The World in the Evening

by Christopher Isherwood

  I’d supposed, naturally, that this was going to be a holiday for Elizabeth. But, the morning after our arrival, she said that she wanted to work and suggested that I should go sightseeing with Michael. I was disappointed and even a bit hurt by this, but I was careful not to show it. Afterwards, I was glad that I hadn’t.

  At lunch, that day, Elizabeth was in an extraordinary mood. She was gay to the point of silliness and kept making jokes which were quite idiotic. ‘What’s all the excitement about?’ I asked her, as soon as we were alone together. ‘Oh, Stephen darling—I’ve been wondering for the last three hours how I was going to tell you!’ Elizabeth threw her arms around my neck and kissed me, laughing. ‘And I still don’t know! Perhaps I won’t tell you. Perhaps I’ll wait till you read it in the newspapers.’

  ‘Read what, Elizabeth?’ I asked, laughing too, though I didn’t know why.

  ‘Let me be the first to announce to you, Sir, that I propose to present Michael with a brother. He’d like a brother, wouldn’t he, not a sister? Anyhow, I think I shall insist on a brother.’

  ‘Elizabeth—Oh, my God!’

  ‘Stephen, you look positively shattered!’

  ‘I’m not. No, of course I’m not. I’m delighted. It’s only—well, you know, this takes a bit of getting used to … So that was why you wanted to come here? To see a doctor? And Michael was to get me out of the way while you did it? But why on earth didn’t you tell me, darling? I’d have gone with you. Is he a good man?’

  ‘One of the best specialists in Austria, I’m told.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Does that matter, darling?’

  ‘I’d like to go and see him myself.’

  ‘But, Stephen, whatever for?’

  ‘I just feel I ought to. Doesn’t one, usually?’

  ‘Stephen darling, I’m going to ask you to do something for me. Will you promise?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Promise first.’ Elizabeth had become very much in earnest.

  ‘All right, then. I promise.’

  ‘I expect it’s terribly female and psychological of me—but listen, Stephen, I want you to leave this whole business to me; having the baby. I promise faithfully to go to the doctor whenever it’s necessary, and do all the things he tells me, and take every precaution. But somehow, I don’t quite know how to explain it. I want to leave you out of this entirely. I suppose it’s a kind of biological privacy … You’ve promised, remember?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ve promised.’

  I had no reason, then, to suspect Elizabeth’s truthfulness in saying all this, or her motives. But here was the note she wrote, that same afternoon, to Mary Scriven:

  ‘You know what we discussed in London—the Great Possibility? Well, it has happened! I tell you this in the deadliest secrecy, and only because of that other confidence I made to you then. I almost wish, now, that I hadn’t made it; because if no one knew, not even such a grave of secrets as yourself, then I could more easily pretend to myself that it was all nonsense and unfounded fear. Well—it isn’t nonsense. I have to face that. There is the danger. But when it actually came to making the decision, I didn’t hesitate for one instant—any more than any other woman in my position would have hesitated. The doctor advised me against it, of course; but then, that’s what he had to say, just as this is what I had to decide. Mary my dearest, I’m telling you this so that, if anything should happen, you’ll know that I chose freely and gladly—and, one day, you’ll tell Stephen. But it sounds so absurdly melodramatic when I write this. Nothing is going to happen. I know it. I’m determined to make myself know it. I feel splendidly healthy, and so happy that I—well, you’ll know from your own experience. And now, please, lock this away in the bottom of your mind, as I’ve locked it in mine.’

  Being back at the Schwarzsee seemed, after that day’s excitement, rather anticlimactic. Life went on as usual. Elizabeth continued her novel and kept pretty well, with much less morning sickness that we had expected. But often, when I woke up beside her in bed, or at odd moments throughout the day, I would remember that I was going to become a father. ‘A father. A father,’ I repeated, trying to make the word relate to myself. I couldn’t, yet. ‘Father’ was still what the word ‘Husband’ had been to me at the time of our honeymoon: a name for a wonderful new game. I was excited, of course, and proud and pleased: but these feelings were all on the surface. Underneath, I had really no idea how I felt, or how I might be going to feel.

  Naturally, we talked about the baby a great deal. Elizabeth said that we shouldn’t worry too much about its sex—though we both wanted a boy—lest it should feel unwelcome if it turned out to be a girl. She suggested that, for the present, we should call it by a name which would do for either; but neither of us liked Evelyn, Dale or Lou, so, provisionally, we referred to it as Mydal or Ronk. ‘Mydal is more ambiguous,’ said Elizabeth, ‘but if it is a boy, I think Ronk would be better—such a manly name.’

  We had told Michael, the evening of that day in Salzburg. I had ordered champagne, we had drunk a toast, and he had congratulated us with a formality which was unnatural to him, almost middle-aged. I could see at once that the news had raised a barrier between him and us. We hadn’t been back at the Schwarzsee more than three or four days when he told me that he was leaving for Vienna.

  ‘But, Michael,’ I said, ‘you don’t know anybody there. Why not stay here? The best weather is beginning.’

  ‘No, Stephen.’ Michael shook his head almost angrily. ‘You don’t want me here any more. Don’t pretend you do. You and Elizabeth want to be alone together, now. Do you think I don’t understand that?’ He turned away from me, biting his lip. He was very near to crying. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you two. Most people are so rotten. Or else they’re just fools. I think you’ve discovered the way people ought to live. I wish everybody could know you like I have. I’ll never forget you. Tell Elizabeth that, too. I won’t see her again. I loathe all this sickly Goodbye business.’

  I patted him awkwardly on the shoulder, embarrassed because he was right. Since I’d known about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, I wanted to be near her all the time. Even when she was working, I didn’t care to leave the house. I would still have liked Michael to be with us, now and then, but I wouldn’t have gone off with him on any more hikes. I felt restless, now, whenever Elizabeth and I were separated for more than a few minutes.

  ‘Good luck, Michael,’ I said. ‘And mind you write. We’ll be thinking about you often.’

  Michael only wrote once; a postcard from Vienna. But we talked about him every day for a long while. ‘I do wonder what’ll happen to him,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I feel that almost anything might. That’s what makes young men like him so mysterious and fascinating. You have no idea where they’re going—and neither have they.’

  Toward the end of August, Elizabeth finished her novel, and was eager for a change of scene. We had planned a visit to Greece, allowing plenty of time to get back to England afterwards, before the baby was born.

  Athens was terribly hot, and this worried me because it was an extra strain on Elizabeth: she got tired so easily. She made light of this, as usual; and she certainly loved the city as much as I did. Her letters and postcards home were full of descriptions—the Acropolis, the Lycabettus hill, Piraeus, the wandering evening crowds in the Zappeion gardens, the dark swarming Asiatic markets, the marble sidewalks, the resinated wine, the officers playing with strings of beads as they talked in the cafés, the smells, the dust, the cypresses, the beggars, the Turkish delight. I think she dealt with all these details so elaborately in order to avoid telling our one enormous piece of news. Except for Mary Scriven, she still hadn’t told anyone in England about the expected baby.

  During September and October we made several short trips—to Delphi, to Corinth and Patras, to Khalkis and the island of Euboea. It was Elizabeth who always suggested them. When I feared that she wouldn’t be comfortable, and warned her of hot crowded t
rains, flies, dirty food and bumpy roads, she protested laughingly against my fussing. She assured me that she had never felt better.

  Then came that night, early in November, when I woke from deep sleep to feel Elizabeth pulling at the sleeve of my pyjama jacket. ‘Stephen, will you get a doctor? I’m bleeding. I don’t think I’d better move.’ Her voice was quiet and urgent. I knew she was frightened, but she kept perfectly calm. She had had a sudden violent haemorrhage. The sheets were soaked with her blood.

  I roused the whole hotel and rushed her to hospital as quickly as I could; but there was much delay, because they discovered that my blood belonged to a different group from hers, and another donor had to be found for the transfusion. I went nearly crazy with fear and impatience. In a kind of nightmare daze, toward dawn, I listened to the doctor’s medical explanations. I had to concentrate hard to understand his gabble of broken English and French. The word ‘placenta’ kept recurring: somehow, it seemed to me to express the very essence of this obscene horror. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but every time he said it, I felt sick. The placenta had become partly detached from the womb. The child was probably already dead. I was almost glad to hear that about the child; for some muddled superstition made me believe that its death would pay for Elizabeth’s life.

  That wasn’t the worst, however. Three days later, she began to run a high fever and became delirious. An infection had set in. (Years later, an American surgeon told me that this was most likely due to the Greek doctor’s carelessness: he must have examined Elizabeth without wearing rubber gloves. But, thank God, I didn’t know that at the time.) By now, another doctor had been called in for consultation, a German specialist. He decided that Elizabeth’s womb would have to be removed. It was the only way to save her.

  The German evidently disliked me. He was a prim, thin, bitter man with a duelling-scar on his cheek. He muttered something to himself about ‘criminal selfishness’ and ‘lack of all human feeling’. When I asked him what he meant, he glared at me scornfully. ‘I think you know very well what I mean, my dear Sir. You deliberately gambled with your Wife’s life, in order to have this child.’ My look of utter bewilderment at this must have shaken him a little; for he went on in a milder tone, as if he’d suddenly realized that he was speaking to an idiot: ‘Or, is it possible—can you not have known? Could any man in your position not have known? Well, perhaps … Then let me tell you, Sir: your Wife suffers, since several years, from an extremely grave condition of the heart. You were ignorant of this? Incredible … She should never, never, under any circumstances, have attempted to become a mother. As for this operation—it is a desperate measure. Please understand this: I promise nothing. Nothing. I accept no responsibility whatever.’ He bowed to me coldly, and hurried off to get ready for the surgery. I think it was his harshness that helped me to pull myself together and sweat out the hours of waiting which followed.

  At last, it was all over. And then there was hope, grudgingly admitted by the German: ‘we are luckier than we deserve’. Then more hope, with caution: ‘a relapse is always possible’. Then I was allowed to see Elizabeth.

  I would never forget the shock of her appearance, that evening. She looked like a death-mask. Her skin was like alabaster. Her lips were absolutely white and bloodless. Even her finger-nails were white. She tried to smile at me, and that was worst of all. Forgetting the Doctor’s warnings against upsetting her, and my own resolutions, I threw myself down on my knees beside her bed and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry’. Her voice sounded as weak as she looked; and yet I’d never been as conscious of her inner strength as I was at that moment. It shamed me. I smeared the tears out of my eyes and blew my nose.

  ‘My God,’ I said, ‘why should you be sorry?’

  ‘Because I made such a mess of this.’

  ‘Never mind that. Are you all right, Elizabeth? Are you going to be all right?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘But, darling, why didn’t you ever tell me?’

  ‘Tell you what?’ she asked, with a smile that was almost teasing.

  ‘About your heart.’

  ‘You’d have worried.’

  ‘Worried! My God, I’d never have let you have the baby.’

  ‘But I wanted to have it—him, I mean. You know it was a him?’

  ‘Yes. The doctor told me.’

  ‘Ronk,’ said Elizabeth softly.

  ‘Ronk. Not Mydal. You were right about that.’

  ‘And now there’ll never be a Ronk. Or a Mydal, either. I won’t ever be able to—’

  ‘I know,’ I interrupted quickly. ‘But don’t think about it, darling. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care a bit. As a matter of fact, I—’

  At this moment, to my relief, the nurse came in to tell me that my visiting-time was up, and I must leave Elizabeth to get her sleep.

  We avoided the subject, after that, for several weeks; until the time when Elizabeth was definitely convalescent. I’d begun to hope that she had somehow accepted her loss and put it out of her mind. And then, one day, I came in and found her crying quietly to herself. I didn’t have to ask her what was the matter. I knew at once.

  ‘I wanted to have him—so terribly badly,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t care about anything else. I wanted to have him for you … Oh, Stephen darling—you’re so sweet—you’ll never tell me—but I know how much you mind—’

  ‘But I don’t mind, darling. I swear I don’t. Now that I know you’ll get well. We’ve still got each other.’

  ‘I thought—I hoped—if we’d had him, it would have been something we could share in—so you wouldn’t ever—get tired of being—with me.’

  ‘Elizabeth—that’s just utter nonsense! You won’t feel like this when you’re well again. Me get tired! Why, I don’t want anybody or anything but you. What do we need a child for? I’d tell you if I minded. Honestly. Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘You will mind—one day. Oh, I know you will—even if you never say so. Oh darling—I’ve failed you—’

  I protested, over and over again. I held her in my arms. I tried to comfort her. In a little while, she calmed down and dried her eyes and said she was sorry for making this scene. ‘I expect you’re right, darling. I was just being tiresome and nervous. I shan’t carry on like this when I’ve really recovered. I promise you, this won’t happen any more.’

  Elizabeth kept her promise. There were no more scenes. Nevertheless, for a long while, I felt a kind of thin shadow between us. I didn’t see into her mind as clearly as before. I suppose the trouble was that I couldn’t really understand how she had felt about the child. Perhaps I only fully understood it now, for the first time, as I lay in bed alone, with nothing left of her but these letters I held in my hands.

  5

  AS BIRDS DO, Mother was published in the spring of 1928. Elizabeth and I were in Paris at the time; we had travelled up there specially from Rome, so as to be able to talk to her publisher more easily on the telephone and get the reviews more quickly by airmail. ‘You see,’ Elizabeth wrote to Cecilia, ‘I wanted to hover near the nest, but at a safe distance. I simply couldn’t face London and my own publisher’s party. I’ve been to too many of them already, for other people, and seen the miserable author standing there like a garlanded victim amidst all those hidden daggers. He may be somebody you know quite well, but on that fatal afternoon he’s the ritual victim, set apart, ready for the knife. He’s so utterly vulnerable that you can’t bear to look into his eyes. You know you’ve got to go up and say something to him, and you rack your brains to think what, because you probably hated his book or, even worse, found it just completely ordinary and uninteresting. Finally you nerve yourself to deliver your false flattering little stab, and the poor creature thanks you and winces, ever so slightly. Towards the end of the ceremony, he has usually drunk enough sherry to dull the pain, and then he’s like a wretched wounded animal, bleary and stupid and helpless.
No thank you. Je m’excuse beaucoup. Let them find another scapegoat.’

  As it turned out, the reviews of As Birds Do, Mother were nearly all favourable. The critics decided that it showed a great advance on Elizabeth’s first novel, The Faded Carpet (which she had written when she was twenty-three), and they treated it most respectfully. ‘Miss Rydal,’ said one of them, ‘is a writer in a class by herself. She sets her own standards and defines her own limitations, and she must be judged by them.’ But this was exactly the sort of praise that Elizabeth didn’t want. ‘Oh yes,’ she told Cecilia. ‘I see I’m to be handled with kid gloves, from now on. I’m to have a “rare talent”—something exquisite and delicate and subtle. And if I behave myself and promise not to write too much—not more than six books at the most—then I’ll be tolerated until the day I die, and perhaps five minutes after. Oh, Cecilia, is this why I became a writer? To be “in a class by myself”, like one of those guaranteed genuine little treasures in a Bond Street shop-window that people look at and say: “Yes, I’m sure it’s terribly rare, but who on earth would want it?” Ah, how I wish, I wish I could scribble off dozens of huge shapeless impulsive novels full of contradictory opinions and warmth and energy and silliness and life, like—yes, God forgive me—like Wells!’

  During the next eighteen months, Elizabeth was at work on A Garden with Animals. She had begun planning it even before As Birds Do, Mother was published, and she sent long letters to Cecilia discussing the problems of its construction. On the whole, the writing went unexpectedly smoothly. ‘Now that the end is in sight,’ she told Cecilia in June 1929, ‘I’m amazed and grateful that it has all been so easy. Do you know, I believe the reason I had so much trouble with Birds is that half of me was actually trying to write Garden at the same time? The two of them were lying interlocked in my mind, and as soon as I’d disentangled them from their incestuous embrace, the curse was lifted.’