who had said one couldn’t possibly marry. O that. What had she meant? What had she said? Why had she said it? “Did you find that extra bodice miss you was wanting?” “O yes. Yes thank you.” She had said yes, thank you. She had lifted her head up casually from the vivid letter and she had said yes thank you. “Who put the letter under the door?” “I suppose it was James, miss.” James, who was James? “O yes.” Yes, she had given James a shilling just the other day. He would see about the letters . . . She had stood out against them, stood out against Eugenia. She had broken with them, given up her summer in the marshes. But she didn’t want the marshes, the canoe sliding like a serpent to her bidding. She didn’t want fire-weed spilling its flower petals. She hadn’t wanted all that. She had had the silver mist, the annihilating beauty. She had felt the peace of nothingness and she supposed she must now pay. The woman pays. She had paid. She was paying. O Darrington, where are you? I sent you away. You were the one person who could understand this. “Yes, tell them I’m coming in a minute.” Darrington would understand this. He had given her books and said her poems were something. You are a poem though your poem’s naught. He hadn’t said that. O yes. Now she saw it. She wasn’t meant to slack and slouch with pretty candles and odd dresses and being nobody, being George Lowndes or was it Darrington? Someone, something wanted her to write. For writing and life were not diametric opposites. “Things like this don’t happen in real life.” That’s what people said when they read novels. But they did, did happen. Things like this did happen. “Listen little idiot, when you get this I’ll be married. An Englishman, a person, not one of your little poetasters. I’ll write you when we get to London . . .”

  11

  The letter burned, vitriolic blue acid in her hand though she hadn’t the letter (had not for some time had the letter) in her hand. The touch of the letter left a scar across the fingers that opened it, scar of burning acid, not of fire, scalding not searing. Scalding and searing. “O Miss Gart. You are too metaphysical.” Bald headed little Chemistry professor catching her up when she wanted to apply his prim formula to the more extensive phases of life, of humanity. One and one and two, and little plus and minus signs and the acid that had broken the test tube and the scars across her wrist, tiny scars that she was rather proud of. Too metaphysical. Not metaphysical enough. Idealists said she was a rank realist and too set and defined in her outlook. Scientists told her off for being idealistic. Must she bow to either judgment? She was herself simply . . . bell notes made patterns in the air that no one could take from her. The blue vitriol of Fayne’s letter had left its scar but on the whole, was she not proud of it? Scar that she hadn’t turned from, wound that she had not repudiated. It was so deep, so terrible that it was almost joy to have it. It was all (had been) so terrible that it had removed itself from the first moment from any possible realm of probabilities, it was drama simply, a rather good drama. It was the second act of a rather second-rate play done by first rate actors. It was the second act (was it the third?) of a somewhat hackneyed but od
d melodrama that was saved from banality by the very casual and perfect manner of the odd producers. The whole thing was in some realm in which reality was suspended while people watched themselves move, speak. They were not real. Their very unreality saved them, saved her. Had it really mattered? It had never mattered: the odd vitriolic blue that had been the burning destructive acid of the letter had almost cauterized the death wound. So deep, so vitriolic that the rest could not matter. Not even the little note afterwards so gracious, so suave in its serenity. The note from this odd person who was (it appeared) would forever be, just Fayne’s husband. The man Fayne had married wrote to her. She had found the letter with a little batch of things that didn’t matter and the letter itself from this odd suave person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband could not matter. Suave like the breath of a stage producer who comes before the curtain to explain his presence. His presence being due (in all these cases) to the absence of the right hand man or prima donna. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret having to inform you . . .” This person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband had suavely countenanced evidently something. “Fayne is worn out with the journey. She misses her mother and has been ill somewhat. She begs me” (when had Fay ever begged anybody anything?) “to explain this. Will you come to our” (our, I ask you) “hotel as soon as you are able. Fayne tells me you have friends, calls on your time. I would appreciate this from you. Fayne has been a little worn . . . ill with excitement.”

  Answering the appeal of this person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband, Hermione had found herself one day in April in a little odd street off Piccadilly, little odd eclectic street like going into a foreign city suddenly and it all coming back, all the odd things and little streets but this was a runny little eclectic street in which to find Fayne Rabb. Tiny cool corridor with a great mirror at the far end from which a person (not herself) paused to re-survey her. Grey person looking cool, looking right in the cool little narrow hall. A table and something, a palm in a tall basket. Baskets spilling flowers. A row under the mirror of potted shrub azaleas. Above azaleas, pink and yellow and flame red a person (not Hermione) paused to look at another person, herself simply. The person who was not Hermione turned from the gaze of the person who so simply was Hermione to answer someone, something, “yes, they’re expecting me. Mrs.— Mrs.—” my God, what was their name? She had forgotten what the name was. Somewhere, somehow someone had signed a name across a page and that name was now the only guarantee that she would find Fayne Rabb. A name she had suddenly and poignantly forgotten. “O,” she couldn’t say “I’ve forgotten what their name is.” These were people who had asked her. She had forgotten their name. Fayne was someone, somewhere in this nice little hotel, everything just right and someone, also just right was waiting by her elbow asking for their name, no it was her name. Hermione looked at the face in the mirror. Would it recall some name? George’s name was George Lowndes, but that wouldn’t do (though he had offered it to her) in this emergency. Whose name? Darrington. Darrington was a good name. The Sussex Darringtons you know. She needn’t tell them that the governor had more or less eloped with a country girl and that Darrington was somewhat in advance of expectations. I mean a seven months’ baby. But damn, he had said, it was barely six. Names. People. Someone might yet help her.

  Someone might yet help her. Would yet help her. Someone from the other end of the cool little right little hall was coming toward her. Someone was coming toward her. Where had she seen him? Familiar droop of shoulders. April in London and someone was speaking to her. A tall person who bent a little and squinted a little into her eyes. A tall person who must bend a little to squint a little into even over-tall Hermione’s wide eyes. He squinted a little (who was he?) and the person at her elbow waited a little and this would go on, was going on for ever. It couldn’t be anyone else but Fayne Rabb’s husband. Well that was that. Now he would tell her his name, tell her her own name. He did this last thing first. “I know, feel it couldn’t be any other but—Hermione.” He said it just right, with the exact amount of interest, the exact inflection. No one had ever said Hermione better than he said it. He said “Hermione” again and this time with a little upward inflection. “Hermione?” He was asking with a little upward inflection if it was Hermione but whether it was or wasn’t could make no difference for he would be sure to redeem himself, to retrieve himself perfectly if it wasn’t. She waited for a moment for as long as she dared wait without telling him it was Hermione. She could pretend it wasn’t but that would be no good for she had forgotten his name. Had by the same logic lost Fayne Rabb. “O yes, yes of course . . .” she felt colour rise, colour across cheek bones, colour for he still held her with his slight squint. Was it a squint or was he winking at her? Of course he wasn’t winking. He was so utterly right, so right in the little hall way. Probably Fay was right then and he was “a person.” He spoke again in that same right voice saying the just-right thing. Now that was rather right of him, very nice of him, “tea upstairs as quickly as you can, for two—I must rush out—in Mrs. Morrison’s bedroom.”

  Fayne Rabb was in a bed, a big bed, a nice bed, a better bed than Hermione had ever seen her in. Fayne was looking at someone who was not Hermione though Fayne (odd little person in a big bed) seemed to think it was Hermione. “O darling—” Darling this. Darling that. What about vitriolic blue letters and a scar across her wrist (no across her breast) that would be there forever? But there was something in this. There was something in the very poignant finality of vitriolic blue. It was a thing final, done for, finished. “Darling—” But she wasn’t having any. A tall person in a wide hat looked at Fayne Rabb on a big bed. It was perhaps Hermione that so regarded Fayne propped up and wearing (for a wonder) a really pretty bed-jacket. “I like your pretty little boudoir jacket.” “Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” “Come to tell you? I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you anything.” “Well after all—this.” “All what?” “O this—all this—” What did Fay conceivably mean by all this? Fayne Rabb lifted her little hand but it was not the hand of Fayne Rabb. It was the hand of something other separated forever now from Fayne Rabb. It was the hand that had waved in its insouciance toward an azalea in a big jar. A plaintive violin was playing (inappositely) the song from Solveig. This was not that. This person that raised a little hand and whose arm stretched magnolia white from a delft-blue bed-jacket trimmed with pretty swansdown was not that one. That person had sturdy knees wound about with straps that held together sandals. Wings on the sandals. Wide breadth of strong and sturdy shoulders. Pygmalion speaking and all the world must listen. All the world must listen when Pygmalion speaks, says what he thinks, all art is this, is that. If Pygmalion could have stayed then with them, but he couldn’t. He was somewhere else safe. He was safe but he was not now here. Fayne’s hand was the hand now of Fayne. It waved vaguely above nice bed-clothes, it emerged from a delft-blue boudoir jacket. That was all simple. The whole thing was so simple. Vitriolic acid had so made it. There was nothing simpler than the simplest of death-wounds. This was not Hermione so this (that was not Hermione) could turn, regard the room about her. Shoes. Whose? What odd shoes on the floor. They were not Clara’s, not Hermione’s. What an odd row of odd shoes, pointed shoes most of them. Brown shoes, patent leather pumps, though he would probably call them something else, being, Fayne had said, so “English” and a “person.” Shoes in a neat row along the opposite wall and shoes untidy along the near wall. “Doesn’t your husband arrange your shoes for you? His own seem to be so neatly put together.” “O my—husband—” “Yes. Your husband. Didn’t you ask me here to meet your husband?” “No. I asked you here to meet me.” “Well anyhow, why doesn’t your— husband arrange your things for you.” “Well, perhaps he thinks I should do it myself.” “What an idea. What a shock for you.” “Yes, isn’t it. Madre always did everything—O-O-O-O—Hermione.”

  Small arms reached out. Were her arms then small? Hermione had thought of Fayne Rabb
as Pygmalion, a little sturdy, a little strong, a little defiant. Who was this reaching small magnolia white arms out toward her? “Can’t you—understand?” “Understand? Understand what, Fayne Rabb?” “Can’t you understand? Can’t you— make—allowances?” “For what? You seem as far as I in my limited way can make out, to have done very well indeed for yourself.” “O don’t be cruel. Don’t, don’t be cynical.” But tea entered . . . Hermione was glad for tea entering. The right sort of tea with the right sort of rose buds on the tea cups. “This is lovely china.” “Is that all you can say?” “What do you, to quote George, in Gawds name want me to say then?” “I don’t—know.” “I should think you didn’t.” Hermione tossed her hat away somewhere, among shoes, she supposed. Her hat would land among shoes, somebody’s shoes and did it matter? Her shoes, his shoes. It was obvious neither row (the neat one nor the untidy one) was ever so remotely connected with anything so indecorous as sandals. Hat on the floor. “Why are you so reckless about your hat? It’s such a pretty one.” “Haven’t you seen a hat since you left Europe?” “Not a really pretty one, Hermione.”

  Pretty hat. Pretty bed-jacket. Pretty tea-cups. What after all, could be more suitable?

  “But I want you to like Maurice.” “But I do like him.” “How can you like him when you’ve never seen him?” “But I have seen him.” “O, you saw him? When? Where did you see Maurice?” “I saw him as I was coming in, in the hall-way.” “How did you know it was Maurice?” “I didn’t. He knew it was me.”

  But that didn’t matter, that would go on for ever, that kind of conversation. It was no good that kind of talk, anyone could do it. But whatever other kind of talk could there possibly be now with Fayne? “I wanted him to like you for I insisted when we arranged about the marriage that you were to be with us.” “Be with you?” “Yes, little fool. What easier. We’ve booked” (booked—Fay was getting on slowly but surely with her English) “the tickets for you.” “Booked. Why couldn’t you say taken?” “Well why should I? All I am is English.” “Since when English?” “Well, I can’t exactly give the moment but we were married in Saint Margaret’s, West Philadelphia, about two weeks since.” “Why Saint Margaret’s, such a swell church, why anyhow at all in such regalia?” “O to please Madre. Some of the wealthy New York cousins coughed up when they knew who I was to marry. It was to their advantage at last to notice my existence.” “What did they give you?” “O things. My gown—for instance.” “Gown?” “Yes, it’s hanging in the cupboard. I’m to put it on tomorrow night for the first time here and you’re all to come to dinner.” “Dinner? Who for instance?” “Well, old George.” “George?” Famished and forgetting Hermione had lifted hyacinths to George Lowndes’ kisses. But you can’t marry him.