‘No, I don’t see that,’ she said in a slow, clanging voice.
‘You, and your beauty — that is only the inside-out of you. The real you is the wild-cat invisible in the night, with red fire perhaps coming out of its wide, dark eyes. Your beauty is your whited sepulchre.’
‘You mean cosmetics,’ she said. ‘I’ve got none on today — not even powder.’
He laughed.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Consider me. I used to think myself small but handsome, and the ladies used to admire me moderately, never very much. A trim little fellow, you know. Well, that was just the inside-out of me. I am a black tom-cat howling in the night, and it is then that fire comes out of me. This me you look at is my whited sepulchre. What do you say?’
She was looking into his eyes. She could see the darkness swaying in the depths. She perceived the invisible, cat-like fire stirring deep inside them, felt it coming towards her. She turned her face aside. Then he laughed, showing his strong white teeth, that seemed a little too large, rather dreadful.
She rose to go.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I shall have the summer in which to think about the world inside-out. Do write if there is anything to say. Write to Thoresway. Good-bye!’
‘Ah, your eyes!’ he said. ‘They are like jewels of stone.’
Being away from the Count, she put him out of her mind. Only she was sorry for him a prisoner in that sickening Voynich Hall. But she did not write. Nor did he.
As a matter of fact, her mind was now much more occupied with her husband. All arrangements were being made to effect his exchange. From month to month she looked for his return. And so she thought of him.
Whatever happened to her, she thought about it, thought and thought a great deal. The consciousness of her mind was like tablets of stone weighing her down. And whoever would make a new entry into her must break these tablets of stone piece by piece. So it was that in her own way she thought often enough of the Count’s world inside-out. A curious latency stirred in her consciousness that was not yet an idea.
He said her eyes were like jewels of stone. What a horrid thing to say! What did he want her eyes to be like? He wanted them to dilate and become all black pupil, like a cat’s at night. She shrank convulsively from the thought, and tightened her breast.
He said her beauty was her whited sepulchre. Even that, she knew what he meant. The invisibility of her he wanted to love. But ah, her pearl-like beauty was so dear to her, and it was so famous in the world.
He said her white love was like moonshine, harmful, the reverse of love. He meant Basil, of course. Basil always said she was the moon. But then Basil loved her for that. The ecstasy of it! She shivered, thinking of her husband. But it had also made her nerve-worn, her husband’s love. Ah, nerve-worn.
What then would the Count’s love be like? Something so secret and different. She would not be lovely and a queen to him. He hated her loveliness. The wild-cat has its mate. The little wild-cat that he was. Ah!
She caught her breath, determined not to think. When she thought of Count Dionys she felt the world slipping away from her. She would sit in front of a mirror, looking at her wonderful cared-for face that had appeared in so many society magazines. She loved it so, it made her feel so vain. And she looked at her blue-green eyes — the eyes of the wild-cat on a bough. Yes, the lovely blue-green iris drawn tight like a screen. Supposing it should relax. Supposing it should unfold, and open out the dark depths, the dark, dilated pupil! Supposing it should?
Never! She always caught herself back. She felt she might be killed before she could give way to that relaxation that the Count wanted of her. She could not. She just could not. At the very thought of it some hypersensitive nerve started with a great twinge in her breast; she drew back, forced to keep her guard. Ah no, Monsieur le Comte, you shall never take her ladyship off her guard.
She disliked the thought of the Count. An impudent little fellow. An impertinent little fellow! A little madman, really. A little outsider. No, no. She would think of her husband: an adorable, tall, well-bred Englishman, so easy and simple, and with the amused look in his blue eyes. She thought of the cultured, casual trail of his voice. It set her nerves on fire. She thought of his strong, easy body — beautiful, white-fleshed, with the fine springing of warm-brown hair like tiny flames. He was the Dionysos, full of sap, milk and honey, and northern golden wine: he, her husband. Not that little unreal Count. Ah, she dreamed of her husband, of the love-days, and the honeymoon, the lovely, simple intimacy. Ah, the marvellous revelation of that intimacy, when he left himself to her so generously. Ah, she was his wife for this reason, that he had given himself to her so greatly, so generously. Like an ear of corn he was there for her gathering — her husband, her own, lovely, English husband. Ah, when would he come again, when would he come again!
She had letters from him — and how he loved her. Far away, his life was all hers. All hers, flowing to her as the beam flows from a white star right down to us, to our heart. Her lover, her husband.
He was now expecting to come home soon. It had all been arranged. ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed in me when I do get back,’ he wrote. ‘I am afraid I am no longer the plump and well-looking young man I was. I’ve got a big scar at the side of my mouth, and I’m as thin as a starved rabbit, and my hair’s going grey. Doesn’t sound attractive, does it? And it isn’t attractive. But once I can get out of this infernal place, and once I can be with you again, I shall come in for my second blooming. The very thought of being quietly in the same house with you, quiet and in peace, makes me realize that if I’ve been through hell, I have known heaven on earth and can hope to know it again. I am a miserable brute to look at now. But I have faith in you. You will forgive my appearance, and that alone will make me feel handsome.’
She read this letter many times. She was not afraid of his scar or his looks. She would love him all the more.
Since she had started making shirts — those two for the Count had been an enormous labour, even though her maid had come to her assistance forty times: but since she had started making shirts, she thought she might continue. She had some good suitable silk: her husband liked silk underwear.
But she still used the Count’s thimble. It was gold outside and silver inside, and was too heavy. A snake was coiled round the base, and at the top, for pressing the needle, was inlet a semi-translucent apple-green stone, perhaps jade, carved like a scarab, with little dots. It was too heavy. But then she sewed so slowly. And she liked to feel her hand heavy, weighted. And as she sewed she thought about her husband, and she felt herself in love with him. She thought of him, how beautiful he was, and how she would love him now he was thin: she would love him all the more. She would love to trace his bones, as if to trace his living skeleton. The thought made her rest her hands in her lap and drift into a muse. Then she felt the weight of the thimble on her finger, and took it off, and sat looking at the green stone. The ladybird. The ladybird. And if only her husband would come soon, soon. It was wanting him that made her so ill. Nothing but that. She had wanted him so badly. She wanted now. Ah, if she could go to him now, and find him, wherever he was, and see him and touch him and take all his love.
As she mused, she put the thimble down in front of her, took up a little silver pencil from her work-basket, and on a bit of blue paper that had been the band of a small skein of silk she wrote the lines of the silly little song
‘Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär’
Und auch zwei Flüglein hätt’
Flög’ ich zu dir — ’
That was all she could get on her bit of pale-blue paper.
‘If I were a little bird
And had two little wings
I’d fly to thee —
Silly enough, in all conscience. But she did not translate it, so it did not seem quite so silly.
At that moment her maid announced Lady Bingham — her husband’s sister. Daphne crumpled up the bit of paper in a flurry, and in another minute
Primrose, his sister, came in. The newcomer was not a bit like a primrose, being long-faced and clever, smart, but not a bit elegant, in her new clothes.
‘Daphne dear, what a domestic scene! I suppose it’s rehearsal. Well, you may as well rehearse, he’s with Admiral Burns on the Ariadne. Father just heard from the Admiralty: quite fit. He’ll be here in a day or two. Splendid, isn’t it? And the war is going to end. At least it seems like it. You’ll be safe of your man now, dear. Thank heaven when it’s all over. What are you sewing?’
‘A shirt,’ said Daphne.
‘A shirt! Why, how clever of you. I should never know which end to begin. Who showed you?’
‘Millicent.’
‘And how did she know? She’s no business to know how to sew shirts: nor cushions nor sheets either. Do let me look. Why, how perfectly marvellous you are! — every bit by hand too. Basil isn’t worth it, dear, really he isn’t. Let him order his shirts in Oxford Street. Your business is to be beautiful, not to sew shirts. What a dear little pin-poppet, or rather needle-woman! I say, a satire on us, that is. But what a darling, with mother-of-pearl wings to her skirts! And darling little gold-eyed needles inside her. You screw her head off, and you find she’s full of pins and needles. Woman for you! Mother says won’t you come to lunch tomorrow. And won’t you come to Brassey’s to tea with me at this minute. Do, there’s a dear. I’ve got a taxi.’
Daphne bundled her sewing loosely together.
When she tried to do a bit more, two days later, she could not find her thimble. She asked her maid, whom she could absolutely trust. The girl had not seen it. She searched everywhere. She asked her nurse — who was now her housekeeper — and footman. No, nobody had seen it. Daphne even asked her sister-in-law.
‘Thimble, darling? No, I don’t remember a thimble. I remember a dear little needle-lady, whom I thought such a precious satire on us women. I didn’t notice a thimble.’
Poor Daphne wandered about in a muse. She did not want to believe it lost. It had been like a talisman to her. She tried to forget it. Her husband was coming, quite soon, quite soon. But she could not raise herself to joy. She had lost her thimble. It was as if Count Dionys accused her in her sleep of something, she did not quite know what.
And though she did not really want to go to Voynich Hall, yet like a fatality she went, like one doomed. It was already late autumn, and some lovely days. This was the last of the lovely days. She was told that Count Dionys was in the small park, finding chestnuts. She went to look for him. Yes, there he was in his blue uniform stooping over the brilliant yellow leaves of the sweet chestnut tree, that lay around him like a fallen nimbus of glowing yellow, under his feet, as he kicked and rustled, looking for the chestnut burrs. And with his short, brown hands he was pulling out the small chestnuts and putting them in his pockets. But as she approached he peeled a nut to eat it. His teeth were white and powerful.
‘You remind me of a squirrel laying in a winter store,’ said she.
‘Ah, Lady Daphne — I was thinking and did not hear you.’
‘I thought you were gathering chestnuts — even eating them.’
‘Also!’ he laughed. He had a dark, sudden charm when he laughed, showing his rather large white teeth. She was not quite sure whether she found him a little repulsive.
‘Were you really thinking?’ she said, in her slow, resonant way.
‘Very truly.’
‘And weren’t you enjoying the chestnut a bit?’
‘Very much. Like sweet milk. Excellent, excellent.’ He had the fragments of the nut between his teeth, and bit them finely. ‘Will you take one too.’ He held out the little, pointed brown nuts on the palm of his hand.
She looked at them doubtfully.
‘Are they as tough as they always were?’ she said.
‘No, they are fresh and good. Wait, I will peel one for you.’
They strayed about through the thin clump of trees.
‘You have had a pleasant summer; you are strong?’
‘Almost quite strong,’ said she. ‘Lovely summer, thanks. I suppose it’s no good asking you if you have been happy?’
‘Happy?’ He looked at her direct. His eyes were black, and seemed to examine her. She always felt he had a little contempt of her. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘I have been very happy.’
‘So glad.’
They drifted a little farther, and he picked up an apple-green chestnut burr out of the yellow-brown leaves, handling it with sensitive fingers that still suggested paws to her.
‘How did you succeed in being happy?’ she said.
‘How shall I tell you? I felt that the same power which put up the mountains could pull them down again — no matter how long it took.’
‘And was that all?’
‘Was it not enough?’
‘I should say decidedly too little.’
He laughed broadly, showing the strong, negroid teeth.
‘You do not know all it means,’ he said.
‘The thought that the mountains were going to be pulled down?’ she said. ‘It will be so long after my day.’
‘Ah, you are bored,’ he said. ‘But I — I found the God who pulls things down: especially the things that men have put up. Do they not say that life is a search after God, Lady Daphne? I have found my God.’
‘The god of destruction,’ she said, blanching.
‘Yes — not the devil of destruction, but the god of destruction. The blessed god of destruction. It is strange’ — he stood before her, looking up at her — ’but I have found my God. The god of anger, who throws down the steeples and the factory chimneys. Ah, Lady Daphne, he is a man’s God, he is a man’s God. I have found my God, Lady Daphne.’
‘Apparently. And how are you going to serve him?’
A naïve glow transfigured his face.
‘Oh, I will help. With my heart I will help while I can do nothing with my hands. I say to my heart: Beat, hammer, beat with little strokes. Beat, hammer of God, beat them down. Beat it all down.’
Her brows knitted, her face took on a look of discontent.
‘Beat what down?’ she asked harshly.
‘The world, the world of man. Not the trees — these chestnuts, for example’ — he looked up at them, at the tufts and loose pinions of yellow — ’not these — nor the chattering sorcerers, the squirrels — nor the hawk that comes. Not those.’
‘You mean beat England?’ she said.
‘Ah, no. Ah, no. Not England any more than Germany — perhaps not as much. Not Europe any more than Asia.’
‘Just the end of the world?’
‘No, no. No, no. What grudge have I against a world where little chestnuts are so sweet as these! Do you like yours? Will you take another?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘What grudge have I against a world where even the hedges are full of berries, bunches of black berries that hang down, and red berries that thrust up. Never would I hate the world. But the world of man. Lady Daphne’ — his voice sank to a whisper — ’I hate it. Zzz!’ he hissed. ‘Strike, little heart! Strike, strike, hit, smite! Oh, Lady Daphne!’ — his eyes dilated with a ring of fire.
‘What?’ she said, scared.
‘I believe in the power of my red, dark heart. God has put the hammer in my breast — the little eternal hammer. Hit — hit — hit! It hits on the world of man. It hits, it hits! And it hears the thin sound of cracking. The thin sound of cracking. Hark!’
He stood still and made her listen. It was late afternoon. The strange laugh of his face made the air seem dark to her. And she could easily have believed that she heard a faint, fine shivering, cracking, through the air, a delicate crackling noise.
‘You hear it? Yes? Oh, may I live long! May I live long, so that my hammer may strike and strike, and the cracks go deeper, deeper! Ah, the world of man! Ah, the joy, the passion in every heart-beat! Strike home, strike true, strike sure. Strike to destroy it. Strike! Strike! To destroy the world of man. Ah, God. Ah, God,
prisoner of peace. Do I not know you, Lady Daphne? Do I not? Do I not?’
She was silent for some moments, looking away at the twinkling lights of a station beyond.
‘Not the white plucked lily of your body. I have gathered no flower for my ostentatious life. But in the cold dark, your lily root, Lady Daphne. Ah, yes, you will know it all your life, that I know where your root lies buried, with its sad, sad quick of life. What does it matter!’
They had walked slowly towards the house. She was silent. Then at last she said, in a peculiar voice:
‘And you would never want to kiss me?’
‘Ah, no!’ he answered sharply.
She held out her hand.
‘Good-bye, Count Dionys,’ she drawled, fashionably. He bowed over her hand, but did not kiss it.
‘Good-bye, Lady Daphne.’
She went away, with her brow set hard. And henceforth she thought only of her husband, of Basil. She made the Count die out of her. Basil was coming, he was near. He was coming back from the East, from war and death. Ah, he had been through awful fire of experience. He would be something new, something she did not know. He was something new, a stronger lover who had been through terrible fire, and had come out strange and new, like a god. Ah, new and terrible his love would be, pure and intensified by the awful fire of suffering. A new lover — a new bridegroom — a new, supernatural wedding-night. She shivered in anticipation, waiting for her husband. She hardly noticed the wild excitement of the Armistice. She was waiting for something more wonderful to her.
And yet the moment she heard his voice on the telephone, her heart contracted with fear. It was his well-known voice, deliberate, diffident, almost drawling, with the same subtle suggestion of deference, and the rather exaggerated Cambridge intonation, up and down. But there was a difference, a new icy note that went through her veins like death.
‘Is that you, Daphne? I shall be with you in half an hour. Is that all right for you? Yes, I’ve just landed, and shall come straight to you. Yes, a taxi. Shall I be too sudden for you, darling? No? Good, oh good! Half an hour, then! I say, Daphne? There won’t be anyone else there, will there? Quite alone! Good! I can ring up Dad afterwards. Yes, splendid, splendid. Sure you’re all right, my darling? I’m at death’s door till I see you. Yes. Good-bye — half an hour. Good-bye.’
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 515