Her dark-blue, heavy, haunted-looking eyes were resting on him as if she hoped for something. He watched her face steadily, a curious intelligence flickering on his own.
“Yes,” he said. “I understand it. And I know, at the bottom, I’m like that. But I keep myself from realising, don’t you know? Else perhaps, where should I be? Because I make my life and my living at it, as well.”
“At music! Do you! But how bad for you. But perhaps the flute is different. I have a feeling that it is. I can think of one single pipe-note — yes, I can think of it quite, quite calmly. And I can’t even think of the piano, or of the violin with its tremolo, or of orchestra, or of a string quartette — or even a military band — I can’t think of it without a shudder. I can only bear drum-and-fife. Isn’t it crazy of me — but from the other, from what we call music proper, I’ve endured too much. But bring your flute one day. Bring it, will you? And let me hear it quite alone. Quite, quite alone. I think it might do me an awful lot of good. I do, really. I can imagine it.” She closed her eyes and her strange, sing-song lapsing voice came to an end. She spoke almost like one in a trance — or a sleep-walker.
“I’ve got it now in my overcoat pocket,” he said, “if you like.”
“Have you? Yes!” She was never hurried: always slow and resonant, so that the echoes of her voice seemed to linger. “Yes — do get it. Do get it. And play in the other room — quite — quite without accompaniment. Do — and try me.”
“And you will tell me what you feel?”
“Yes.”
Aaron went out to his overcoat. When he returned with his flute, which he was screwing together, Manfredi had come with the tray and the three cocktails. The Marchesa took her glass.
“Listen, Manfredi,” she said. “Mr. Sisson is going to play, quite alone in the sala. And I am going to sit here and listen.”
“Very well,” said Manfredi. “Drink your cocktail first. Are you going to play without music?”
“Yes,” said Aaron.
“I’ll just put on the lights for you.”
“No — leave it dark. Enough light will come in from here.”
“Sure?” said Manfredi.
“Yes.”
The little soldier was an intruder at the moment. Both the others felt it so. But they bore him no grudge. They knew it was they who were exceptional, not he. Aaron swallowed his drink, and looked towards the door.
“Sit down, Manfredi. Sit still,” said the Marchesa.
“Won’t you let me try some accompaniment?” said the soldier.
“No. I shall just play a little thing from memory,” said Aaron.
“Sit down, dear. Sit down,” said the Marchesa to her husband.
He seated himself obediently. The flash of bright yellow on the grey of his uniform seemed to make him like a chaffinch or a gnome.
Aaron retired to the other room, and waited awhile, to get back the spell which connected him with the woman, and gave the two of them this strange isolation, beyond the bounds of life, as it seemed.
He caught it again. And there, in the darkness of the big room, he put his flute to his lips, and began to play. It was a clear, sharp, lilted run-and-fall of notes, not a tune in any sense of the word, and yet a melody, a bright, quick sound of pure animation, a bright, quick, animate noise, running and pausing. It was like a bird’s singing, in that it had no human emotion or passion or intention or meaning — a ripple and poise of animate sound. But it was unlike a bird’s singing, in that the notes followed clear and single one after the other, in their subtle gallop. A nightingale is rather like that — a wild sound. To read all the human pathos into nightingales’ singing is nonsense. A wild, savage, non-human lurch and squander of sound, beautiful, but entirely unaesthetic.
What Aaron was playing was not of his own invention. It was a bit of mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin, as we know it, a hateful wire-drawn nerve-torturer.
After a little while, when he entered the smaller room again, the Marchesa looked full into his face.
“Good!” she said. “Good!”
And a gleam almost of happiness seemed to light her up. She seemed like one who had been kept in a horrible enchanted castle — for years and years. Oh, a horrible enchanted castle, with wet walls of emotions and ponderous chains of feelings and a ghastly atmosphere of must-be. She felt she had seen through the opening door a crack of sunshine, and thin, pure, light outside air, outside, beyond this dank and beastly dungeon of feelings and moral necessity. Ugh! — she shuddered convulsively at what had been. She looked at her little husband. Chains of necessity all round him: a little jailor. Yet she was fond of him. If only he would throw away the castle keys. He was a little gnome. What did he clutch the castle-keys so tight for?
Aaron looked at her. He knew that they understood one another, he and she. Without any moral necessity or any other necessity. Outside — they had got outside the castle of so-called human life. Outside the horrible, stinking human castle Of life. A bit of true, limpid freedom. Just a glimpse.
“Charming!” said the Marchese. “Truly charming! But what was it you played?”
Aaron told him.
“But truly delightful. I say, won’t you play for us one of these Saturdays? And won’t you let me take the accompaniment? I should be charmed, charmed if you would.”
“All right,” said Aaron.
“Do drink another cocktail,” said his hostess.
He did so. And then he rose to leave.
“Will you stay to dinner?” said the Marchesa. “We have two people coming — two Italian relatives of my husband. But — ”
No, Aaron declined to stay to dinner.
“Then won’t you come on — let me see — on Wednesday? Do come on Wednesday. We are alone. And do bring the flute. Come at half-past six, as today, will you? Yes?”
Aaron promised — and then he found himself in the street. It was half-past seven. Instead of returning straight home, he crossed the Ponte Vecchio and walked straight into the crowd. The night was fine now. He had his overcoat over his arm, and in a sort of trance or frenzy, whirled away by his evening’s experience, and by the woman, he strode swiftly forward, hardly heeding anything, but rushing blindly on through all the crowd, carried away by his own feelings, as much as if he had been alone, and all these many people merely trees.
Leaving the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele a gang of soldiers suddenly rushed round him, buffeting him in one direction, whilst another gang, swinging round the corner, threw him back helpless again into the midst of the first gang. For some moments he struggled among the rude, brutal little mob of grey-green coarse uniforms that smelt so strong of soldiers. Then, irritated, he found himself free again, shaking himself and passing on towards the cathedral. Irritated, he now put on his overcoat and buttoned it to the throat, closing himself in, as it were, from the brutal insolence of the Sunday night mob of men. Before, he had been walking through them in a rush of naked feeling, all exposed to their tender mercies. He now gathered himself together.
As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello, he stopped. He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket. His letter-case was gone. He had been robbed. It was as if lightning ran through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving him standing there almost unconscious. For a moment unconscious and superconscious he stood there. He had been robbed. They had put their hand in his breast and robbed him. If they had stabbed him, it could hardly have had a greater effect on him.
And he had known it. He had known it. When the soldiers jostled him so evilly they robbed him. And he knew it. He had known it as if it were fate. Even as if it were fated beforehand.
Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some evil electric fluid, he walked on. And as soon as he began to walk, he began to reason.
Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat. Perhaps he had not had it with him at all. Perhaps he was feeling all this, just for nothing. Perhaps it was all folly.
He hurried forward. He wanted to make sure. He wanted relief. It was as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it up. He did not want to admit the power of evil — particularly at that moment. For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst of that gang of Italian soldiers. He knew it — it had pierced him. It had got him.
But he wanted to say it was not so. Reaching the house, he hastened upwards to his far-off, lonely room, through the dark corridors. Once in his own apartment, he shut the door and switched on the light, a sensation like fear at his heart. Then he searched his other pockets. He looked everywhere. In vain.
In vain, truly enough. For he knew the thing was stolen. He had known it all along. The soldiers had deliberately plotted, had deliberately rushed him and taken his purse. They must have watched him previously. They must have grinned, and jeered at him.
He sat down in a chair, to recover from the shock. The pocket-book contained four hundred francs, three one-pound notes, and various letters and private effects. Well, these were lost. But it was not so much the loss as the assault on his person that caused him to feel so stricken. He felt the jeering, gibing blows they had given as they jostled him.
And now he sat, weak in every limb, and said to himself: “Yes — and if I hadn’t rushed along so full of feeling: if I hadn’t exposed myself: if I hadn’t got worked up with the Marchesa, and then rushed all kindled through the streets, without reserve, it would never have happened. I gave myself away: and there was someone ready to snatch what I gave. I gave myself away. It is my own fault. I should have been on my guard. I should be always on my guard: always, always. With God and the devil both, I should be on my guard. Godly or devilish, I should hold fast to my reserve and keep on the watch. And if I don’t, I deserve what I get.”
But still he sat in his chair in his bedroom, dazed. One part of his soul was saying emphatically: It serves you right. It is nothing but right. It serves everybody right who rushes enkindled through the street, and trusts implicitly in mankind and in the life-spirit, as if mankind and the life-spirit were a playground for enkindled individuals. It serves you right. You have paid about twelve pounds sterling for your lesson. Fool, you might have known beforehand, and then you needn’t have paid at all. You can ill afford twelve pounds sterling, you fool. But since paid you have, then mind, mind the lesson is learned. Never again. Never expose yourself again. Never again absolute trust. It is a blasphemy against life, is absolute trust. Has a wild creature ever absolute trust? It minds itself. Sleeping or waking it is on its guard. And so must you be, or you’ll go under. Sleeping or waking, man or woman, God or the devil, keep your guard over yourself. Keep your guard over yourself, lest worse befall you. No man is robbed unless he incites a robber. No man is murdered unless he attracts a murderer. Then be not robbed: it lies within your own power. And be not murdered. Or if you are, you deserve it. Keep your guard over yourself, now, always and forever. Yes, against God quite as hard as against the devil. He’s fully as dangerous to you....
Thus thinking, not in his mind but in his soul, his active, living soul, he gathered his equanimity once more, and accepted the fact. So he rose and tidied himself for dinner. His face was now set, and still. His heart also was still — and fearless. Because its sentinel was stationed. Stationed, stationed for ever.
And Aaron never forgot. After this, it became essential to him to feel that the sentinel stood guard in his own heart. He felt a strange unease the moment he was off his guard. Asleep or awake, in the midst of the deepest passion or the suddenest love, or in the throes of greatest excitement or bewilderment, somewhere, some corner of himself was awake to the fact that the sentinel of the soul must not sleep, no, never, not for one instant.
CHAPTER XVII. HIGH UP OVER THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE
Aaron and Lilly sat in Argyle’s little loggia, high up under the eaves of the small hotel, a sort of long attic-terrace just under the roof, where no one would have suspected it. It was level with the grey conical roof of the Baptistery. Here sat Aaron and Lilly in the afternoon, in the last of the lovely autumn sunshine. Below, the square was already cold in shadow, the pink and white and green Baptistery rose lantern-shaped as from some sea-shore, cool, cold and wan now the sun was gone. Black figures, innumerable black figures, curious because they were all on end, up on end — Aaron could not say why he expected them to be horizontal — little black figures upon end, like fishes that swim on their tails, wiggled endlessly across the piazza, little carriages on natural all-fours rattled tinily across, the yellow little tram-cars, like dogs slipped round the corner. The balcony was so high up, that the sound was ineffectual. The upper space, above the houses, was nearer than the under-currents of the noisy town. Sunlight, lovely full sunlight, lingered warm and still on the balcony. It caught the facade of the cathedral sideways, like the tips of a flower, and sideways lit up the stem of Giotto’s tower, like a lily stem, or a long, lovely pale pink and white and green pistil of the lily of the cathedral. Florence, the flowery town. Firenze — Fiorenze — the flowery town: the red lilies. The Fiorentini, the flower-souled. Flowers with good roots in the mud and muck, as should be: and fearless blossoms in air, like the cathedral and the tower and the David.
“I love it,” said Lilly. “I love this place, I love the cathedral and the tower. I love its pinkness and its paleness. The Gothic souls find fault with it, and say it is gimcrack and tawdry and cheap. But I love it, it is delicate and rosy, and the dark stripes are as they should be, like the tiger marks on a pink lily. It’s a lily, not a rose; a pinky white lily with dark tigery marks. And heavy, too, in its own substance: earth-substance, risen from earth into the air: and never forgetting the dark, black-fierce earth — I reckon here men for a moment were themselves, as a plant in flower is for the moment completely itself. Then it goes off. As Florence has gone off. No flowers now. But it HAS flowered. And I don’t see why a race should be like an aloe tree, flower once and die. Why should it? Why not flower again? Why not?”
“If it’s going to, it will,” said Aaron. “Our deciding about it won’t alter it.”
“The decision is part of the business.”
Here they were interrupted by Argyle, who put his head through one of the windows. He had flecks of lather on his reddened face.
“Do you think you’re wise now,” he said, “to sit in that sun?”
“In November?” laughed Lilly.
“Always fear the sun when there’s an ‘r’ in the month,” said Argyle. “Always fear it ‘r’ or no ‘r,’ I say. I’m frightened of it. I’ve been in the South, I know what it is. I tell you I’m frightened of it. But if you think you can stand it — well — ”
“It won’t last much longer, anyhow,” said Lilly.
“Too long for me, my boy. I’m a shady bird, in all senses of the word, in all senses of the word. — Now are you comfortable? What? Have another cushion? A rug for your knees? You’re quite sure now? Well, wait just one moment till the waiter brings up a syphon, and you shall have a whiskey and soda. Precious — oh, yes, very precious these days — like drinking gold. Thirty-five lire a bottle, my boy!” Argyle pulled a long face, and made a noise with his lips. “But I had this bottle given me, and luckily you’ve come while there’s a drop left. Very glad you have! Very glad you have.”
Here he poked a little table through the window, and put a bottle and two glasses, one a tooth-glass, upon it. Then he withdrew again to finish shaving. The waiter presently hobbled up with the syphon and third glass. Argyle pushed his head through the window, that was only a little higher than the balcony. He was soon neatly shaved, and was brushing his hair.
“Go ahead, my boys, go ahead with that whiskey!” he said.
“We’ll wait for you,” said Lilly
.
“No, no, don’t think of it. However, if you will, I shall be one minute only — one minute only. I’ll put on the water for the tea now. Oh, damned bad methylated spirit they sell now! And six francs a litre! Six francs a litre! I don’t know what I’m going to do, the air I breathe costs money nowadays — Just one moment and I’ll be with you! Just one moment — ”
In a very little while he came from the tiny attic bedroom, through the tiniest cupboard of a sitting-room under the eaves, where his books were, and where he had hung his old red India tapestries — or silk embroideries — and he emerged there up above the world on the loggia.
“Now then — siamo nel paradiso, eh? Paradisal enough for you, is it?”
“The devil looking over Lincoln,” said Lilly laughing, glancing up into Argyle’s face.
“The devil looking over Florence would feel sad,” said Argyle. “The place is fast growing respectable — Oh, piety makes the devil chuckle. But respectability, my boy, argues a serious diminution of spunk. And when the spunk diminishes we-ell — it’s enough to make the most sturdy devil look sick. What? No doubt about it, no doubt whatever — There — !” he had just finished settling his tie and buttoning his waistcoat. “How do I look, eh? Presentable? — I’ve just had this suit turned. Clever little tailor across the way there. But he charged me a hundred and twenty francs.” Argyle pulled a face, and made the little trumping noise with his lips. “However — not bad, is it? — He had to let in a bit at the back of the waistcoat, and a gusset, my boy, a gusset — in the trousers back. Seems I’ve grown in the arsal region. Well, well, might do worse. — Is it all right?”
Lilly eyed the suit.
“Very nice. Very nice indeed. Such a good cloth! That makes all the difference.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, all the difference! This suit is eleven years old — eleven years old. But beautiful English cloth — before the war, before the war!”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 330