“Time passes,” said George; “what do we know of Time? Prehistoric beasts, like the ichthyosaurus and Queen Victoria, have laired and copulated and brought forth…’
A motor-bus roared by, like a fabulous noisy red ox with fiery eyes and a luminous interior, quenching his words.
“Eh?” said Mr. Upjohn. “Balls!”
“Now, look at these simian bipeds,” George pursued, pointing to an inoffensive pair of lovers and a suspicious cop, “more foul, more deadly, more incestuously blood-lustful…”
“You see, what I mean is, nothing matters to these people but our conversation… Now, what I mean is, you get fat Shobbe to let you write an article on me and Suprematism.”
“We should go to the Zoo more often, and watch the monkeys. The chimpanzee leaps with the dexterity of a politician. The Irish-looking ourang smokes his pipe as placidly as a Camden Town murderer. The purple-bottomed mandrils on heat will initiate you into love. And the perpetual chatter of the small monkeys – how like ourselves! What ecstatic clicking about nothing! Go to the ape, thou poet.”
Mr. Upjohn laughed abruptly and spat with a raucous cough:
“An old idea, but what’s it got to do with le mouvement? Still, what I mean is, I might do something with it.
Poor old George! He was a bloody fool. He never learned how fatally unwise it is to express any sort of an idea to a brother – still less to a sister – artist.
Mr. Upjohn discoursed on Suprematism and himself.
At Notting Hill Gate, George halted. The Sabbath ennui shot its tentacles at him, and enlaced his spirit, dragging him down into the whirlpool of wanhope. Why go on? Why affront the veiled hostility of people? Why suffer those eyes to search and those nimble unerring tongues to wound? Oh, wrap oneself in solitude, like an armoured shroud, and bend over the dead words of a dead language! A simian biped! O gods, gods! And Plato talks of Beauty.
“Come along,” shouted Mr. Upjohn, a few paces ahead, “this way. Holland Park. Old Shobbe’ll be waiting for me in that mob. What I mean is, he knows I’m the only other intelligent person in London.”
George still hesitated. He sank deeper in the maelstrom of unintelligible and causeless despair. Why go on? The adolescent love of death and suicide – corollary to youth’s vitality and vivid energy – swept over him in choking waves. To cease upon the midnight with no pain…
“I think I shan’t come,” he shouted after the retreating Mr. Upjohn.
Mr. Upjohn hurried back and seized George’s arm:
“What’s the matter with you? The best way to get an article out of Shobbe is to go and see him on his Sunday evenings. Come on. We shall be late.”
No Euripidean chorus uttered gnomic reflections on the inevitable and irresistible power of Ananke, the Destiny which is above the gods. No bright god warned him, no oracular voice spoke to him. Conflict of freewill and destiny! But is there a conflict? Whether we move or are still, whether we go to the right or the left, hesitate or rush blindly forward, the thread is inexorably spun. Ananke, Ananke.
George yielded reluctantly to the tug at his arm.
“All right, I’ll come.”
2
AS they were shown into Mr. Shobbe’s large studio they encountered an indescribable babble of human voices, which gave strange point to George’s zoological remarks, since it sounded as if all the macaws at the Zoo had got into the monkey-house to argue with its inhabitants about theology. Mr. Shobbe’s studio (or “stew-joe,” as his humbler Cockney contributors called it) was already dim with cigarette smoke. The excited and elevated babble of voices was due to the fact that this was one of Mr. Shobbe’s rare caviar and champagne evenings, and not one of the ordinary beer and ham-sandwich débâcles. George and Mr. Upjohn were still in the doorway, hidden by the opening door, when a couple of champagne corks popped. George noticed a look of horror and perplexity, mingled with the satisfaction always produced by the prospect of free alcohol, in Mr. Upjohn’s countenance. George wondered vaguely why, and followed the ebullient swagger of Mr. Upjohn into the large room. It was not until long afterwards that he realized the cause of this rapid and subtle flash of horror in Mr. Upjohn. The champagne and caviar evenings were reserved for the “better” contributors to, and the wealthier guarantors of, Mr. Shobbe’s periodical. Upjohn was County and Cambridge, with a small income and prospects of a large inheritance from a senile aunt – he was therefore one of the “better” contributors. George, on the other hand, was merely middle-class, talented, and penniless. Mr. Upjohn had thus committed a social error of hair-raising enormity by bringing George to the champagne reception under the false impression that it was merely a beer “do” for the common mob.
With genial bonhomie Mr. Shobbe greeted in Mr. Upjohn the potential inheritance from the senile aunt. Upon George he turned a coldly languid blue eye, and for a moment lent him a hand even limper, flabbier, and clammier than usual. George noticed the difference, but ingenuously assumed that it was because he was younger than Mr. Upjohn and incapable of producing “Christ in a Bloomsbury Brothel” or the doctrines of Suprematism. But Mr. Upjohn, with more acute social ambitions, was aware of his gaffe. He mumbled his apology, which was almost lost in the surrounding babble:
“Brought ’m ’long discuss ’n article on Me ’n S’prematism.”
Mr. Shobbe only half-heard, and nodded vaguely. The slight awkwardness of the situation was ended by the appearance of Mrs. Shobbe, who greeted them both; and they passed into the room. George attributed the feeling of strain to his own shyness and aloofness. He was still naïf enough to suppose that people are welcomed for their own sake.
In justice to the distinguished gathering in Mr. Shobbe’s studio (two “social” journalists were present) it must be said that the babble and the excitement were not wholly due to the champagne. Pre-war London was comparatively sober. Numbers of women did not even drink at all, and cocktails and communal copulation had not then been developed to their present state of intensity. Whether the art of scandal-mongering has suffered by this new social activity is hard to say, but as ever it remains the chief diversion of the British intelligentsia. Serious conversation is of course impossible, on account of the paper-pirates who are always hovering about to snatch up an idea. One definite improvement is that the bon mot, the recherché pun, the international witticism, are definitely discouraged. Indeed, one of the brightest of the post-war reputations was created by a young man who had the self-restraint to sit through forty-five literary parties without saying a word. This frightened everybody so much that when this modern lay Trappist departed you heard on all sides:
“Brilliant young man.”
“Extraordinary clever.”
“I hear he’s writing a book on metaphysics in the Stone Age.”
“No, really?”
“They say he’s the greatest living authority on pre-Columbian literature!”
“How quite too marvellous.”
But in those distant pre-war days people strove to chatter themselves into notice through a chaos of witticisms. On this particular evening, however, witticisms were in the background, for an event had occurred to stagger this small cosmos of affectation into sincerity. With the exception of George (who was too young and unknown to matter) and a few women, almost everybody present had been connected with a publishing firm which had suddenly gone bankrupt. On Mr. Shobbe’s recommendation some of his wealthier guarantors had put money into the firm; the painters were “doing” illustrated editions or writing books on the Renaissance artists still popular in those unenlightened days; and the writers had received contracts for an almost unlimited number of works. Money had been lavishly spent and some rather amusing things had been begun. Then suddenly the publisher vanished with the lady typist-secretary and the remainder of the cash. Hence the excited babble.
George stood, a little dazed, beside a small group of youngish men and women. A dark, rather sinister-looking young man kept saying:
“Le crapule! Ah! le cr
apule!”
George wondered vaguely who was a crapule and why, and halflistened to the conversation.
“He was paying me three hundred a year and…”
“My last novel did so well that he gave me a five years’ contract and an advance of…”
“Yes, and I was getting twenty per cent…”
“Yes, but do let me tell you this. Shobbe says that the lawyers told him four thousand pounds of the money came from the diocesan funds of…”
“Yes, I know. Shobbe told us.”
“Le crapule!”
“What’ll the archbishop say?”
“Oh, they’ll smother that up.”
“Yes, but look here – do shut up for a minute, Bessie – what I want to know is, how do we stand? What about our copyrights? Shobbe told me the legal position is…”
“Hang the legal position. What do we get out of it?”
“Crapule!”
“Nothing, probably. You won’t get much, anyhow. He hadn’t even published your book, and I was to get three hundred a year and…
“It isn’t so much the money I mind as having my book off the market when it was going so well – did you see the long article on me in last week’s…”
“Crapule!”
George glanced almost affectionately at the sinister-looking young man. It struck him that the repeated “crapule” was addressed as much to his present audience as to the unknown perpetrator of these calamities. At that moment Mr. Upjohn came along, and George took him aside. “I say, Frank, what’s all this talk about?”
“Dear Bertie has eloped with Olga and the cash.”
“Dear Bertie? Oh, you mean… But the firm will go on, won’t it?”
“Go on the streets. You see, there isn’t a cent left. What I mean is, I shall have to find some one else to do my Suprematist book. What I mean to say is, Bertie had a glimmering of intelligence…”
“Who’s Olga?”
But at that moment a lady with two unmarried daughters and private information about the senile aunt’s fortune plunged sweetly at Mr. Upjohn.
“Oh, Mr. Upjohn, how nice to see you again! How are you?”
“Mildly surviving.”
“You never came to my last at-home. Now you must come and have dinner next week. Sir George was so much impressed last week by what you said about the new school of painting you have founded – what is the name? I’m so stupid about remembering names.”
Mr. Upjohn introduced them:
“Lady Carter – George Winterbourne. He’s a painter of sorts.”
Lady Carter took in George at a glance – shabby clothes, old tie carelessly knotted, hair too long, abstracted gaze, poor, too young anyway – and was politely insolent. After a few words, she and Mr. Upjohn walked away. She pretended to be amused by Mr. Upjohn’s conversation.
George went over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of champagne. The ceaseless babble of petty talk about petty interests irritated and bored him. He felt isolated and hate-obstinate. So this was Upjohn’s “only intelligent group in London”! If this is “intelligence,” then let me be a fool for God’s sake. Better the great octopus ennui outside than these jelly-fish tentacles stinging with conceit, self-interest, and malice.
He went over to talk to Comrade-Editor Bobbe. Mr. Bobbe was a sandy-haired, narrow-chested little man with spiteful blue eyes and a malevolent class-hatred. He exercised his malevolence with comparative impunity by trading upon his working-class origin and his indigestion, of which he had been dying for twenty years. Nobody of decent breeding could hit Mr. Bobbe as he deserved, because his looks were a perpetual reminder of his disease, and his behaviour and habits gave continual evidence of his origin. He was the Thersites of the day, or rather that would have been the only excuse for him. Intellectually he was Rousseau’s sedulous and somewhat lousy ape. His conversation rasped. His vanity and class-consciousness made him yearn for affairs with upper-class women, although he was obviously a homosexual type. Admirable energy, a swift and sometimes remarkable intuition into character, a good memory and excellent faculty of imitation, a sharp tongue and brutal frankness, gave him power. He was a little snipe, but a dangerous one. Although biassed and sometimes absurd, his weekly political articles were by far the best of the day. He might have been a real influence in the rapidly growing Socialist Party if he could have controlled his excessive malevolence, curbed his hankering for aristocratic alcoves, and dismissed his fatuous theories of the Unconscious, which were a singular mixture of misapprehended theosophy and ill-digested Freud. George admired his feverish energy and talents, pitied him for his ill-health and agonised sense of class inferiority, disliked his malevolence, and ignored his theories.
“What are you doing here, Winterbourne? I shouldn’t have thought Shobbe would invite you. You haven’t any money, have you?”
“Upjohn brought me along.”
“Upjohn-and-at-’em? What’s he want of you?”
“An article on his new school of painting, I think.”
Mr. Bobbe tittered, screwing up his eyes and nose in disgust, and flapping his right hand with a gesture of take-it-away-it-stinks.
“Suprematist painting! Suprematist dung-bags! Suprematist conceit and empty-headed charlatanism! Did you see him toady to that Carter woman, Lady Carter? Puh!”
There was such vindictiveness in that “puh” that George was disconcerted. True, he himself suspected Mr. Upjohn was a bit of a charlatan, and knew he was odiously conceited; at the same time there was something very kind-hearted and generous in poor Upjohn-and-at-’em, who had received that nickname for his furious onslaughts on any one who was established and successful, in alleged defence of any one who was struggling and neglected. Unfortunately, these vituperative efforts of poor Mr. Upjohn did no good to his friends and served only to bring himself advertisement – the advertisement of ridiculousness. But George felt he ought to say something in defence.
“Well, of course, he’s eccentric and sometimes offensive, but he’s got a streak of curious genius and real generosity.”
Mr. Bobbe snarled rather than tittered.
“He’s an insignificant, toadying little cheese-worm. That’s what he is, a toadying little cheese-worm. And you won’t be much better, my lad, if you let yourself drift with these people. You’ll go to pieces, you’ll just go com-plete-ly to pieces. But humanity’s rotten. It’s all rotten. It stinks. It’s worm-eaten. Look at those mingy fellows prancing round those women on the tips of their toes. Cold-hearted, cold-bollocked, mingy sneaks! Look at the women, pining for a bit o’ real warm-hearted man’s love, and what do they get? Mingy cold-hearted screwing! I know ‘em, I know ‘em. Curse the mingy lot of ‘em. But it won’t last long, it can’t. The workers won’t stand it. There’ll be a revolution and a bloody one, and soon too. Mingy sons of spats and eyeglasses!”
George was amazed and embarrassed by this outburst. He did indeed feel repelled by most of the gathering, particularly by persons like Mr. Robert Jeames, the Poets’ Friend, who made anthologies of all the worst authors, wore a monocle and spats, and lisped through a wet tooth. But after all Mr. Jeames was harmless and quite amiable. One might not agree with his taste; one might not feel attracted by him, or indeed by most of the people present. But there was certainly a wide difference between such a feeling and “mingy sneaks” and “cheese-worms.” Moreover, George was a little offended by Mr. Bobbe’s proletarian vocabulary, while he failed to see exactly why the sexual frigidity of a few men in dinner-jackets should cause the workers to rise in bloody revolution.
“I shouldn’t think the workers care a hoot. If it’s as you say, the women are more likely to join the suffragettes.”
“Faugh!” said Mr. Bobbe. “puh! Suffragettes? Take them away. They smell. They’re unclean. They’re obscene. Women and votes! It’s the last stage of decomposition of the mingy world. When the women start to get power, it’s the end. It means the men are done for, mingy cold-hearted sneaks. Once let the women in
, and nothing can save the world. Socialism, perhaps, and a geniune out-reaching of the inward unconscious Male-life to the dark Womb-life in Woman. But no, they’re not worthy of it. Let ‘em go. You’ll see, my lad, you’ll see. Within five years there’ll be a…”
“Oh, Mr. Bobbe,” said Mrs. Shobbe’s voice, and a timid little greyish lady, all in grey and silver, appeared, gentle and fluttering beside them, like a large gentle grey moth. “Oh, Mr. Bobbe, do forgive me for interrupting your interesting conversation. Lady Carter is so anxious to meet you and admires you so much. I’m sure you’ll like her and her two daughters – such beautiful girls.”
George watched Mr. Bobbe as he bowed servilely to Lady Carter and entered into an animated conversation with that living rung in the social ladder. He watched the scene for several minutes, and was just thinking of leaving when Mr. Waldo Tubbe came near him.
“Well, Winterbourne,” he remarked in his neat, mincing English, “you appeared sunk in thought. What was the precise object of your contemplation?”
“Bobbe was inveighing against Upjohn for toadying to Lady Carter, and then as soon as Mrs. Shobbe came and asked him to be introduced, he rushed off and you can see him there sitting at Lady Carter’s feet with clasped hands.”
Mr. Tubbe looked unnecessarily grave.
“O-oh,” he said, with a very genteel roll to the “o”, and an air of suggesting unutterable things. This was a very great asset to Mr. Tubbe in social intercourse. He found that an interrogative silence on his part forced other people to talk, and made them slightly ill at ease, so that they betrayed what they did not always wish to express. He would then gravely remark “Oe-oh” or “In-deed?” or “Really?” with a deportmental air which was highly impressive and somehow slightly reproving. It was reported that Mr. Tubbe spent hours practising in private the exact intonation of his “Oe-ohs”, “Reallys”, and “Indeeds”. He had certainly brought them to a high pitch of gentility and suppressed significance. Mr. Tubbe drank a good deal – gin mostly; but it must be said for him that the drunker he got, the more genteel and darkly significant he became.
Death of a Hero Page 14