The Captain's Dol

sort of frenzy, in a frenzy to be happy, or to be thrilled. It was

  a feeling that desolated the heart.

  The two sat in the changing sunshine under their rock, with the

  mountain flowers scenting the snow-bitter air, and they ate their

  eggs and sausage and cheese, and drank the bright-red Hungarian

  wine. It seemed lovely: almost like before the war: almost the

  same feeling of eternal holiday, as if the world was made for man's

  everlasting holiday. But not quite. Never again quite the same.

  The world is not made for man's everlasting holiday.

  As Alexander was putting the bread back into his shoulder-sack, he

  exclaimed:

  'Oh, look here!'

  She looked, and saw him drawing out a flat package wrapped in

  paper: evidently a picture.

  'A picture!' she cried.

  He unwrapped the thing and handed it to her. It was Theodor

  Worpswede's Stilleben: not very large, painted on a board.

  Hannele looked at it and went pale.

  'It's GOOD,' she cried, in an equivocal tone.

  'Quite good,' he said.

  'Especially the poached egg,' she said.

  'Yes, the poached egg is almost living.'

  'But where did you find it?'

  'Oh, I found it in the artist's studio.' And he told her how he

  had traced her.

  'How extraordinary!' she cried. 'But why did you buy it?'

  'I don't quite know.'

  'Did you LIKE it?'

  'No, not quite that.'

  'You could NEVER hang it up.'

  'No, never,' he said.

  'But do you think it is good as a work of art?'

  'I think it is quite clever as a painting. I don't like the spirit

  of it, of course. I'm too catholic for that.'

  'No. No,' she faltered. 'It's rather horrid really. That's why I

  wonder why you bought it.'

  'Perhaps to prevent anyone else's buying it,' he said.

  'Do you mind very much, then?' she asked.

  'No, I don't mind very much. I didn't quite like it that you sold

  the doll,' he said.

  'I needed the money,' she said quietly.

  'Oh, quite.'

  There was a pause for some moments.

  'I felt you'd sold ME,' she said, quiet and savage.

  'When?'

  'When your wife appeared. And when you DISAPPEARED.'

  Again there was a pause: his pause this time.

  'I did write to you,' he said.

  'When?'

  'Oh--March, I believe.'

  'Oh yes. I had that letter.' Her voice was just as quiet, and

  even savager.

  So there was a pause that belonged to both of them. Then she rose.

  'I want to be going,' she said. 'We shall never get to the glacier

  at this rate.'

  He packed up the picture, slung on his knapsack, and they set off.

  She stooped now and then to pick the starry, earth-lavender

  gentians from the roadside. As they passed the second of the

  valley hotels, they saw the man and wife sitting at a little table

  outside eating bread and cheese, while the mule-chair with its red

  velvet waited aside on the grass. They passed a whole grove of

  black-purple nightshade on the left, and some long, low cattle-huts

  which, with the stones on their roofs, looked as if they had grown

  up as stones grow in such places through the grass. In the wild,

  desert place some black pigs were snouting.

  So they wound into the head of the valley, and saw the steep face

  ahead, and high up, like vapour or foam dripping from the fangs of

  a beast, waterfalls vapouring down from the deep fangs of ice. And

  there was one end of the glacier, like a great bluey-white fur just

  slipping over the slope of the rock.

  As the valley closed in again the flowers were very lovely,

  especially the big, dark, icy bells, like harebells, that would

  sway so easily, but which hung dark and with that terrible

  motionlessness of upper mountain flowers. And the road turned to

  get on to the long slant in the cliff face, where it climbed like a

  stair. Slowly, slowly the two climbed up. Now again they saw the

  valley below, behind. The mule-chair was coming, hastening, the

  lady seated tight facing backwards, as the chair faced, and wrapped

  in rugs. The tall, fair, middle-aged husband in knickerbockers

  strode just behind, bare-headed.

  Alexander and Hannele climbed slowly, slowly up the slant, under

  the dripping rock-face where the white and veined flowers of the

  grass of Parnassus still rose straight and chilly in the shadow,

  like water which had taken on itself white flower-flesh. Above

  they saw the slipping edge of the glacier, like a terrible great

  paw, bluey. And from the skyline dark grey clouds were fuming up,

  fuming up as if breathed black and icily out from some ice-

  cauldron.

  'It is going to rain,' said Alexander.

  'Not much,' said Hannele shortly.

  'I hope not,' said he.

  And still she would not hurry up that steep slant, but insisted on

  standing to look. So the dark, ice-black clouds fumed solid, and

  the rain began to fly on a cold wind. The mule-chair hastened

  past, the lady sitting comfortably with her back to the mule, a

  little pheasant-trimming in her tweed hat, while her Tannh�user

  husband reached for his dark, cape-frilled mantle.

  Alexander had his dust-coat, but Hannele had nothing but a light

  knitted jersey-coat, such as women wear indoors. Over the hollow

  crest above came the cold, steel rain. They pushed on up the

  slope. From behind came another mule, and a little old man

  hurrying, and a little cart like a hand-barrow, on which were

  hampers with cabbage and carrots and peas and joints of meat, for

  the hotel above.

  'Wird es viel sein?' asked Alexander of the little gnome. 'Will it

  be much?'

  'Was meint der Herr?' replied the other. 'What does the gentleman

  say?'

  'Der Regen, wir des lang dauern? Will the rain last long?'

  'Nein. Nein. Dies ist kein langer Regen.'

  So, with his mule, which had to stand exactly at that spot to make

  droppings, the little man resumed his way, and Hannele and

  Alexander were the last on the slope. The air smelt steel-cold of

  rain, and of hot droppings. Alexander watched the rain beat on the

  shoulders and on the blue skirt of Hannele.

  'It is a pity you left your big coat down below,' he said.

  'What good is it saying so now!' she replied, pale at the nose with

  anger.

  'Quite,' he said, as his eyes glowed and his brow blackened. 'What

  good suggesting anything at any time, apparently?'

  She turned round on him in the rain, as they stood perched nearly

  at the summit of that slanting cliff-climb, with a glacier-paw hung

  almost invisible above, and waters gloating aloud in the gulf

  below. She faced him, and he faced her.

  'What have you ever suggested to me?' she said, her face naked as

  the rain itself with an ice-bitter fury. 'What have you ever

  suggested to me?'

  'When have you ever been open to suggestion?' he said, his face

  dark and his eyes curiously glowing.

  'I? I? Ha! Haven't I waited for you
to suggest something? And

  all you can do is to come here with a picture to reproach me for

  having sold your doll. Ha! I'm glad I sold it. A foolish barren

  effigy it was too, a foolish staring thing. What should I do but

  sell it. Why should I keep it, do you imagine?'

  'Why do you come here with me today, then?'

  'Why do I come here with you today?' she replied. 'I come to see

  the mountains, which are wonderful, and give me strength. And I

  come to see the glacier. Do you think I come here to see YOU? Why

  should I? You are always in some hotel or other away below.'

  'You came to see the glacier and the mountains WITH me,' he

  replied.

  'Did I? Then I made a mistake. You can do nothing but find fault

  even with God's mountains.'

  A dark flame suddenly went over his face.

  'Yes,' he said, 'I hate them, I hate them. I hate their snow and

  their affectations.'

  'AFFECTATION!' she laughed. 'Oh! Even the mountains are affected

  for you, are they?'

  'Yes,' he said. 'Their loftiness and their uplift. I hate their

  uplift. I hate people prancing on mountain-tops and feeling

  exalted. I'd like to make them all stop up there, on their

  mountain-tops, and chew ice to fill their stomachs. I wouldn't let

  them down again, I wouldn't. I hate it all, I tell you; I hate

  it.'

  She looked in wonder on his dark, glowing, ineffectual face. It

  seemed to her like a dark flame burning in the daylight and in the

  ice-rains: very ineffectual and unnecessary.

  'You must be a little mad,' she said superbly, 'to talk like that

  about the mountains. They are so much bigger than you.'

  'No,' he said. 'No! They are not.'

  'What!' she laughed aloud. 'The mountains are not bigger than you?

  But you are extraordinary.'

  'They are not bigger than me,' he cried. 'Any more than you are

  bigger than me if you stand on a ladder. They are not bigger than

  me. They are less than me.'

  'Oh! Oh!' she cried in wonder and ridicule.' The mountains are

  less than you.'

  'Yes,' he cried, 'they are less.'

  He seemed suddenly to go silent and remote as she watched him. The

  speech had gone out of his face again, he seemed to be standing a

  long way off from her, beyond some border-line. And in the midst

  of her indignant amazement she watched him with wonder and a touch

  of fascination. To what country did he belong then?--to what dark,

  different atmosphere?

  'You must suffer from megalomania,' she said. And she said what

  she felt.

  But he only looked at her out of dark, dangerous, haughty eyes.

  They went on their way in the rain in silence. He was filled with

  a passionate silence and imperiousness, a curious, dark, masterful

  force that supplanted thought in him. And she, who always

  pondered, went pondering: 'Is he mad? What does he mean? Is he a

  madman? He wants to bully me. He wants to bully me into

  something. What does he want to bully me into? Does he want me to

  love him?'

  At this final question she rested. She decided that what he wanted

  was that she should love him. And this thought flattered her

  vanity and her pride and appeased her wrath against him. She felt

  quite mollified towards him.

  But what a way he went about it! He wanted her to love him. Of

  this she was sure. He had always wanted her to love him, even from

  the first. Only he had not made up his MIND about it. He had not

  made up his mind. After his wife had died he had gone away to make

  up his mind. Now he had made it up. He wanted her to love him.

  And he was offended, mortally offended because she had sold his

  doll.

  So, this was the conclusion to which Hannele came. And it pleased

  her, and it flattered her. And it made her feel quite warm towards

  him, as they walked in the rain. The rain, by the way, was

  abating. The spume over the hollow crest to which they were

  approaching was thinning considerably. They could again see the

  glacier paw hanging out a little beyond. The rain was going to

  pass. And they were not far now from the hotel, and the third

  level of Lammerboden.

  He wanted her to love him. She felt again quite glowing and

  triumphant inside herself, and did not care a bit about the rain on

  her shoulders. He wanted her to love him. Yes, that was how she

  had to put it. He didn't want to LOVE her. No. He wanted HER to

  love HIM.

  But then, of course, woman-like, she took his love for granted. So

  many men had been so very ready to love her. And this one--to her

  amazement, to her indignation, and rather to her secret

  satisfaction--just blackly insisted that SHE must love HIM. Very

  well--she would give him a run for his money. That was it: he

  blackly insisted that SHE must love HIM. What he felt was not to

  be considered. SHE must love HIM. And be bullied into it. That

  was what it amounted to. In his silent, black, overbearing soul,

  he wanted to compel her, he wanted to have power over her. He

  wanted to make her love him so that he had power over her. He

  wanted to bully her, physically, sexually, and from the inside.

  And she! Well, she was just as confident that she was not going to

  be bullied. She would love him: probably she would: most probably

  she did already. But she was not going to be bullied by him in any

  way whatsoever. No, he must go down on his knees to her if he

  wanted her love. And then she would love him. Because she DID

  love him. But a dark-eyed little master and bully she would never

  have.

  And this was her triumphant conclusion. Meanwhile the rain had

  almost ceased, they had almost reached the rim of the upper level,

  towards which they were climbing, and he was walking in that silent

  diffidence which made her watch him because she was not sure what he

  was feeling, what he was thinking, or even what he was. He was a

  puzzle to her: eternally incomprehensible in his feelings and even

  his sayings. There seemed to her no logic and no reason in what he

  felt and said. She could never tell what his next mood would come

  out of. And this made her uneasy, made her watch him. And at the

  same time it piqued her attention. He had some of the fascination

  of the incomprehensible. And his curious inscrutable face--it

  wasn't really only a meaningless mask, because she had seen it half

  an hour ago melt with a quite incomprehensible and rather, to her

  mind, foolish passion. Strange, black, inconsequential passion.

  Asserting with that curious dark ferocity that he was bigger than

  the mountains. Madness! Madness! Megalomania.

  But because he gave himself away, she forgave him and even liked

  him. And the strange passion of his, that gave out incomprehensible

  flashes, WAS rather fascinating to her. She felt just a tiny bit

  sorry for him. But she wasn't going to be bullied by him. She

  wasn't going to give in to him and his black passion. No, never.

  It must be lo
ve on equal terms or nothing. For love on equal terms

  she was quite ready. She only waited for him to offer it.

  XVII

  In the hotel was a buzz of tourists. Alexander and Hannele sat in

  the restaurant drinking hot coffee and milk, and watching the

  maidens in cotton frocks and aprons and bare arms, and the fair

  youths with maidenly necks and huge voracious boots, and the many

  Jews of the wrong sort and the wrong shape. These Jews were all

  being very Austrian, in Tyrol costume that didn't sit on them,

  assuming the whole gesture and intonation of aristocratic Austria,

  so that you might think they WERE Austrian aristocrats, if you

  weren't properly listening, or if you didn't look twice. Certainly

  they were lords of the Alps, or at least lords of the Alpine hotels

  this summer, let prejudice be what it might. Jews of the wrong

  sort. And yet even they imparted a wholesome breath of sanity,

  disillusion, unsentimentality to the excited 'Bergheil' atmosphere.

  Their dark-eyed, sardonic presence seemed to say to the maidenly-

  necked mountain youths: 'Don't sprout wings of the spirit too

  much, my dears.'

  The rain had ceased. There was a wisp of sunshine from a grey sky.

  Alexander left the knapsack, and the two went out into the air.

  Before them lay the last level of the up-climb, the Lammerboden.

  It was a rather gruesome hollow between the peaks, a last shallow

  valley about a mile long. At the end the enormous static stream of

  the glacier poured in from the blunt mountain-top of ice. The ice

  was dull, sullen-coloured, melted on the surface by the very hot

  summer: and so it seemed a huge, arrested, sodden flood, ending in

  a wave-wall of stone-speckled ice upon the valley bed of rocky

  d�bris. A gruesome descent of stone and blocks of rock, the little

  valley bed, with a river raving through. On the left rose the grey

  rock, but the glacier was there, sending down great paws of ice.

  It was like some great, deep-furred ice-bear lying spread upon the

  top heights, and reaching down terrible paws of ice into the

  valley: like some immense sky-bear fishing in the earth's solid

  hollows from above. Hepburn it just filled with terror. Hannele

  too it scared, but it gave her a sense of ecstasy. Some of the

  immense, furrowed paws of ice held down between the rock were vivid

  blue in colour, but of a frightening, poisonous blue, like crystal

  copper sulphate. Most of the ice was a sullen, semi-translucent

  greeny grey.

  The two set off to walk through the massy, desolate stone-bed,

  under rocks and over waters, to the main glacier. The flowers were

  even more beautiful on this last reach. Particularly the dark

  harebells were large and almost black and ice-metallic: one could

  imagine they gave a dull ice-chink. And the grass of Parnassus

  stood erect, white-veined big cups held terribly naked and open to

  their ice air.

  From behind the great blunt summit of ice that blocked the distance

  at the end of the valley, a pale-grey, woolly mist or cloud was

  fusing up, exhaling huge, like some grey-dead aura into the sky,

  and covering the top of the glacier. All the way along the valley

  people were threading, strangely insignificant, among the grey

  dishevel of stone and rock, like insects. Hannele and Alexander

  went ahead quickly, along the tiring track.

  'Are you glad now that you came?' she said, looking at him

  triumphant.

  'Very glad I came,' he said. His eyes were dilated with excitement

  that was ordeal or mystic battle rather than the Bergheil ecstasy.

  The curious vibration of his excitement made the scene strange,

  rather horrible to her. She too shuddered. But it still seemed to

  her to hold the key to all glamour and ecstasy, the great silent,

  living glacier. It seemed to her like a grand beast.

  As they came near they saw the wall of ice: the glacier end, thick