“Of course I myself prefer Moussorgsky,” said Aaron. “I think he is a greater artist. But perhaps it is just personal preference.”
“Yes. Boris is wonderful. Oh, some of the scenes in Boris!”
“And even more Kovantchina,” said Aaron. “I wish we could go back to melody pure and simple. Yet I find Kovantchina, which is all mass music practically, gives me more satisfaction than any other opera.”
“Do you really? I shouldn’t say so: oh, no — but you can’t mean that you would like all music to go back to melody pure and simple! Just a flute — just a pipe! Oh, Mr. Sisson, you are bigoted for your instrument. I just LIVE in harmony — chords, chords!” She struck imaginary chords on the white damask, and her sapphires swam blue. But at the same time she was watching to see if Sir William had still got beside his plate the white medicine cachet which he must swallow at every meal. Because if so, she must remind him to swallow it. However, at that very moment, he put it on his tongue. So that she could turn her attention again to Aaron and the imaginary chord on the white damask; the thing she just lived in. But the rubicund bald colonel, more rubicund after wine, most rubicund now the Marsala was going, snatched her attention with a burly homage to her femininity, and shared his fear with her with a boyish gallantry.
When the women had gone up, Sir William came near and put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. It was evident the charm was beginning to work. Sir William was a self-made man, and not in the least a snob. He liked the fundamental ordinariness in Aaron, the commonness of the common man.
“Well now, Mr. Sisson, we are very glad to see you! Very glad, indeed. I count Mr. Lilly one of the most interesting men it has ever been my good fortune to know. And so for your own sake, and for Mr. Lilly’s sake, we are very glad to see you. Arthur, my boy, give Mr. Sisson some Marsala — and take some yourself.”
“Thank you, Sir,” said the well-nourished young man in nice evening clothes. “You’ll take another glass yourself, Sir?”
“Yes, I will, I will. I will drink a glass with Mr. Sisson. Major, where are you wandering off to? Come and take a glass with us, my boy.”
“Thanks, Sir William,” drawled the young major with the black patch.
“Now, Colonel — I hope you are in good health and spirits.”
“Never better, Sir William, never better.”
“I’m very glad to hear it; very glad indeed. Try my Marsala — I think it is quite good. Port is beyond us for the moment — for the moment — ”
And the old man sipped his brown wine, and smiled again. He made quite a handsome picture: but he was frail.
“And where are you bound, Mr. Sisson? Towards Rome?”
“I came to meet Lilly,” said Aaron.
“Ah! But Lilly has fled over the borders by this time. Never was such a man for crossing frontiers. Wonderful person, to be able to do it.”
“Where has he gone?” said Aaron.
“I think to Geneva for the moment. But he certainly talked of Venice. You yourself have no definite goal?”
“No.”
“Ah! You have not come to Italy to practice your art?”
“I shall HAVE to practice it: or else — no, I haven’t come for that.”
“Ah, you will HAVE to practice it. Ah, yes! We are all under the necessity to eat. And you have a family in England? Am I not right?”
“Quite. I’ve got a family depending on me.”
“Yes, then you must practice your art: you must practice your art. Well — shall we join the ladies? Coffee will no doubt be served.”
“Will you take my arm, Sir?” said the well-nourished Arthur.
“Thank you, thank you,” the old man motioned him away.
So they went upstairs to where the three women were sitting in the library round the fire, chattering not very interested. The entry of Sir William at once made a stir.
The girl in white, with the biggish nose, fluttered round him. She was Arthur’s wife. The girl in soft blue spread herself on the couch: she was the young Major’s wife, and she had a blue band round her hair. The Colonel hovered stout and fidgetty round Lady Franks and the liqueur stand. He and the Major were both in khaki — belonging to the service on duty in Italy still.
Coffee appeared — and Sir William doled out creme de menthe. There was no conversation — only tedious words. The little party was just commonplace and dull — boring. Yet Sir William, the self-made man, was a study. And the young, Oxford-like Major, with his English diffidence and his one dark, pensive, baffled eye was only waiting to be earnest, poor devil.
The girl in white had been a sort of companion to Lady Franks, so that Arthur was more or less a son-in-law. In this capacity, he acted. Aaron strayed round uneasily looking at the books, bought but not read, and at the big pictures above. It was Arthur who fetched out the little boxes containing the orders conferred on Sir William for his war-work: and perhaps more, for the many thousands of pounds he had spent on his war-work.
There were three orders: one British, and quite important, a large silver star for the breast: one Italian, smaller, and silver and gold; and one from the State of Ruritania, in silver and red-and-green enamel, smaller than the others.
“Come now, William,” said Lady Franks, “you must try them all on. You must try them all on together, and let us see how you look.”
The little, frail old man, with his strange old man’s blue eyes and his old man’s perpetual laugh, swelled out his chest and said:
“What, am I to appear in all my vanities?” And he laughed shortly.
“Of course you are. We want to see you,” said the white girl.
“Indeed we do! We shouldn’t mind all appearing in such vanities — what, Lady Franks!” boomed the Colonel.
“I should think not,” replied his hostess. “When a man has honours conferred on him, it shows a poor spirit if he isn’t proud of them.”
“Of course I am proud of them!” said Sir William. “Well then, come and have them pinned on. I think it’s wonderful to have got so much in one life-time — wonderful,” said Lady Franks.
“Oh, Sir William is a wonderful man,” said the Colonel. “Well — we won’t say so before him. But let us look at him in his orders.”
Arthur, always ready on these occasions, had taken the large and shining British star from its box, and drew near to Sir William, who stood swelling his chest, pleased, proud, and a little wistful.
“This one first, Sir,” said Arthur.
Sir William stood very still, half tremulous, like a man undergoing an operation.
“And it goes just here — the level of the heart. This is where it goes.” And carefully he pinned the large, radiating ornament on the black velvet dinner-jacket of the old man.
“That is the first — and very becoming,” said Lady Franks.
“Oh, very becoming! Very becoming!” said the tall wife of the Major — she was a handsome young woman of the tall, frail type.
“Do you think so, my dear?” said the old man, with his eternal smile: the curious smile of old people when they are dead.
“Not only becoming, Sir,” said the Major, bending his tall, slim figure forwards. “But a reassuring sign that a nation knows how to distinguish her valuable men.”
“Quite!” said Lady Franks. “I think it is a very great honour to have got it. The king was most gracious, too — Now the other. That goes beside it — the Italian — ”
Sir William stood there undergoing the operation of the pinning-on. The Italian star being somewhat smaller than the British, there was a slight question as to where exactly it should be placed. However, Arthur decided it: and the old man stood before the company with his two stars on his breast.
“And now the Ruritanian,” said Lady Franks eagerly.
“That doesn’t go on the same level with the others, Lady Franks,” said Arthur. “That goes much lower down — about here.”
“Are you sure?” said Lady Franks. “Doesn’t it go more here?”
“No no, no no, not at all. Here! Isn’t it so, Sybil?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Sybil.
Old Sir William stood quite silent, his breast prepared, peering over the facings of his coat to see where the star was going. The Colonel was called in, and though he knew nothing about it, he agreed with Arthur, who apparently did know something. So the star was pinned quite low down. Sir William, peeping down, exclaimed:
“Well, that is most curious now! I wear an order over the pit of my stomach! I think that is very curious: a curious place to wear an order.”
“Stand up! Stand up and let us look!” said Lady Franks. “There now, isn’t it handsome? And isn’t it a great deal of honour for one man? Could he have expected so much, in one life-time? I call it wonderful. Come and look at yourself, dear” — and she led him to a mirror.
“What’s more, all thoroughly deserved,” said Arthur.
“I should think so,” said the Colonel, fidgetting.
“Ah, yes, nobody has deserved them better,” cooed Sybil.
“Nor on more humane and generous grounds,” said the Major, sotto voce.
“The effort to save life, indeed,” returned the Major’s young wife: “splendid!”
Sir William stood naively before the mirror and looked at his three stars on his black velvet dinner-jacket.
“Almost directly over the pit of my stomach,” he said. “I hope that is not a decoration for my greedy APPETITE.” And he laughed at the young women.
“I assure you it is in position, Sir,” said Arthur. “Absolutely correct. I will read it out to you later.”
“Aren’t you satisfied? Aren’t you a proud man! Isn’t it wonderful?” said Lady Franks. “Why, what more could a man want from life? He could never EXPECT so much.”
“Yes, my dear. I AM a proud man. Three countries have honoured me — ” There was a little, breathless pause.
“And not more than they ought to have done,” said Sybil.
“Well! Well! I shall have my head turned. Let me return to my own humble self. I am too much in the stars at the moment.”
Sir William turned to Arthur to have his decorations removed. Aaron, standing in the background, felt the whole scene strange, childish, a little touching. And Lady Franks was so obviously trying to console her husband: to console the frail, excitable old man with his honours. But why console him? Did he need consolation? And did she? It was evident that only the hard-money woman in her put any price on the decorations.
Aaron came forward and examined the orders, one after the other. Just metal playthings of curious shiny silver and gilt and enamel. Heavy the British one — but only like some heavy buckle, a piece of metal merely when one turned it over. Somebody dropped the Italian cross, and there was a moment of horror. But the lump of metal took no hurt. Queer to see the things stowed in their boxes again. Aaron had always imagined these mysterious decorations as shining by nature on the breasts of heroes. Pinned-on pieces of metal were a considerable come-down.
The orders were put away, the party sat round the fire in the comfortable library, the men sipping more creme de menthe, since nothing else offered, and the couple of hours in front promising the tedium of small-talk of tedious people who had really nothing to say and no particular originality in saying it.
Aaron, however, had reckoned without his host. Sir William sat upright in his chair, with all the determination of a frail old man who insists on being level with the young. The new guest sat in a lower chair, smoking, that curious glimmer on his face which made him so attractive, and which only meant that he was looking on the whole scene from the outside, as it were, from beyond a fence. Sir William came almost directly to the attack.
“And so, Mr. Sisson, you have no definite purpose in coming to Italy?”
“No, none,” said Aaron. “I wanted to join Lilly.”
“But when you had joined him — ?”
“Oh, nothing — stay here a time, in this country, if I could earn my keep.”
“Ah! — earn your keep? So you hope to earn your keep here? May I ask how?”
“By my flute.”
“Italy is a poor country.”
“I don’t want much.”
“You have a family to provide for.”
“They are provided for — for a couple of years.”
“Oh, indeed! Is that so?”
The old man got out of Aaron the detailed account of his circumstances — how he had left so much money to be paid over to his wife, and had received only a small amount for himself.
“I see you are like Lilly — you trust to Providence,” said Sir William.
“Providence or fate,” said Aaron.
“Lilly calls it Providence,” said Sir William. “For my own part, I always advise Providence plus a banking account. I have every belief in Providence, plus a banking account. Providence and no banking account I have observed to be almost invariably fatal. Lilly and I have argued it. He believes in casting his bread upon the waters. I sincerely hope he won’t have to cast himself after his bread, one of these days. Providence with a banking account. Believe in Providence once you have secured enough to live on. I should consider it disastrous to believe in Providence BEFORE. One can never be SURE of Providence.”
“What can you be sure of, then?” said Aaron.
“Well, in moderation, I can believe in a little hard cash, and in my own ability to earn a little hard cash.”
“Perhaps Lilly believes in his own ability, too.”
“No. Not so. Because he will never directly work to earn money. He works — and works quite well, I am told: but only as the spirit moves him, and never with any eye to the market. Now I call that TEMPTING Providence, myself. The spirit may move him in quite an opposite direction to the market — then where is Lilly? I have put it to him more than once.”
“The spirit generally does move him dead against the market,” said Aaron. “But he manages to scrape along.”
“In a state of jeopardy: all the time in a state of jeopardy,” said the old man. “His whole existence, and that of his wife, is completely precarious. I found, in my youth, the spirit moved me to various things which would have left me and my wife starving. So I realised in time, this was no good. I took my spirit in hand, therefore, and made him pull the cart which mankind is riding in. I harnessed him to the work of productive labour. And so he brought me my reward.”
“Yes,” said Aaron. “But every man according to his belief.”
“I don’t see,” said Sir William, “how a man can BELIEVE in a Providence unless he sets himself definitely to the work of earning his daily bread, and making provision for future needs. That’s what Providence means to me — making provision for oneself and one’s family. Now, Mr. Lilly — and you yourself — you say you believe in a Providence that does NOT compel you to earn your daily bread, and make provision. I confess myself I cannot see it: and Lilly has never been able to convince me.”
“I don’t believe in a kind-hearted Providence,” said Aaron, “and I don’t believe Lilly does. But I believe in chance. I believe, if I go my own way, without tying my nose to a job, chance will always throw something in my way: enough to get along with.”
“But on what do you base such a very unwarrantable belief?”
“I just feel like that.”
“And if you are ever quite without success — and nothing to fall back on?”
“I can work at something.”
“In case of illness, for example?”
“I can go to a hospital — or die.”
“Dear me! However, you are more logical than Lilly. He seems to believe that he has the Invisible — call it Providence if you will — on his side, and that this Invisible will never leave him in the lurch, or let him down, so long as he sticks to his own side of the bargain, and NEVER works for his own ends. I don’t quite see how he works. Certainly he seems to me a man who squanders a great deal of talent unworthily. Yet for some reason or other he
calls this true, genuine activity, and has a contempt for actual work by which a man makes provision for his years and for his family. In the end, he will have to fall back on charity. But when I say so, he denies it, and says that in the end we, the men who work and make provision, will have to fall back on him. Well, all I can say is, that SO FAR he is in far greater danger of having to fall back on me, than I on him.”
The old man sat back in his chair with a little laugh of triumph. But it smote almost devilishly on Aaron’s ears, and for the first time in his life he felt that there existed a necessity for taking sides.
“I don’t suppose he will do much falling back,” he said.
“Well, he is young yet. You are both young. You are squandering your youth. I am an old man, and I see the end.”
“What end, Sir William?”
“Charity — and poverty — and some not very congenial ‘job,’ as you call it, to put bread in your mouth. No, no, I would not like to trust myself to your Providence, or to your Chance. Though I admit your Chance is a sounder proposition than Lilly’s Providence. You speculate with your life and your talent. I admit the nature which is a born speculator. After all, with your flute, you will speculate in other people’s taste for luxury, as a man may speculate in theatres or trains de luxe. You are the speculator. That may be your way of wisdom. But Lilly does not even speculate. I cannot see his point. I cannot see his point. I cannot see his point. Yet I have the greatest admiration for his mentality.”
The old man had fired up during this conversation — and all the others in the room had gone silent. Lady Franks was palpably uneasy. She alone knew how frail the old man was — frailer by far than his years. She alone knew what fear of his own age, what fear of death haunted him now: fear of his own non-existence. His own old age was an agony to him; worse than an agony, a horror. He wanted to be young — to live, to live. And he was old, he was breaking up. The glistening youth of Aaron, the impetuousness of Lilly fascinated him. And both these men seemed calmly to contradict his own wealth and honours.
Lady Franks tried to turn off the conversation to the trickles of normal chit-chat. The Colonel was horribly bored — so were all the women — Arthur was indifferent. Only the young Major was implicated, troubled in his earnest and philosophic spirit.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 319