Asphodel

by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

  Body now with clean hands, having lain all day on the rocks, having floated across the aquamarine surface of the tide pool, the one you own, your own pool that Vane even, had not gone to, body that has been cleansed in sun, in sea are you ready for its welcoming? Hermione asked this, waiting, knew that the answer was already premeditated. That God had prepared the answer as he had prepared the question in her own mind. God was the answer and the question. God was the lover and the beloved. God was the union of God with God. “If a swallow flies straight in, now without any hesitation, just in here to me, I’ll have it.”

  Classic images here blend with images of Christian beauty. Hermione bent to scrape up the little blue object from the floor. The thing was round and blue and hard, it appeared like any lapis-blue small song-bird clasped in the hand of some Florentine bambino. All images blend here as she bent for it; she bent and took the creature into her hands, into her heart, she was bending, accepting the inviolability of God’s Testament. Why should God ask this? She didn’t know. She knew in the dark sub-consciousness an abyss of unimaginable terror, the pain, the disappointment, the utter horror of the last thing. Swimming on the surface of her mind was something other, different, of some other category than sheer crass experience. Experience had nothing to do with this thing, nor logic nor love even. It wasn’t because of Cyril Vane that she stooped and swept the hard small blue thing from the floor, sweeping it up, its little crab claws sticking like insect claws to a dark leaf. She picked the little creature off the floor and images blend here, Undine, Morgan le Fay, some Florentine Madonna, some nymph whose beauty had been violated on some Delphic shelf. She was good and bad and remote and impossible. You don’t go off to Cornwall in war-time and have babies. You see the manifest impossibility of the thing? Another thing . . . but she would not think of that. Something would happen, must happen, for God so simply had admonished her. God had swept one of his birds inward with a touch of his finger, one of his souls inward . . . “all rather awkward of course, but I’ll hear from Jerrold.” Awkward. She hadn’t any more to speak, to feel. She had forgotten Vane.

  But she must remember Vane. After all, it was his child, if it was his child for how could you say, lying on the rocks . . . it might just be the sun-self loving her. Daemon or angel. The sun was neither good nor bad. Apollyon. But she didn’t accept all of revelation, all that wasn’t in keeping with the other, “thou shalt love the Lord thy God” . . . God had swept across her white clean body and maybe it was the sun-set. People had children like that, daemons or goddesses or devils or mage women. Women in caves, there were caves all around these hills and there had been ancient sun-worship and the stones were still set tilted toward the sun-rise. Things, you see, never die and layers of life were all co-existent, in harmony for that shelf of the coast was empty (in 1918) and she was recalled to another element. However she must remember it was Vane’s child . . . “it was odd. I just put it up to the birds. I know you sympathise a little with my notions, with my birds and following them and finding nests. I thought you’d like to know what I did, what happened.” “What did you do? What happened?” “I went to my room and the birds, swallows, were wheeling outside. I shut the door and opened the little window and I said simply, if a swallow flies straight in I’ll know—I’ll have it.” “Did one?” “Straight in—” “Um-mm—very pretty notion.” “But you—see—I mean—it isn’t just an—idea—” “You mean?” He was looking at her. He stopped stuffing the bowl of his pipe, held the pipe in that long hand, that beautiful hand, now so useless as all of him now was. There was something greater, other, some lover that swept across clean bare limbs that made all one’s soul at one, that loved Morgan le Fay, Undine, and the Madonna alike and called one other names of far distant gods for gods had always (even God) loved women. Light of some Mithraic festal, she knew all about it. Babylon. Assyria. Things alien to her own cult of classic images were yet suddenly all blended, all at one, good and bad alike, welded one in the mystery. Mystery had stooped, had embraced, had welcomed her. Vane did not understand. His hand was lifted, the long white finger like some musician from some temple playing his flute note, arrested in a moment, not playing the flute note and the sacrifice was ready, unpolluted, covered with sea-salt. Vane was seated on the broad couch, a yellow French book (they always had yellow French books) open at his side, his feet rested on the beautiful rug. The room was lined with books . . . piano . . . tables . . . books, books. Hermione had opened a page from a book of Life, a book that was open, that was about one. Mysteries were written in the air and you asked answers of the mysteries and were granted them. “Yes. I mean, it’s some days. It’s some . . . days.” How go on explaining that some days mean nothing and that some days was no indication. Only if you happened to—know. “It’s some days—I mean it’s pretty certain—” How tell him that it wasn’t the “some days” that made it pretty certain but something else, something so different, so other. How explain while he still waited, his hand lifted, his pipe lifted, not furthering the sacrifice. Was she not even to have the sympathy, the interest of some brother priest? But did she now want it? In a flash it seemed his perception could in no way reach her. God had answered swiftly. God would sustain her. The very finger of Vane’s hand as it now fell, was as it were the very thumbs-down to his own predicament. It wasn’t a feeling that a door was shut on her. It was that he had shut a door to the entrance of himself into this fair country. It was a country from which anything might emerge, from which he obviously had no right of entry. Was she alone then? Heart rending, human heart-ache said so. Human heart-ache . . . but she was not human, the body was a mere parchment case, painted nicely, nicely set and fitted. Vane said “why worry till you quite know? In any case it would be pretty awkward.”

  9

  Painted case that had been so hieratically perfect for its receiving became (like the very larva of the future butterfly) now a jelly of vague unrest, of vague forebodings. Painted case so lovely and so calm and so inviolate if only you could stay a painted case, if only all the artificial glamour and hieratic spiritual fervour could be maintained. Did Madonna hold her own against this glue in nothingness, this inchoate mass that you become once you take—full hands for taking? She slept alone, was alone, had been. Jerrold wrote, “do everything to keep well. I want you to keep well. All I want is to look after you. All I want is to look after it.” But what did that matter? It was fore-ordained that Jerrold should so write. Who was Jerrold? At best some secondary Joseph, at worst some oaf of erotic maniac who had bartered his wife, who had so sold his honour. What was Vane? At best some tall half-sexed Gabriel or Michael, some angel of annunciation, some spirit who had appeared and made what was ordained, what was to be, reality. O Angel of Annunciation, “then you will—help—me—with—it?” She asked the question standing before him, already the weight of her own undertaking heavy on her, the weariness of her own pilgrimage seeming to stretch out and out before her. There was her own little money, the little sum that had seemed so smug and secure but that the war and Jerrold away and Jerrold and his leave-extravagances made now almost nothing, a drop, enough to keep from starving, not enough to go into a proper nursing-home—what did the Virgin Mary do on this occasion? O ask the arch-angel Michael obviously for God having ordained this would not leave one of his prostitutes no, one of his concubines (a wise virgin anyway) empty, forsaken. It was quite evident that God wouldn’t but on the other hand was it God or some mage of wickedness for she didn’t any more think (had she ever thought?) that Vane might be its father. Morgan le Fay you must summon your magic, become mere scheming wizard, witch for you must be assured that this, this thing that is God’s, this thing that is the child of some sun-daemon will be looked after. Of course, God, her Lover, would look after her, all the same it was the Angel of the Annunciation, when you come to think of it, who was responsible for the fiasco, wasn’t it? I mean he came in all that glory and a dove entered (but here it was a swallow) and love entered and the glamour and the
beauty and the hieratic loveliness and the beauty of the moment and the joy of her own realization of her acceptability of God, entrapped her. Well, anyway she was entrapped for God. It was not like the last one but now she began to wonder even if the last one had not been some rapt and perfect cycle compared to this thing. Darrington’s image came before her as she watched Vane. She was asking Vane now for some guarantee that he would look after it and she recalled Darrington, Jerrold with his “lie down darling” and “eau de cologne is best at the nape of the neck and the wrists where the veins beat.” Darrington had lifted the wrists, bathed them in the aromatic sweet stinging scent, recalled her to mountains of flowering oranges, rocks where gorse lay heady and sweet and where the red anemones made the earth a veritable Aetna, all the earth, all that volcanic earth where anemones like poppies were blood stains and foot prints of the dead God. Adonis, Christ died along the slopes of Solaro that pre-war Easter. Eau de cologne and the merciful numbing of consciousness brought those things back, had brought them back, in the first year of mad London. Guns and war and blood-anemones and then the annihilation that smarting of the fragrant scent brought to her. Darrington had been at least a veil, a sort of clod of earth for her numb roots that had reached down and down and deeper than she had then known. Only now she realized with the recurrent symptoms that Darrington had been earth beneath her, mud if you will, slime but substance, rich substance for her down reaching roots, substance so that her flower head might lift the higher into this thing. Darrington had been mud, earth so that she might lift to this Mithraic entity, this god in the sun, this being that had trapped her. She was caught and the recurrent symptoms made her realize that she was not so neatly a painted box, a neat coffin for its keeping. She was being disorganized as the parchment-like plain substance of the germ that holds the butterfly becomes fluid, inchoate, as the very tight bud of her germination became inchoate, frog-shaped small greedy domineering monster. The thing within her made her one with frogs, with eels. She was animal, reptile. Animal, reptile, she still held to the letter of convention. “Will you look—after—it?” “Look after it? I only want the war to be over, us to get some way on firm ground—I only want your wishes in the matter.” This is not what lizard-Hermione wanted. This is not what eel-Hermione, what alligator-Hermione, what sea-gull Hermione was after. She wanted what an animal wants, what an eel wants, what even a bird must have. She didn’t want the letter of the covenant. Vane offered that. “You know I only want—have only wanted—” He would say it again, he only wanted her wishes in the matter. But could he know her wishes? Gabriel of the Annunciation, cold and calm and proffering the lily, what do you know of god-head?

  Morgan le Fay. I am witch. I have made this thing. There is, can be, no such room as this in this world, therefore this room is not in this world, therefore we are in some other world. Mrs. Fletcher gone, how wonderful, all the slight pretence, the slight as slight pretence that things are “all right” and Mrs. Fletcher polite but I’m glad she’s gone for she took off just that edge, “madame, would you like a hot-water bottle,” took away the reality of the non-reality, “madame your hot water’s ready,” and the gold film that lay over the house was a little desecrated by her presence. The house was itself now, sunk on its haunches like a lion, tame now, knowing its masters, its lovers, knowing its keepers, its children. Hermione and Vane were children of the old house, the house that was haunted that Mrs. Fletcher had so at the last hated that she had burst into agonizing tears and said she never had known of a gentleman’s house where foxes stole the bacon. Foxes. No hunting. Tracts of moor, tracts of bushes, an adder, great hieratic creature curled in the hollow under the little out-house and Mrs. Fletcher finally deciding that some devil dwelt there. Did he? Someone, something lived in the great house, someone, something smote the beams and some note far and far sounded like some harp, some note, some string of notes, so that Vane seated at his table lifted his head and said “do you hear something?” Hermione had heard something but it was a breath of hearing like the sound you hear as a child in a sea shell of the whole sea. Monks had been driven from this cliff edge by daemons or was it finally that the daemons had been exorcised by monks for now the little church was gone too and the rocks still held the print of waters, of waters, of waters—you might, you did climb down to find Vane staring from unutterable height, white face, moon face stupid against a cone of sky, and waves that walked in . . . walked in . . . waves here and feet. It was evident that this was rock ledge of Laconian Artemis, some Artemis of the sea, some statue ought obviously to have been there. The house now crouched like a lion feeling its young turn under its supine belly.

  “I love the house, Cyril.” “Do you?” “You know I do. Why did Mrs. Fletcher hate it?” “People do. They can rarely rent it.” “Have you bought it?” “I will if you would like it.” “Like it?” Belly of a supine lion, she was Morgan le Fay and she had made this house, this interior, how could she then so like it? “I mean I don’t know that I exactly like it—” “There you are. You’re like Preston, all those people who were here last summer—” “Didn’t they?” “They were angry with it—it felt it—” “It would, somehow.” “I don’t quite understand the knockers, that’s all.” “The knockers? But they’re the easiest, the simplest—” “People say so—”

  The “knockers” knocked according to Cornish tradition, things it seemed to Hermione quite in tradition, not odd there at all, things tradition said out of the forsaken tin-mines—Phoenicians had come here . . . Mithraic . . . inimical . . . not to her inimical. “I don’t understand having a child. It seems to me that I must be having a colt, a frog. It seems to me I must be having a dragon, a butterfly.” Why did she say that?

  Morgan le Fay drift in to dinner in an old long semi-precious frock, drift in and seated at the head of the table, queen it over the long room, the odd coloured strips of oriental tapestry, the books and books and the luxury of the great fire making things dance and sing and the beams dance and quiver so that the fire-light is the very quivering of those gold strings that sounded, that they had both heard sounding sounding, leaving almost strips of light in the air, quivering air-strings of vibrant metal, strings, harps. “I think it’s much better since the Fletcher left, more at one, more a piece.” Chatter a little and let this precious red goblet that Vane must have to-night, bring some human colour to your gill-white pallor, Morgan le Fay for they will find you out, and swiftly, they will find you out and swiftly. Chatter a little, laugh, make him think for a moment you have forgotten. “Chilly. Funny and it’s only August.” Outside the deep sea full and sweet and fertile, lay and lifted to an odd sky that was not as other skies (it was 1918) and years were odd things then for the stars wheeled differently, years wheeled differently, hosts of spirits ascended to heaven but here and there daemons watched and sat and guarded mysteries for God, even God who demanded the sacrifice of spirits wheeling toward heaven, knew his people, his odd witches, his eternal guardians of the mystery of wisdom. Wisdom was an adder that had lifted a lithe head so that Mrs. Fletcher on the way to the little out house had fallen screaming into the low prickly gorse, had had actually to be rescued ignominiously, had sobbed and wailed in hysteria of repression, “but gentlemen’s houses—” Gentlemen’s houses were free of adders and raised heads to greet Hermione. God keeps his little secrets. God, you have made me one with you here and the farm girl came regularly, laid dishes, took away plates, cooked their own farm-fowl in their own rare red tomatoes, vegetables, odd red and rich things, different, eating. Hermione eat and don’t sing. Remember some of the testaments of the wise, try to recall wisdom for you are one of the children of Wisdom and God has told you one or another of his little secrets. Hermione, lift the goblet and sip the red wine and smile and be suave for God has told you some of his little secrets but you are in a world of men and men can blight you, men can ruin you. Morgan le Fay try to collect all the little threads of magic for God will take care of you only if you take care of yourself. Men
, men, men, men. There were thousands of men. War dripped its rose-red petals, life upon life and love upon love and lilies rose up across the broken trenches. Guns creep nearer, nearer, will the guns prevail? Morgan le Fay drink deep, breathe deep, don’t lose your little witch-like pathos and your witch-like beauty. Not beauty as the world sees it but beauty as Mithra might see it. Morgan le Fay . . . “what’s that, Cyril?” “I don’t know, the usual—” “Is it some big—boat?” “How do I know?” Guns, guns, guns, booming in the heavy stillness, guns, horror, listening, all the reality of the witch-world broken in a moment. “O Mamm I must be off. It may be, like last week, another bit of wreckage.” Gone. Little Hezzie from the farm had gone. Adventure. Guns. Boats. Even here, Morgan le Fay . . .