The Children's Book

by A. S. Byatt

  He wanted to make love to her, too. She was now almost too perfectly lovely to be attractive. Her calm, clear face had a carved look, which could easily be read as a cold look. She coiled her pale hair perfectly so that one was led to admire it, rather than to want to ruffle it. He did not detect in her—and he watched her—any flash of the sex instinct. He managed to raise the topic by discussing her London Season as a debutante. She became animated. She said it was horrible. “All that eyeing each other, and pairing off. Like a cattle market. Horrid. I have no small talk and I never met anyone who had anything else. And it was noisy. They bray, the upper classes, about their titillations and curious ceremonies. They shriek. And you have to be dolled up with feathers in your hair. I was rejected and rejecting. Firmly, in both cases.”

  He had asked himself if she preferred women. She might. The Newnhamites had passionate friendships and flirtations: they proposed to each other, he had been told. She had been friends with Florence, who had rushed into an odd story he hadn’t been told, and didn’t understand. She was friends with her cousin Dorothy, who had just qualified as a surgeon, which he could not but think of as a male occupation, knives, lancets, commands.

  Then she said “I didn’t really mean to get me to a nunnery. I didn’t really mean to live in a world of knitting and gossip and—oh—petty jealousies. I wish I was you.”

  “I don’t. I like talking to you.”

  And then that silence, that was the end of that conversation, as of others.

  He invited her to go with him to see the Marlowe Society, who were reviving their successful production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. The audience consisted mostly of a group of visiting German students, ready to see what Goethe had read. Because it was not term-time there was not only no strict chaperonage, there were women playing female parts—which were admittedly non-speaking and brief. There were no transvestite Kingsmen as queens or temptresses. There were the Fabian Nursery with Brynhild (“Bryn”) Olivier, daughter of Sir Sidney Olivier, founding Fabian, and Governor of Jamaica, playing Helen of Troy, the “face that launched a thousand ships,” in a low-cut dress, her hair powdered with gold. Francis Cornford, the classical scholar, was Faustus, Jacques Raverat (who was eventually to marry Gwen Darwin) was Mephistophilis, and some female Fabians were Deadly Sins. Rupert Brooke was the Chorus looking marvellous, and speaking the verse somewhat squeakily.

  Griselda asked if he could get another ticket. A friend was visiting Cambridge—Julian knew him, in fact—he was Wolfgang Stern, from Munich. The Sterns were over in England, planning changes in the puppets and marionettes for the reopening of Tom Underground in the autumn. Julian got the ticket and Wolfgang appeared, looking a little Mephistophelian with a sharp black beard and jutting brow. They sat in the centre, a few rows back. Behind them the Germans commented in German, supposing they were not understood. Wolfgang turned round and told them to be quiet. They laughed, and attended. Griselda sat sedately between Wolfgang and Julian. Behind them were some more Darwins, Jane Harrison and her lovely student, Hope Mirrlees. Harrison must have come to see Francis Cornford, with whom she corresponded daily and rode rapidly about Cambridge on bicycles. There was a party afterwards, at the Darwin house on Silver Street, to which the three were not invited. Julian took them to a restaurant near Magdalene Bridge. It was French and cheerful, with checked tablecloths.

  Wolfgang Stern said rather aggressively that the voices he thought were good, but none of these English people knew how to move. They stood like melting candles bending over. Their gestures were polite when something else was required. Griselda said that was most unfair. The Mephistophilis had been quite snaky in his movements. He was French, said Wolfgang, that was why. The English should—was it “stick to”?—tableaux vivants. Charades. He seemed quite cross.

  Griselda said placatingly that she meant to ask him—Wolfgang—about an essay she was writing on the differences between the Grimms’ two versions of the Cinderella story—“Aschenputtel” and “Allerleirauh,” Cinderella and the Many-furred. She said she loved the word

  “Allerleirauh,” every kind of rough fur. Cinderella was persecuted by a stepmother, but Allerleirauh dealt intelligently with an incestuous father and a cook who threw boots at her. And somehow she was moved by the fact that Allerleirauh, hiding her gold, silver and star-spangling dresses under the skin cloak, became a furry creature—an animal—neutral in German—not an object of desire.

  “Until she chose,” said Wolfgang. “And then she blazed out like the sun and the moon—”

  “The English and the French have sweetened Cinderella—”

  Julian felt an electricity. It sparked and flickered between the other two. Their hands were just too near together. Griselda looked too intently or not at all at the German.

  “And what does that mean?” Julian asked himself, and did not quite know.

  He and Wolfgang walked Griselda back to her College, into which she had to be locked, although a grown woman, at a ridiculously early hour. She stood on the step, smiling at both of them. “A lovely day,” she said. “Civilised,” she added. It was, Julian knew, one of her highest words of praise.

  • • •

  He invited his newly discovered rival into a pub and bought him a brandy. The German was prickly, a man out of his place where he was easy. Julian talked about many things—theatres, Goethe, Marlowe—and on the third glass of brandy said

  “Let us drink to Griselda. Die schöne Griselda.”

  “Die schöne Griselda. You don’t speak German.”

  “No, I don’t. I am learning. I need to read it, for my work.”

  “She is like a statue in a story. Or a marionette. She doesn’t feel.”

  Julian said carefully “I don’t think that is true.” He did not know if he wanted to share his discovery with this edgy creature, who didn’t seem to have made it for himself.

  Wolfgang said “There is no good in coming to see her. She smiles and sees nothing. Such a nice English lady. Such a princess. All her hair is controlled on her head. No one has ever disturbed her. Maybe no one can or will. Forgive me. It is the brandy.”

  There was a long silence. Wolfgang said “I am sorry. Maybe you—maybe you yourself—”

  “Oh no. Nothing of that kind.”

  Another silence. Damn it, it was only fair. And moreover, it had a certain narrative interest.

  “I noticed,” Julian said, and searched for words. “You noticed I was—unhappy.”

  “No, no, as a matter of fact, not. I noticed her. I saw her look at you.”

  “Look?”

  “I haven’t seen her look at anyone else, like that.”

  “Look?”

  “Oh, don’t be exasperating. She’s interested in you. Not in anyone else. That I’ve noticed.”

  “Oh.” Wolfgang pulled himself together, and gave a somewhat demonic rueful smile, because that was the shape his face was. He said “I am an idiot. That idea makes it worse. You see—she is a fairytale princess. She has ingots and ingots of gold in the Bank and she must marry another such, or find a donkey that shits ingots, forgive me. I make dolls. I make artificial men move around.”

  “You could say you are an artist?”

  “I could, but I should not be heard. I should have boots thrown at me and be ejected.”

  “I don’t see why you give up so easily,” said Julian. He added, with real venom, “It is hardly fair to her …”

  “On the contrary,” said Wolfgang. “That is what it is.”

  In September 1910 the Second International Workingmen’s Association held its Congress in Copenhagen. Joachim Susskind and Karl Wellwood went together and attended groups on antimilitarism. Socialism was international, it crossed frontiers, it was the brotherhood of men and women. Susskind was also in touch with Erich Mühsam and Johannes Nohl’s “Gruppe Tat” (the Group for the Deed) in Munich, a very Munich mixture of men of letters, workmen, revolutionaries. Leon Stern was passionately interested in this. So were Heinrich
Mann, Karl Wolfskehl and Ernst Frick. The deliberations in Copenhagen concentrated on the possibility of calling an International General Strike, an act of defiance to prevent a war. The resolution was proposed by an Englishman, Keir Hardie, just returned to the English Parliament with an increased majority, and Edouard Vaillant of France. They recommended that “the affiliated Parties and Labour organisations consider the advisability and feasibility of the general strike, especially in industries that supply war materials, as one of the methods of preventing war, and that action be taken on the subject at the next Congress.”

  Hardie was supported by the Belgian, Vandervelde, and by the charismatic Jean Jauràs. He was opposed by the German socialists, who were established in the German government, and whose unions had money and investments which they feared to put in jeopardy. As large congresses tend to do, faced with demands for precise, planned actions, they passed another resolution, condemning militarism, suggesting that organised labour in member countries “shall consider whether a general strike should not be proclaimed if necessary in order to prevent the crime of war.” Conditional verbs, and future decisions, said Joachim Susskind, still at heart an anarchist. Keir Hardie wrote to his lover, Sylvia Pankhurst

  Sweet, nay but did you not promise to have no more imaginings. There was nothing, darling, only on the typewriter it seems to come easier.

  From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. I have been at it every day. Today there is a pleasure sail to which I go not and so I write to you instead. Voilà!… I have accepted invitations to speak at two meetings in Sweden next week and from there I go on to Frankfurt on Main for a demonstration…

  After that is uncertain. I shall post card from place to place but dearie, do not expect letters … I am in splendid condition and thoroughly enjoying the work. With affection and bundles of kisses. Yours K.

  It was not clear whether, in the event of any war, the workingmen and-women would feel a greater loyalty to their comrades or to their country. It was, however, clear that the General Strike needed planning and organising, though the image of a spontaneous uprising moved many minds.

  Charles/Karl Wellwood was working energetically at the London School of Economics. He went to the lectures of the founding Fabian, Graham Wallas, who, as a principled agnostic, had resigned from the Fabian executive when the Society supported giving state aid to religious schools. Wallas’s book, Human Nature in Politics, analysed the psychology of politics. Human beings, he said, were descended from paleolithic men, and had preserved many instincts and inclinations which had helped their ancestors. Political philosophers had believed that humans were rational creatures. They had not studied the structures of impulse. He analysed the nature of friendship, the emotional response to political candidates and monarchs, the forming of groups, crowds and herds. He introduced students like Karl to the essays by William Trotter on the Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. Karl learned to think that men acted from irrational impulses, and that groups, crowds and herds behaved differently from individuals. He himself was an isolated individual, despite having signed the Fabian Basis, despite his socialism. He wanted to help the massed poor, but he did not know what to say when he met them, most particularly when they were in a group, or crowd.

  Nevertheless, he undertook to lecture for the newly formed National Committee for the Break-Up of the Poor Law. This body, Beatrice Webb’s brainchild, had its offices between the Fabian Society’s premises and the London School of Economics, all just off the Strand. Their members overlapped considerably—they were all working to the same end. They hoped to be more realistic than the socialists. Beatrice Webb said that the vision of a socialist could stand as a long-term aim, but in the meantime something must be done with “the millions of destitute persons which constitute an infamous and wholly unnecessary accompaniment to an Individualist State.”

  Individualist politics was difficult. There were meetings, conferences, summer schools, study groups and leaflets. There were sixteen thousand members, and branches everywhere. There were eleven paid employees and four hundred lecturers on call. The lecturers included, as well as Charles/Karl, Rupert Brooke, who travelled in a picturesque caravan from the New Forest to Corfe and back. He and his friend spoke engagingly on village greens and street corners. Beatrice Webb meant to bring about “a rapid but almost unconscious change in the substance of society.” Rupert Brooke was euphoric about human beings and human nature.

  I suddenly feel the extraordinary value and importance of everybody I meet, and almost everything I see… that is, when the mood is on me. I roam about places—yesterday I did it even in Birmingham!—and sit in trains and see the essential glory and beauty of all the people I meet. I can watch a dirty middle-aged tradesman in a railway-carriage for hours, and love every dirty greasy sulky wrinkle in his weak chin and every button on his spotted unclean waistcoat. I know their states of mind are bad. But I’m so much occupied with their being there at all, that I don’t have time to think of that.

  In 1910 also the Fabians held a summer camp. The camps were on the North Welsh coast—two weeks for the campaign workers who included a mix of Fabian Nursery, lower-class professionals, elderly ladies, teachers and politicians. These were followed by a conference of Fabians from universities. The University Fabians were high-spirited and the Cambridge contingent were camp. Rupert reported, to Lytton Strachey, late-night titillations and rampages. Beatrice Webb complained that they held “boisterous, larky entertainments” and were “inclined to go away rather more critical and supercilious than when they came … They won’t come unless they know who they are going to meet, sums up Rupert Brooke… they don’t want to learn, they don’t think they have anything to learn… the egotism of the young university man is colossal.”

  Julian and Griselda did not go to this camp. Charles/Karl went to the camp for the campaign workers. The women wore gym tunics. The men wore flannels or breeches and stout socks. There were sensible shoes, and gymnastic exercises, and swimming. Charles/Karl had managed to persuade Elsie Warren to leave Ann with Marian Oakeshott and come to the camp. Elsie was reading and thinking with a speed and intensity much fiercer than Rupert Brooke’s little dives into Elizabethan poetry. As though her life depended on it, said Charles/Karl. It does, said Elsie. She read Matthew Arnold and George Eliot, A Modern Utopia and News from Nowhere, Morris’s poems and Edward Carpenter. She wrote down what she liked and disliked about her reading in an exercise book she did not show to Charles/Karl.

  There was supposed to be no sex at Fabian camps. There was companionship, and purpose, and a clean mind in a clean body. Elsie asked questions, and questioned the answers she got. When she arrived, her accent was defiantly midlands. In fact she could, if she chose, neutralise it to a flat, nondescript intonation. Charles/Karl watched her engage battle and make friendships with a teacherly pleasure. There was also sex. Charles/Karl knew, he thought, that Elsie “liked” him. They had private jokes. They were at ease with each other. Too much, Charles/ Karl thought. Much depended on the weather. On one of the sunnier days they took a walk together, and sat down on a hummock nibbled by sheep. I should like to kiss you, said Charles/Karl.

  “And then what?” said Elsie, moving neither closer nor further, lying at his side and examining the earth.

  “Well, and then we might find out.”

  “Find out what?” said Elsie steadfastly.

  “Hurting you, in any way, is the worst thing I can think of.”

  “And losing my independence is my worst.”

  “You can give me an independent kiss.”

  “Can I? I don’t think so. One thing leads to another.”

  “You can’t say,” said Charles/Karl, daring greatly, “that you haven’t been led before. You know about it. I don’t.”

  Elsie frowned. “You haven’t met a real snake in human form, I don’t think. A bird-charming snake with cold eyes and a will.”

  “I have a will. But I don’t want to hurt you—”

  “There’s a lot
of things you don’t want to do, as well as that. Another thing I don’t want, is not to be friends with you. It means a lot to me.”

  Charles reached for her hand. She let him. He moved his face towards hers, and she closed her eyes. And then snapped her lips shut and turned away.

  At the end of the camp, Charles/Karl and Elsie set off a day early, missing a talk by Herbert Methley on “Art and Freedom, Social and Personal.” Elsie said she didn’t want to hear him, and Charles concurred. “We can change trains,” he said, “and look at the countryside.” He waited. “All right,” said Elsie.

  They ended up at a pretty pub in Oxfordshire, with a garden sloping down to a stream, and roses, and pinks, and forget-me-nots. Charles said: “Elsie, you are Mrs. Wellwood.”

  “No I’m not, and won’t be. But you can say so, this once. Just this once. I’ve thought it out, and I owe you.”

  “Owe,” said Charles. “Damn you. I want you to be happy.”

  “I’m not ever going to be happy. I’ve got out of my place, and not into any other. But here we can play-act, if you want, I said we could.”

  In the bedroom to which they were shown, he thought of kissing her, and thought he would not kiss her, and opened the window on to the lawn so that they could hear the river running. Midges flew in. He closed the window. Elsie, her back rigid, brushed her hair out, and put it up again, her back to Charles/Karl. But she saw him in the mirror, and saw his look of anxiety, and gave him a rueful grin as she stabbed in the last hairpin. He smiled back at the glassy Elsie.

  They went down to supper, one behind the other on the shallow steps with their worn carpet. The dining-room had pretty wallpaper and flowery curtains. Elsie sat up straight as a ruler, and clenched her hands in her lap. She chose mushroom soup, and roast leg of lamb with green peas, and plum tart. So did Charles/Karl. He said