DO WE LIE A-BED TOO LATE?
IT was in Paris, many years ago, that I fell by chance into this habit ofearly rising. My night—by reasons that I need not enter into—had been atroubled one. Tired of the hot bed that gave no sleep, I rose anddressed myself, crept down the creaking stairs, experiencing thesensations of a burglar new to his profession, unbolted the great door ofthe hotel, and passed out into an unknown, silent city, bathed in amysterious soft light. Since then, this strange sweet city of the dawnhas never ceased to call to me. It may be in London, in Paris again, inBrussels, Berlin, Vienna, that I have gone to sleep, but if perchance Iwake before the returning tide of human life has dimmed its glories withthe mists and vapours of the noisy day, I know that beyond my windowblind the fairy city, as I saw it first so many years ago—this city thatknows no tears, no sorrow, through which there creeps no evil thing; thiscity of quiet vistas, fading into hope; this city of far-off voiceswhispering peace; this city of the dawn that still is young—invites me totalk with it awhile before the waking hours drive it before them, andwith a sigh it passes whence it came.
It is the great city’s one hour of purity, of dignity. The veryrag-picker, groping with her filthy hands among the ashes, instead of anobject of contempt, moves from door to door an accusing Figure, her thinsoiled garments, her bent body, her scarred face, hideous with the woundsof poverty, an eloquent indictment of smug Injustice, sleeping behind itsdeaf shutters. Yet even into her dim brain has sunk the peace that fillsfor this brief hour the city. This, too, shall have its end, my sister!Men and women were not born to live on the husks that fill the pailsoutside the rich man’s door. Courage a little while longer, you andyours. Your rheumy eyes once were bright, your thin locks once soft andwavy, your poor bent back once straight; and maybe, as they tell you intheir gilded churches, this bulging sack shall be lifted from your wearyshoulders, your misshapen limbs be straight again. You pass notaltogether unheeded through these empty streets. Not all the eyes of theuniverse are sleeping.
The little seamstress, hurrying to her early work! A little later shewill be one of the foolish crowd, joining in the foolish laughter, in thecoarse jests of the work-room: but as yet the hot day has not claimedher. The work-room is far beyond, the home of mean cares and sordidstruggles far behind. To her, also, in this moment are the sweetthoughts of womanhood. She puts down her bag, rests herself upon a seat.If all the day were dawn, this city of the morning always with us! Aneighbouring clock chimes forth the hour. She starts up from her dreamand hurries on—to the noisy work-room.
A pair of lovers cross the park, holding each other’s hands. They willreturn later in the day, but there will be another expression in theireyes, another meaning in the pressure of their hands. Now the purity ofthe morning is with them.
Some fat, middle-aged clerk comes puffing into view: his ridiculouslittle figure very podgy. He stops to take off his hat and mop his baldhead with his handkerchief: even to him the morning lends romance. Hisfleshy face changes almost as one looks at him. One sees again the ladwith his vague hopes, his absurd ambitions.
There is a statue of Aphrodite in one of the smaller Paris parks. Twicein the same week, without particularly meaning it, I found myself earlyin the morning standing in front of this statue gazing listlessly at it,as one does when in dreamy mood; and on both occasions, turning to go, Iencountered the same man, also gazing at it with, apparently, listlesseyes. He was an uninteresting looking man—possibly he thought the sameof me. From his dress he might have been a well-to-do tradesman, a minorGovernment official, doctor, or lawyer. Quite ten years later I paid mythird visit to the same statue at about the same hour. This time he wasthere before me. I was hidden from him by some bushes. He glanced roundbut did not see me; and then he did a curious thing. Placing his handson the top of the pedestal, which may have been some seven feet inheight, he drew himself up, and kissed very gently, almost reverentially,the foot of the statue, begrimed though it was with the city’s dirt. Hadhe been some long-haired student of the Latin Quarter one would not havebeen so astonished. But he was such a very commonplace, quiterespectable looking man. Afterwards he drew a pipe from his pocket,carefully filled and lighted it, took his umbrella from the seat where ithad been lying, and walked away.
Had it been their meeting-place long ago? Had he been wont to tell her,gazing at her with lover’s eyes, how like she was to the statue? TheFrench sculptor has not to consider Mrs. Grundy. Maybe, the lady,raising her eyes, had been confused; perhaps for a moment angry—somelittle milliner or governess, one supposes. In France the _jeune fille_of good family does not meet her lover unattended. What had happened?Or was it but the vagrant fancy of a middle-aged bourgeois seeking inimagination the romance that reality so rarely gives us, weaving his lovedream round his changeless statue?
In one of Ibsen’s bitter comedies the lovers agree to part while they arestill young, never to see each other in the flesh again. Into the futureeach will bear away the image of the other, godlike, radiant with theglory of youth and love; each will cherish the memory of a loved one whoshall be beautiful always. That their parting may not appear such wildnonsense as at first it strikes us, Ibsen shows us other lovers who havemarried in the orthodox fashion. She was all that a mistress should be.They speak of her as they first knew her fifteen years ago, when everyman was at her feet. He then was a young student, burning with fineideals, with enthusiasm for all the humanities.
They enter.
What did you expect? Fifteen years have passed—fifteen years of strugglewith the grim realities. He is fat and bald. Eleven children have to beprovided for. High ideals will not even pay the bootmaker. To exist youhave to fight for mean ends with mean weapons. And the sweet girlheroine! Now the worried mother of eleven brats! One rings down thecurtain amid Satanic laughter.
That is why, for one reason among so many, I love this mystic morninglight. It has a strange power of revealing the beauty that is hiddenfrom us by the coarser beams of the full day. These worn men and women,grown so foolish looking, so unromantic; these artisans and petty clerksplodding to their monotonous day’s work; these dull-eyed women of thepeople on their way to market to haggle over _sous_, to argue and contendover paltry handfuls of food. In this magic morning light the disguisingbody becomes transparent. They have grown beautiful, not ugly, with theyears of toil and hardship; these lives, lived so patiently, areconsecrated to the service of the world. Joy, hope, pleasure—they havedone with all such, life for them is over. Yet they labour, ceaselessly,uncomplainingly. It is for the children.
One morning, near Brussels, I encountered a cart of faggots, drawn by ahound so lean that stroking him might have hurt a dainty hand. I wasshocked—angry, till I noticed his fellow beast of burden pushing the cartfrom behind. Such a scarecrow of an old woman! There was little tochoose between them. I walked with them a little way. She lived nearWaterloo. All day she gathered wood in the great forest, and starting atthree o’clock each morning, the two lean creatures between them draggedthe cart nine miles to Brussels, returning when they had sold their load.With luck she might reckon on a couple of francs. I asked her if shecould not find something else to do.
Yes, it was possible, but for the little one, her grandchild. Folks willnot employ old women burdened with grandchildren.
You fair, dainty ladies, who would never know it was morning if somebodydid not enter to pull up the blind and tell you so! You do well not toventure out in this magic morning light. You would look so plain—almostugly, by the side of these beautiful women.
It is curious the attraction the Church has always possessed for themarketing classes. Christ drove them from the Temple, but still, inevery continental city, they cluster round its outer walls. It makes acharming picture on a sunny morning, the great cathedral with its massiveshadow forming the background; splashed about its feet, like a parterreof gay flowers around the trunk of some old tree, the women, young girlsin their many
coloured costumes, sitting before their piled-up baskets ofgreen vegetables, of shining fruits.
In Brussels the chief market is held on the Grande Place. The greatgilded houses have looked down upon much the same scene every morningthese four hundred years. In summer time it commences about half-pastfour; by five o’clock it is a roaring hive, the great city round aboutstill sleeping.
Here comes the thrifty housewife of the poor, to whom the difference of atenth of a penny in the price of a cabbage is all-important, and the muchharassed keeper of the petty _pension_. There are houses in Brusselswhere they will feed you, light you, sleep you, wait on you, for twofrancs a day. Withered old ladies, ancient governesses, who will teachyou for forty centimes an hour, gather round these ricketty tables, wolfup the thin soup, grumble at the watery coffee, help themselves withunladylike greediness to the potato pie. It must need carefulhousewifery to keep these poor creatures on two francs a day and make aprofit for yourself. So “Madame,” the much-grumbled-at, who has gone tobed about twelve, rises a little before five, makes her way down with herbasket. Thus a few _sous_ may be saved upon the day’s economies.
Sometimes it is a mere child who is the little housekeeper. One thinksthat perhaps this early training in the art of haggling may not be goodfor her. Already there is a hard expression in the childish eyes, meanlines about the little mouth. The finer qualities of humanity areexpensive luxuries, not to be afforded by the poor.
They overwork their patient dogs, and underfeed them. During the twohours’ market the poor beasts, still fastened to their little “chariots,”rest in the open space about the neighbouring Bourse. They snatch atwhat you throw them; they do not even thank you with a wag of the tail.Gratitude! Politeness! What mean you? We have not heard of such. Weonly work. Some of them amid all the din lie sleeping between theirshafts. Some are licking one another’s sores. One would they werebetter treated; alas! their owners, likewise, are overworked andunderfed, housed in kennels no better. But if the majority in everysociety were not overworked and underfed and meanly housed, why, then theminority could not be underworked and overfed and housed luxuriously.But this is talk to which no respectable reader can be expected tolisten.
They are one babel of bargaining, these markets. The purchaser selects acauliflower. Fortunately, cauliflowers have no feelings, or probably itwould burst into tears at the expression with which it is regarded. Itis impossible that any lady should desire such a cauliflower. Still, outof mere curiosity, she would know the price—that is, if the owner of thecauliflower is not too much ashamed of it to name a price.
The owner of the cauliflower suggests six _sous_. The thing is tooridiculous for argument. The purchaser breaks into a laugh.
The owner of the cauliflower is stung. She points out the beauties ofthat cauliflower. Apparently it is the cauliflower out of all her stockshe loves the best; a better cauliflower never lived; if there were morecauliflowers in the world like this particular cauliflower things mightbe different. She gives a sketch of the cauliflower’s career, from itsyouth upwards. Hard enough it will be for her when the hour for partingfrom it comes. If the other lady has not sufficient knowledge ofcauliflowers to appreciate it, will she kindly not paw it about, but putit down and go away, and never let the owner of the cauliflower see heragain.
The other lady, more as a friend than as a purchaser, points out thecauliflower’s defects. She wishes well to the owner of the cauliflower,and would like to teach her something about her business. A lady whothinks such a cauliflower worth six _sous_ can never hope to succeed as acauliflower vendor. Has she really taken the trouble to examine thecauliflower for herself, or has love made her blind to its shortcomings?
The owner of the cauliflower is too indignant to reply. She snatches itaway, appears to be comforting it, replaces it in the basket. The otherlady is grieved at human obstinacy and stupidity in general. If theowner of the cauliflower had had any sense she would have asked four_sous_. Eventually business is done at five.
It is the custom everywhere abroad—asking the price of a thing is simplyopening conversation. A lady told me that, the first day she beganhousekeeping in Florence, she handed over to a poulterer for a chickenthe price he had demanded—with protestations that he was losing on thetransaction, but wanted, for family reasons, apparently, to get rid ofthe chicken. He stood for half a minute staring at her, and then, beingan honest sort of man, threw in a pigeon.
Foreign housekeepers starting business in London appear hurt when ourtradesmen decline to accept half-a-crown for articles markedthree-and-six.
“Then why mark it only three-and-sixpence?” is the foreign housekeeper’sargument.
Idle Ideas in 1905 Page 4