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She was too young to talk about self, self, self—what was self? Self was a white carnation in a tall, green tumbler, (you can’t kill your self) self was a lotus-lily folded in the mud, self was the scent of pot-pourri across the fumes of beech bark burning in an elegant room and the polish on the floor and the net of gilt that was the sun, that was the curtain before the window that caught the sun, self was the sun caught in a drawing room curtain, caught now in a curtain that was too heavy. Hermione looking up from her tea-cup, jerked herself violently back from the contemplation of self, a lily bud folded in slime, of self, the scent of white wax carnations . . . this is different . . . “I almost thought I was back again in Buckinghamshire . . . time is so funny now . . .” catch yourself back Hermione, you are getting more and more lax, don’t seem to understand time at all, it’s a sort of madness, a sort of drug having a small le Fay and the girl even now doesn’t seem to realize it and it’s three months since I saw her in Buckinghamshire and I must move out to Richmond soon, in a few weeks to be near the nursing home . . . “I am going out to Richmond in a few weeks, be sure to make me remember to give you the address. It isn’t fair to talk this suicidal talk till I get better.” Time was so funny. It got funnier and funnier . . . what was self? What was time? No need asking what truth was for jesting Pilate never stopped to find out, no one would ever find out “what is truth?” The girl would go on staring at her and staring at her. If she woke up dead, after the baby, after the chloroform (is that the reason she wanted the baby? Legitimate suicide, she understood why the girl wanted to die, but with chloroform) if she woke up there would be no peace—there are no fields of asphodel this side of the grave. There were certain problems you had to settle this side of the grave, might as well settle them now but she hated the girl in the great London house in her governess-like blue clothes, in her wide room, in the beautiful great drawing room, “is that really your portrait,” for it occurred after staring mesmerized at something that at first had seemed a subtle bit of colour but that had turned out to be pearls painted, carefully painted pearls that had given back a cheating semblance of glamour and the thing had turned out to be a portrait and all twisted and all wrong eyes had looked at her. Eyes had looked at Hermione from the wall of the enormous drawing room and mesmerized she knew she would never, never escape those eyes that looked and looked and looked. Those eyes said to her what she had just said, they asked and asked, “what is truth?” They were devouring wicked eyes in a face that was smooth and sponged clean of any character. Eyes that were the wicked eyes of a Roman judge, that were the excruciating blasting cynical eyes of a Nubian torturer (only they were blue). What were the eyes? Hermione almost asked whose were the eyes, for they did not any more belong to anybody . . . they looked at her night and day . . . demanding.
Her eyes were the wicked eyes of a child, some wicked, excruciating son of Darius splitting open a chrysalis, now so soon of itself to be split . . . it was more wicked now even than in Buckinghamshire for now the chrysalis was so near, only a little while. “I must move out to Richmond, then you will come to Richmond,” but she was asking it as a sort of duty, hating the girl, hating the eyes that split her open. Why didn’t the mouth speak, beguile the eyes? The mouth was too perfect, a little too wide, but in shape too perfect, but it had to be wide, that perfect mouth to cover that row of beauty. Hers were straight, beautiful, like a young lion’s teeth, not cruel like an old lion, like a young lion, teeth that could worry bird feathers—teeth that gave back the authentic sheen and shimmer that those pearls painted on that parody of the child throat did not pretend to give . . . teeth . . . pearls. “That picture isn’t—like—you.” But now she was being rude, holding herself in so many layers, so carefully housed, self and self and all confused and blurred by the cocoon state she was in. Self. What is self? Self is a lotus bud slimed over in mud. Small le Fay, you are more a self than I am, but I am giving myself to you to make a self. Are you giving yourself to me to make a self? What is a self? She was too young to say that. She had said months ago in Buckinghamshire that she couldn’t stand anything, most things, what things, herself chiefly. She had said that. She was too young to say she didn’t like herself. Beryl. Her name was Beryl. It was impossible, had from the first been impossible, that her name could be anything but Beryl. It might be—it might be—what might her name be? Beryl, Beryl, Beryl. Yes, her name was right. Beryl was her name. Beryl. She was nothing but a name, nothing but those jewels staring at her, making Hermione into something that wasn’t Hermione. Hermione was a cocoon, a blur of gold and gilt, a gauze net that had trapped a butterfly, that had trapped a thing that would soon be a butterfly. Hermione must stay a net of gauze, not be beguiled by eyes into some open rock-hewn wind blown spaces of the intellect. You see the intellect is Greek and if you are having a le Fay, a small le Fay, you must not be Greek. Let the intellect sink like a great white god, Pallas, or Helios, God, intellect into the ripples of self. What is self? Self is a great stone, a mill-stone, the intellect sunk and self is the ripples of sub-conscious or super-conscious gold over and over and over. Beryl was a lode-stone, a magnet, a devastating cruel daemon who would not let it rest, would not let it rest . . . “but why do you prefer Propertius to Homer?” There was no answer to that, they didn’t blend, you never said the two in the same breath. But there was an answer. There always was an answer. Intellect would never let her go, never would let go. “Propertius offers me red wine in a goblet—lets me forget. Homer—makes—me—remember—”
You can’t go on with this, you can’t go on with this. Names were stones, were jewels, Catullus, a red lump of uncut slightly dulled over, dimmed over garnet as if the froth of wine had left its dim froth of scum on a red stone but he was not transparent, even translucent like Propertius, but he should be. Verses, carved and hammered, the Sapphics of Catullus, were small garnets giving back light, but you see what I mean, the feel of Catullus in the throat (the very u, u, u, of it, the stress on the u in your mind) makes the heavy froth or scum of grapes that blur over the texture of pure red and make it a blood stone, semi-precious but a weight about your throat—O weight of beauty about thin throat that rises, Morgan le Fay to escape—to escape—there is no escape—blue eyes say so, the eyes of some Persian magnate’s horrible boy child, eyes of a prince, the Beryl eyes of Beryl, Beryl. Beauty is Hell—should one say that at her? Hysteria. Don’t let me get hysterical for she makes me see things, the scum rises, floats and finally my brain looks out and I can’t let it, I can’t let that happen or I will go mad and the le Fay will be queer—odd—a monster not a small thing, amber and gold, floating to life, borne here like a golden willow catkin down a stream—down a stream— “Yes you should read it, learn Latin (it’s a pity you hate it) just for eras amet—” O God. Where do these things come from? “I know I’m indulging myself—” what a word, what an idea—“but may I have more—tea. Those sandwiches are so delightful”—words, what words—they were talking of Catullus, “I don’t know why I like, why I dislike. I am no critic of letters.” Letters. Cras amet. Someone had to love these things. Poetry like certain other of the things of the spirit will die if it is not loved. Someone—somewhere—had said that. Where? Who? Wilamowitz Möllendorff. She remembered the name. But he was Fritz. Fritz. Over the . . . top. Over the . . . top. But they were. They were over the top. People didn’t stare like that unless they were over the top and now it occurred to her, “Pindar is too like Bach. That’s why I hate him.” But was he? There were other lines, the violets of Ion, other lines of Pindar but on the whole say Pindar is like Bach and dismiss him. We have no time, no time. “Anacreon of course is our Herrick.” Yes, of course, Anacreon, Herrick. “You know snow white blossoms, what do I mean, white blossoms, plum, no, cherry, floating against dawn. Anacreon. Dawn. Eos so like Eros. People, names. Every Greek name is of course a person. Names are people and hold light and seem to gleam with light within themselves. Especially when they are stones. Don’t you think so?
I mean, I am sure you see it that Aphrogenia is simply froth and foam of the sea but Aphrodite comes out clear, is crystal. Words, people. Names. Of course, the Greeks must have gone mad saying those words. The very names induce a sort of hysteria. And in the end they had to be conquered for who could stand up against swords, fighting with names like that, your heritage. Sappho, Anacreon in your veins, for the race is to the race. I mean every Greek held all that as every drop of water holds all the sea. Greeks. Names. I must have another sandwich.”
This thing would prolong itself and clocks were striking. Hermione was in a world of mystery for a great house on Curzon Street is always mysterious. Thank God we were not born on Curzon Street for Curzon Street (say it, you will see what I mean) holds mystery. Clocks were striking, striking, silver and one not as far as the others with chimes. It sang its silly silver song and sang it again and a third time. “One quarter’s missing, like the moon three quarters full.” Ah that was herself, that was Hermione. “A most awkward shape, the shape of the three quarters striking but the chimes are pretty—” Silver, silver, answering silver, silver. Was she dead? Was she enchanted, under the sea in this house on Curzon Street? “Are you—alone?” No one about, nothing. Catullus filled the room for his name lingered and clung like the very wine lees against the marble (in the far corner) of some second rate 1880 French goddess. A sort of small Fragonard Clytie by way of the Luxembourg. The small wrong goddess was right here and like the wax white carnations brought the taste, the character of the owner of it. Dada. Tiberius. Hermione could smell the scent of his excellent cigars, could see the lilt of light (blood-stones, Catullus) in his super after-dinner port. “Port. Do you like it? I was thinking of Catullus”—but she wasn’t. Chimes, silver. Enchantment. Why did the girl stare and still stare at her?
The eyes would still stare at her the other side of—the other side of—Styx. There was another side and this was the great discovery . . . another side in fog, in mist, with wounded soldiers sitting in their odd-smoke-blue uniforms along the benches that now in Richmond Park were all marked “for the wounded.” In 1926, 7, or 8 some great distant era, people will forget benches, that benches were marked in parks “for the wounded” and you couldn’t sit down on them, not Hermione even dragging a heavy skirt that swished against inadequate light ankles through the long grass through the gardens. Richmond Park. It was a heaven, an aura of world. The world has an aura, just as they say (odd Indian mystics and illiterate people say) people have them. And the aura of the world was visible to Hermione (and to some soldiers sitting in smoke blue hospital uniforms on a bench) visible, tangible, walking through the late winter mist, it was the aura of the world and the world had melted away (not to everybody, to Hermione, to blue soldiers on a bench in Richmond Park). The whole world had melted, had become an aura and Hermione thanked God, thanked someone (she couldn’t remember who it was—a man called Vane?) for having injured her, wounded her so that she, like soldiers on a bench perceived a world outside or inside the world, part of the world, as the moon-nebula is part of the moon, part of the world and yet not part of the world. The world’s great throb of guns, wounded pulse beat was silent. You see the world was dead. It had died with beat, beat, beat of pulse, that was beat, beat, beat of guns that was going on, had been going on all the time across a narrow strip of water, in France to be exact (have you heard of the war in France?). People forget so easily, I think it was 1919. I don’t remember. Only feel with Hermione how odd it was that her ankles like a deer’s were too frail to hold up an awkward bulk of body that was Hermione’s small le Fay. Hermione looking bulky and unseemly as any char-woman slid past people, past houses, seeing nurse maids that were pulling mis-shapen children, crowds of children, all mis-shapen in the sulphur fog and nothing was real, nothing but the slightly meagre herds of deer, the deer, the deer whose ankles were her ankles and she understood the deer sliding along the hedges of the distant far edge of Richmond Park and the great trees dropping last, last left-over leaves that were already over; there was no real autumn, no real spring, crocuses were darting up in the sulphur spring light, little rows of blue and saffron crocuses and bunches, clots of cream-coloured crocuses that came up, that came out in the yellow sulphur light like odd planet colours, like colours seen through some spectrum, like observing the sun aura or some star aura from a long way . . . crocuses weren’t stained glass, radiant in rain washed colour. They were hectic blue that was fire hectic flame blue, like blue given off by burning chemicals, waste of a world and the flames of the waste were hectic fire blue and odd cream white and soft, soft white all blurred in the sulphur that was part of the aura, the edge of the aura, like the edge, the corona of a sun eclipse. The earth was eclipsed and in the eclipse as in ordinary sun eclipse we (Hermione, soldiers on a bench) were permitted to see the odd penumbra, the light that the earth (wasted dead eclipsed earth) gives out. It was our so great privilege. Most people, it seems odd, never saw it, just as most people (it seems odd) never felt the sudden end of the world when the guns (the world pulse) stopped that soggy autumn day. Long ago. That had happened long ago, but still there were soldiers sitting on a bench, what a pity, what a pity when that glory (armistice) happened, you couldn’t do away with the consequences, just be glorious and done with. Blue soldiers witnessed that it took a long time to be resurrected after you are dead. So did Hermione. What a pity, what a pity, Madonna had all that weary and mis-shapen time to go after her glory of the angel and the wax lilies. We never hear about Madonna and her weary waiting and all that and we never hear about blue soldiers on a bench. But I suppose it’s all right. Only some people, char women, tobacconists, evil deck hands felt it. Hermione felt it. Some people who knew that the beauty of things is a snare and you don’t get glory in a sudden moment. Soldiers sat on the bench and watched people. They watched people and saw Hermione sliding by ill-shapen and with her clothes pulled wrong and her bulk too heavy on her thin ankles. They sat on a bench making remarks, common, bitter ugly.
But blue eyes, evil eyes, were calling her out of that nebulous world into which she had so softly fallen, blue eyes were dragging her ashore as one drags the mercifully almost dead to land, blue eyes were working their horrible first aid and were calling, calling to something in Hermione that was lost, that was forgotten, that had slid away, been taken away just as the guns, helmets, bombs, gas masks (what not) had been taken from odd smoke blue soldiers on a bench. Hermione was defenceless and blue eyes called her back to war, to fight, to resist, to appeal. “What do you think of Middleton?” O stuffy books. Couldn’t she let stuffy books alone. Books were books, part of the old world, part of the people who didn’t understand that the world was dead, its heart had stopped beating, guns, guns, guns, you never felt their throb and tremble till they were gone as you never feel the heart beating in you, till it is gone and you are dead. When you are dead, there is merciful quiet and you realize all, all your life you have been slightly listening, slightly asquint as it were mentally, listening, waiting, listening and a little afraid all, all your life, lest it should stop, should stop and you not know it had stopped. It was like that when the guns stopped but most people didn’t know, were still alive (they called it) not drawn out of life, out of the pulse and beat and throb of it like blue, smoke blue soldiers on a bench watching people pass, saying crude and ugly things but all the time at peace with great peace knowing they were dead, not listening any more, not waiting any more; pulse stopped beating. It was so marvellous and nobody knew. No one at all seemed to know but you can’t tell them about it, any more than an Indian mystic (or some illiterate mumbling person) can tell you about your aura; it is blue, it is grey, it is opal clouded with amber. Amber clouded with opal. That would be a lovely aura, some little sempstress in a corner working, sewing, with pricked rough fingers might have it and a great lord who commanded men, men, men, guns, guns, guns to move up, across to men, men, guns might be sodden illiterate green or grey striped with a nothing of blue-smear, no real blue like a
convolvulus petal that has been crushed, smeared on an asphalt pavement. That is how it is with auras, with illiterate people seeing, sensing, not actually seeing (but it was only the illusion of mist) that aura and Beryl had not seen it. It was just that kingdom of heaven and being like a little child, accepting everything, like the soldiers on the bench, like Hermione, honourable wounds, dishonourable wounds, it’s all one to God so long as you are wounded . . . because she loved much. So it was like that and Beryl with voracious eyes and brilliant intellect was talking of Middleton and Hermione propped up in the one big chair that her room boasted must answer, find an answer . . . Middleton? Who was Middleton? “O yes. I think his horse play is legitimate—Aristophanic—”
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