Asphodel

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

  A goddess is a god less—where did that come from? God and goddess, God and god less—what was going on, round and round and round and there were no two ways about it, you had to be in it or out of it and going on and on and on at Delia’s was stagnation, was not her work, was not her world. She didn’t believe in it, didn’t believe in those hard lipped women (O God forgive me) who worked like that not knowing what love was, not knowing what life was. It was different with Delia but Delia was noblesse oblige and Delia anyhow was older, was that other generation, like Lillian Merrick, just old enough to be a very young mother to her or an elder sister. Delicious older sister. She had never had one. They weren’t, it appeared, delicious. Relatives weren’t. But Delia was a sort of older sister but you couldn’t keep it up, half here, half there, half seeing that Delia was right and being sorry that they had lost sons and the other half saying but damn, damn, damn, why did you let them go, why did you let them go? You have lost sons but what have they lost, what have we lost? Sweet life, sweet life that was over sweet, life, life, life . . . is life so light a treasure? How do you feel when the guns go, clutching at life? Life, life, life, they wore it like a white flower to be tossed away. O but you gave them life. I know, mothers, mothers, mothers. But I am a mother. I mean I am not, was not. Don’t let them get you. Who is that boy, French? Someone was asking if the boy was French but everybody knew he wasn’t and someone else said “I thought he was Windsor dele Terre back from Rome.” The boy in the blue wasn’t dele Terre—(half English whom they had all, in the old days, known) but another boy, a stranger, speaking American, in horizon blue, speaking American. “An American fighting for France.” He was an American fighting for France. There were all sorts of Americans. The room going round and round and round and the boy wore his light flower, his life so lightly pinned, so lightly to his horizon blue coat, pinned so lightly. O God don’t let the flower fall out, the flower of his life, who is he anyway? He was a friend of Louise’s, an American fighting for France, permission leave. God, look at them wearing their flowers so lightly. Who are we to be good or bad. What is good or bad for a woman? One thing. The boy with one arm seemed to protest by the very fine slender line of his attenuated child shoulders that there was one way of being good for a woman. Through the smoke, the cigarettes, the glasses ringed on the table and the glasses (little islands of glasses) on the carpet, one frail boy seemed to protest. He was a child really. He had had a nice mother, a young sister. He was too much a child—O God, let me not see. Let me dance on the walls, for Troy is burning, Troy town is down. Where is Delia? But she isn’t so beautiful. Americans can’t stand such glare, such strain, they’re too slim, go out like lamps. Something that had made Delia beautiful was gone. Delia would go on, go on, and then some day they would be surprised when she stopped going on. She was too brittle, Americans were, to stand too much of this. Race. But there’s a different physique, you couldn’t stand too much if you were an American. You saw it all, saw them all, Troy town and the flutes were playing. They were dancing on the walls of Athens; let the Spartans in, for what is life, sweet life that was over sweet? Life is a white flower, a red flower, to be worn becomingly, to be tossed away. Horizon blue. An American fighting for France.

  Who are we fighting for? What are we fighting for? Well anyway I’m Darrington’s wife, they’ll give me a little pension. O God, why don’t they all go home now? Can’t they see that we’re all tired but they seem to love staying, the boy with one arm, looks and looks and looks . . . what does he see against the wall? What does he see between the books, the other side of the curtains the uneven, untidy rows of books are making? Does he see what I am seeing, what I used to be seeing, the days long ago, 17, 17, 17. Seventeen was long ago but even in seventeen Darrington had plunged in suddenly from the north of England, from his training camp, had plunged in, running his hands along the books as if they were some sleek cat’s back, running his hands over separate books like so many loved kittens. He never took books out now. He said Browning was a bore, he was of course, was he? Fortù, Fortù, my beloved sit here and the gaudy melon flower. What was the boy seeing looking at the books? Was he seeing the books or beyond the books? Going on and on and on. Over the top, certainly, and certainly the best of luck. Napoo fini. Fini la guerre. Napoo fini everything, Fini la guerre, nothing. It would never be. Might as well dance, who was one anyhow to prate of virtue? Going on and on and on, only I wish Florient wouldn’t sit on Captain Trent’s lap, after all he is a gentleman and he treats us somehow (some of us) like what the boy with one arm would have called “ladies.” Gentlemen and ladies, ladies and gentlemen, let me show you the prize secret of the universe, an elephant with two trunks, a fat lady with a beard, a duck with two heads. Monsters. Were they all monsters? No use living in two worlds, got to choose, going on and on but how can I choose, Darrington (lieutenant Darrington) is my husband. Did you know? Look at me, look at me, tall thin emaciated child with one arm, I know, I understand. I feel. I am. I am all those things you stare at. Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Over the top . . .

  “Why can’t we have some more drinks?” “Drinks. Drinks. You know as well as I.” They were bickering like a navvy and a pub keeper’s wife. Life was like that. You wore life like a white flower to be tossed aside. But she had so tossed it. She had given her life. She was already dead. She felt so sorry for those others who weren’t dead. If only the boy would know that she was dead too. If only he would stop staring at the books, thinking he was the only one. “What, another raid? O damn. I did want some sleep. Best clear out before the damn thing starts.” It was late. Let them stay and they would stay all night. O go away. Can’t you see how I’m dead, tired, dead tired. Can’t you see I’m dead—tired—dead-tired—tired—dead—go home.

  It seems to me I can feel her wings. She is somewhere. She endured. She spills rose petals from her wings and the petals drift down the marble steps of the temple, not of the Louvre, no, I suppose they’ve wrapped her up in excelsior and put her in the cellar. Certainly they would. All the Louvre galleries empty. I had never till this moment thought of all those empty galleries. Must have been the boy in blue, the boy blue, little boy blue—horizon. On the horizon. The far horizon. She stands on the far horizon, though they must have locked her up in the cellar to keep her out of harm’s way, they did care the French. Did they care? O they did care. One felt that, one felt that they (who were left of them) cared. Cared. Pro patria. “What were you saying, darling?” Darrington said, what were you saying and when he said “darling” she remembered that Darrington had wandered bare-foot under the olives, silver olives, olive silver Sirmio. He had loved olives, olive silver, O sister my sister, the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, will you yet take all Galilean but this thou shalt not take. No, no. This thou shalt not take. It was standing, tall and unimpressed, waiting only for a moment to float downward. It was standing on a niche of the Acropolis, that is where it was, it wasn’t in the Louvre any more, it was standing on a ship prow, somewhere a ship had her standing, Nike of Samothrace was standing. “Victory.”

  “What were you saying, darling?” “Darling” brought something with it. It was that Naples faun that held the wine jar or was it the marble bronze of the moss-green Narcissus? Was Narcissus still standing in the Naples gallery, with his naif yet so sophisticated gesture, his hand lifted, his head bent forward? Bronze that had been burned as they were burned beneath lava, smoke, ashes, dust, death, years, obliteration. Self of self was so buried. Who had said “darling”? Hermione leaned standing against the table, leaned standing and leaned staring. Who had said what? Who was she? Where was she? Moss green of a small bronze that had been unearthed and was still unpolluted? Should she be the same underneath, after it was all over? Would she be the same, herself the same, a statue buried beneath the kisses of the war, no, beneath the kisses of her husband? Did husband, “my husband” make it any better? What was she going to do, say? What would she think? Her thoughts were not her thoughts. They ca
me from outside. But everyone was like that now, exalté, hungry, it was wonderful not wanting to eat, not worth it, exaltation. Exalted. They were exalted. “Mademoiselle could not drown her exaltation in the dead sea.” A French man had said that but she couldn’t now remember. Someone was coming toward her. “Jerrold.”

  “How did you think the party went?” “Has it gone?” Why did she say that? It was a sort of cheap rejoinder, not worthy. Voices in the street. Someone might be returning. People had a way of straggling back for forgotten cigarettes, cases or lost papers or bits of uniforms, “I say Darrington, my word, I’ve left my” (whatever it was) “with you.” Did they make excuses to come back? People, people, people. People loving Darrington. Did they love Hermione? Darrington’s laugh. If only she were more robust, stronger. People loved Darrington. Boy in Blue, boy in khaki. Why do you love Darrington? All the men loving all the men and who could blame them, “you people don’t understand a thing about it.” No, they didn’t understand, knew nothing of the war, scrounging bread off Fritz. Did they really scrounge bread, why did they say such horrible things, “the whole place stank of Fritzes.” One came to accept such statements, over the top. You see, Troy town was down. Town, down. You see there isn’t any use struggling against Darrington for a world away, a world away, a world away the Winged Samothracian Victory is waiting. O if I would die and be out of it. What good is the food after you do get it, waiting in line with filthy devils, really hungry people who do care, do awfully care, after all, we’ve fed our faces all our lives and the things are so filthy when we do get them, they’re no use. Over the top of Troy town. Someone had returned.

  “Who’s scratching?” “I don’t know. Don’t let’s open.” “But we can’t leave them there. It might be Captain Trent.” “Damn. Trent’s business isn’t now ours.” “Why not?” “Are you mad? He’s an Irish rebel—” “So’s Merry.” “That’s different.”

  4

  One had to admit it was different when one opened the door and saw her standing like a stage-set, all perfect, like a good curtain call, her strange mauve and old gilt gown making a picture of her. Merry was tall (though she sometimes seemed so tiny) standing against the velvet black drop curtain that was the black-black of the raid-darkened hall. “O, it’s Merry.” She was standing and now in a moment something in Hermione took fire, took flame. Something flamed up in Hermione like the white flame, the white flower boys wore now (invisible to but few of the rest) fastened to their blue or dark-blue or horizon blue or fawn brown uniforms. Merry. “O it’s Merry.” And in speaking Hermione felt something flame up in her, a ghost, a ghost of long ago and a strange poignant hurt that Mary (it was Mary then and Maria della Trinità) had given her. Her name was Princess Lointaine then and Maria della Trinità and that was long ago across a chasm and George Lowndes with his kisses, his scape-goat kisses was out of it, but you couldn’t say Merry was. Names, people. People, names. Merry came from across the chasm the other side, gold daffodils, someone reading poetry, things that weren’t any more true. Names make people. People make names. Her smile was the same jasmine white ghost thing that that flower was, that invisible flower that boys wore pinned so lightly. The flower of Merry’s smile was ghost-jasmine, she wasn’t alive really. Was she alive? How had she got there? Why did she stand there? She hadn’t rung the front bell downstairs. “How did you get in?” “Some of the people from the top-floor were rushing back from somewhere.” “O it’s those munition workers doing night shift. They have the top floor.” But why tell Merry that? Who were girls having the top floor, doing night shift while the rest of them danced and the glasses made islands and the boy with one arm stared and made her heart leap and fall down (a fish half dead that leaps on dry land) and her soul reach out, reach out saying look my white flower is as white as yours but she hadn’t, didn’t say it. “Wh-aats—up?” It was Darrington. Merry walked forward. She walked as an actress who has had her cue. She would, it was apparent, fall forward at the right moment into one of the big chairs. Her cue would be step to right, stagger unsteadily, fall gracefully. But she hadn’t spoken her lines yet. Darrington was standing. Hermione was standing. Take two paces to the right, pull the curtains that are already pulled for there is a faint rumble (a stage rumble) far and far and far. Stage rumble. It reminded her of a melo-dramatic Civil War play that she had seen as a school girl. Rushings, uniforms blue and grey. “They are firing on Richmond to-night.” That play was called “Shenandoah.” What was this? On leave? Permission. Take your choice ladies and gentlemen for we can’t choose the parts we play but we can name our own show. Call it “Permission.” Damn good show. They are firing on Richmond to-night. Troy town was obviously down. “Whaat-s—up?”

  “Rather tired, that’s all.” Merry sat in the chair, she didn’t stagger but this didn’t seem right. She had come to say something, wasn’t saying it. Why did she stare white and white, jasmine-white? “Old Trent?” Darrington was a brute. You could see that Darrington was a brute. It couldn’t be possible that he said it and it hadn’t happened. They were in the wrong play. They are firing on Richmond to-night. This was the wrong play. They should be wearing crinolines, being Southern ladies, all made up crinolines, on with the dance let joy be unconfined. Soldiers weren’t real. There were boys wearing flowers but they were different. Darrington wore no flower. He would not be killed. You could tell when they would be killed for the flowers were white and ghost-white and white and jasmine white and the fragrance of the flowers reached you across dead Fritzes, across bread scrounged, across scrounging and billets and tight places and Mademoiselle in the family way. There were flowers and soldiers. The boys were flowers. Darrington was a soldier but why if he now felt it that way couldn’t he have gone in the beginning? Captain Trent (pre-war Captain) was at least a real soldier not this pretence and was it true that Darrington had got the gas-helmets when he was a runner (a private, Private Jerrold Darrington 171892 and the rest of it, how often she had written it) was it true that he had got the officers out of a “tight place,” someone said he had done something decent but he was a runner and got somewhere and there was a gas attack and they sent him back for his commission. Maybe it was true. Private Jerrold Darrington and what difference now? What difference now? She liked him better then and the men (navvies) had called him Jerry and now things were different and things were different and the things were different. “Old Trent?” Who exactly was he? They are firing on Richmond to-night.

  There was death and they had died a certain death and Jerrold hadn’t. Had Merry absolutely died? She seemed in a state of just not-understanding, for so little she would understand, what was it that was lacking? The story was all right. The story had body, continuity, unity, all the things the right sort of impossible story would have. All the stories now were of a low level of art but they made good stories. Life is, isn’t it, damn bad art, but who had said that? It was the sort of thing Darrington used to say but didn’t any more say. Darrington with his “to the chaste all things are unchaste” and Darrington to the rescue and his Theseus like a sea-rock with the weeds still clinging and his Astraea like a star, a child . . . where was that Darrington? There was a chasm, a split, the volcano had so split them and across the other side candles were flaring up and George was reading and it was George saying, “almost thou persuadest me to be a heathen.” People didn’t say things like that, anyway they were silly things to say, but why should they? Why be démodé, it wasn’t à la mode any more to be witty, it was Fritz and Fritz and such vile repetition and his breath breathed into her lungs was that curious death and that curious emanation. He had been in a gas attack for his breath breathed into her lungs bit and burned and she coughed violently after he had gone, thank God that time, he had been hurried up north again, up north, his commission and a little pat from somebody though he was only 171892 for all he was a navvy with the navvies, Jerry, a navvy but rather nice coming back rather brown, rather nice if his breath hadn’t been filled with gas, making her cough, maki
ng her cough. Cough. Across a chasm there were candles and daffodils and the hydrangeas that had lifted porcelain blue and wedgwood blue and delft blue and porcelain white and porcelain Sèvres china, Dresden china pink. There is always a tulip on Dresden and sometimes an iris. Flowers on china. Merry was like that, French rather, the Irish were when you came to think of it, after you had had your full dose of England. Merry was like that. Merry already looked different, it took her no time at all to recover. The jasmine had faded from her lips. There was the old pre-chasm red and fox-red though now it had faded to the burnt pale hectic colour of fire swept leaves. She was burnt out, pale in her burning. But there was no jasmine. She was not yet ghost. Merry was sitting there and talking quite naturally. These stories were so natural. “They met us at the corner and Ned said I was to leave him. I don’t know where they took him.” This had happened before. It was always happening. Plain clothes men like some odd, old pre-chasm detective story. Sherlock Holmes. Doctor Watson. All, all those incredible, impossible things had come into life. Life had found its level and those things were on its level. “He asked me to come here. He said Hermione will understand.” Hermione looked at Merry. She did understand. Merry was no ghost jasmine. Colour came back, blue eyes, that looked blue, blue, blue, the delft-blue, the porcelain blue of conservatory hydrangeas. She was not a real flower, not an orchid though her mauve and gold gave her quality, gave her frailty. Was she frail? Didn’t she burn simply where life burned? Didn’t she cultivate Hermione for the life that burned about her? What did Merry see in Hermione? “What are you staring at, seeing?” Merry was staring, her eyes staring. Blue. Blue. “You look—odd.” “I feel odd rather. Nothing the matter. Odd simply.” Hermione was odd. She wasn’t in it, wasn’t out of it. She didn’t love Merry Dalton, didn’t hate her. She couldn’t condemn poor Trent, though she couldn’t wholesale admire him. It was stupid and the guns had stopped. There was something in the uncanny odd quiet of it, the streets quiet, no (however distant) rumble, no whistles nor rumbles, things you don’t think, in London, you are hearing but which (in London) you miss when they stop. As if a heart stopped simply. “Somethings stopped.” “It’s the guns.” “Yes. It must be.” Darrington was pulling the other couch out from behind the screen that shut their enormous room into sections. The other big couch would do for two of them. Which two? What was this? What was her mind doing? People thought like that those days. Thoughts came from outside like swallows suddenly appearing, wheeling, appearing, wheeling, turning. Spring and the swallows of her freedom. Birds. “O Merry. Yes do stay.” Darrington was already beginning to remove bits of himself, a belt, bits of things, a belt. The leather belt lay where he flung it among the ring of glasses. Ring. A ring. Ring around a rosy. A ring. A ring. A ring. Brides of God. What kind of a bride? Of God. What kind of a God? O yes, pretend. Don’t think. You are so tired, take Merry into your bed. They can arrange it after you have gone to sleep. Swallows were dipping and wheeling and this world was not real and she had left her husband on the rocks at Capri . . . swallows had reeled and Odysseus had turned that corner for the Syren voices . . . voices . . . voices . . . almost (not quite) Hermione could hear voices for the food wasn’t worth eating when you got it and “O do stay Merry. O of course, it’s too late. You can’t go home now and you can’t sleep in the kitchen. There’s an extra munition worker in the little old room we used to have at the back. Stay here.” “How wonderful. How beautiful.” Darrington went on undressing. “O yes. If you want one.” Merry didn’t want a night dress. She pulled off the mauve and old gold and she was gold and mauve underneath. “I don’t take up much room.” “I don’t take up much room either and the couch is wide. Are you all right Jerrold?” Jerrold out of delicacy seemed to have removed bits only, rolled in his great coat. He was simply “rolling in” as people did nowadays. People didn’t sleep, pulled off bits of things and Hermione pulled off bits of things. Darrington seemed to be asleep. “Who’ll blow out the last candle? But it must be almost day. Goodnight.”