“Tell me,” said Francis, “will you have your coffee black, or with milk?” He was determined to restore a tone of sobriety.
The coffee was sipped in sober solemnity.
“Is music your line as well, then?” asked Aaron.
“No, we’re painters. We’re going to work in Rome.”
“To earn your living?”
“Not yet.”
The amount of discretion, modesty, and reserve which Francis put into these two syllables gave Aaron to think that he had two real young swells to deal with.
“No,” continued Francis. “I was only JUST down from Oxford when the war came — and Angus had been about ten months at the Slade — But I have always painted. — So now we are going to work, really hard, in Rome, to make up for lost time. — Oh, one has lost so much time, in the war. And such PRECIOUS time! I don’t know if ever one will even be able to make it up again.” Francis tilted his handsome eyebrows and put his head on one side with a wise-distressed look.
“No,” said Angus. “One will never be able to make it up. What is more, one will never be able to start again where one left off. We’re shattered old men, now, in one sense. And in another sense, we’re just pre-war babies.”
The speech was uttered with an odd abruptness and didacticism which made Aaron open his eyes. Angus had that peculiar manner: he seemed to be haranguing himself in the circle of his own thoughts, not addressing himself to his listener.
So his listener listened on the outside edge of the young fellow’s crowded thoughts. Francis put on a distressed air, and let his attention wander. Angus pursed his lips and his eyes were stretched wide with a kind of pleasure, like a wicked owl which has just joyfully hooted an ill omen.
“Tell me,” said Francis to Aaron. “Where were YOU all the time during the war?”
“I was doing my job,” said Aaron. Which led to his explaining his origins.
“Really! So your music is quite new! But how interesting!” cried Francis.
Aaron explained further.
“And so the war hardly affected you? But what did you FEEL about it, privately?”
“I didn’t feel much. I didn’t know what to feel. Other folks did such a lot of feeling, I thought I’d better keep my mouth shut.”
“Yes, quite!” said Angus. “Everybody had such a lot of feelings on somebody else’s behalf, that nobody ever had time to realise what they felt themselves. I know I was like that. The feelings all came on to me from the outside: like flies settling on meat. Before I knew where I was I was eaten up with a swarm of feelings, and I found myself in the trenches. God knows what for. And ever since then I’ve been trying to get out of my swarm of feelings, which buzz in and out of me and have nothing to do with me. I realised it in hospital. It’s exactly like trying to get out of a swarm of nasty dirty flies. And every one you kill makes you sick, but doesn’t make the swarm any less.”
Again Angus pursed and bridled and looked like a pleased, wicked white owl. Then he polished his monocle on a very choice silk handkerchief, and fixed it unseeing in his left eye.
But Francis was not interested in his friend’s experiences. For Francis had had a job in the War Office — whereas Angus was a war-hero with shattered nerves. And let him depreciate his own experiences as much as he liked, the young man with the monocle kept tight hold on his prestige as a war hero. Only for himself, though. He by no means insisted that anyone else should be war-bitten.
Francis was one of those men who, like women, can set up the sympathetic flow and make a fellow give himself away without realising what he is doing. So there sat our friend Aaron, amusingly unbosoming himself of all his history and experiences, drawn out by the arch, subtle attentiveness of the handsome Francis. Angus listened, too, with pleased amusedness on his pale, emaciated face, pursing his shrunken jaw. And Aaron sipped various glasses of the liqueur, and told all his tale as if it was a comedy. A comedy it seemed, too, at that hour. And a comedy no doubt it was. But mixed, like most things in this life. Mixed.
It was quite late before this seance broke up: and the waiter itching to get rid of the fellows.
“Well, now,” said Francis, as he rose from the table and settled his elegant waist, resting on one hip, as usual. “We shall see you in the morning, I hope. You say you are going to Venice. Why? Have you some engagement in Venice?”
“No,” said Aaron. “I only was going to look for a friend — Rawdon Lilly.”
“Rawdon Lilly! Why, is he in Venice? Oh, I’ve heard SUCH a lot about him. I should like so much to meet him. But I heard he was in Germany — ”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Angus! Didn’t we hear that Lilly was in Germany?”
“Yes, in Munich, being psychoanalysed, I believe it was.”
Aaron looked rather blank.
“But have you anything to take you to Venice? It’s such a bad climate in the winter. Why not come with us to Florence?” said Francis.
Aaron wavered. He really did not know what to do.
“Think about it,” said Francis, laying his hand on Aaron’s arm. “Think about it tonight. And we’ll meet in the morning. At what time?”
“Any time,” said Aaron.
“Well, say eleven. We’ll meet in the lounge here at eleven. Will that suit you? All right, then. It’s so awfully nice meeting you. That marvellous flute. — And think about Florence. But do come. Don’t disappoint us.”
The two young men went elegantly upstairs.
CHAPTER XV. A RAILWAY JOURNEY
The next day but one, the three set off for Florence. Aaron had made an excursion from Milan with the two young heroes, and dined with them subsequently at the most expensive restaurant in the town. Then they had all gone home — and had sat in the young men’s bedroom drinking tea, whilst Aaron played the flute. Francis was really musical, and enchanted. Angus enjoyed the novelty, and the moderate patronage he was able to confer. And Aaron felt amused and pleased, and hoped he was paying for his treat.
So behold them setting off for Florence in the early morning. Angus and Francis had first-class tickets: Aaron took a third-class.
“Come and have lunch with us on the train,” said Angus. “I’ll order three places, and we can lunch together.”
“Oh, I can buy a bit of food at the station,” said Aaron.
“No, come and lunch with us. It will be much nicer. And we shall enjoy it as well,” said Angus.
“Of course! Ever so much nicer! Of course!” cried Francis. “Yes, why not, indeed! Why should you hesitate?”
“All right, then,” said Aaron, not without some feeling of constraint.
So they separated. The young men settled themselves amidst the red plush and crochet-work, looking, with their hair plastered smoothly back, quite as first class as you could wish, creating quite the right impression on the porters and the travelling Italians. Aaron went to his third-class, further up the train.
“Well, then, au revoir, till luncheon,” cried Francis.
The train was fairly full in the third and second classes. However, Aaron got his seat, and the porter brought on his bags, after disposing of the young men’s luggage. Aaron gave the tip uneasily. He always hated tipping — it seemed humiliating both ways. And the airy aplomb of the two young cavaliers, as they settled down among the red plush and the obsequiousness, and said “Well, then, au revoir till luncheon,” was peculiarly unsettling: though they did not intend it so.
“The porter thinks I’m their servant — their valet,” said Aaron to himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived long enough to know that as far as manhood and intellect went — nay, even education — he was not the inferior of the two young “gentlemen.” He knew quite well that, as far as intrinsic nature went, they did not imagine him an inferior: rather the contrary. They had rather an exaggerated respect
for him and his life-power, and even his origin. And yet — they had the inestimable cash advantage — and they were going to keep it. They knew it was nothing more than an artificial cash superiority. But they gripped it all the more intensely. They were the upper middle classes. They were Eton and Oxford. And they were going to hang on to their privileges. In these days, it is a fool who abdicates before he’s forced to. And therefore:
“Well, then — au revoir till luncheon.”
They were being so awfully nice. And inwardly they were not condescending. But socially, they just had to be. The world is made like that. It wasn’t their own private fault. It was no fault at all. It was just the mode in which they were educated, the style of their living. And as we know, le style, c’est l’homme.
Angus came of very wealthy iron people near Merthyr. Already he had a very fair income of his own. As soon as the law-business concerning his father’s and his grandfather’s will was settled, he would be well off. And he knew it, and valued himself accordingly. Francis was the son of a highly-esteemed barrister and politician of Sydney, and in his day would inherit his father’s lately-won baronetcy. But Francis had not very much money: and was much more class-flexible than Angus. Angus had been born in a house with a park, and of awful, hard-willed, money-bound people. Francis came of a much more adventurous, loose, excitable family, he had the colonial newness and adaptability. He knew, for his own part, that class superiority was just a trick, nowadays. Still, it was a trick that paid. And a trick he was going to play as long as it did pay.
While Aaron sat, a little pale at the gills, immobile, ruminating these matters, a not very pleasant look about his nose-end, he heard a voice:
“Oh, there you ARE! I thought I’d better come and see, so that we can fetch you at lunch time. — You’ve got a seat? Are you quite comfortable? Is there anything I could get you? Why, you’re in a non-smoker! — But that doesn’t matter, everybody will smoke. Are you sure you have everything? Oh, but wait just one moment — ”
It was Francis, long and elegant, with his straight shoulders and his coat buttoned to show his waist, and his face so well-formed and so modern. So modern, altogether. His voice was pleasantly modulated, and never hurried. He now looked as if a thought had struck him. He put a finger to his brow, and hastened back to his own carriage. In a minute, he returned with a new London literary magazine.
“Something to read — I shall have to FLY — See you at lunch,” and he had turned and elegantly hastened, but not too fast, back to his carriage. The porter was holding the door for him. So Francis looked pleasantly hurried, but by no means rushed. Oh, dear, no. He took his time. It was not for him to bolt and scramble like a mere Italian.
The people in Aaron’s carriage had watched the apparition of the elegant youth intently. For them, he was a being from another sphere — no doubt a young milordo with power wealth, and glamorous life behind him. Which was just what Francis intended to convey. So handsome — so very, very impressive in all his elegant calm showiness. He made such a bella figura. It was just what the Italians loved. Those in the first class regions thought he might even be an Italian, he was so attractive.
The train in motion, the many Italian eyes in the carriage studied Aaron. He, too, was good-looking. But by no means as fascinating as the young milordo. Not half as sympathetic. No good at all at playing a role. Probably a servant of the young signori.
Aaron stared out of the window, and played the one single British role left to him, that of ignoring his neighbours, isolating himself in their midst, and minding his own business. Upon this insular trick our greatness and our predominance depends — such as it is. Yes, they might look at him. They might think him a servant or what they liked. But he was inaccessible to them. He isolated himself upon himself, and there remained.
It was a lovely day, a lovely, lovely day of early autumn. Over the great plain of Lombardy a magnificent blue sky glowed like mid-summer, the sun shone strong. The great plain, with its great stripes of cultivation — without hedges or boundaries — -how beautiful it was! Sometimes he saw oxen ploughing. Sometimes. Oh, so beautiful, teams of eight, or ten, even of twelve pale, great soft oxen in procession, ploughing the dark velvety earth, a driver with a great whip at their head, a man far behind holding the plough-shafts. Beautiful the soft, soft plunging motion of oxen moving forwards. Beautiful the strange, snaky lifting of the muzzles, the swaying of the sharp horns. And the soft, soft crawling motion of a team of oxen, so invisible, almost, yet so inevitable. Now and again straight canals of water flashed blue. Now and again the great lines of grey-silvery poplars rose and made avenues or lovely grey airy quadrangles across the plain. Their top boughs were spangled with gold and green leaf. Sometimes the vine-leaves were gold and red, a patterning. And the great square farm-homesteads, white, red-roofed, with their out-buildings, stood naked amid the lands, without screen or softening. There was something big and exposed about it all. No more the cosy English ambushed life, no longer the cosy littleness of the landscape. A bigness — and nothing to shelter the unshrinking spirit. It was all exposed, exposed to the sweep of plain, to the high, strong sky, and to human gaze. A kind of boldness, an indifference. Aaron was impressed and fascinated. He looked with new interest at the Italians in the carriage with him — for this same boldness and indifference and exposed gesture. And he found it in them, too. And again it fascinated him. It seemed so much bigger, as if the walls of life had fallen. Nay, the walls of English life will have to fall.
Sitting there in the third-class carriage, he became happy again. The presence of his fellow-passengers was not so hampering as in England. In England, everybody seems held tight and gripped, nothing is left free. Every passenger seems like a parcel holding his string as fast as he can about him, lest one corner of the wrapper should come undone and reveal what is inside. And every other passenger is forced, by the public will, to hold himself as tight-bound also. Which in the end becomes a sort of self-conscious madness.
But here, in the third class carriage, there was no tight string round every man. They were not all trussed with self-conscious string as tight as capons. They had a sufficient amount of callousness and indifference and natural equanimity. True, one of them spat continually on the floor, in large spits. And another sat with his boots all unlaced and his collar off, and various important buttons undone. They did not seem to care if bits of themselves did show, through the gaps in the wrapping. Aaron winced — but he preferred it to English tightness. He was pleased, he was happy with the Italians. He thought how generous and natural they were.
So the towns passed by, and the hours, and he seemed at last to have got outside himself and his old conditions. It seemed like a great escape. There was magic again in life — real magic. Was it illusion, or was it genuine? He thought it was genuine, and opened his soul a if there was no danger.
Lunch-time came. Francis summoned Aaron down the rocking tram. The three men had a table to themselves, and all felt they were enjoying themselves very much indeed. Of course Francis and Angus made a great impression again. But in the dining car were mostly middle-class, well-to-do Italians. And these did not look upon our two young heroes as two young wonders. No, rather with some criticism, and some class-envy. But they were impressed. Oh, they were impressed! How should they not be, when our young gentlemen had such an air! Aaron was conscious all the time that the fellow-diners were being properly impressed by the flower of civilisation and the salt of the earth, namely, young, well-to-do Englishmen. And he had a faint premonition, based on experience perhaps, that fellow-passengers in the end never forgive the man who has “impressed” them. Mankind loves being impressed. It asks to be impressed. It almost forces those whom it can force to play a role and to make an impression. And afterwards, never forgives.
When the train ran into Bologna Station, they were still in the restaurant car. Nor did they go at once to their seats. Angus had paid the bill. There was three-quarters-of-an-hour’s wait in Bologna.
“You may as well come down and sit with us,” said Francis. “We’ve got nobody in our carriage, so why shouldn’t we all stay together during the wait. You kept your own seat, I suppose.”
No, he had forgotten. So when he went to look for it, it was occupied by a stout man who was just taking off his collar and wrapping a white kerchief round his neck. The third class carriages were packed. For those were early days after the war, while men still had pre-war notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody will condescend to travel third!
However, these were still modest, sombre months immediately after the peace. So a large man with a fat neck and a white kerchief, and his collar over his knee, sat in Aaron’s seat. Aaron looked at the man, and at his own luggage overhead. The fat man saw him looking and stared back: then stared also at the luggage overhead: and with his almost invisible north-Italian gesture said much plainer than words would have said it: “Go to hell. I’m here and I’m going to stop here.”
There was something insolent and unbearable about the look — and about the rocky fixity of the large man. He sat as if he had insolently taken root in his seat. Aaron flushed slightly. Francis and Angus strolled along the train, outside, for the corridor was already blocked with the mad Bologna rush, and the baggage belonging. They joined Aaron as he stood on the platform.
“But where is YOUR SEAT?” cried Francis, peering into the packed and jammed compartments of the third class.
“That man’s sitting in it.”
“Which?” cried Francis, indignant.
“The fat one there — with the collar on his knee.”
“But it was your seat — !”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 326