She had said the right thing by accident, her brain seemed to work that way, automatically but she couldn’t go on expecting the right answer, like throwing dice and expecting double sixes every other time . . . why didn’t the girl go? Brain went on (she had tested it) on a rail all by itself though brain was (she had tested it) a white marble statue, a bronze heavy thing that had sunk, had sunk, irrevocably like the precious cargoes of Corinthian plunder that had sunk . . . had sunk . . . “didn’t they want last winter? I mean winters, and winters ago, to drag Lake Nervii?” Yes, Lake Nervii. Where had that come from? Outside Rome, she and Darrington had walked the whole way outside the gates proper, walked up and up and up through winter olives and on and on and on through winter olives (there were violets, winter violets) and winter was a clear hard spring with almond blossoms like clear hard shells flung against a blue, blue, blue that wasn’t a dome but simply a waste of space going on and on and on . . . olives. “I remember last winter—I mean winters and winters ago—a winter in Rome and how we walked, my husband, Jerrold Darrington and I, miles and miles and found the lake. We didn’t get to the opposite side though they say there is a whole area there, almost another unexplored Pompeii.” Hermione had determined to sink into her own self-made aura. Herself had woven herself an aura, a net, a soft and luminous cocoon but somehow daemon eyes drew out of her all these things, all these other things. Was the girl a witch, some bad thing, some evil thing? Why did the girl draw these things out of her, things that came automatically, a sort of superior intellectual psycho-analysis, going on and on and she wanted to drift, had been drifting, had not thought of the galley sunk in Lake Nervii for years and years, did not believe she had ever thought of it since that winter day, winters and winters ago. Why did the girl do this? How did she? “What in God’s name is the—” She couldn’t say “what is the matter with you” though in another layer of her consciousness she sensed something that was wrong, something that was dangerous. Eyes don’t look normally out of faces like that. Small chin, small Eros chin, mouth more than a child-Eros, a mouth that was a youth Eros, perfect bow of slightly too wide mouth but lips narrow, coral— “Do you remember the shop, that special one at the top of the via Quattro Fontane, just this side of the entrance to the Pincio? It was a common window. I don’t know why I remember it. There are so many of those obvious striped Roman scarves and coral.” Lips were coral lips, smooth, lips were Eros lips, the mouth was too perfect though the nose plunged forward dangerous, too large, ploughing as it were a way before it, but the nose in this light was put on, rightly placed, giving too much character to the characterless child face. There was too much character for that baby chin, that breadth of chaste arc eye-brows. The nose gave too much character and the eyes spoiled all the effect of peace, and of non-entity. Eyes and nose were wrong or was it perfect small chin and perfect mouth and chaste nymph eye-brows wrong? Something was wrong. Two faces, one on top of the other, both Greek, neither Greek, each spoiled by each. “No. I have never been to Syracuse.”
Syracuse, Syracuse, Syracuse. Why do you say that name? Hermione. Your name is Hermione not Morganlefay, what a pity, for Morganlefay was such a comfortable person, don’t you know what I mean, aura like a willow catkin, aura and flower of self blurred over, not really flowering, shining like penumbra of the harvest moon, glowing a sort of yellow, the heat the willow catkins give off in the spring, the colour of the blobs and blobs of willow dust reflected in silver, a silver reflection of gold aura of willow catkins, that is the aura of Morgan le Fay. What a pity that a name, just a name spoken (Syracuse, Syracuse) does something, it’s odd how names (Greek names like that) never lose, never have lost their potency. And it’s rather horrible. For if you say Syracuse it’s like a knife and it’s like a crescent moon and it might do terrific damage. You must be careful how you use these Greek names. People are right, nice comfortable people in comfortable houses, these Greek names are dangerous, don’t have any Greek about, it’s a sort of white gun-powder. It’s right not to encourage people, children, learning Greek, gun-powder white or black is gun-powder and we’re tired of fighting, all that happened in 17, 18 or was it 19. It might have been just 17 a long time ago in Syracuse, 17 B.C. or A.D., something of the sort for the name Syracuse breaks down the centuries, there remains nothing but the name, white gun-powder, powder made from temple pillars riven and split and ground to dust. Those columns had to be riven and split and ground to dust. Those statues had to be riven and split and ground to dust. Out of the dust, the most minute electric distillation was contrived and gun-powder resides in the words, the electric shimmer of the sun on those shafts of marble, the sun and glint of the sun on the uplifted forearm of some Hermes set against a background of livid green-black laurel. The sun and glint of sun on marble remains in just such words, in Syracuse for example. Take a poster with “see sunny Italy” and read “Syracuse” in a dark tunnel of a railway station and shut your eyes for in a moment the whole station may explode; that’s the way with those words but they bide their time. Treat them carefully, speak to them, speak them (if you dare) softly, intone, sing or chant or whisper them. But know—know—know—that they are full of power. When the gods will, they will rain those words again on us, poor earth, poor penumbra of an earth, not worth destroying.
It’s too late now, Morgan le Fay. Don’t try to be too inappositely feminine. But I must be. I am having a small le Fay. This is evil and bad of some one, something to send this fantastically wealthy de Rothfeldt girl to me. If I can do without a husband (O put this foot stool under your feet, we—we—I ask you—must be so very careful) if I can do without a lover (O eyes, O glamour, O small crescent moon or words of some such ilk) if I can do without anybody, I can do without anybody and I want to prove to myself that I am strong and that I am alone like Madonna was (like a charwoman was, like the mother of Caesarion was) alone. We are always alone. Why not make the best of it? Was it some sun-god on the rocks that had sent Beryl, for people don’t come like that out of nowhere, not in 1919, asking to talk about poetry. Dear Madge or Kate or Doris, they were all wearing plough-boy boots, O it was all right, it was splendid of them. I adore them for it, on the land, sleep in the barn, don’t get the consideration of an ordinary sweaty plough boy and I love you for it or else more people like Merry, that dreadful Merry in crêpe de chine lavender cami-knickers, nothing in between, over the top, either you were a plough girl sweating in thick boots or you wore crêpe de chine cami knickers, not at all Hellenic. How I hate those cami-knickers, something worse than the plough-boy girl with his (her) so honest and so terrible fervour and his (or her) horrible carrying on and his (or her) hands ruined like Honore Trent’s who had done such lovely drawing, great blue, blue, blue spikes of larkspur thick with paint, fit for things like that and her nails (she had written) were split at the quick and she was tending horrible pigs while the farmer laughed at her . . . no, people have forgotten. O it’s perfectly honourable of them and brave of them of course, it’s bad taste (not done) to remember, such a silly time. Honore Trent. “You know I know a girl who used to do beautiful paintings, just flowers, perhaps you’d like to meet her.” For she remembered that the de Rothfeldt girl, Beryl, long ago in Buckinghamshire had talked about paint, wanted to paint, Honore might put Beryl on the right track, but where was Honore? “I mean you would like her”—just spoke for the sake of speaking, not thinking, for the word Syracuse, like a knife, like a sword, still like a thin and blighting cymiter.
12
An arm pushed back. “I don’t know what’s happened. I waited a long time. There are green dog-woods sweeping over the bed and that photograph on the mantel piece is Jerrold, my husband—husband—husband—you see he is my husband—he wants to look after it—he says he will—husband—but are you—what are you—khaki arm—are you a husband?” The arm pushed Hermione back, she was pushed back and inappositely the arm that was an English khaki arm pushed through green branches of American dog-wood and the heavy scentless blossoms s
wept like white ivory and heavy froth of white on sea shells over her crumpled coverlet. “Have you no fires here at all?” “O we did have once—no coal now—I am a newcomer. I came only a few weeks ago to be near St. Mary’s nursing home—” “I know all that. Have you—no fires here?” The face above her was the face of a stranger. How had it got here? “How did you get here?” “The people next door said you’d not been moving about for some time—hadn’t heard you. My patient next door, it appears, got used to you, listened—” “Next door? Where am I?” Next door. That was Lilian and the Grex girls and stealing lilacs and the dog that had puppies and the several kinds of butterflies and “you know my grandfather always knew them—all their names. We had a glass case of them hanging over his desk—and the bald-headed eagle—” The face was a strange face but not strange for it appeared over the top . . . over the top . . . the face appeared over the top—khaki, neat collar, nice collar, elegant cuff. “What is this on your cuff?” “It’s wings—air service—I’m out on special duty-epidemic—” Face that neither smiled nor scolded, just looking at her while the arms held her down, while the hands, thin hands, brown hands smoothed the coverlet, “I’ll send the nurse in here . . . my next door patient’s better.”
“No. But don’t go.” Hermione realised now in a moment a great gap. There was a gap. A gap that must be filled. Her hands reached up and her hands clung to khaki—it must be Jerrold, they all looked like that and it was Jerrold and anyone would do but no one would do, never the man in the next room whom she had smiled at once on the stairs and is that what had saved her? Was it Morganlefay who had smiled that had saved her? You never know what will, what is going to save you. You sneak through life, up and down stairs and the wall paper was a funny bright rose-salmon but she had rather liked it, on the stairs, brightening the stairs, clean little house, little house where they had taken her, let her have a room for a few weeks while she waited as Beryl had run her out (she must be all right, “yes I have a husband”) in the motor car. Little house that had been rather funny and clean and full of people that hadn’t mattered, that Hermione had seen through a mist, through the gold gauze that was the aura of Morganlefay who was waiting, of Morganlefay who would morganlefay it to the very bitter last end, smiling at someone on the stairs that hadn’t mattered, that now mattered. In life you never know who will, who won’t matter. They descend, they fall, they rise, they swim in and out of your life for life is the swaying up and the swaying down of great forest branches and clinging to life, to Jerrold, to khaki shoulders, Hermione realized that at last, at last she was lost, for clinging to khaki shoulders she realised that in all those months (nine now almost) she had had no one, no one’s shoulders, that’s wrong. But of course Morganlefay would be like that, run away, be a queen in the forest; it can’t matter if men don’t want you, Undine for a small Undine wants you. No one wants you. No one wants you. But someone does. Someone did. Someone was lonely, a little man who had been in munitions who had the room next door. Had no one ever, ever smiled at him that he must treasure a ghost smile, the smile of a mere outsider, a half-creature, an Undine, an Oread? Do men get so lonely that they must love an Oread? There are women, women, women, women in the street, on the stairs, in railway carriages brushing past you, brushing past you on the stairs little man. You are a little man. Why did you smile and why did you listen? Woods bend, woods bend. The arms were strong but thin and pushed her away, away. O don’t you push me away. If you push me away I know that’s the last. I know then that I am pushed away forever. Don’t push me away. I’m married. “My—husband—is—in France.” Khaki. Khaki. It would save her. It must save her. The wings on his wrist were wings. He wasn’t a man. He was more than a man being less than a man, being an angel. Less than a man he was a man, he was an Angel. Azrael. He was a doctor. Doctors have to do things like this, shutting down eyes. If he put his fingers on her eyes, she would shut them, never, never open them. If he put his fingers on her eyes, she would shut them, never open them. She wouldn’t let him. Her hands slid from smooth thin shoulders and slid down to wrists and clung to fingers. “My—husband—is—in—France.” The thin fingers drew away, drew away, drew away, if he pushed her away now, the one man to whom she had clung, toward whom she had reached in all these months, she would be dead—float down the river—be quite happy. Man, men, men, men, men. Guns, guns. The guns had stopped or was it a heart? Trees wafted great branches and if he pushed her away she would be lost but she could be lost for the twisted little man who had been in munitions and hadn’t wanted to go home and had kept on his room here perhaps he hadn’t a home, what is a home, who was gruff and common had heard her not moving. Were one’s last moments then of so, so great importance? The little man in the next room was a sort of little Buddha, he increased, great in magnitude. He had heard her open her cup-boards, heard the rattling of the curtain rings, heard her spilling out her tooth brush water. The little man had heard her pull her chair forward, had heard her drop her book or heard her scraping in the far corner (which was to him the near corner) for slippers on the floor, heard her move and walk out, not heard any more . . . had he nothing to do but listen? “Why did he listen to me?” Had she said that? Had she thought that? More than the little man who was nobody (who had been in munitions in the next room) was this one. This one was more than the other one for he answered questions, did not ask questions. The little man in the next room was a sort of cherry-wood carved Buddha who watched but this was a different kind of god. He answered all your questions. “Why did he listen?” “He listened as invalids have nothing to do but listen”—had answered her question not scolding her, not pushing her away, holding her shoulders, smoothing out the bed clothes . . . “you must be—very—careful—” Now if he scolded her she would go away, drift away. It would all be very simple. He might scold her and she would drift away like cutting the cable—of—a boat—of a canoe. Canoe drifts under dog-wood blossoms and the boughs of trees arch over water, the salt creek, we can go on and on and on, then leave the canoe and tramp that half mile inland for the water lilies. Water lilies had grown near salt pools, across dunes . . . sand. “Why must—I—be—so—careful?” Of course one must be, the boat might upset at a breath, don’t let the paddle tangle in those weeds, dangerous, it’s scraping pebbles . . . dangerous . . . canoes—water lilies just beyond—“Why—must—I be so—careful?” Pushing her down, pushing her down—she would drown in water lily petals—just the way to drown—“you must—remember—” Remember. Mnemosyne the mother of the muses. One, two, three to nine. Nine muses. You must be very careful for the nine muses dance, clasp hands in a ring—mustn’t miss the dance, ring, nine—nine—nine— “Why?” Ask it. Ask it for you have—forgotten.
13
“Pity you had that set-back.” It was Darrington. Hermione saw Darrington sitting in the arm-chair drawn close to the bed edge. This was really Jerrold, the brown face, the close cropped head, the stick that he held in his hand, elegant stick, he was a visitor here, elegant stick that made all nothing, dispersed all the past, the khaki upon khaki, the boom of distant thunders with a wave of a magician’s wand. Darrington was Darrington again. Darrington was Jerrold, thicker a little, heavier, but Darrington with his coat cut modishly with his shoes, with his trousers, something that took her back, in spite of herself, because of herself, something other, something different. Darrington played with the stick, his hands were firm and white fleshed at the knuckles, his hands were finer, whiter than the burnt brick of his still somewhat foreign face quite warranted. Hermione propped aloft, regarded the white knuckles, remembered sonnets, canzoni, songs, letters . . . things Darrington had written. “How’s Louise?” “O Louise?” Darrington lifted heavy eye-brows and his hands stopped fingering the ebony stick, looked across at Hermione, smiled across at her and smiling, his smile with a conjuror’s magic brought back camellias, white and red, red rosettes and white rosettes that they had gathered, scraped from the clean sand of the paths to lay on the stone of She
lley, to make a circle, red rosettes, white rosettes across the stone, across the words carved in the tomb of Shelley, “nothing in him that doth fade but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.” All the black and tumult had faded. Hermione saw the reader of the Vatican, white statues smiling and Darrington (then) standing among them, a brother. Well they were both battered. Hermione would not be able to face white sisters, clothed only in their impermeable beauty . . . she thought of swollen flesh . . . her own . . . Darrington was no better, no worse, hardly now other than she was. They met in a smile, in the cut of his new clothes, in the affectation of his slim ebony stick. The world must recede, the black tide must recede . . . there must be, there was the pendulum swing. It had swung back to pictures, to ebony sticks, to a watchet-blue (he called it) swansdown edged bed jacket she was wearing. “How’s Louise?” But Darrington had smiled away incongruous question. He said (and the words came strange from the face of this new-old Darrington) “when are you going over the top?”
Over the top . . . Hermione had to stop, to draw herself in, to drag herself back. Over the top . . . of what? She remembered swiftly “O after my little set-back, they said it might be later . . . earlier . . . they didn’t know. It might happen any day now.”
But that that was going to happen was nothing to her now. Something had happened, more strange, more miraculous than anything that could ever happen. Darrington was with her, beside her, a Darrington had crept out of the brown lean khaki, like a great moth, elegant in shape, still a little foreign in his bronze but all different. Who ever said clothes made the man—did or didn’t make the man? For clothes made Darrington smile with an old pre-chasm smile. The smile Darrington smiled had nothing to do with rows and rows of livid dead, with barbed wire, with the flare of red or green blazing above broken trenches, with the drone of planes, with the sudden flare and drop of bombs, with “over the top” (though incongruously he had just said it) with “Mademoiselle in the family way” (though she was patently) with “scrounging” (though she had. Beryl had brought the exquisite bed-jacket, everything) with “going west” (though she had, patently, had come back again, had been dead, was now alive) with “that’s the stuff to give ’em.” Darrington smiled a smile that erased all that, the smudged out image of the war, of terrible things that had happened, of Louise and Florient and Merry. “O Merry. Where is she? I have quite forgotten.” Darrington went on smiling. He reached toward her and his hand found hers and his kisses found hers . . . “Forgotten . . . never see . . .” He had forgotten something, they had all forgotten something. Darrington and Hermione were wedded in this new understanding. He had forgotten. She had forgotten. He was going to take care of her and he had come back and he was so happy and everything was going to be all right. Forgotten. Merry was forgotten. Louise was forgotten. O far and far and far, pre-chasm things came back, the smell of the ice-cold corridors of the Louvre on a summer day and the hot sound that was “deux sous la botte,” the little boy who pursued them down the rue du Four and the carnations, the pink spice-sweet little garden oeillets that Jerrold would buy from him. “Do you remember those pinks you used to get me? Sops in wine you used to call them. Wine pink. Pink. French.” Darrington remembered and thinking of wine pinks, fragrance was about her. England was gone. Faces, people, people, faces. “Little Vérène, poor little Vérène . . .” “Vérène?” “Didn’t you know? You’ve forgotten . . . so had I till only the other day when Delia came to see me.” “O delicious Delia . . . is she still?” “No. Tired but smiling through it. Lost. Gone. She’s still alive.” “That’s something.” “But Vérène . . . most hideous of calamities . . . Walter . . .” “O forgeron. Poor beast . . .” “Beast, yes. Like a great white sacrificial ox. Great white creature, spending his time playing for wounded poilus, odd things, red cross (or the French equivalent) concerts. He was born you know (an American) in Munich.” “All rather complicated . . .” “Yes. Vérène’s mad.”
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