Hermione

by Hilda Doolittle

  six

  Now more than ever she knew they were out of some bad novel. Sound of chiffon ripping and the twist and turn of Hermione under the stalwart thin young torso of George Lowndes. Now more than ever thought made spiral, made concentric circle toward a darkened ceiling. The ceiling came down, down. The ceiling became black, in a moment it would crush down, crushing Her and George Lowndes under a black metallic shutter. The ceiling was a sort of movable shutter like some horrible torture thing out of Poe’s tales, the wall that came close out of Poe’s tales was coming close, the wall was coming close. Doors were no more in walls, the curtains were no more curtains. Walls were coming close to suffocate, to crush her . . . “You’ve torn this chiffon sleeve thing horribly.’’

  A twist, a turn. Men are not strong. Women are stronger. I am stronger. I turn and twist out of those iron arms because if he had held me, I would have been crushed by iron. Iron is in walls. She said “Please put the light on.”

  Room sprang into being. Firelight pulsed lower, was nebulous, was faint in the sudden glare of lamplight. “Why did you come so near” was the sound her heart made, was her accusation, or “Having come so near” was her accusation, “why didn’t you come nearer?” There is something awkward in the whole proceeding. Now why does he stay staring?

  A face was staring at Her. It was not the face of George Lowndes. Mandy has gone to bed. It will be queer if I call. Her slid to feet that pulsed under Her, would drop away like toadstools, like feet of water. Her limbs were water. The limbs of Her were water. Could she stand on water limbs? She swam (found use for limbs in water) toward the piano. The piano was a rock, a raft. She remembered suddenly from nowhere a boy standing on a piano. There was a boy on a piano standing against a mist of blue embroidery. The blue had been cloud, had been mist, had been larkspurs seen in water. Wide eyes stared at a face that was not the face of George Lowndes staring, a masque set incongruously on somewhat London shoulders. The shoulders of George were London shoulders, George had looked like a count or something. The face of George looked a wolf, was a wolf, it was a wolf mask on a man’s body . . .

  Standing by the piano with incongruous light making too-heady fall and flow of orange, crimson and orange, she saw George Lowndes. What is he? What am I? What am I?Shadows were not in corners, the whole thing was too luminous. Light was beating on Her from some great arena. In a moment (her thought went) he will pounce, he will bound forward. His movement will be gracious, swift, an Orlando sort of movement. He will crouch and leap but he won’t—he won’t be anything. Things can’t happen that aren’t meant to happen. She said “I wish I had a gramophone. It’s a bore not being able to play better.”

  So coming closer they looked through some sort of water layer, the blur of water was before eyes that saw George now gone paler, gone slacker, gone not so white with that white-wolf mask clapped upon his face above somewhat London shoulders. Her saw George through a blur, water fell and rose and her body pressed against the raft, against the piano that was a sort of raft, she must hold on to this great rock; a house on a rock, I will build my house, she said, on a rock. For she remembered a boy with hands lifted toward a heaven that had neither breadth nor width nor edge nor line nor any end whatever. Some sort of heaven out of the Revelations had been revealed to Her in a flash, in Saint Paul’s twinkling of an eye that day at Lillian’s. Yes, Lillian had helped Her. Now Her recalled Lillian and recalled Lillian having helped Her. Straight and strong like some girl athlete from Laconian hill slopes, straight and brave like the maiden Artemis, she felt water-knees break and water-ankles let her feel how very insecure her marble feet were. Two people. I am Her. I am the word AUM. I am Her. She said “Em, Hem, Um” clearing her throat, making a little choking noise in her throat and saw George standing like young Orlando. George put two hands under the armpits of a statue that was falling . . .

  “I didn’t mean Hermione to hurt you.” “You didn’t—didn’t—” Her teeth were chattering. George had dragged a shawl from somewhere. How did he find that old carriage rug? We never use it. An old rug she had used to tuck about her feet in the days before the barn was turned into a laboratory, was tucked around ankles that now were frankly broken.

  “It’s funny with me. I’m so strong. I feel so strong, so right. Nothing can ever hurt me. Then—” Humiliation choked Her. Tears choked and humiliated Her. And George had turned the lamp down a little as the flick and flare of the light had burnt against Her. Now she said “I’m too strong and I’m nothing and I’m frightened.” She achieved a very ugly voice that blubbered unbecomingly from somewhere, saying it over and over like a prayer wheel. “I am frightened. I am the word Aum, I am Her. I am Her.” Her blubbered in a child voice against the somewhat London shoulders of a George Lowndes, “I am—so—very—frightened.”

  seven

  “I think George is right. I don’t think that girl is good for you. Don’t let her come here any more, Hermione.” “Yes mama.” “I have been talking to Lillian. I think the whole thing is wrong, a strain on us all. You ought to marry George Lowndes.” “Yes, mama.” “This girl—she’s all wrong. Lillian thinks her most —most unwholesome.” “Yes, mama.” “Lillian and I were saying—” “Yes, mama.” Yes, yes and no, no. Yes and no. No and yes. I will say yes, I will say no. I will say yes Lillian, I will say no mama. I will throw yes and no and no and yes like the shafts of a Pythian goddess. I will slay and kill and burn and break and slay and kill and burn. I will and I won’t be taken in by all their vile antics. They know so simply nothing. “Yes, mama. I do think that George is looking better.”

  “I don’t mean that he looks ill exactly though he’s not what you would call robust exactly. I don’t mean that. He looks more—more—normal. He looks much less eccentric. “Yes, mama. I do know what you do mean.” “Now Lillian was saying that you have been so good for him—that she is so pleased.” “Yes, mama.” Keep Parthian quiver strapped to a stalwart marble shoulder, don’t let any go. Don’t let any single shaft escape you. Wily and divine, keep it all, keep it all. Save yourself and offer them a sort of water creature. Keep marble for yourself and keep marble for marble. Keep a marble self for a marble self, Her for Her, Her for Fayne exactly.

  Hermione watching Eugenia across a patch of vivid winter sunlight thought, “normal, unwholesome, their vocabulary gets more meagre. I understand Fayne bleating that day at her mother.”

  eight

  “Bodies beyond these bodies and these bodies are just nothing; minds beyond these minds.” “Yes Fayne.” “But you don’t care. You live in everyday things, like a snowdrop under an evergreen. You are a snowdrop, parasitic, you have no real life.” “Yes Fayne.” “Why do you say yes Fayne, why do you say, no Fayne? Have you no reality, no voice, no articulate self?” “George says—” “Oh George, George. I thought we had crossed George out, made a clean (so to speak) slate of this Lowndes person.” “I thought you’d come to like him.” “I? Oh—I—he interests me. I consider it my right, even my duty to flow toward that from which I may take wisdom. Remember always Hermione that the thing I have is minute, a very atom of a grain of a thing but it is pure.” “Truth, I know Fayne.” “The thing in you is not so small. It has reason, being, dimension. It has in fact reality. It is beauty.” The room shrank and quivered. Pythian to Pythian, prophetess to prophetess, the mood was on them. “Ye-e-ees, Fayne.”

  Teeth might chatter in a head bent backward and Her Gart might quiver with suppressed emotion and with curious, terrible, intense terror, terror of the things that Fayne saw clearly, terror of the world that Her sensed piecemeal, that was to Fayne (Fayne said) the one reality. Her head bent back into almost-evening of the small room upstairs, saw Fayne and Fayne and Fayne. “Why is it Hermione, your mother so dislikes me?”

  Terror might throttle and choke Her Gart but something more than terror held Her. Her was held by insatiable curiosity; the desire to turn, so to speak, the little wheel that brought psychic states clear and into focus. “Eugenia. Oh,
I don’t know—we’ll talk about that later. What—wh-aa-aat do you mean by beauty?”

  “George calls me a psychic charlatan, you heard him say it.” “Noo-o. I mean yes he did say something.” “George is lie upon lie upon lie. He is a tatter and a ragbag. George, not so many lives back, was—” “Was?” “Was some wandering student, his own Provençal sort of thing carried to its logical conclusion. George is lie upon lie upon lie. George interests me because I try out on George the thing that is in me. The thing that is me.” “Truth, pure truth exactly.” “Truth pure truth, that atomic center of me, draws George to me, separates George from George like some deep distilling acid. The thing in me, pure upon pure truth, disintegrates George and I watch the disintegration, matching element to element, saying this is George, this was George. The George that is to be—” “Yes Fayne—” “Is something I can’t follow.” Fayne Rabb fell back in the low divan like a professional crystal gazer whose half-hour consultation is now over.

  Her Gart rising on her lean shanks, rising from the floor, stepped forward. Greater than the mind, greater than the spirit, certainly greater than the body, is our curiosity. She felt fibre tighten and sinew harden. She turned, so to speak, a little wheel, adjusted, so to speak, her psychic vision. “You must tell me what is beauty?”

  “Beauty, said jesting Pilate—” “No that was truth, Fayne. ‘What is truth’ is what you mean. You know what truth is as you are pure truth, but what, just what is beauty?” Fayne Rabb lifted a necromancer’s slim hand and motioned toward the curtains. “I am so tired, I wish you’d read, Hermione.”

  There was only one thing to read to Fayne; she had read and she would re-read it. “O sister my sister . . .” Fayne fell back into the divan recess, Fayne was a prophetess receeding to her cavern. “You are, you know, Itylus.” “Itylus?” “This thing that I must always quote you because the day your letter came—” “The day my letter came?” “I was reading it. But I’ve told you this so often.” “Tell it again Hermione.” Fayne Rabb spoke like a sick child. She lay back in the cavernous divan. “You go so peaked and wan so suddenly.” “It’s trying to see, trying to understand things. Your voice is drug to me. I never know what you’re saying to me.” “I’m not saying anything. I only said O sister my sister O singing swallow, the world’s division divideth us. And then that afternoon I was sure that your name was Itylus.” Her Gart spoke and read, read and spoke, her words made rhythm to the poem, the poem made rhythm suitable to her swift words. Words came from nowhere, tumbled headlong somewhere . . . “and mama doesn’t hate you. She is in another world. She and Lillian are Eleusinian. Life to them means simply more life. They have justified themselves in having children. They think it right that George and I should marry . . .” “Oh George—and—you.” The voice spoke like a child in a delirium “Oh you—and—George.” The voice was drawn up, up out of a deep well, a prophet’s voice.

  “Oh I know. I won’t. I promise you I won’t ever marry George, my swallow.”

  Hands pressed against the swallow-blue that were now the swallow-black great-pupiled eyes of Fayne Rabb, were the long cold hands of Her Gart. Her Gart dropped book, dropped affectation of sanity, sank down to the floor, through the floor, above the earth, was on the earth, rock of earth-rock simply. Prophetess to prophetess on some Delphic headland, Her Gart pressed cold hands against the eyelids of Fayne Rabb. “Your hands are healing. They have dynamic white power.” “Sleep, sleep my Itylus.” “Your hands are white stars. Your hands are snowdrops. Tell me what does George Lowndes say about me. Tell me, Hermione.”

  “He says you are—he says you are—” gallantly Her Gart tried to drag out some little gesture, something that might be rightly interpreted to mean something. “Oh it isn’t what George says exactly.” “You mean?” Fire and electric white spark pulsed in thin wrists. “It isn’t what he says, it’s the—the way he says it.” “He thinks I’m—I’m beautiful?” “Oh he doesn’t exactly say it. He thinks you very striking. It isn’t the thing George says as the thing behind it.” Fayne Rabb lay passive, hypnotized by white hands.

  O sister my sister O fleet sweet swallow ran rhythm of her head and hast thou the heart to be glad thereof yet beat rhythm of a heart that beat and beat against the ragged edge of the potpourri-coloured old shawl (it had been grandmama’s) flung over the upstairs sitting room little sofa. A sofa. What is a sofa? A sofa is that horrible thing in Fayne’s house that you slide off of. A sofa, rightly speaking is slippery. You slide off. It’s better her coming here . . . up in this room, alone in this room. Heart beat against the old shawl whose paisley pattern faded out in the onrush of winter darkness, darkness out of a temple. Her heart beat like an owl in the darkness . . . hast thou the heart to be glad thereof yet . . . thou has forgotten, O summer swallow . . . but the world will end . . . the world will end . . . the world will end . . . when I forget.

  Heart might beat its rhythm; it would not beat out thought. Her with hands stretched like some suppliant across the dead body of its child or slain young lover, though my heart beats and beats it won’t drown thought. Thought goes on, I am a sort of cavity for thought. My head is a sort of cold stone hollow bowl and thought is caught in my child head. Her hands lay stretched, crossed on the white marble covered with blue serge. Her hands lay where they had fallen when finally she had felt under hypnotizing fingers the temples in that other head cease their terrible pummeling and pounding and the eyelids (under hypnotizing long fingers) flutter and fall, swallow wings foil and flutter and stay silent. The heart under the long hand of Her Gart went on beating. It’s as if she just hadn’t died. What is so terrible about it? She seems to get away, get across into some other world. Her eyes burn like blue stones with fire back of them, blue stones with no fire in them. Her eyes go black suddenly like the black wings of a swallow. Her eyes go shut, are shut. Will they ever open? Her seemed to be dragging beat on beat out of that heart by her very static willpower. I will not have her hurt. I will not have Her hurt. She is Her. I am Her. Her is Fayne. Fayne is Her. I will not let them hurt HER.

  Resolution, beating its valour into early winter darkness, was overtaken by a host of enemies. Sitting alert her thought was, “Oh they will wake her, they will wake HER. Her must not be wakened.” Her was sleeping after tussle and pummeling of veins in a taut forehead. One day at Lillian’s a boy had lifted a heavy weight from her own forehead, had showed Heaven without edge or width or line or any edge whatever. Heaven without any edge whatever, became a room ceiling, became a ceiling cut in the corner by the triangle of light that fell across from the lamp at the edge of the driveway. Tim lights the lamp early these nights. Carriage lamp at the driveway threw triangle . . .

  “Aren’t you having any dinner?” cried blasphemy across circles of temple light. Should she answer? It was Minnie. Her answered, “Oh tell them that I don’t—Fayne’s here—I’ll come later.” Feet followed voice and went out. Feet went out finally like a snuffed candle. Feet had padded down the corridor. Thought from below stairs now would creep up. Her could hear them talking; “But hasn’t that Rabb girl gone yet?” Her could hear them discussing Fayne. Minnie and mama at least would be joined in this instance. There would be nothing left. . . nothing left. . . her heart pressed back again against the rough edge of the sofa, against the old soft paisley stuff of the old shawl. Fayne hadn’t heard them, mercifully under hypnotizing white hand a heart went on . . . went on . . . I will keep her heart beating. I will keep Her asleep. Her is asleep here out of some cavern. Her lies asleep like Juliet, like some slain young warrior. Her lies in state like a prince who is dead, like a king. Her is asleep . . . Her must stay there sleeping.

  “Hermione, unlock the door. This is—this is—” Oh heart don’t wake up, don’t move Her, don’t move. Stay sleeping. Her rose and tiptoed backward toward the door, pushed herself to some raw reality against it, caught at the little fastener. “But it isn’t locked Eugenia.” Her turned around the door, slid around it as around some upstanding marble
pillar, closed it, stood against it. “The door’s not locked Eugenia.” A face regarded Her. It was Eugenia. “But—but—” Eugenia was choking. She looks ugly. Her face came up wrinkled about the eyes, furrowed in the chin. The chin was furrowed. Her face was angry. Her eyes were innocent and looked like violets. The face was a sort of face looking out of tea leaves in a trick fortuneteller’s outfit. A face out of a gipsy-teller’s fortune looked at her. It was marred with tea leaves. The eyes were violets.