Asphodel

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

  6

  Hysteria suppressed goes to the head like wine, but all the same this was more than she bargained for, for the thing about her wrist was real, she knew the corner of the street, the name of the street, the name of the other rectangular street and she knew where she was but a gold circlet had clasped her wrist, just one gold circle, just the circle of fingers, not hurting, just catching her wrist as she lifted her hand to straighten her hat, for she thought out of the fog someone looming toward her looked familiar, but it wasn’t. . . anyone she knew. All the same this was a very clear thing, not anything she had made up. It might be that I’m hungry. We are all hungry. Is God hungry? Did God being hungry have hallucinations like they had or was this something different, quite other, out of another world? For it was outside herself. . . what happened.

  Hermione turned the corner (on the way home from Euston) in the fog and noted the names of streets and thought, yes I promised Mrs. Lechstein that I’d stop in for she was worried and asked me if I thought we could manage to put some of Lechstein’s things down in our cellar. They always seemed to hit near us, near her, but we were safer as we were the other side of the great square where the little plaster Flora had spilled her plaster flowers and that is why they had come here. She and Jerrold had come because the plaster Flora was like the real Flora (but was it a robed Ganymede?) but you know the one in the Signora’s garden at Amalfi. The one that spilled things, fruits or flowers, girl or boy, and the oranges had dropped petals and star-blossoms and the scent was paradise. So every time you (or she) saw the plaster Flora, blossoms spilled, they did really but in imagination like the carpet that had spread (this early morning) under her bare feet, the feet Darrington had for a moment caught in his hunter’s palm and she hadn’t found the words for Darrington. A message, a signal that should have flared, didn’t flare and it was over the top . . . over the top . . . was she over the top? For this thing was real and she looked at her wrist pulling back the sleeve that had slipped back into place. As the wide sleeve had fallen from her uplifted arm (as she lifted her arm to straighten her hat, thinking it was someone looming out of the fog, but it wasn’t) a space had been left free, free against the chafe and rub of thick sulphur fog and that naked space of meagre wrist had been caught for a moment but it wasn’t imagination. Someone, something had caught her wrist at the corner of Guildford Street and Old Queen’s Square, that old street, for the Lechsteins lived two houses below and she was remembering that Milly Lechstein, now that Isaac was gone, wanted to keep the statues safe, treated them all like so many babies. Milly Lechstein loved the statues. Isaac was gone. Jews loving beauty. No country. Like Hermione no country. But she had a country. She had a husband. This thing out of the fog that placed a bracelet about her meagre wrist . . . my husband . . . the gods, you see, were alive. The mist was full of shapes and odd looming creatures and you never knew in the darkness (day dark or night dark) what might or mightn’t loom up at you. This place was blanketed down and it was wrong about their treating the war like a mid-night revel. It was wrong and it was the other way round, the war was treating them like dolls and puppets and painted dolls and she had painted her cheeks but had managed to smudge it off afterwards and she was glad it smudged off for out of the mist someone had caught at her, caught at her. She was no Penelope. Cassandra maybe. She had known he was there. But he had never taken form before, never taken her wrist, caught it, made a circle of fire about it, so that even now with her arm hanging naturally, under her coat, she could feel, feel . . . did it mean Darrington wouldn’t come back? What did it mean? There are no fields of asphodel this side of the grave. But there are. There are. Must go in. This is Milly’s and I said I would. But I don’t want the responsibility for the things, can’t have it. The statues are live things to them, they love them and Isaac is gone into a sort of kosher regiment, but all the same in it, gone, in it over the top . . . I must have it now, must see it now, the bracelet. But when she pulled out her thin wrist as if to examine a wrist watch that wasn’t there, small wrist bone showed, flesh looking phosphorescent under that half light. Night and day. Night and day. Death and life. And Lechstein’s famous statues . . . “Milly. Yes. I know it’s too early or too late for lunch or tea. What time is it? Let me have something. You darling. How right and simple they all look. I’m glad you didn’t send them away. Keep them here. Don’t go scattering the things all over London. The risk’s too great. Yes. No. No. Yes. Gone back. Yes. Yes. When is Isaac due over? Gone back. No. Nobody’s fault but we don’t want them smashed. Don’t be so nervous for the statues.” War. War. War. Statues. Imagine it’s going on, going on . . . in France. All London a night club. Over the . . . over the . . .

  He looked at her in a curious quizzical way and she had seen him before but where had she seen him? He loomed at her across the room, out of the room among the statues, someone not in khaki, not in horizon blue, coming simply toward her, had he been there all the time? She didn’t seem to notice things. “Have you been here all the time?” He smiled at her. Where had she seen him? He was a stranger but she had seen him. Was it at her own house at one of those ribald parties? She couldn’t remember, facing him, while Milly bustled with some trouble below stairs and bells ringing and he was looking at her. Things had happened, were happening, were going to happen but he was like a mist of gold dust, flower dust in that meagre room furnished with nothing but Lechstein’s statues and the few low stools, the low stool she was seated on and another or so and nothing in the beautifully proportioned room, big room full of statues and the day and the night merged here, was it morning or afternoon? He was speaking to her and she had seen him before and certainly at one of her own parties and he was asking her to come out to lunch as he believed Milly would forget them, wouldn’t remember them, she was always in trouble, it would be someone to collect a bill and he had only come on business. He was asking her to go out to lunch with him and as Milly came back, he said he believed it would be all right and he was paying Milly, it appeared, for the statue, someone’s bust, some friend of his, a commission from long ago, but he had been away and would she see that the thing went straight to Cornwall? He was paying in a lordly manner for a statue and one did pay for Lechstein’s statues sometimes, it seems, and he went on talking and how had he got there? Had he been there all the time? “Isaac wants to do your head,” and Hermione smiled at Milly but she couldn’t imagine what a head of hers would look like now, now that she was gone . . . over the top. Had she a head? Milly was appealing to the other person, “wouldn’t it be interesting,” and he was assenting of course, he was politely assenting. “I must take Mrs. Darrington out to lunch. Promised I’d not be late,” as if it was arranged but she had not come here to meet this person, what was his name, Vane, now she remembered, wealthy, heart trouble, dabbled in the arts, helped Lechstein. She had met him here at Lechstein’s and she had had him among others at her house, their house, over the top . . . Vane. Cyril Vane. Wealthy. How marvellous to be wealthy. “Yes. I promised Mr. Vane.” What had she promised? Milly was tactful, thought they had arranged to meet, had they arranged to meet? Why had she turned into Milly Lechstein’s this morning, why had that swerve made her mount the steps and the gold bracelet, all in a dream and now she was seated in a restaurant, where was it? Late in the afternoon, over coffee, coffee, good coffee. Her clothes were shabby but there was something Victorian and “genteel” about it for the right kind of woman looked shabby now and Vane with his distinction and his pallor might have been an officer, a wounded officer on leave. Everyone rushed about, made a fuss, how were they to know it was only heart-trouble and he had never been in it? How were they to know that his words came right with no merging and blurring of filth, no “Fritz,” no “that’s the stuff to give ’em.” People didn’t talk that way, not officers and gentlemen, only Darrington, but after all, he was her husband and she was no Penelope. “Quaint of old Milly to call you that.” “Me? What.” “Shouldn’t have thought she could have so far penetrated—
” “Me?” “Didn’t she? Or did I dream it. Morgan le Fay.”

  7

  Then staring in the mirror she saw herself, saw herself, yes, she was somehow dehumanised and he was seeing it and Milly Lechstein had seen it, saying in that funny way, “you look like Morgan le Fay, Mrs. Darrington.” Milly called her Mrs. Darrington. What did Cyril Vane call her? O obviously Mrs. Darrington. He would call her Mrs. Darrington. Who was Mrs. Darrington? Mrs. Darrington was a bit of earth and someone, someone else had stepped out of Mrs. Darrington. Mrs. Darrington was a trench, wide and deep and someone else had stepped out and was out and wasn’t Mrs. Darrington. Across a room that swam in a delicious haze, a haze that was made of gold on pale gold, the wine gold, the odd straw-gold of the head opposite, sleek head bent forward, head undimmed by powder, by explosive, by gas, by green and green and red flares falling across wastes of barbed wire and dead Fritzes, head bent forward, some god had set a head there in a restaurant (imagine it but I know you can’t quite realize it) in that odd 18, 18, 18. Do you know what I mean? In 1918 there was one head, gold head, a tall stalk held up a gold head though the head dropped forward with odd pre-chasm affectation, a head on a frail long stalk, like some great yellow pear but heavy on its tall, very tall stalk. A head that was gold that caught glint of gold from the light reflected down from the rose-lamp and the wine had been gold and now gold from within and gold from without made a sort of halo, a sort of aura of light as if they were on a stage (all the world’s a stage) and the spot light had them, the spot light in all that dreary waste of London held them and so held, so caught, Hermione must dutifully consider, look, see what it was that was held, consider what it was, lift her glass to it, far and far and this was something pre-chasm, wine didn’t any more do things to you. But this did. This was pre-chasm, something different, they thought he was wounded, an officer, wounded and they had brought out this—pre-chasm. You tasted grape and grape and gold grape (can you imagine it?) and gold on gold and gold filled your palate, pushed against your mouth, pushed down your throat, filled you with some divine web, a spider, gold web and you wove with it, wove with it, wove with the web inside you, wove outward images and saw yourself opposite smiling with eyes uptilted, smiling at something that had crept out of Mrs. Darrington, small, not very good, looking at you in a glass, tall, very tall, not very good, divine like a great lily. Someone, something was looking at something and someone, something was smiling at someone. Wine went to your brain and you knew there was no division now and there was someone, one left, just one left like yourself who was dead and not dead who was alone and not alone. We know each other when we see each other, people like us. We were two angels with no wings to speak of, with the angelic quality that comes, that goes, that will come, that will go. His was youth and his own thwarted health, making him look gold on gold with that odd pallor that made gold on gold ray out almost visibly from his forehead. He was wealthy and his clothes were pre-chasm and it was obvious to anyone looking at them that everything was all right for he was a gentleman, therefore he must be an officer, therefore she must be—but why go on and on and on and on with this thing? Cigarettes made her one with every beauty she had forgotten, days and days and nights. He was talking of Rome, he loved the Spanish steps, he had always wanted a little room, two rooms, something small and something (as he put it) 1860ish. She could see the 1860 candelabra, the light and glisten of it, the many facets of the candelabra and the old arm-chair and the tall blue blue vases on the over-ornate mantel. And then all redeemed by elegance and marble of that regal period and then the almond blossom from the campagna (in February) would bank up against that mirror, that other mirror where she could almost see herself looking, smiling . . . candles.

  Go back further and you saw him, Etruscan with his thin face. His face was thin and his shoulders that broad thinness that you see in Egypt. Egypt, a honey-lotus looked at her and already she had forgotten the dead body, the Mrs. Darrington she had left long ago, on a bed, on a wide grave. Someone had stepped out and put a foot upon a carpet and someone had broken cyclamen horns and cyclamen fragrance had assailed the nostrils and cyclamen had dripped across roofs, across station platforms, the frail incense of it had wavered and men, men, men, men had lifted heads, sniffed this rare thing; men, officers had lifted heads but that was the other side, the other side of the river, of the Styx, where they all were, all drift of ghosts and she was this side, had simply by her own acumen, discovered this side and the odd thing was there was someone this side with her. Of course, she was a little drunk, wine went to your head for the food was good enough of its kind, but food wasn’t food, it was odd things, fricassee that didn’t taste of anything but the coffee was black, black. The cigarette was the incense and the wine was the wine and the body opposite her the sacrifice. She could eat that body, devour it, it was gold, it was honey-comb and the wine was good and she was quite happy, had never been so happy. A wreath crowned her head, violets and he was talking, talking, saying nothing, talking the way people, charming people, used to do, about Rome, about books, saying things that Darrington had forgotten, saying things . . .

  He would go on saying things. He was a lump of amber and Hermione had only to look and look or to rub her palm across that smooth surface and electric sparks would answer her, warm her, light her. God sends things to people. He had caught her wrist. Was this God? or messenger of God? Was this some manifestation of the force that caught her wrist (with Darrington gone) . . . it was Cyril Vane. Hermione had seen him before. Had not seen him before. He had been one of a little group, had come, had gone, seen him somewhere else as they did, drifting in and out. Gold. Like a great pear. “Has Darrington gone back yet?” She would tell him Darrington had gone back and then he wouldn’t come to see her. But she would tell him, “Yes, he’s gone back.” Vane would pay the bill, Vane would wait for her to reach, scrubbling about for bag, for gloves, Vane would say good-bye somewhere, somehow, not coming to see her for he wouldn’t as Darrington was in France. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to see him. She wanted to wait, to wait, to watch and to reveal herself to herself watching herself. She would go home, wash the tumblers, get down books. “Thank you for taking me out this afternoon. It’s been the greatest pleasure.”

  But it had been a moment, a dream, a yellow lotus of forgetfulness and it couldn’t hold on into the room, into the smoke, into the lack of coal and now into another leave . . . another leave . . . how they came back, how they came around and the sort of half-state, the sort of Limbo that she was in, that she managed to maintain, not seeing people, reading, sewing a little, had to be broken . . . another leave . . . and she was caught back into her body, caught back into the body of Mrs. Darrington, the person she was, it appeared, still, caught back, held into it, like a bird caught in a trap, like a bird caught in bird-lime, caught and held in it, all the time remembering her Limbo, the state she maintained through weeks, going on and on, not at Delia’s any more, but digging out her books, determined to remember, like the Centurion, to stand guard over Beauty, one soldier over Beauty, while the lava fell and fell and the ashes rose higher to suffocate. Darrington said, “well, why did you?” and she didn’t know the answer to that for she had said, “go ahead” and that meant only one thing for Darrington. How was she to know after it happened, after it kept on happening (Florient had the big room on the second landing for the county dame in the Air Ministry had had to leave London) that she would so care? Did she care? It was worse than caring. It was like having a body and being dead, mercifully, and then someone coming and saying no, you aren’t dead, you are only half-dead, crawl back to your body. Conscientiously she had crawled back to her body, after she had winged out, gold, gold gauze of wings, winging up and up against a rose shaded light (she remembered) and now back in her body (not even comfortable Limbo) and she had been so happy. “I never thought—” “You never thought. Well you might have thought—” He was right. She was wrong. She had not thought in her pride, in her habitatio
ns, in her frank terror of this newest of the new Darringtons that they would (as one used to say) “carry on” to that extent, but why shouldn’t they? Did people in the house know? That was what wracked her, people in munitions, all the people, good people, though she had repudiated good people, repudiated Delia and the Red Cross work and the munitions, still you had to think, had to remember, but Darrington was an officer, so everything was excused him if he wasn’t a gentleman and it went on and it went on. “You’re upstairs so much of the time—” “What did you expect when you so sweetly gave us carte blanche?” “I don’t in the least know what I did expect—” “I should think you didn’t. It’s obvious that you only wanted to get me out of the way—” “Out of the way?” “One can’t be expected to believe in the entire altruism of your scheme.” “Scheme?” “Obvious—” Darrington was huge. He seemed to loom huger and huger each time he came back. He was so huge (but they go that way) that he would soon, it appeared, burst. Horrors of his bursting . . . yes, it was rather good of Florient after all, to take him on, a bargain is a bargain, “no, I don’t want him, take him,” for she wasn’t going on with this sweet to sweet to sweeter, saccharine stuff of Merry Dalton, never never that again. Let it be daggers drawn, she wasn’t one to clutch at that hulk of flesh that had been Jerrold. Hulk of something that was like a bloated great zeppelin but women seemed to like it. Rent him out, lend him about, military stallion. Florient was the right note, chic, pre-war chic, Paris, rue gauche, knowing all about it, he wouldn’t break her, pressing upon her, O let it rip. Let him go, he had gone but what an agony, herself was like a wound, a burn against herself, within herself. Hermione in Mrs. Darrington turned and festered, was it the spirit simply? Trying to get out, trying to get away, worse than having a baby a real one, herself in herself trying to be born, pain that tore and wracked and what was there to do? Yes, my husband’s due again . . . keep it up, one spark of pride. She had nothing against Florient, little bitch, but Florient might have thought of the munition workers. That was all she had against Florient done up in fresh rouge and looking pretty at that. The sort of thing absolutely for him, the sort of touch absolutely. Pre-war—no she wouldn’t say it. She had nothing against the sheen and lustre of Florient with her lips the right red and her cheeks the righter red, peony made up, peony on a lacquered Japanese screen, thin and tall and with that Sienna slant to eyes. Sienna, Siamese slant to eyes. Yes, Darrington couldn’t have done better, had he got her the room or was it true that she had had to move, had had to find somewhere to go, that the horizon blue officer had known Miss Aimes who had the house, that it was he—who had got her the room? In their house? But there were rooms, everybody knew there were rooms, they were free to anyone who could pay the rent. There must be no mystery. Let it be all in the open, the house was turned into a “house,” that simple, by the coming of Florient, the house, her house that she had found, had taken (because of Flora spilling petals) was a “house.” Her house was a “house” now and she didn’t care, didn’t think, for what did it matter? She couldn’t any more go and watch Delia being white and white and the smell of blood on the bandages, she knew she was mad, it was all over everything and no one saw it. Out damned spot. What was there to do? Soul beating and tearing, why don’t you get born? “You’re quite wrong.” “Wrong?” “I mean I haven’t. Have been alone here.” “Who can make me believe that?” “No one. Nothing. It’s the truth. Truth will last—” “Your truth is a—” If he said anything disgusting now, she would tear at his throat. Her hands were thin, were fine but if they met in his bull-throat one or the other would go for her hands would never, never come out of that throat. Her hands were quiet. She was quiet. She was looking at Darrington and it appeared she would soon go—soon go mad. “Darling—” Why did he say that? “What’s come over us?” She didn’t know, couldn’t say. Something had apparently come over them and she was tired and she couldn’t go on getting colds and the coal had at last utterly given out. Wrapped in a coat. Feet drawn up. Looking at each other like two Russian peasants in a Tolstoy novel. Life was Russian. Life was damn bad art.