“I don’t know anything about such things, but father’s friend said the Government were very worried about the position.”
“I can’t believe it. What! A war between European nations in the twentieth century? It’s quite unthinkable. We’re far too civilized. It’s over forty years since the Franco-Prussian War…”
“But there’s been a Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars…”
“Well, yes, but they’re different. I can’t believe any of the big European nations would start a war with another. Of course, there are Chauvins and Junkers and Jingoes, but who cares a hang about them? The people don’t want war.”
“Of course, I don’t know, but I heard Admiral Partington telling father that the navy is bigger, newer, and more efficient than it’s ever been. And he said the German army is huge and most efficient and the French are so frightened they’ve made the period of conscription three years. And he said, look out when the Kiel Canal is opened.”
“Good Lord, you surely don’t believe what stodgy old Admirals say, do you? It’s their job to frighten people with war scares so that they can go on getting money out of the country and building their ridiculous Dreadnoughts. I met a coastguard officer last summer, who got drunk and said he’d sealed orders as to what to do in case of war. I told him I thought that seal would not be broken until the angels in the Apocalypse arrived.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He just shook his head, and ordered another whisky.”
“Well, it doesn’t concern us. It’s not our business.”
“No, thank God, it doesn’t and can’t concern us.”
They were in Oxford Street, rolling past the shuttered shop-fronts. A good many people were on the pavements, but the street was comparatively empty of vehicles, empty and sonorous. As they ran down past Selfridge’s, the curved line of lights in the centre of the street looked like an uncoiled necklace of luminous, glittering beads. At Oxford Circus they gazed down the old Regent Street with its long lines of café-au-lait Regency houses, broken only at the Quadrant by the new Piccadilly Hotel.
“Isn’t that like us?” said George. “We have an attempt at town-planning, and, dull as Nash is, at any rate his design is simple and dignified, and then we go and ruin the Quadrant with a horrid would-be-modern hotel.”
“But I thought you believed in modernity in art.”
“So I do, but I don’t believe in mucking up the art of the past if it can be avoided. Besides, I don’t call these pastiches of Renaissance palaces modern architecture. The only people who have got a live modern architecture are the Americans, and they don’t know it.”
“Those awful sky-scrapers!”
“They’re awful in one way, but they’re original. I saw some photographs of New York from the harbour recently, and I thought it the most beautiful city in the world, a sort of gigantic and stupendous Venice. I’d like to go there – wouldn’t you?”
“No, I’d like to go to Paris and live in the real students’ quarter, and to Italy and Spain.”
The bus stopped at the end of Tottenham Court Road. They got down, and crossed the street to wait for the Hampstead bus.
“Look here,” said Elizabeth: “why do you bother to come all the way out to Hampstead? I’m perfectly used to going about alone. I shall be all right.”
“Of course, you would be. But I’d like to come most awfully. I hope I shall see a good deal of you, and we haven’t arranged where and when to meet again.”
“But there won’t be a bus back.”
“Oh, I shall walk. I like walking. And it’ll be an antidote to the fug and idiotic talk at Shobbe’s. Here’s the bus. Come on.”
They clambered on to the top of the bus, and again got the front seat. Elizabeth took off her right-hand glove to pay the fare, and after the conductor had gone George gently and rather timidly put his hand on hers. She did not withdraw it. Having established this delicious and dangerous contact, they sat silent for a while. The firm, cool male hand gently espoused her slim, glove-warmed fingers. In them both was the exaltation of the Cyprian, potential desire recognized only as a heightening of vitality. The first step along the primrose path – how delightful! But whither does it lead? To what everlasting bonfires of servitude or ashy wastes of indifference? Neither of them thought of the future. Why should they? The young at least have the sense to live only in the present moment.
Preceded by the silver dove-drawn chariot of the Paphian, the heavy bus lumbered northward. Sweet is the smile of Cypris, but ironic and a little terrifying, enigmatic as the fixed smile of the Veian Apollo.
Like all imaginative and sensitive men, George was not what is called an enterprising lover. He had too much male modesty, the inherent pudor which is so much stronger and more genuine than the induced modesty of women, that coquettish flight of the nymph who casts a rosy apple at her pursuer to encourage him to continue. Odd, but perhaps in the nature of things, that those men who have most contempt for women are generally the most successful with them. There must be a vast amount of latent masochism in women, ranging from the primitive delight in being knocked down, to the subtle enjoyment of complex jealousies. How ghastly – if you think about it – their passion for soldiers! To breed babies by him who has slain men – puh! there’s too much spilt blood in the world; one sickens at it. Give me some civet…
Once more they fell into talk – eager, excited, more intimate talk. They were calling each other “George” and “Elizabeth” before they reached the stately homes of Camden Town. By the time they passed Mornington Crescent they had admitted that they liked each other “frightfully” and would see a good deal of each other. In their excitement they talked rather incoherently, jumping from one topic to another in their eagerness to say something of all that seemed to clamour for expression, recklessly wasting their emotional energy. Their laughter had the ring of pure happiness. George slipped his arm through Elizabeth’s and held her fingers more amorously. Their natures expanded in a sudden delicious efflorescence; great coloured plumes of flowers seemed to sway and nod above their heads. They were enclosed in a nimbler air, the clear oxygen of desire, so compact, so resistant to the grey monster Ennui of Sunday-in-London.
“Isn’t it strange!” George exclaimed, with that fatuity peculiar to lovers; “I only met you this evening and yet I feel as if I had known you all my life!”
“So do I!”
He gratefully squeezed her fingers in silence, caught in a sudden panic of bashfulness, unable to pursue further.
“Do let’s meet often. We can go to the galleries and Queen’s Hall and Hampton and Oxshott. I can get you tickets for the new picture shows. Do you know the Allied Artists?”
“Yes, I belong.”
“Do you? Why ever didn’t you tell me you are a painter too?”
“Oh, I’m such a bad painter; besides, you didn’t ask me.”
“Touché! How self-absorbed one is! I apologize.”
“You must come and have tea at my studio and look at my – what I call my pictures. But you mustn’t be too critical. When can you come?”
“Any time. Tomorrow if you like.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“Oh! Oh! You are impatient. Can you come on Friday?”
“So long? It seems ages away!”
“Well, Thursday, then.”
“All right; what time?”
“About four.”
Elizabeth was probably not acquainted with Stendhal’s ingenious theory of crystallization, but she acted instinctively in accordance with it. Three days and four nights made exactly the right period. Tomorrow was too soon, the crystals would be in process of formation. A week would be rather too long, they would be tending to disintegrate… Infinite subtlety of females! One must admit they need it.
George accompanied Elizabeth to the boarding-house where she lived and took the address of her studio. She held out her hand, after putting the latch-key in the Yale lock.
“Till Thurs
day, then, good-night.”
“Good-night.”
He held her hand a moment, and then awkwardly and timidly kissed it. In her turn she felt a sudden panic, opened the door swiftly, and disappeared inside, with a last hasty “Good-night, good-night!”
George stood for several moments irresolutely on the step. He was desolated, thinking he had offended her.
Inside Elizabeth was murmuring silently to herself:
“He kissed my hand, he kissed my hand! I’ve a lover, a lover!”
The sudden panic and flight were a masterpiece of erotic strategy – they left that feeling of uncertainty, of mingled hope and fear, so valuable to the production of a powerful crystallization.
George walked back to Greek Street, enclosing in himself a small chaos of emotions and thoughts. He went by way of Fitzjohn’s Avenue and St. John’s Wood. The infinite debate in a lover’s mind – did she or didn’t she, would she or wouldn’t she? – moved in those curious arabesques where a mind continually wanders away from a main stem of thought, and perpetually comes back to it. Upjohn’s ridiculous conceit, Shobbe’s party, never go to that sort of thing again, Bobbe’s acrid offensiveness, how delicate that line from her ear to her throat, I should like to paint her, now, in that article tomorrow I must try to show clearly and definitely what the new painters are attempting, I wonder if she was really offended when I kissed her hand, but I must think about that article, let me see, begin with an explanation of non-representational, yes, that’s it, I must get a new tie for Thursday, this one’s worn out… And thus, with merciless iteration.
Under a gas-lamp near Marlborough Road Station he stopped and tried to write his first poem, and was surprised to find how difficult it was and what nonsense he wrote. A policeman came out of a side-street, and looked a little suspiciously at him. George moved on. A little later he began to sing “Bid me to live”, interrupted himself half-way through to make a note for a study in analysis of form. He walked rapidly and absorbedly, unconscious of his physical fatigue. Just before he crossed Oxford Street, he stopped and clapped his hands together. My God! I was a fool to kiss her hand the first time I met her, she’ll think I do that to every girl and won’t want to speak to me again. Oh well, it’s done. I wish I could kiss her mouth. I must remember to tell her on Thursday about that show at the Leicester Gallery.
He lay awake long that night, unable to sleep for very love of living. So much to see, so much to experience, so much to achieve so much to be and do! How wonderful to do things with Elizabeth! It would be fun to go to New York, of course, but perhaps one ought to see the Old World first? She said something about Paris and Spain. We might go together. Cursed money difficulty. Never mind, if one wants to do a thing hard enough, one always manages to do it. I suppose I’m in love with her? It would be divine to kiss her and touch her breasts and… Of course, one mustn’t have a baby, that would be too ghastly. I must find out. I wish we could go to Paris, the trees will be leafing in the Luxembourg…
In the night-silence; water dripped with insistent melody in some hidden tank. From outside came the shrill distant notes of train whistles, rather silvery and exquisite, bringing the yearning for travel, “the horns of elf-land faintly blowing.” Where had he read that? Oh, of course, Stevenson. Funny how the Coningtons thought Stevenson a good author…
Good-night, Elizabeth, good-night, sweet, sweet Elizabeth, good-night, good-night.
4
BEFORE our eyes we have the regrettable examples of George Augustus and Isabel, Ma and Pa Hartly, dear Mamma and dear Papa – eponyms of sexual infelicity.
Are we more intelligent than our ancestors? What a question for the British Press or for those three musketeers of publicity cheap and silly, of tattered debates on torn topics – Shaw, Chesterton, and Belloc! Shaw, yes, the puritan Beaumarchais – un coup de chapeau but the others! To the goddess Ennui sung by Pope, the groans of the Britons. Who will deliver us from the R.C. bores?
The problem may be stated thus:
Let X equal the ménage dear Mamma-dear Papa, or a typical couple of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties;
And let Y equal the ménage George Augustus and Isabel, or a typical couple of the ‘nineties and ‘noughts;
And further, let Z equal Elizabeth and George, or a typical bright young pair of the Georgian or European War epoch;
Then, it remains to be proved whether Z is equal to, or greater than, or less than X and/or Y.
A pretty theorem, not to be solved mathematically – too many unknown quantities involved.
I am naturally prejudiced in favour of Z, because I belong to their generation, but what do les jeunes, the sole competent authority, think? For, after all – let us be perfectly frank – dear Papa expired peacefully in his bed; George Augustus was unhappily but accidentally slain in the performance of his religious duties; whereas George, if you accept my interpretation of the facts, virtually committed suicide at the age of twenty-six.
But then dear Papa and George Augustus did not have to fight the European War…
The problem, you see, is almost insoluble, no doubt because it is wrongly stated. Let us examine it in different terms.
Without going back to Horace’s egg, may we not assume that he and she have lived well who have lived with felicity?
This not only involves the problem of the summum bonum or sovereign good, so much debated by the ancient philosophers, but the awful difficulty of knowing who is to decide whether another person has lived with felicity. Is there such a thing as a happy life? And, if there is, would it be the most desirable life? Would you like to be Claudian’s old man of Verona? Or Mr. John D. Rockefeller? Or Mr. Michael Arlen? Or any other type of unabridged felicity?
There are, of course, lots of things and people who will eagerly or dogmatically tell you exactly what you have to do to be happy. There is, for instance, the collective wisdom of the ages, as embodied in our religions, philosophies, laws, and social customs. What a mess! What a junk-shop of dusty relics! And in any case, “the collective wisdom of the ages” is merely one of the innumerable devices of government by which the Anglo-Saxon peoples are humbugged into thinking themselves free, enlightened, and happy.
But let us abandon these abstruse and arid speculations.… The point is, did George and Elizabeth (consider them for the moment, please, rather as types than individuals) come better prepared to the erotic life than their predecessors, were they more intelligent about it, did they make a bigger mess of things? Does the free play of the passions and intelligence make for more erotic happiness than the taboo system? Liberty versus Restraint. Wise Promiscuity versus Monogamy. (This is becoming a Norman Haire tract.)
Here of course I shall come into collision (if this has not happened long ago) with the virtuous British journalist. This gentleman will inform us that there are far too many books about the erotic life, that to dwell upon sex is morbid and disgusting, that monogamous marriage as established by religion and law must remain sacred, etcetera, etcetera, and that it provides a perfect solution, etcetera, etcetera.
Moreover, in the few cases where it goes wrong, the situation must be met by frequent applications of cold water to the genitals, by propelling balls of different sizes in different manners with various instruments in mimic combat, by slaying small animals and birds, by playing bridge for modest sums, avoiding French wines and dancing, scattering saltpetre on one’s bread and butter, regularly attending church, and subscribing to the virtuous organ of the virtuous journalist…
To which may be said; for example,
That without sexual intercourse, frequent and pleasant, adult life is maimed and tedious.
That social hypocrisy prescribes that we shall avoid open discussion and practice of the sexual life, and that we all (virtuous journalists included) think a great deal about it;
That the sporting-ascetic practices recommended are only effective in those predisposed to abnormal frigidity, and that they, taken in conjunction with the segregation of the
sexes, economic difficulties and insane prejudices, form one of the chief predisposing causes of the pictures of Dorian Gray and wells of loneliness which cause the virtuous journalist so much horror and indignation.
We therefore unanimously dismiss the virtuous British journalist with a firm but vigorous kick in the seat of his intelligence, and return to our speculations.
Mother of the race of Aeneas, voluptuous delight of gods and men, sacred Aphrodite, who from the recesses of Thy divine abode lookest in pity upon the sorrowing generations of men and women, and sheddest upon us rose-petals of subtle and recurrent pleasure and the delicious gift of Sleep, do Thou, Goddess, be ever with us, and neglect not the felicity of Thy worshippers! Do Thou, alone beautiful, daughter of the Gods, drench us with loveliness!
From which to the lives of Pa and Ma Hartly et al. is indeed a staggeringly long step…
I hold a brief for the war generation. J’aurais pu mourir; rien ne m’eût été plus facile. J’ai encore à écrire ce que nous avons fait… (Bonaparte à Fontainebleau – admirez l’érudition de l’auteur.)
Yet why should we mourn, O Zeus, and why should we laugh? Why weep, why mock? What is a generation of men that we should mourn for it? As leaves, as leaves, says the poet, spring, bourgeon, and fall the generations of Man – No! but as rats in the rolling ship of the Earth as she plunges through the roar of the stars to the inevitable doom. And like rats we pullulate, and like rats we scramble for greasy prey, and like rats we fight and murder our kin… And – O gigantic mirth! – the voice of the Thomiste is heard!
Death of a Hero Page 17