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diff --git a/43423-0.txt b/43423-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38e5738 --- /dev/null +++ b/43423-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9781 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43423 *** + +OLD MOLE + +BEING THE SURPRISING ADVENTURES IN ENGLAND OF HERBERT JOCELYN BEENHAM, +M.A., SOMETIME SIXTH-FORM MASTER AT THRIGSBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL IN THE +COUNTY OF LANCASTER + +BY +GILBERT CANNAN + +AUTHOR OF "ROUND THE CORNER" + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY +NEW YORK LONDON +1917 + + +Copyright, 1914. by +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + + +TO +MY WIFE + + +_J'aime les fables des philosophes, je ris de celles des enfants, et je +hais celles des imposteurs._ + +L'INGÉNU. + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +I. PRELUDE 3 + +II. MARRIAGE 99 + +III. INTERLUDE 147 + +IV. TOYS 171 + +V. IN THE SWIM 203 + +VI. OUT OF IT 289 + +VII. APPENDIX 347 + + + + +I + +PRELUDE + +His star is a strange one! One that leadeth him to fortune by the path +of frowns! to greatness by the aid of thwackings! + +THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT + + + +I + +PRELUDE + +A SENSITIVE observer, who once spent a week in theatrical lodgings in +Thrigsby, has described the moral atmosphere of the place as "harsh +listlessness shot with humor." That is about as far as you can get in +a week. It is farther than Herbert Jocelyn Beenham, M.A. (Oxon.), got +in the twenty-five years he had given to the instruction of the youth +of Thrigsby in its Grammar School--the foundation of an Elizabethan +bishop. Ambition ever leads a man away from Thrigsby. Having none, H. +J. Beenham had stayed there, achieving the sort of distinction that +swelled Tennyson's brook. Boys and masters came and went, but "Old +Mole" still occupied the Sixth Form room in the gallery above the +glass roof of the gymnasium. + +He was called Old Mole because whenever he spied a boy cribbing, or +larking, or reading a book that had no reference to the subject in +hand, or eating sweets, or passing notes, he would cry out in a voice +of thunder: "Ha! Art thou there, old mole?" Thrigsbian fathers who had +suffered at his hands would ask their sons about Old Mole, and so his +position was fortified by a sort of veneration. He was one of those +men who assume their definite shape and appearance in the early +thirties, and thereafter give no clew to their age even to the most +curious spinster's inquisitiveness. Reference to the Calendar of his +university shows that at the time of his catastrophe he cannot have +been more than forty-eight. + +He was unmarried, not because he disliked women, but from indolence, +obstinacy, combativeness, and a coarse strain in him which made him +regard the female body, attire and voice as rather ridiculous. With +married women he was ceremonious and polite: with the unmarried he was +bantering. When he had been twenty years at the school he began +jocularly to speak of it as his bride, and when he came to his +twenty-fifth year he regarded it as his silver wedding. He was very +proud when his Form presented him with a smoker's cabinet and his +colleagues subscribed for a complete edition of the works of Voltaire +bound in vellum. Best of all was the fact that one of his boys, A. Z. +Panoukian, an Armenian of the second generation (and therefore a +thorough Thrigsbian), had won a scholarship at Balliol, the first +since he had had charge of the Sixth. At Speech Day, when the whole +school and their female relatives and the male parents of the +prize-winners were gathered in the John Bright Hall, the Head Master +would make a special reference to Panoukian and possibly to the happy +coincidence of his performance with the attainment of Mr. Beenham's +fourth of a century in the service of the pious and ancient +foundation. It was possible, but unlikely, for the Head Master was a +sentimentalist who made a point of presenting an arid front to the +world lest his dignity should be undermined. + +It was with a glow of satisfaction that H. J. Beenham took out his +master's hood and his best mortar-board on the eve of Speech Day and +laid them out in his bedroom. This was at five o'clock in the +afternoon, for he had promised to spend the evening with the Panoukian +family at Bungsall, on the north side of the city. It was a heavy July +day and he was rather tired, for he had spent the morning in school +reading aloud from the prose works of Emerson, and the afternoon had +been free, owing to the necessity of a replay of the Final in the +inter-Form cricket championship between his boys and the Modern +Transitus. He had intended to illuminate the event with his presence, +but Thrigsby in July is not pleasant, and so he had come out by an +early train to his house at Bigley in the hills which overflow +Derbyshire into Cheshire. + +He sat with a glow of satisfaction as he gazed at his hood and +mortar-board and thought of Panoukian. He was pleased with Panoukian. +He had "spotted" him in the Lower Third and rushed him up in two and a +half years to the Sixth. There had been an anxious three years during +which Panoukian had slacked, and taken to smoking, and been caught in +a café flirting (in a school cap) with a waitress, and had been +content with the superficial ease and brilliance with which he had +mastered the Greek and Latin classics and the rudiments of philosophy. +There had been a devastating term when Panoukian had taken to writing +poetry, and then things had gone from bad to worse until he (Beenham) +had lighted on the truth that Panoukian was stale and needed a fresh +point of attack. Then he had Panoukian to stay with him at Bigley and +turned him loose in French literature and, as a side issue, introduced +him to Eckermann's version of Goethe's conversation. The boy was most +keenly responsive to literature, and through these outside studies it +had been possible to lead him back to the realization that Homer, +Thucydides, Plato, Virgil and company had also produced literature and +that their works had only been masquerading as text-books. . . . The +fight was won, and F. J. Tibster of Balliol had written a most +gratifying letter of commendation of Panoukian's performance in the +examination. This had yielded the greatest satisfaction to Panoukian +_père_, and he had twice given Mr. Beenham lunch in the most expensive +restaurant of Thrigsby's new mammoth hotel, and now, when Panoukian +_fils_ was to leave the wing of his preceptor, had bidden him to meet +Mrs. Panoukian--an Irishwoman--and all the Miss Panoukians. The +railway journey from Bigley would be hot and unpleasant, and to reach +Bungsall it was necessary to pass through some of the most stifling +streets in Thrigsby. After the exhaustion of the summer term and the +examinations the schoolmaster found it hard to conquer his reluctance. +Only by thinking of the cool stream in the Highlands to which it was +his habit to fly on the day after Speech Day could he stiffen himself +to the effort of donning his dress clothes. (The Panoukians dressed in +the evening since their Arthur had been embraced by Balliol and taken +to the bosom of the Lady Dervorguilla.) He had a cold bath, and more +than ever clearly he thought of the brown water of the burn foaming +into white and creamy flecks over the rocks. How thoroughly, he +thought, he had this year earned his weeks of peace and solitude. + +He would catch the six-twenty-four. He had plenty of time and there +would be a good margin in Thrigsby. He could look in at the Foreign +Library, of which he was president, and give them his new selection of +books to be purchased during the vacation. On the way he met Barnett, +the captain of the Bigley Golf Club, and stayed to argue with him +about the alterations to the fourteenth green, which he considered +scandalous and incompetent. He told Barnett so with such heat and at +such length that he only just caught the six-twenty-four and had to +leap into a third-class carriage. It was empty. He opened the windows +and lay at full length on the seat facing the engine. It was more hot +and unpleasant than he had anticipated. He cursed Barnett and extended +the malediction to Panoukian. It would have been more pleasant to +spend the evening with Miss Clipton, sister and formerly housekeeper +to a deceased bishop of Thrigsby, talking about her vegetable marrows. +. . . Uncommonly hot. Deucedly hot. The train crawled so that there +was no draught. He went to sleep. + +He was awakened by the roar of the wheels crossing Ockley viaduct. +Ockley sprawls up and down the steep sides of a valley. At the bottom +runs a black river. Tall chimneys rise from the hillsides. From the +viaduct you gaze down into thousands of chimneys trailing black smoke. +The smoke rises and curls and writhes upward into the black pall that +ever hangs over Ockley. This pall was gold and red and apricot yellow +with the light of the sun behind it. There were folk at Bigley who +said there was beauty in Ockley. . . . It was a frequent source of +after-dinner argument in Bigley. Beauty. For H. J. Beenham all beauty +lived away from Thrigsby and its environment. Smoke and beauty were +incompatible. Still, in his half-sleeping, half-waking condition there +was something impressive in Ockley's golden pall. He raised himself on +his elbow the better to look out, when he was shocked and startled by +hearing a sort of whimper. Opposite him, in the corner, was sitting a +girl, a very pretty girl, with a white, drawn face and her hands +pressed together, her shoulders huddled and her face averted. Her eyes +were blank and expressionless, and there was a great tear trickling +down her nose. The light from the golden pall glowed over her face but +seemed only to accentuate its misery and the utter dejection of her +attitude. + +"Poor girl!" thought the schoolmaster. "Poor, poor girl!" He felt a +warm, melting sensation in the neighborhood of his breastbone; and +with an impulsiveness altogether unusual to him he leaned forward and +tried to lay his hand on her. He was still only half awake and was +wholly under the impulse to bring comfort to one so wretched. The +train lurched as it passed over a point, and, instead of her hand, he +grasped her knee. At once she sprang forward and slapped his face. +Stung, indignant, shocked, but still dominated by his impulse, urged +by it to insist on its expression, he seized her by the wrists and +tried to force her back into her seat and began to address her: + +"My poor child! Something in you, in your eyes, has touched me. I do +not know if I can. . . . Please sit down and listen to me." + +"Nasty old beast!" said the girl. + +"I must protest," replied Old Mole, "the innocence of my motives." He +still gripped her by the wrists. "Seeing you as I did, so unnerved, +so----" + +The train slowed down and stopped, but he did not notice it. He was +absolutely absorbed in his purpose--to succor this young woman in +distress and to show her the injustice of her suspicions. She by this +time was almost beside herself with anger and fright, and she had +struggled so violently--for he had no notion of the force with which +he held her--that her hair had tumbled down behind and she had torn +the seam of her sleeve and put her foot through a flounce in her +petticoat. + +He was thoroughly roused now, and shouted: + +"You shall listen to me----" + +"Let me go! Let me go!" screamed the girl. + +The train had stopped opposite a train going in the other direction. +The door of the compartment was opened suddenly, and Beenham found +himself picked up and flung into the far corner. Over him towered an +immense form clad in parson's clothes--the very type of vengeful +muscular Christianity. + +In the corner the girl had subsided into hysterical sobs. The parson +questioned her. + +"Do you know this man?" + +"No . . . no, sir." + +"Never seen him before?" + +"Never, sir. He--he set on me." + +"Do you prefer a charge against him?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Beenham could hardly hear what they said, but he was boiling with +indignation. + +"I protest----" he said. + +"Silence!" shouted the parson. "But for my timely intervention Heaven +knows what would have happened. . . . Silence! You and men like you +are a pest to society, impervious to decency and the call of religion. +. . . Fortunately there is law in the country and you shall know it." + +With that he pulled down the chain above the windows. In a moment or +two the scowling guard appeared. The parson described the horrible +scene he had witnessed from the train, that was even now moving +Londonward, his interference, and declared his intention of seeing +that the perpetrator of so vile a deed should be hounded down. He +requested the guard to telephone at the next station to the Thrigsby +police. A small crowd had collected. They hummed and buzzed with +excitement, and fifteen men clambered into the compartment to assist +the parson in his heroic defence of the young woman against the now +fully awake and furious pedagogue. He tried to speak, but was shouted +down: to move toward the parson, but was thrust back into his corner. +Every one else had a perfectly clear-cut idea of what had happened. He +himself was so busy emerging from his state of hallucination and +trying to trace back step by step everything that had happened to +produce the extraordinary eruption into what had been at Bigley an +empty, ordinary, rather stuffy compartment in a railway train, that he +could not even begin to contemplate the consequences or to think, +rather, what they might all be moving toward. It was only as the train +ran into Thrigsby, and he saw the name, that he associated it with +that other word which had been on the parson's lips: + +"Police!" + +There was a cold sinking in the pit of his stomach. Out of his +hallucination came the remembrance that he had, with the most kindly +and generous and spontaneously humane motives, used the girl with +violence.--Police! He was given no time for thought. There was a +policeman on the platform. A crowd gathered. It absorbed Beenham, +thrust him toward the policeman, who seized him by the arm and, +followed by the parson and the girl, they swept swiftly along the +platform, down the familiar incline, the crowd swelling as they went, +along an unknown street, squalid and vibrant with the din of iron-shod +wheels over stone setts, to the police station. There a shabby swing +door cut off the crowd, and Beenham, parson, girl and policeman stood +in the charge room waiting for the officer at the desk to look up from +his ledger. + +The charge was made and entered. The girl's name was Matilda Burn, a +domestic servant. She was prompted by the parson, who swept aside her +reluctance to speak. Old Mole was asked to give his name, address and +occupation. He burst into a passionate flow of words, but was +interrupted and coldly reminded that he was only desired to give bare +information on three points, and that anything he might say would be +used against him in evidence. He explained his identity, and the +officer at the ledger looked startled, but entered the particulars in +slow writing with a scratchy pen. The parson and the girl disappeared. +The officer at the ledger cleared his throat, turned to the accused, +opened his mouth, but did not speak. He scratched his ear with his +pen, stooped and blew a fly off the page in front of him, made a +visible effort to suppress his humanity and conduct the affair in +accordance with official routine, and finally blurted out: + +"Do you want bail?" + +Old Mole gave the name and address of his Head Master. + +"You can write if you like." + +The letter was written, read by the officer, and despatched. There was +a whispered consultation behind the ledger, during which the unhappy +schoolmaster read through again and again a list of articles and dogs +missing, and then he was led to the inspector's room and given a +newspaper to read. + +"Extraordinary!" he said to himself. Then he thought of the Panoukians +and began to fidget at the idea of being late. He abominated +unpunctuality. Had he not again and again had to punish young +Panoukian for indulgence in the vice? The six-twenty-four had given +him ample time. He pulled out his watch: Still twenty-five minutes, +but he must hurry. He looked round the bare, dingy room vaguely, +wonderingly. Incisively the idea of his situation bit into his brain. +He was in custody--_carcer,_ a prison. How absurd it was, rather +funny! It only needed a little quiet, level-headed explanation and he +would be free. The "chief" would confirm his story, his identity. +. . . They would laugh over it. Very funny: very funny. A wonderful +story for the club. He chuckled over it to himself until he began to +think of the outcome. More than once he had served on a Grand Jury and +had slept through the consideration of hundreds of indictments: a +depressing experience for which the judge had rewarded him with +nothing but compliments and an offer of a pass to view His Majesty's +prison. That brought him up with a jerk. He was in custody, charged +with a most serious offence, for which he would be tried at the +Assizes. It was monstrous, preposterous! It must be stopped at once. +What a grotesque mistake! What an egregious, yet what a serious +blunder! That officious idiot of a parson! + +The Head Master arrived. He glowered at his colleague and seemed very +agitated. He said: + +"This is very serious, most unfortunate. It is--ah--as well for the +prestige of the school that it has happened at the end of term. We +must hush it up, hush it up." + +Beenham explained. He told the whole story, growing more and more +amazed and indignant as he set it forth. The Head Master only said: + +"I form no opinion. We must hush it up. It must be kept out of the +papers." + +Not a word more could be wrung from him. With a stiff back and pursed +lips he nodded and went away. He returned to say: + +"Of course you will not appear at Speech Day. I will write to you as +soon as I have decided what had best be done." + +"I shall be at Bigley," said Old Mole. + +He was released on bail and told to surrender himself at the police +court when called upon. + +In a dream he wandered out into the street and up into the main +thoroughfare, along which every day in term time he walked between the +station and the school. Impossible to go to the Panoukians; impossible +to return to Bigley. Suppose he had been recognized! Any number of his +acquaintances might be going out by the six-forty-nine. He must have +been seen! Bigley would be alive with it! . . . He sent two telegrams, +one to the Panoukians, the other to his housekeeper to announce that +he would not be back that night. + +He forgot to eat, and roamed through the streets of Thrigsby, finding +relief from the strain of his fear and his tormented thoughts in +observation. Dimly, hardly at all consciously, he began to perceive +countless existences all apparently indifferent to his own. Little +boys jeered at him occasionally, but the men and women took no notice +of him. Streets of warehouses he passed through, streets of little +blackened houses, under railway arches, under tall chimneys, past +shops and theaters and music-halls, and waste grounds, and grounds +covered with scaffolding and fenced in with pictured hoardings: an +immense energy, the center of which was, surprisingly, not the school. +He walked and thought and observed until he sank into exhaustion and +confusion. In the evening, when the lamps were lit, the main streets +were thronged with men and women idly strolling, for it was too hot +for purpose or deliberate amusement. + +Late, about eleven o'clock, he walked into his club. The porter +saluted. In the smoke room two or three of his acquaintances nodded. +No one spoke to him. In a corner was a little group who kept looking +in his direction, so that after a time he began to feel that they were +talking about him. He became acutely conscious of his position. There +were muttering and whispering in the corner, and then one man, a tall, +pale-faced man, whom he had known slightly for many years, arose from +the group and came heavily toward him. + +"I want to speak to you a moment," said the man. + +"Certainly. Certainly." + +They went outside. + +"Er--of course," said the man, "we are awfully sorry, but we can't +help feeling that it was a mistake for you to come here to-night. You +must give us time, you know." + +Beenham looked the man up and down. + +"Time for what?" he replied acidly. + +"To put it bluntly," came the answer, "Harbutt says he won't stay in +the club if you stay." + +Beenham turned on his heel and went downstairs. At the door he met the +Head Master coming in, who sourly expressed pleasure in the meeting. + +"I shall never enter the club again," said Beenham. + +The Head Master paid no attention to the remark, took him by the arm +and led him into the street. There they paced up and down while it was +explained that the Chief Constable had been approached and was willing +to suspend proceedings until a full inquiry had been made, if Beenham +were willing to face an inquiry; or, in the alternative, would allow +him twenty-four hours in which to disappear from Thrigsby. The Lord +Mayor and three other governors of the school had been seen, and they +were all agreed that such an end to Mr. Beenham's long and honorable +connection with the foundation was deplorable. + +"End!" gasped Beenham. + +"The governors all expressed----" began the Head Master, when his +colleague interrupted him with: + +"What is your own opinion?" + +"I--I----" + +"What is your own feeling?" + +"I am thinking of the school." + +"Then I am to suffer under an unjust and unfounded accusation?" + +"The school----" + +"Ach!----" + +Impossible to describe the wonderful guttural sound that the unhappy +man wrenched out of himself. He stood still and his brain began to +work very clearly and he saw that the scandal had already begun to +move so that if he accepted either of his chief's alternatives and had +the matter hushed up, or he vanished away within twenty-four hours, it +would solidify, crystallize into conical form, descend and extinguish +them. If, on the other hand, he insisted on a public inquiry, there +would be a conflagration in which, though he might leave the court +without a stain on his reputation--was not that the formula?--yet his +worldly position would be consumed with possible damage to the +institution to which he had given so many years of his life. His first +impulse was to save his honor without regard to the cost or damage to +others: but then he remembered the attitude of the men in the club, +fathers of families with God knows what other claims to righteousness, +and he saw that, though he might be innocent as a lamb, yet he had to +face public opinion excited by prejudice, which, if he dared to combat +it, he would only have enflamed. He was not fully aware of the crisis +to which he had come, but his emotion at the idea of severing his +connection with the place that had been the central point of his +existence spurred him to an instinctive effort in which he began to +perceive larger vistas of life. Against them as background everything +that was and had been was reduced in size so that he could see it +clearly and bioscopically. He knew, too, that he was seeing it +differently from the Head Master, from Harbutt, from all the other men +who would shrink away from the supposedly contagious danger of his +situation, and he admitted his own helplessness. With that his +immediate indignation at the conduct of individuals died away and he +was left with an almost hysterical sense of the preposterousness of +the world in which out of nothing, a misconstruction, a whole mental +fabric could be builded beneath the weight of which a normal, +ordinary, respectable, hard-working, conscientious man could be +crushed. And yet he did not feel at all crushed, but only rather +excited and uplifted with, from some mysterious source, a new +accretion of strength. + +"I see the force of your argument," he said to his chief. "I see the +inevitability of the course you have taken. The story, even with my +innocence, is too amusing for the dignity of an ancient foundation and +our honorable profession of pedagogy."--He enjoyed this use of +rhetoric as a relief to his feelings, for he was torn between tragedy +and comedy, tears and laughter--"To oblige the Lord Mayor, the +governors, and yourself, I will accept the generous offer of the Chief +Constable. Good-bye. I hope you will not forget to mention Panoukian +tomorrow." + +The Head Master pondered this for some moments and then held out his +hand. Old Mole looked through him and walked on. He had not gone +twenty yards when he began to chuckle, to gulp, to blink, and then to +laugh. He laughed out loud, went on laughing, thumped in the air with +his fist. Suddenly the laughter died in him and he thought: + +"Twenty-five years! That's a large slice out of a man's life. +Ended--in what? Begun--in what? To show--what is there? Ended in one +sleepy, generous impulse leading to disaster. Twenty-five years, +slumbered away, in an ancient and honorable profession, in teaching +awkward, conceited, and, for the most part, grubby little boys things +which they looked forward to forgetting as soon as they passed out +into the world." And he had taken pride in it, pride in a possession +which chance and the muddle-headed excitability of men could in a +short space of time demolish, pride in the thought that he was half +remembered by some hundreds of the citizens of that huge, roaring city +from whose turmoil and gross energy he had lived secluded. He looked +back, and the years stretched before him tranquil and monotonous and +foolish. He totted up the amount of money that he had drawn out of +Thrigsby during those years and set against it what he had given--the +use of himself, the unintelligent, mechanical use of himself. He +turned from this unpleasant contemplation to the future. That was even +more appalling. Within twenty-four hours he had to perform the +definite act of disappearing from the scene. Beyond that lay nothing. +To what place in the world could he disappear? He had one brother, a +Chancery barrister and a pompous ass. They dined together once a year +and quarreled. . . . His only sister was married to a curate, had an +enormous family and small means. All his relations lived in a church +atmosphere--his father had been a parson in Lincolnshire--and they +distrusted him because of his avowed love for Lucretius and Voltaire. +Certainly they would be no sort of help in time of trouble. . . . As +for friends, he had none. His work, his days spent with crowds of +homunculi had given him a taste for solitude and the habit of it. He +had prided himself on being a clubbable man and he had had many +acquaintances, but not, in his life, one single human being to whom in +his distress he wished to turn. He had liked the crowds through which +he had wandered. They had given him the most comforting kind of +solitude. He was distressed now that the streets were so empty; shops, +public-houses, theaters were closed. How dreary the streets were! How +aimless, haphazard and sprawling was the town! How aimless, haphazard +and sprawling his own life in it had been! + +A woman passed him and breathed a hurried salute. He surveyed her with +a detached, though warmly humorous, interest. She was, like himself, +outcast, though she had found her feet and her own way of living. With +the next woman he shook hands. She laughed at him. He raised his hat +to the third. She stopped and stared at him, open-mouthed. As amazed, +he stared at her. It was the young woman of the train. + +He could find nothing to say, nor she; neither could move. Feeling the +necessity of a salute, he removed his hat, bowed, and, finding a +direct approach impossible, shot off obliquely and absurdly. + +"I had once a German colleague who was a lavish and indiscriminate +patron of the ladies of a certain profession. He resigned. I also have +resigned." + +She said: + +"I'm sorry," and, having found her tongue, added: + +"Can you tell me the way to the Flat Iron Market. My aunt won't take +me in." + +"Are you also in disgrace?" + +"Yes, sir. I was in service. It was the young master. I did love him, +I did really." + +"You had been dismissed when I met you in the train?" + +"Yes, sir. They gave me a quarter of an hour to go, without wages, and +they are sending on my box. My aunt won't take me in." + +Again in her eyes was the expression of helplessness and impotence in +the face of distress that had so moved him, and once again he melted. +He forgot his own situation and was only concerned to see that she +should not come to harm or be thrown destitute upon a cold, a busy, +harsh, and indifferent world. Upon his inquiry as to the state of her +purse, she told him she had only a shilling, and he pressed half a +sovereign into her hand. Then he asked her why she wished to find the +Flat Iron Market, and she informed him she had an uncle, Mr. Copas, +who was there. She had only seen him twice, but he had been kind to +her mother when she was alive, although he was not respectable. + +They were directed by a policeman, and as they walked Beenham gave her +the story of his experience at the police station and how he had +accepted the Chief Constable's ultimatum. And he employed the +opportunity to complete his explanation of his extraordinary lapse +from decorum. + +"You can do silly things when you're half awake," said Matilda. "It's +like being in love, isn't it?" + +"I have never been in love." + +She shot a quick, darting glance at him and he blinked. + + + +Flat Iron Market is a piece of waste land over against a railway arch. +Here on Saturdays and holidays is held a traffic in old metal, cheap +laces and trinkets, sweets and patent medicines, and in one corner are +set up booths, merry-go-rounds, swing boats, cocoanut shies, and +sometimes a penny gaff. In the evening, under the flare and flicker of +naphtha lamps, the place is thronged with artisans and their wives and +little dirty wizened children, and young men and maidens seeking the +excitement of each other's jostling neighborhood. + +Now, as Beenham and Matilda came to it, it was dark and deserted; the +wooden houses were shrouded, and the awnings of the little booths and +the screens of the cocoanut shies flapped in the night wind. They +passed a caravan with a fat woman and two young men sitting on the +steps, and they yawped at the sight of Beenham's white shirtfront. + +"Does Mr. Copas live in a caravan?" asked Beenham. + +"It's the theayter," replied Matilda. + +Picking their way over the shafts of carts and empty wooden boxes, +they came to a red and gilt fronted building adorned with mirrors and +knobs and scrolls, above the portico of which was written: "Copases +Theater Royal," in large swollen letters. At either end of this +inscription was a portrait, one of Mrs. Siddons in tragedy, the other +of J. L. Toole in comedy. Toole had been only recently painted and had +been given bright red hair. Mrs. Siddons, but for her label, would +only have been recognizable by her nose. + +In front of this erection was a narrow platform, on which stood a +small automatic musical machine surmounted with tubular bells played +by two little wooden figures, a man and a woman in Tyrolian costume, +who moved along a semi-circular cavity. In the middle of the façade +was an aperture closed in with striped canvas curtains. This aperture +was approached from the ground by a flight of wooden steps through the +platform. + +"Please," said Beenham, "please give my name as Mr. Mole." + +Matilda nodded and ran up the wooden steps and through the aperture. +She called: + +"It's dark." + +When Mr. Mole followed her he found himself standing on the top of +another flight of steps leading down into impenetrable gloom. He +struck a light and peered into an auditorium of rough benches, the +last few rows of which were raised above the rest. Matilda looked up +at him, and he was struck by the beauty of the line of her cheek from +the brow down into the neck. She smiled and her teeth flashed white. +Then the match went out. + +He lit another, and they moved toward the stage, through the curtains +of which came a smell of onions and cheese, rather offensive on such a +hot night. For the first time Beenham began to feel a qualm as to the +adventure. The second match went out, and he felt Matilda place her +hand on his arm, and she led him toward the stage, told him to duck +his head, and they passed through into a narrow space, lit by a light +through another curtain, and filled, so far as he could see, with +scenery and properties. + +"Have you been here before?" he said. + +"When I was a little girl. I think it's this way." + +He stumbled and brought a great pole and a mass of dusty canvas +crashing down. At once there was the battering of feet on boards, the +din of voices male and female, and above them all a huge booming bass +roaring: + +"In Hell's name, what's that?" + +Matilda giggled. + +A curtain was torn aside, and the light filled the place where they +were. Against it they could see silhouetted the shape of a diminutive +man craning forward and peering. He had a great stick in his hand, and +he bellowed: + +"Come out o' that! It's not the first time I've leathered a man, and +it won't be the last. This 'ere's a theater, my theater. It ain't a +doss house. Come out o' that." + +"It's me," said Matilda. + +"Gorm, it's a woman!" + +"It's me, uncle." + +"Eh?" + +"It's me, Matilda Burn." + +"What? Jenny's girl?" + +"Yes, uncle." + +"Well, I never! Who's your fancy?" + +"It's Mr. Mole." + +The figure turned and vanished, and the curtain swung to again. They +heard whisperings and exclamations of surprise, and in a moment Mr. +Copas returned with a short ladder which he thrust down into their +darkness. They ascended it and found themselves on the stage. Matilda +was warmly embraced, while her companion stood shyly by and gazed +round him at the shabby scenery and the footlights and the hanging +lamps over his head. He found it oddly exciting to be standing in such +a place, and he said to himself: "This is the stage," as in Rome one +might stand and say: "This is the Forum." This excitement and romantic +fervor carried with it a certain helplessness, as though he had been +plunged into a foreign land that before he had only dimly realized. + +"This is the stage! This is the theater!" + +It was a strange sensation of being detached and remote, of having +passed out of ordinary existence into a region not directly concerned +with it and subject to other laws. He felt entirely foreign to it, but +then, also, under its influence, he felt foreign to his own existence +which had cast him high and dry and ebbed away from him. It was like +one of those dreams in which one startlingly leaves the earth and, as +startlingly, finds security in the thin air through which, bodiless, +one soars. There was something buoyant in the atmosphere, a +zestfulness, and at the same time an oppressiveness, against which +rather feebly he struggled, while at the same time he wondered whether +it came from the place or from the people. Mr. Copas, the large +golden-haired lady, the thin, hungry-looking young man, the drabbish +young woman, the wrinkled, ruddy, beaming old woman, the loutish +giant, the elderly, seedy individual, the little girl with her hair +hanging in rat's tails, who clustered round Matilda and smiled at her +and glowered at her and kissed her and fondled her. + +To all these personages he was presented as "Mr. Mole." When at length +Mr. Copas and his niece had come to an end of their exchange of family +reminiscence, the men shook hands with him and the women bowed and +curtsied with varying degrees of ceremony, after which he was bidden +to supper and found himself squatting in a circle with them round a +disordered collection of plates and dishes, bottles, and enameled iron +cups, all set down among papers and costumes and half-finished +properties. + +"Sit down, Mr. Mole," said Mr. Copas. "Any friend of any member of my +family is my friend. I'm not particular noble in my sentiments, but +plain and straightforward. I'm an Englishman, and I say: 'My country +right or wrong.' I'm a family man and I say: 'My niece is my niece, +right or wrong.' Them's my sentiments, and I drink toward you." + +When Mr. Copas spoke there was silence. When he had finished then all +the rest spoke at once, as though such moments were too rare to be +wasted. Matilda and Mr. Copas engaged in an earnest conversation and +the clatter of tongues went on, giving Mr. Mole the opportunity to +still his now raging hunger and slake the tormenting thirst that had +taken possession of him. Silence came again and he found himself being +addressed by Mr. Copas. + +"Trouble is trouble, I say, and comes to all of us. For your kindness +to my niece, much thanks. She will come along of us and welcome. And +if you, being a friend of hers, feel so disposed, you can come along, +too. It's a come-day-go-day kind of life, here to-day and gone +to-morrow, but there's glory in it. It means work and plenty of it, +but no one's ever the worse for that." + +It was a moment or two before Beenham realized that he was being +offered a position in the troupe. He took a long draught of beer and +looked round at the circle of faces. They were all friendly and +smiling, and Matilda's eyes were dancing with excitement. He met her +gaze and she nodded, and he lost all sense of incongruity and said +that he would come, adding, in the most courteous and elegant +phrasing, that he was deeply sensible of the privilege extended to +him, but that he must return to his house that night and set his +affairs in order, whereafter he would with the greatest pleasure +renounce his old life and enter upon the new. He was doubtful (he +said) of his usefulness, but he would do his best and endeavor not to +be an encumbrance. + +"If you gave me the Lord Mayor of Thrigsby," said Mr. Copas, "I would +turn him, if not into a real actor, at least into something so like +one that only myself and one other man in England could tell the +difference." + +Mr. Mole found that he had just time to catch the last train home, +and, after arranging for his return on the following day, he exchanged +courtesies all round, was shown out by a little door at the back of +the stage, and walked away through the now empty streets. He was +greatly excited and uplifted, and it was not until he reached the +incline of the station that memory reasserted itself and brought with +it the old habit of prudence, discretion, and common sense. He was +able to go far enough back to see the little dusty theater and the +queer characters in it as fantastic and antipodean, but when he came +to the events of that evening the contrast was blurred and the world +of settled habit and conviction was merged into the unfamiliarity of +the stage and became one with it in absurdity. The thought of stepping +back from his late experience into ordinary existence filled him with +anger and hot resentment: the passage from the scene at the club and +the interview with his chief to Mr. Copas's company was an easy and +natural transition, or so it seemed when he thought of Matilda. + +He felt very defiant when he reached Bigley and half hoped that he +might meet some of his acquaintances. They would go on catching the +early train in the morning and the through train in the evening, while +he would be away and free. Some such feeling he had always had in July +of superiority over the commercial men who had but three weeks' +holiday in the year, while he had eight weeks at a stretch. Now he was +to go away forever, and Bigley would talk for a little and then forget +and go on cluttering about its families and its ailments and its +inheritances and its church affairs and its golf course and the +squabbles with the Lord of the Manor. He met no one and found his +house shut up, and it took him fully half an hour to rouse his man. By +that time he had lost his temper and had no desire save to bully the +fellow. Everything else was wiped out, and he wanted only to assert +himself in bluster. In this way he avoided any awkward wondering +whether the man knew, got out the information that he was going away, +probably leaving Bigley, selling the house and furniture, and would +write further instructions when he had settled down. He ordered and +counter-ordered and ordered breakfast until he had fixed it at ten, +and at last, after a round volley of oaths because the man turned to +him with a question in his eyes, went upstairs to his room, rolled +into bed, and slept as deeply as an enchanted knight beneath the +castle of a fairy princess. + +The next morning he went through his accounts, found that his capital +amounted to nearly four thousand pounds, had his large suitcase packed +with a careful selection of clothes and books, told his man he was +going abroad, paid him three months' wages in advance, apologized for +his violence overnight, shook hands, went round the garden to say +good-bye to his vegetable marrows and sweet peas, and then departed. + +In Thrigsby he saw his solicitor (an old pupil), who was +professionally sympathetic, but took his instructions for the sale of +his house and furniture gravely and promised to keep his whereabouts +and all communications secret. + +"It is a most serious calamity," said the solicitor. + +"Damn it all," rejoined Old Mole, "I like it." And he visited his +bank. The manager had always thought Beenham "queer," and received his +rather unusual instructions without astonishment. + +"You are leaving Thrigsby?" + +"For good. Can't think why I've stayed here so long." + +He drew a large sum of money in notes and gold and dined well and +expensively at a musty, heavily carpeted commercial hotel. When the +porter had placed his bag in a cab and turned for his instructions he +gaped in surprise on being told to drive to the Flat Iron Market. Even +more surprised were the frequenters of that resort when the cab drew +up by the pavement and a well-dressed, middle-aged gentleman with gold +spectacles descended and pushed his way through the crowd jostling and +chattering under the blare and din of the mechanical organs and the +flicker and flare of the naphtha lamps to the back of Copas's Theater +Royal, which he entered by the stage door. It was whispered that he +was a detective, and he was followed by a buzzing train of men and +women. Disappointed of the looked-for sensation, they soon dispersed +and were swallowed up in the shifting crowd. + +Groping through the darkness, he came to the greenroom--Mr. Copas's +word for it--and deposited his bag. On the stage, through a canvas +curtain, he could hear the thudding of feet and the bellowing of a +great voice broken every now and then with cheers at regular intervals +and applause from the auditorium. In a corner on a basket sat Matilda. +She was wearing a pasteboard crown and gazing at herself in a mirror. +As he dropped his bag she looked up and grinned. + +"So you've come back? I didn't think you would." + +"Yes, I've come back. The school has broken up." + +She removed her crown. + +"Like to see the show? Uncle's got 'em tonight." + +"Got? What has he got?" + +"The audience." + +She led him to the front of the house, where they were compelled to +stand, for all the benches were full, packed with sweating, zestful +men and women who had paid for enjoyment and were receiving it in full +measure. + + + +In the "Tales out of School," published after H. J. Beenham's death by +one of the many pupils who became grateful on his achieving celebrity, +there is an admirable account of his first impression of the theater +which can only refer to the performance of Mr. Copas in the Flat Iron +Market. Till then he says he had always regarded the theater as one of +those pleasures without which life would be more tolerable, one of +those pleasures to face which it is necessary to eat and drink too +much. The two respectable theaters in Thrigsby were maintained by +annual pantomimes and kept open from week to week by the visits of +companies presenting replicas of alleged successful London plays. He +had never attended either theater unless some one else paid. . . . +Here now in this ramshackle Theater Royal, half tent, half booth, his +sensations were very mixed. At first the shabby scenery, the poverty +of the stage furniture, the tawdriness of the costumes of the players, +filled him with a pitying sense of the ludicrous. The program was +generous, opening with "Robert Macaire," passing on to "Mary Queen of +Scots," and ending with a farce called "Trouble in the Home," while +between the pieces there would be song and dance by Mr. Fitter, the +celebrated comedian. All this was announced on a placard hanging from +the proscenium. . . . Mary Queen of Scots was sitting, crowned, on a +Windsor chair at the back of the stage, surrounded with three +courtiers. As Darnley (or it might be Bothwell), Mr. Copas was +delivering himself of an impassioned if halting narration, addressed +to the hapless Queen through the audience. He was certainly a very bad +actor, so Beenham thought until he had listened to him for nearly five +minutes, at the end of which a change took place in his mind and he +found himself forced to accept Mr. Copas's own view of the traffic of +the stage. It was impossible to make rhyme or reason of the play, +which showed the most superb disregard for history and sense. Apart +from Mr. Copas it did not exist. He was its center and its +circumference. It began and ended in him, moved through him from its +beginning to its end. The rest of the characters were his puppets. +When he came to an end of a period Mary Queen of Scots would turn on +one of three moods--the tearful, the regal, the noisily defiant; or a +page would say, "Me Lord! Me Lord!"; or the lugubrious young man, +dressed in priestly black, would borrow from another play and in a +sepulchral voice declaim, "Beware the Ides of March." The performance +was an improvisation and in that art only Mr. Copas had any skill, +unless he had deliberately so subdued the rest that he was left with +his own passionate belief in himself and acting as acting to clothe +the naked and deformed skeleton with flesh. Whatever the process of +his mind he did succeed in hypnotizing himself and his audience, +including Mr. Mole and Matilda, and worked up to a certain height and +ended in shocking bathos so suddenly as to create surprise rather than +derision. He believed in it all and made everybody else believe. + +Matilda gave a sigh as the curtains were drawn and Mr. Copas appeared, +bowing and bowing again, using his domination over his audience to +squeeze more and more applause out of them. + +"Ain't it lovely?" said Matilda. + +"It is certainly remarkable," replied Mr. Mole. + +"You'd never think he had a floating kidney, would you?" + +"I would not." + +"It's that makes him a little quick in his temper." + +From the audience arose a smell of oranges, beer and peppermint, and +there were much talk and laughter, giggling and round resounding +kissing. No change of scene was considered necessary for the song and +dance of Mr. Fitter, who turned out to be the lugubrious young man. He +had no humor, but he worked very hard and created some amusement. Mr. +Copas did not appear in the farce, which was deplorable and made Mr. +Mole feel depressed and ashamed, so that for a moment his old point of +view reasserted itself and he felt aghast at the undertaking upon +which he was embarked. A moment or two before he had been telling +himself that this was "life"--the talk and the laughter and the +kissing; now he felt only disgust at its coarseness and commonness. He +was dejected and miserable, stripped even of the intellectual interest +roused by Mr. Copas. The loutish buffoons on the stage with their +brutal humors filled him with resentment at their degradation. Only +his obstinacy saved him from yielding to the impulse to escape. . . . +Matilda had grown tired of standing and had taken his arm. She laughed +at nearly all the jokes. Her laughter was shrill and immoderate. He +called himself fool, but he stayed. + +He was warmly welcomed by Mr. Copas after the performance. His +congratulations and praise were accepted with proper modesty. + +"Acting," said Mr. Copas, "is a nart. There's some as thinks it's a +trick, like performing dogs, but it's a nart. What did you think of +Mrs. Copas?" + +The question was embarrassing. Fortunately no answer was expected. + +"I've taught her everything she knows. She's not very good at queens, +but her mad scenes can't be beat, can't be beat. My line's tragedy by +nature, but a nartist has to be everything. . . . What's your line, +Mr. Mole?" + +"I don't know that I have a line." + +Mr. Copas rubbed his chin. + +"Of course. You _look_ like a comic, but we'll see, we'll see. You +couldn't write plays, I suppose? Not that there's much writing to be +done when you give three plays a night, and a different program every +night. Just the plot's all we want. Are you good at plots?" + +"I've read a good deal." + +"Ah! I was never a reader myself. . . . Of course, I can't pay you +anything until I know whether you're useful or not." + +"I've plenty of money, thanks." + +Mr. Copas eyed his guest shrewdly. + +"Of course," he said, "of course, if you were really keen I could take +you in as a sort of partner." + +"I don't know that I----" + +"Ten pounds would do it." + +In less than half an hour Mr. Mole was a partner in the Theater Royal +and Mr. and Mrs. Copas were drinking his health in Dublin stout. They +found him a bed in their lodgings in a surprisingly clean little house +in a grimy street, and they sat up half the night discussing plays and +acting with practical illustrations. He was fascinated by the frank +and childish egoism of the actor and enjoyed firing him with the plots +of the Greek tragedies and as many of the Latin comedies as he could +remember offhand. + +"By Jove!" cried Copas. "You'll be worth three pounds a week to me. +Iffyjenny's just the part Mrs. Copas has been looking for all her +life. Ain't it, Carrie?" + +But Mrs. Copas was asleep. + + + +In the very early morning the Theater Royal was taken to pieces and +stacked on a great cart. The company packed themselves in and on a +caravan and they set out on their day's journey of thirty miles to a +small town in Staffordshire, in the marketplace of which they were to +give a three weeks' season. Mr. Copas drove the caravan and Mr. Mole +sat on the footboard, and as they threaded their way through the long +suburbs of Thrigsby he passed many a house where he had been a welcome +guest, many a house where he had discussed the future of a boy or an +academic problem, or listened to the talk of the handful of cultured +men attracted to the place by its school and university. How few they +were he had never realized until now. They had seemed important when +he was among them, one of them; their work, his work, had seemed +paramount, the justification of, the excuse for all the alleged +squalor of Thrigsby which he had never explored and had always taken +on hearsay. That Thrigsby was huge and mighty he had always admitted, +but never before had he had any sense of the remoteness from its +existence of himself and his colleagues. It was Thrigsby that had been +remote, Thrigsby that was ungrateful and insensible of the benefits +heaped upon it. There had always been a sort of triumph in retrieving +boys from Thrigsby for culture. He could only think of it now with a +bitterness that fogged his judgment. His discovery of the Flat Iron +Market made him conceive Thrigsby as a city of raw, crude vitality on +which he had for years been engaged in pinning rags and tatters of +knowledge in the pathetic belief that he was giving it the boon of +education--secondary education. And there frothed and bubbled in his +tired mind all the jargon of his old profession. In a sort of waking +nightmare he set preposterous questions in interminable examinations +and added up lists of marks and averaged them with a sliding rule, and +blue-penciled false quantities in Latin verse. . . . And the caravan +jogged on. He looked back over the years, and through them there +trailed a long monotonous stream of boys, who had taken what he had to +give, such as it was, and given nothing in return. He saw his own +futile attempts to keep in touch with them and follow their careers. +They were not worth following. Nine-tenths of them became clerks in +banks and offices, sank into mediocre existences, married, produced +more boys. The mockery of it all! He thought of his colleagues, how, +if they stayed, they lost keenness and zest. How, if they went, it was +to seek security and ease, to marry, to "settle down," and produce +more boys. Over seven hundred boys in the school there were, and all +as alike as peas in a pod, all being taught year in, year out, the +same things out of the same books by the same men. His thoughts wound +slowly round and round and the bitterness in him ate into his soul and +numbed him. The caravan jogged on. He cared nothing where he was, +whither he might be going, what became of him. Only to be moving was +enough, to be moving away from the monotony of boys and the black +overpowering vitality of Thrigsby. + +It was not easy for Mr. Copas to be silent and he addressed his new +partner frequently on all manner of subjects, the weather, the horse's +coat, the history of Mr. Fitter, and all with such absorption that +they had gone eight miles and were just passing out of Thrigsby into +its southeast spur of little chimney-dominated villages before he +awoke to the fact that he was receiving no attention. + +"Dotty!" he said, with a click of his tongue, and thereafter he fell +to conning new speeches for the favorite parts of his repertory. +Slowly they crawled up a long slope until they rounded the shoulder of +a low rolling hill, from whence the world seemed to open up before +them. Below lay a lake, blue under the vivid sky, gleaming under the +green wooded hills that enclosed it. Beyond rose line upon line of +round hummocky hills. The caravan stopped and with a jolt Mr. Mole +came out of the contemplation of the past when he was known as H. J. +Beenham, and sat gaping down at the lake and the hills. He was +conscious of an almost painful sense of liberation. The view invited +to move on and on, to range over hill after hill to discover what +might lie beyond. + +"What hills are those?" he asked. + +"You might call them the Pennine Range." + +"The backbone of England. That's a school phrase." + +"You been asleep? Eh?" + +"Not exactly asleep. Kind of cramped." + +"You're a funny bloke. I been a-talking to you and you never +listened." + +"Didn't I? I'm sorry." + +"We water the horses just here." + +There was a spring by the roadside and here the caravan drew up. Mrs. +Copas produced victuals and beer. Conversation was desultory. + +"Can't do with them there big towns," said Mr. Copas, and Old Mole +then noticed a peculiarity of the actor's wife. Whenever he spoke she +gazed at him with a rapt stupid expression and the last few words of +his sentences were upon her lips almost before they left his. It was +fascinating to watch and the schoolmaster forgot the feeling of +repugnance with which their methods of eating inspired him. He watched +Mrs. Copas and heard her husband, so that every remark was broken up: + +"Wouldn't go near them if it weren't for the----" + +"Money." + +"Give me a bit of cheese and a mug of beer by the----" + +"Roadside." + +"But the show's got to----" + +"Earn its keep." + +"Earn its keep. I'm going to sleep. Them as wants to walk on can walk +on." + +Mr. Copas rose and went into the caravan and his wife followed him. +The wagon had not yet caught them up. + +"Shall we walk on?" said Matilda. + +"If it's a straight road." + +"Oh! There'll be signposts. We'll maybe find a wood." + +So they walked on. She was wearing a blue print frock with the sleeves +rolled up to her elbow. She had very pretty arms. + +"I sha'n't stop 'ere long," she said. + +"No? Why not?" + +"It ain't good enough. Nothing's good enough if you stop too long at +it. Uncle'll never be any different." + +"Will any of us ever be different?" + +"I shall," she said, and she gave a queer little defiant laugh and her +stride lengthened so that she shot a pace or two ahead of him. She +turned and laughed at him over her shoulder. + +"Come along, slowcoach." + +He grunted and made an effort, but could not catch her. So they moved +until they came to a little wood with a white gate in the hedges. +Through this she went, he after her, and she flung herself down in the +bracken, and lay staring up through the leaves of the trees. He stood +looking down at her. It was some time before she broke the silence and +said: + +"Sit down and smell. Ain't it good? . . . Do you think if you murdered +me now they'd ever find me?" + +"What a horrible idea?" + +"I often dream I've committed a murder. They say it's lucky. Do you +believe in dreams?" + +"Napoleon believed in dreams." + +"Who was he?" + +"He was born in Corsica, and came to France with about twopence +halfpenny in his pocket. He made himself Emperor before he was forty, +and died in exile." + +"Still, he'd had his fling. I'm twenty-one. How old are you?" + +"Twice that and more." + +"Are you rich or clever or anything like that?" + +"No!" he smiled at the question. "Nothing like that." + +She sat up and chewed a long grass stalk. + +"I'm lucky." She gave a little sideways wag of her chin. "I know I'm +lucky. If only I'd had some education." + +"That's not much good to you." + +"It makes you speak prop'ly." + +That was a view of education never before presented to him. Certainly +the sort of education he had doled out had done little to amend the +speech of his Thrigsbian pupils. + +"Is that all you want--to speak properly?" + +"Yes. You speak prop-properly." + +"Nothing else." + +"There is a difference between gentlemen and others. I want to have to +do with gentlemen." + +"And ladies?" + +"Oh! I'll let the ladies look after theirselves." + +"_Them_selves." + +"Themselves." + +She flushed at the correction and a dogged sulky expression came into +her eyes. She nibbled at the grass stalk until it disappeared into her +mouth. For a moment or two she sat plucking at her lower lip with her +right finger and thumb. Through her teeth she said: + +"I _will_ do it." + +Contemptuously, with admirable precision, she spat out the grass stalk +against the trunk of a tree. + +"Did you ever see a lady do that? You never did. You'll see me do +things you've never seen a lady do. You'll see me---- But you've got +to teach me first. You'll teach me, won't you? . . . You won't go away +until you've taught me? You won't go away?" + +"You're the most extraordinary young woman I ever met in my life." + +"Did you come to uncle because of me?" + +"Eh?" + +He stared at her. The idea had not presented itself to him before. She +was not going to allow him to escape it. + +"Did you come to uncle because of me?" + +He knew that it was so. + +"Yes," he said. "Hadn't we better go?" + +"Not yet." + +She was kneeling beside him mischievously tickling the back of his +hand with a frond of bracken. + +"Not yet. Do you remember what you said to me that night?" + +"No. What did I say?" + +"You said you'd never been in love." + +"No more I have." + +"Come along then." + +The caravan hove in sight as they reached the gate. She joined Mrs. +Copas inside, and he, Mr. Copas, on the footboard. He was filled with +a bubbling humor and was hard put to it not to laugh aloud. He had no +clear memory of the talk in the wood, but he liked the delicious +absurdity of it. + +"In love?" he said to himself. "Nonsense." + +All the same he could not away with the fact that he had a new zest +and pleasure in contemplating the future. Thrigsby and all its works +fell away behind him and he was glad of his promise to teach the girl. +. . . One girl after hundreds of boys! It had been one of his stock +jests for public dinners in Thrigsby that the masters of the Grammar +School and the mistresses of the High School should change places. No +one had ever taken him seriously until now Fate had done so. Of course +it could not last, this new kind of perambulatory school with one +master and one pupil; the girl was too attractive; she would be +snapped up at once, settle down as a wife and mother before she knew +where she was. In his thoughts he had so isolated himself with her +that old prejudices leaped up in him and gave him an uncomfortable +sense of indiscretion. That, however, he placated with the reminder +that, after all, they were chaperoned by Mrs. Copas. + +"That's a fine girl, your niece," he said to Mr. Copas. + +"Aye. A handsome bit o' goods. She says to me, she says, 'I want to be +a nactress, uncle,' she says. And I says: 'You begin at the bottom, +young lady, and maybe when you're your aunt's age you'll be doing the +work your aunt does.' They tell me, Mr. Mole, that in London they have +leading ladies in their teens. I've never seen the woman who could +play leads under forty. . . . Good God! Hi! Carrie! Tildy!" + +Mr. Mole had fallen from the footboard, flat on his face in the road. + + + +When he came to himself he thought with a precision and clarity that +amounted almost to vision of his first arrival at Oxford, saw himself +eagerly, shyly, stepping down from the train and hurrying through the +crowd of other young men, eager and shy, and meeting school +acquaintances. He remembered with singular acuteness the pang of shame +he had felt on encountering Blazering who was going to Magdalen while +he himself was a scholar of Lincoln. He pursued the stripling who had +been himself out of the station and up past the gaol, feeling +amazingly, blissfully youthful when he put up his hand and found a +stiff beard upon his chin. Gone was the vision of Oxford, gone the +sensation of youth, and he realized that he was in bed in a stranger's +room, which, without his glasses, he could not see distinctly. There +was a woman by his bedside, a stout woman, with a strong light behind +her, so that he could not distinguish her features. It was a very +little room, low in the ceiling. The smell of it was good. It had one +small window, which was open, and through it there came up the hubbub +of voices and the grinding beat and blare of a mechanical organ that +repeated one tune so quickly that it seemed always to be afraid it +would not have time to reach the end before it began again. The woman +was knitting. He tried to remember who she might be, but failing, and +feeling mortified at his failure, he consoled himself with the +reflection that he was ill--ill-in-bed, one of the marked degrees of +sickness among schoolboys. How ill? He had never been ill in his life. + +"Can I have my spectacles?" he said. + +"Oh!" The knitting in the woman's hands went clattering to the floor. +"Lor'! Mr. Mole, you did give me a start. I shall have the +palpitations, same as my mother. My mother had the palpitations for +forty years and then she died of something else." + +"If I had my spectacles I could see who it is speaking." + +"It's Mrs. Copas. Don't you know me, Mr. Mole?" + +"I--er. I . . . . This is your house?" + +"It's lodgings, Mr. Mole. You've been sick, Mr. Mole, you have. +Prostrated on your back for nearly a week, Mr. Mole. You did give us +all a turn, falling off the caravan like that into the King's high +road. You'd never believe the pool of blood you left in the road, Mr. +Mole. But it soon dried up. . . ." + +He began to have a glimmering, dimly to remember, a road, a caravan, a +horse's tail, dust, a droning voice behind him, but still the name of +Copas meant nothing to him. + +"Copas! Copas!" he said to himself, but aloud. + +Mrs. Copas produced the spectacles and placed them on his nose. Then +she leaned over him in his bed and in the loud indulgent voice with +which the unafflicted humor the deaf, she said: + +"Yes! Mrs. Copas. Matilda's aunt. _You know."_ + +That brought the whole adventure flooding back. + +Matilda! The girl who wanted to speak properly, the girl whom he had +found in the smelly little theater. No! Not in the theater! In the +train! He writhed and went hot, and his head began to throb, and he +felt a strange want of coördination among the various parts of his +body. + +"I'm afraid," he said, "I'm afraid I _am_ ill." + +"There! There!" said Mrs. Copas. "We'll soon pull you round. I'm used +to the nursing; not that Mr. Copas is ever ill. He says a nartist +can't afford to be ill, but we had a comic once who used to have +fits." + +"It's very good of you. I must have been an incubus. I'm sure I must +be taking you away from the theater." + +"We've got a new tune on the organ and we're doing splendid business. +Mr. Copas _will_ be glad to hear you've asked for your spectacles. +. . . Doctor says you mustn't talk." + +And, indeed, he had lost all desire to do so. His head ached so that +he could not keep his eyes open, nor think, nor hear anything but a +confused buzz, and he sank back into the luxury of feeling sorry for +himself. + +Nothing broke in upon that sensation until suddenly the organ stopped. +That startled him and set him listening. In the distance, muffled, he +could hear the huge booming voice of Mr. Copas, but not what he said. + +"Nice people," he thought. "Nice kind people." + +There were three medicine bottles by his bed-side. They suddenly +caught his eye and he gazed at them long and carefully. One was full +and two were half empty. Their contents were brown, reddish, and +white. + +"I must be very ill," he said to himself mournfully. There darted in +on him a feeling of fun. "No one knows! I am ill and no one knows. Not +a soul knows. They won't know. They won't ever know." + +That seemed to settle it. "They" sank away. He hurled defiance after +them, opened, as it were, a trap-door in the past, and gloated over +the sight of "them" hurtling down and down. He felt better after that. +The pain in his head was almost gone. His bed seemed to be floating, +drifting, turning on the tide, while it was moored to Mrs. Copas. He +gazed at her and saw in her the comfortable, easy, hovering present. +He had only to cut the painter to drift out into the wide future. When +he opened his mouth to tell Mrs. Copas that he remembered her +perfectly she laid her finger on her lips and said "Ssh!" and when he +insisted on grunting out a word, she smacked the back of her fat hand +roguishly and cried: + +"Naughty!" + +At that he giggled helplessly and went on giggling until he was near +crying. + +"Histrionics!" said Mrs. Copas, and gave him brandy. + +Matilda appeared at the door and was pushed out. At that Mr. Mole, who +had seen her, began to weep and sobbed like a disappointed child, and +went on sobbing until Matilda was allowed to come in and sit by his +side. She sat on the bed, and he stopped his sobbing as abruptly as a +horse will come to a standstill after a mad sunset gallop. Mrs. Copas +left them. + +Matilda sat stroking her cheek and gazing at him. She cocked her head +on one side and said: + +"Glad you're better, but I don't like men with beards. Napoleon didn't +have a beard." + +"How do you know?" + +"I bought a book about him for a penny. I like Josephine." + +"I don't know much about it, but I always felt sorry for her." + +"She gave as good as she got. That's why I like her. . . . I had a +part to do to-night." + +"A long part?" + +"No. I just had to say to uncle, 'Won't you give her another chance?' +His erring wife had just returned to him." + +"Did you do it well?" + +"No. Uncle said no one who wasn't at the back of the stage could hear +me." + +"Oh! Did you like it?" + +"Yes. I felt funny like." + +Mr. Mole coughed. Matilda stopped. + +"What did I say?" + +"Funny like." + +"Don't people say that?" + +"It is unusual." + +"Oh!" + +"I wasn't a bit nervous. Uncle says that's a bad sign. He says I +looked all right, though I'm sure I was an object with that paint +stuff on my face and the red all in the wrong place. Aunt wouldn't let +me do it myself. . . . You will cut your beard off?" + +"I don't know. I might like it." + +She handed him a mirror, and mischief danced in her eyes as she +watched his disconcerted expression. "Bit of a surprise, eh?" + +He could find nothing to say. Impossible for him to lay the mirror +down. For years he had accepted a certain idea of his personal +appearance--ruddy, heavy-jowled, with a twinkle behind spectacles +surmounted by a passably high forehead that was furrowed by the lines +of a frown almost deliberately cultivated for the purposes of +inspiring terror in small boys delinquent. Now, in the sharpened +receptivity of his issue from unconsciousness, his impression was one +of roundness, round face, round eyes, round brow, round head (balder +than he had thought)--all accentuated by the novelty of his beard, +that was gray, almost white. Age and roundness. Fearful of meeting +Matilda's gaze, he went on staring into the mirror. Her youth, the fun +bubbling up in her, reproached him, made him feel defenceless against +her, and, though he delighted in her presence, he was resentful. She +had so many precious qualities to which he could not respond. + +"I 'spect I must go now," she said. + +"Yes. I'm rather tired." + +She took the mirror from him, patted his hand, and soothed him, +saying: + +"You'll soon be up and doing, and then you'll begin to teach me, won't +you?" + +"How would it be if you came and read to me every evening before the +play? Then we could begin at once." + +"Shall I?" She warmed to the plan. "What shall I read?" + +"You might read your book about Napoleon." + +"Oh! Lovely!" + +Mrs. Copas returned to give him his medicine and to tuck him up for +the night. + +"What day is it?" he asked. + +"Saturday." + +"Are there any letters for me?" He remembered then that there could be +none, that he was no longer his old self, that an explosion in his +affairs had hurled him out of his old habitual existence and left him +bruised and broken among strangers. + +"I would like," he said, "to shave to-morrow." + +"Yes, yes," replied Mrs. Copas, humoring him. "I'm in the next room if +you want anything. Doctor said you was to have as much sleep as you +could get. Being Saturday night, and you an invalid, Mr. Copas bought +you some grapes and sponge-cake, and he wants to know if you'd like +some port wine. We thought it 'ud make you sleep." + +He expressed a desire for port, and she bustled into the next room and +came back with a tumblerful. He was, or fancied he was, something of a +connoisseur, and he propped himself up and sipped the dark liquid, +and, as he was wont, rolled it round his tongue. It tasted of ink and +pepper. He wanted to spit it out, but, blinking up at Mrs. Copas, he +saw the good creature beaming at him in rapt indulgence, and could not +bring himself to offend her. With his gorge rising he sipped down +about a third of the tumbler's contents and then feebly, miserably +held it out toward her. + +"A bit strong for you?" + +He nodded, drew the bed-clothes up over his shoulders and feigned +sleep. The light was put out and he heard Mrs. Copas creep into the +next room. Sleep? The fiery liquor sent the blood racing and throbbing +through his veins. The palms of his hands were dry and hot, and his +head seemed to be bulging out of its skin. His ears were alert to +every sound, and to every sound his nerves responded with a thrill. He +could hear footsteps on the cobbles of the street outside, voices, +hiccoughs, a woman's voice singing. These were the accompaniment to +nearer sounds, a duet in the next room, a deep bass muttering, and a +shrill argumentative treble. The bass swelled into anger. The treble +roared into pleading. The bass became a roar, the treble a squeak. It +was exciting, exasperating. In his bed Beenham tossed from side to +side. He did not want to listen to their altercation, but sleep would +not come to him. The bass voice broke into a crackling; then +spluttering, furious sounds came. The treble squealed pitifully. Came +the thud and smack of a fist on flesh and bone, a gasp, a whine, a +whimper, another thud and smack, and growls from the bass, then +silence. . . . + +Sick at heart Old Mole lay in his bed staring, staring into the +darkness, and the blood in him boiled and bubbled, and his skin was +taut and he shivered. He had heard of men beating their wives, but as +one hears of the habits of wild animals in African forests; he had +thought of it as securely as here in England one may think of a +man-eating tiger near an Indian village. Now, here, in the next room, +the thing had happened. Manliness, that virtue which at school had +been held up as the highest good, bade him arise and defend the woman. +In theory manliness had always had things perfectly its own way. In +practice, now, sound sense leaped ahead of virtue, counted the cost +and accurately gauged the necessity of action. In the first place to +defend Mrs. Copas would mean an intrusion into the sanctuary of human +life, the conjugal chamber; in the second place, in spite of many +familiar pictures of St. George of Cappadocia (subsequently of +England), it would be embarrassing to defend Mrs. Copas in her night +attire; in the third place, the assault had grown out of their +altercation of which he had heard nothing whatever; and, lastly, it +might be a habit with Mr. and Mrs. Copas to smite and be smitten. +Therefore Old Mole remained in his bed, faintly regretting the failure +of manliness, fighting down his emotion of disgust, and endeavoring to +avoid having to face his position. In vain: shunning all further +thought of the miserable couple in the next room, he was driven back +upon himself, to his wretched wondering: + +"What have I done?" + +He had thrown up his very pleasant life in Thrigsby and Bigley, a +life, after all, of some consequence, for what? . . . For the society +of a disreputable strolling player who was blind with conceit, was apt +to get drunk on Saturday nights, and in that condition violently to +assault the wife of his bosom. And he had entered into this adventure +with enthusiasm, had seen their life as romantic and adventurous, +deliberately closing his eyes to the brutality and squalor of it. +Thud, whack! and there were the raw facts staring him in the face. + +There came a little moaning from the next room: never a sound from the +bass: and soon all was still, save for the mice in the skirting board +and occasional footsteps on the cobbles of the street outside. + +No sleep came to Old Mole until the pale light of dawn crept into his +room to show him, shivering, its meanness and poverty. It sickened +him, but when in reaction he came to consider his old mode of living +that seemed so paltry as to give a sort of savor to the coarseness of +this. . . . Anyhow, he reflected, he was tied to his bed, could not +take any action, and must wait upon circumstance, and hope only that +there might not be too many violent shocks in store for him. + +Mrs. Copas bore the marks of her husband's attentions: a long bruise +over her right eye and down to the cheek-bone, and a cut on her upper +lip which had swelled into an unsightly protuberance. Her spirit +seemed to be entirely unaffected, and she beamed upon him from behind +her temporary deformities. When she asked him if he had slept well, he +lied and said he had slept like a top. + +She brought him hot water, razor, brush and soap, and he shaved. Off +came his beard, and, after long scrutiny of his appearance in the +mirror and timid hesitation, he removed the moustache which had been +his pride and anxiety during his second year at Oxford, since when it +had been his constant and unobtrusive companion. The effect was +startling. His upper lip was long and had, if the faces of great men +be any guide, the promise of eloquence. There was a new expression in +his face, of boldness, of firmness, of--as he phrased it +himself--benevolent obstinacy. His changed countenance gave him so +much pleasure that he spent the morning gazing into the mirror at +different angles. With such a brow, such an upper lip, such lines +about the nose and chin, it seemed absurd that he should have spent +twenty-five years as an assistant master in a secondary school. Then +he laughed at himself as he realized that he was behaving as he had +not done since the ambitious days at Oxford when he had endeavored to +decide on a career. Ruefully he remembered that in point of fact he +had not decided. With a second in Greats he had taken the first +appointment that turned up. His history had been the history of +thousands. One thing only he had escaped--marriage, the ordinary +timid, matter-of-fact, sugar-coated marriage upon means that might or +might not prove sufficient. After that, visiting his friends' houses, +he had sighed sentimentally, but, with all the eligible women of his +acquaintance--and they were not a few--he had been unable to avoid a +quizzical tone which forbade the encouragement of those undercurrents +upon which, he had observed, middle-aged men were swept painlessly +into matrimony. . . . Pondering his clean-shaven face in the mirror he +felt oddly youthful and excited. + +In the evening Matilda came as she had promised, with the book, which +proved to be that Life of Napoleon by Walter Scott which so incensed +Heine. The sun shone in at the window upon the girl's brown hair, and +as she opened the book the church bells began to ring with such an +insistent buzzing that it was impossible for her to read. As he lay in +bed Old Mole thought of Heine lying in his mattress-grave, being +visited by his _Mouche,_ just such another charming creature as this, +young and ardent, and by her very presence soothing; only he was no +poet, but a man dulled by years of unquestioning service. He gazed at +Matilda as he could not recollect ever having gazed at a woman, +critically, but with warm interest. There was a kind of bloom on her, +the fragrance and graciousness that, when he had encountered it as a +young man, had produced in him a delicious blurring of the senses, an +almost intoxication wherein dreadfully he had lost sight of the +individual in the possession of them, and considered her only as +woman. Now his subjection to the spell only heightened his sense of +Matilda's individuality and sharpened his curiosity about her. Also it +stripped him of his preoccupation with himself and his own future, and +he fell to considering hers and wondering what the world might hold +for her. . . . Like most men he had his little stock of +generalizations about women, how they were mysterious, capricious, +cruel, unintelligent, uncivilized, match-making, tactless, untruthful, +etc., but to Matilda he could not apply them. He wanted to know +exactly how she personally felt, thought, saw, moved, lived, and he +refused to make any assumption about her. This curiosity of his was +not altogether intellectual: it was largely physical, and it grew. He +was annoyed that he had not seen her come into the room to mark how +she walked, and to procure this satisfaction he asked her to give him +a glass of water. He watched her. She walked easily with, for a woman, +a long stride and only a very slight swing of the hips, and a drag of +the arms that pleased him mightily. As she gave him the glass of water +she said: + +"You do look nice. I knew you would, without that moustache." + +She had a strong but pleasant North-Country accent, and in her voice +there was a faint huskiness that he found very moving, though it was +only later, when he analyzed the little thrills which darted about him +in all his conversations with her, that he set it down to her voice. +. . . She resumed her seat by the foot of his bed with her book in her +hand, and his physical curiosity waxed only the greater from the +satisfaction he had given it. He could find no excuse for more, and +when the bells ceased he took refuge in talk. + +"Where were you born, Matilda?" + +"In a back street," she said. "Father was a fitter, and mother was a +dressmaker, but she died, and father got the rheumatism, so as we all +'ad--had--to work. There was----" + +"Were." She blushed and looked very cross. + +"Were three girls and two boys. Jim has gone to Canada, and George is +on the railway, and both my sisters are married, one in the country, +and one in Yorkshire. I'm the youngest." + +"Did you go to school?" + +"Oh! yes. Jackson Street, but I left when I was fourteen to go into a +shop. That was sitting still all day and stitching, or standing all +day behind a counter with women coming in and getting narked----" + +"Getting what?" + +"Narked--cross-like." + +"I see. So you didn't care about that?" + +"No. There is something in me here"--she laid her hand on her +bosom--"that goes hot and hard when I'm not treated fair, and then I +don't care a brass farthing what 'appens." + +She was too excited as she thought of her old wrongs to correct the +last dropped aitch, though she realized it and bit her lip. + +"I been in service three years now, and I've been in four places. I've +had enough." + +"And what now?" + +"I shall stop 'ere as long as you do." + +Something in her tone, a greater huskiness, perhaps, surprised him, +and he looked up at her and met her eyes full. He was confused and +amazed and startled, and his heart grew big within him, but he could +not turn away. In her expression there was a mingling of fierce +strength, defiance, and that helplessness which had originally +overcome him and led to his undoing. He was frightened, but +deliciously, so that he liked it. + +"I didn't know," she said, "that uncle drank. Father drank, too. There +was a lot in our street that did. I'm not frightened of many things, +but I am of that." + +He resented the topic on her lips and, by way of changing the subject, +suggested that she should read. She turned to her book and read aloud +the first five pages in a queer, strained, high-pitched voice that he +knew for a product of the Board School, where every variance of the +process called education is a kind of stiff drill. When she came to +the end of a paragraph he took the book and read to her, and she +listened raptly, for his diction was good. After he had come to the +end of the first chapter she asked for the book again and produced a +rather mincing but wonderfully accurate copy of his manner. She did +not wait for his comment but banged the book shut, threw it on the +bed, and said: + +"That's better. I knew I could do it. I knew I was clever. . . . +You'll stop 'ere for a bit when you're better. You mustn't mind uncle. +I'll be awfully nice to you, I will. I'll be a servant to you and make +you comfortable, and I won't ask for no wages. . . ." + +"My dear child," replied Old Mole, "you can't possibly have enjoyed it +more than I." + +She was eager on that. + +"Did you really, really like it?" + +"I did really." + + + +So began the education of Matilda. At first he drew up, for his own +use, a sort of curriculum--arithmetic, algebra, geography, history, +literature, grammar, orthography--and a time-table, two hours a day +for six days in the week, but he very soon found that she absolutely +refused to learn anything that did not interest her, and that he had +to adapt his time to hers. Sometimes she would come to him for twenty +minutes; sometimes she would devote the whole afternoon to him. When +they had galloped through Oman's "History of England" she declined to +continue that study, and after one lesson in geography she burned the +primer he had sent her out to buy. When he asked her where Ipswich was +she turned it over in her mind, decided that it had a foreign sound +and plumped for Germany. She did not seem to mind in the least when he +told her it was in England, in the Eastern Counties. . . . On the +other hand, when he procured their itinerary for the next few months +from Mr. Copas and marked it out on the map for her, she was keenly +interested and he seized on the occasion to point out Ipswich and, +having engaged her attention, all the county towns of England and +Scotland. + +"Where were you born?" she asked. + +He found the village in Lincolnshire. + +"And did you go to a boarding-school?" + +He pointed to Haileybury and then to Oxford. From there he took her +down the river to London, and told her how it was the capital of the +greatest Empire the world had ever seen, and how the Mother of +Parliaments sat by the river and made decrees for half the world, and +how the King lived in an ugly palace within sight of the Mother of +Parliaments, and how it was the greatest of ports, and how in +Westminster Abbey all the noblest of men lay buried. She was not +interested and asked: + +"Where's the Crystal Palace, where they play the Cup-tie?" + +He did not know where in London, or out of it, the Crystal Palace +might be, and she was delighted to find a gap in his knowledge. On the +whole she took her lessons very seriously, and he found that he could +get her to apply herself to almost any subject if he promised that at +the end of it she should be allowed to read. . . . Teaching under +these circumstances he found more difficult than ever he had imagined +it could be. In his Form-room by the glass roof of the gymnasium he +had been backed by tradition, the ground had been prepared for him in +the lower Forms; there was the whole complicated machinery of the +school to give him weight and authority. Further, the subjects of +instruction were settled for him by the Oxford and Cambridge +Examination Board. Now he was somewhat nettled to find that, though he +might draw up and amend curricula, he was more and more forced to take +the nature and extent of his teaching from his pupil, who, having no +precise object in view, followed only her instinct, and that seemed to +bid her not so much to lay up stores of knowledge as to disencumber +herself, to throw out ballast, everything that impeded the buoyancy of +her nature. + +They were very pleasant hours for both of them, and in her company he +learned to give as little thought to the future as she. At first, +after he recovered, he fidgeted because there were no letters. Day +after day passed and brought him no communication from the outside +world. Being a member of many committees and boards, he was used to a +voluminous if uninteresting post. However, he got used to their +absence, and what with work in the theater and teaching Matilda he had +little time for regret or anxiety. He had been up from his bed a whole +week before he bought a newspaper, that which he had been in the habit +of reading in his morning train. It was dull and only one announcement +engaged his attention; the advertisement of the school setting forth +the fees and the opening date of the next term--September 19. That +gave him four weeks in which freely to enjoy his present company. +Thereafter surely there would be investigation, inquiry for him, the +scandal would reach his relatives and they would--would they +not?--cause a search for him. Till then he might be presumed to be +holiday-making. + +Meanwhile he had grown used to Mr. Copas's manner of living--the dirt, +the untidiness, the coarse food, the long listlessness of the day, the +excitement and feverishness of the evening. Mrs. Copas's +disfigurements were long in healing, and when he was well enough he +replaced her at the door and took the money, and sold the +grimy-thumbed tickets for the front seats. He sat through every +performance and became acquainted with every item in Mr. Copas's +repertory. With that remarkable person he composed a version of +"Iphigenia," for from his first sketch of the play Mr. Copas had had +his eye on Agamemnon as a part worthy of his powers. Mr. Mole insisted +that Matilda should play the part of Iphigenia, and Mrs. Copas was +given Clytemnestra wherewith to do her worst. . . . The only portion +of the piece that was written was Iphigenia's share of her scenes with +Agamemnon. These Old Mole wrote out in as good prose as he could +muster, and she learned them by heart. Unfortunately they were too +long for Mr. Copas, and when it came to performance--there were only +two rehearsals--he burst into them with his gigantic voice and hailed +tirades at his audience about the bitterness of ingratitude in a fair +and favorite daughter, trounced Clytemnestra for the lamentable +upbringing she had given their child, and, in the end, deprived +Iphigenia of the luxury of slaughter by falling on his sword and +crying: + +"Thus like a Roman and a most unhappy father I die of thrice and +doubly damned, self-inflicted wounds. By my example let all men, +especially my daughter, know there is a canon fixed against +self-slaughter." + +He made nonsense of the whole thing, but it was wonderfully effective. +So far as it was at all lucid the play seemed to represent Agamemnon +as a wretched man driven to a miserable end by a shrewish wife and +daughter. + +Much the same fate attended Mr. Mole's other contribution to the +repertory, a Napoleonic drama in which Mr. Copas figured--immensely to +his own satisfaction--as the Corsican torn between an elderly and +stout Marie Louise and a youthful and declamatory Josephine. Through +five acts Mr. Copas raged and stormed up and down the Emperor's +career, had scenes with Josephine and Marie Louise when he felt like +it, confided his troubles and ambitions to Murat when he wanted a rest +from his ranting, sacked countries, cities, ports as easily and neatly +as you or I might pocket the red at billiards, made ponderous love to +the golden-haired lady of the Court, introduced comic scenes with the +lugubrious young man, wept over the child, dressed up as L'Aiglon, +whom he called "Little Boney," banished Josephine from the Court, and +died on the battlefield of Waterloo yielding up his sword to the Duke +of Wellington, represented by Mr. Mole, his first appearance upon any +stage, with this farewell: + +"My last word to England is--be good to Josephine." + +It was the Theater Royal's most successful piece. The inhabitants of +that little Staffordshire town had heard of the Duke of Wellington and +they applauded him to the echo. Every night when they played that +stirring drama, after Mr. Copas had taken his fill of the applause, +there were calls for the Duke, and Mr. Mole would appear leading +Josephine by the hand. + +At the top of their success Mr. Copas decided to move on. + +"In this business," he said, "you have to know when to go. You have to +leave 'em ripe for the next visit, and go away and squeeze another +orange. I said to Mrs. Copas, the night you came, that you looked like +luck. You've done it. If you'll stay, sir, I'll give you a pound a +week. You're a nartist, you are. That Wellington bit of yours without +a word to say--d'you know what we call that? We call that 'olding the +stage. It takes a nartist to do that." + +Mr. Mole took this praise with becoming modesty and said that he would +stay, for the present. Then he added: + +"And about Matilda?" + +"She's my own niece," replied Mr. Copas, "but I don't mind telling you +that she's not a bit o' good. She ain't got the voice. She ain't got +the fizzikew. When there's a bit o' real acting to be done, she isn't +there. She just isn't there. There's a hole where she ought to be. I'm +bothered about that girl, I am, bothered. She doesn't earn her keep." + +"I thought she was very charming." + +"Pretty and all that, but that's not acting. Set her against Mrs. +Copas and where is she?" + +Mr. Mole's own private opinion was that on the stage Mrs. Copas was +repulsive. However, he kept that to himself. Very quietly he said: + +"If Matilda goes, I go." + +Mr. Copas looked very mysterious and winked at him vigorously. Then he +grinned and held out a dirty hand. + +"Put it there, my boy, put it there. What's yours?" + +Within half an hour he had coaxed another ten pounds out of Mr. Mole's +pocket and Matilda's tenure of the part of Josephine was guaranteed. + + + +At their next stopping-place, on the outskirts of the Pottery towns, +disaster awaited the company. A wheel of the caravan jammed as they +were going down a hill and delayed them for some hours, so that they +arrived too late in the evening to give a performance. Mr. Copas +insisted that the theater should be erected, and lashed his assistants +with bitter and blasphemous words, so that they became excited and +flurried and made a sad muddle of their work. When at last it was +finished and Mr. Copas went out himself to post up his bills on the +walls of the neighborhood, where of all places he regarded his fame as +most secure, he had got no farther than the corner of the square when +he came on a gleaming white building that looked as though it were +made of icing sugar, glittering and dazzling with electric light and +plastered all over with lurid pictures of detectives and criminals and +passionate men and women in the throes of amorous catastrophes and +dilemmas. He stopped outside this place and stared it up and down, +gave it his most devastating fore-and-aft look, and uttered one word: + +"Blast!" + +Then unsteadily he made for the door of the public-house adjoining it +and called for the landlord, whom he had known twenty years and more. +From the platform of the theater Mrs. Copas saw him go in, and she +rushed to find Mr. Mole, and implored him to deliver her husband from +the seven devils who would assuredly possess him unless he were +speedily rescued and sent a-billposting. + +Mr. Mole obeyed, and found the actor storming at the publican, asking +him how he dare take the bread from the belly and the air from the +nostrils of a nartist with a lot o' dancing dotty pictures. With +difficulty Mr. Copas was soothed and placated. He had ordered a glass +of beer in order to give himself a status in the house, and the +publican would not let him pay for it. Whereupon he spilled it on the +sanded floor and stalked out. Mr. Mole followed him and found him +brooding over a poster outside the "kinema" which represented a lady +in the act of saving her child from a burning hotel. He seized his +paste-pot, took out a bill from his satchel, and covered the heads of +the lady and her child with the announcement of his own arrival with +new plays and a brilliant and distinguished company. + +When he was safely round the corner he seized his companion by the arm +and said excitedly: + +"Ruining the country they are with them things. Last time I pitched +opposite one o' them, when they ought to have been working my own +company was in there watching the pictures." + +"I have always understood," replied Mr. Mole, "that they have a +considerable educational value, and certainly it seems to me that +through them the people can come by a more accurate knowledge of the +countries and customs of the world than by reading or verbal +instruction." + +Mr. Copas snorted: + +"Have you _seen_ 'em?" + +"No." + +"Then talk when you have. I say it's ruining the country and pampering +the public. Who wants to know about the countries and customs of the +world? What men and women want to know is the workings of the human +heart." + +Unexpectedly Mr. Mole found himself reduced to triteness. The only +comment that presented itself to his mind was that the human heart was +a mystery beyond knowing, but that did not allow him to controvert the +actor's dictum that no one wanted to know about the countries and +customs of the world, and he wondered whether the kinematograph did, +in fact, convey a more accurate impression of the wonders of the world +than Hakluyt or Sir John Mandeville, who did, at any rate, present the +results of their travels and inventions with that pride in both truth +and lying which begets style. + +He determined to visit the kinematograph, and after he and Mr. Copas +had completed their round and made it possible for a large number of +the inhabitants of the Potteries to become aware of their existence, +he returned to the Theater Royal and fetched Matilda. They paid +threepence each and sat in the best seats in the middle of the hall, +where they were regaled with a Wild West melodrama, an adventure of +Max Linder, a Shakespearean production by a famous London actor, a +French drama of love and money, and a picture of bees making honey in +their hive. Matilda liked the bees and the horses in the Wild West +melodrama. When Max Linder climbed into a piano and the hammers hit +him on the nose and eyes she laughed; but she said the French drama +was silly, and as for the Shakespearean production she said: + +"You can't follow the play, but I suppose it's good for you." + +"How do you mean--good for you?" + +"I mean you don't really like it, but there's a lot of it, and a lot +of people, and the dresses are lovely. It doesn't get hold of you like +uncle does sometimes." + +"Your uncle says the kinemas are ruining the country." + +"Oh! He only means they're making business bad for him." + +"Your uncle says you'll never make an actress, Matilda." + +"Does he?" + +(Some one behind them said "Ssh!" + +"Ssh yourself," retorted Matilda. "There ain't nothing to hear.") + +"Does he?" she said. "What do _you_ think?" + +"I'm afraid I don't know much about it." + +For the first time he noted that when he was with Matilda his brain +worked in an entirely novel fashion. It was no longer cool and +fastidiously analytical, seizing on things and phenomena from the +outside, but strangely excited and heated, athletic and full of energy +and almost rapturously curious about the inside of things and their +relation one with another. For instance, he had hitherto regarded the +kinematograph as a sort of disease that had broken out all over the +face of the world, but now his newly working mind, his imagination +--that was the word for it--saw it as human effort, as a thing +controlled by human wills to meet human demands. It did not satisfy +his own demand, nor apparently did it satisfy Matilda's. For the rest +of the audience he would not venture to decide. Indeed he gave little +thought to them, for he was entirely absorbed by the wonder of the +miracle that had come to him, the new vision of life, the novel +faculty of apprehension. He was in a state of ferment and could not +sort his impressions and ideas, but he was quite marvelously +interested in himself, and, casting about for expression of it all, he +remembered stories of seeds buried for years under mighty buildings in +cities and how when the buildings were pulled down those seeds put +forth with new vigor and came to flower. So (he said to himself) it +had been with him. Excitedly he turned to Matilda and said: + +"About this acting. Do you yourself think you can do it?" + +"I'm sure I can." + +"Then you shall." + +The lights in the hall went up to indicate the end of the cycle of +pictures. + + + + +All that night and through the next day his exaltation continued, and +then suddenly it vanished, leaving him racked by monstrous doubts. His +mind, the full exercise of which had given him such thrilling delight, +seemed to become parched and shriveled as a dried pea. Where had been +held out for him the promise of fine action was now darkness, and he +sank deeper and deeper into a muddy inertia. Fear possessed him and +brought him to agony, dug into his sides with its spur, drove him +floundering on, and when out of the depths of his soul he strove to +squeeze something of that soaring energy that had visited him or been +struck out of him (he knew not which it was) he could summon nothing +more powerful to his aid than anger. He wept tears of anger--anger at +the world, at himself, and the blind, aimless force of events, at his +own impotence to move out of the bog, at the folly and obstinacy which +had led him to submit to the affront that had been put upon him by men +who for years had been his colleagues and comrades. His anger was +blown to a white heat by disgust when he looked back and counted the +years he had spent in fatted security mechanically plying a mechanical +profession, shut out by habit and custom from both imaginative power +and the impotence of exhaustion. He raged and stormed and blubbered, +and he marveled at the commotion going on within him as he pursued his +daily tasks, read aloud with Matilda, argued with Mr. Copas, took +money at the door of the theater in the evening, sat among the dirty, +smelling, loutish audience. In his bitterness he found a sort of +comfort in reverting to his old bantering attitude toward women, to +find it a thousand times intensified. More than half the audience were +women, poor women, meanly dressed, miserably corseted; the fat women +bulged and heaved out of their corsets, and the thin women looked as +though they had been dropped into theirs and were only held up by +their armpits. There they sat, hunched and bunched, staring, gaping, +giggling, moping, chattering, chattering . . . Ach! They were silly. + +And the men? God save us! these sodden, stupid clods were men. They +slouched and sprawled and yawned and spat. Their hands were dirty, +their teeth yellow, and their speech was thick, clipped, guttural, +inhuman. . . . Driven on by a merciless logic he was forced into +consideration of himself. As he sat there at the end of the front row +he turned his hands over and over; fat, stumpy hands they were, and he +put them up and felt the fleshiness of his neck, the bushy hair +growing out of his ears, and he ran them along his plump legs and +prodded the stoutness of his belly. He laughed at himself. He laughed +at the whole lot of them. And he tried to remember a single man or a +single woman whom he had encountered in his life and could think of as +beautiful. Not one. + +He turned his attention to the stage. Copas was almost a dwarf, a +strutting, conceited little dwarf, pouring out revolting nonsense, a +hideous caricature of human beings who were the caricatures of +creation. He said to himself: + +"I must get out of this." + +And he found himself using a phrase he had employed for years in +dealing with small boys who produced slovenly work and wept when he +railed at them: + +"Tut! Tut! This will never do!" + +At that he gasped. He was using the phrase to himself! He was +therefore like a small boy in the presence of outraged authority, and +that authority was (words came rushing in on him) his own conscience, +his own essence, liberated, demanding, here and now, among men and +women as they are, the very fullness of life. + +He had not regained his mood of delight, but rather had reached the +limit of despair, had ceased blindly and uselessly to struggle, but +cunningly, cautiously began to urge his way out of his despond. +Whatever happened, he must move forward. Whatever happened, he must +know, discover, reach out and grasp. + +And he blessed the illumination that had come to him, blessed also the +blackness and misery into which, incontinently, he had fallen. He +submitted to exhaustion and was content to await an accretion of +energy. + +Thereafter, for a little while, he found himself more akin to Mr. +Copas, drank with him, cracked jokes with him, walked with him and +listened to his talk. He began to appreciate Mrs. Copas and to +understand that being beaten by a man is not incompatible with a +genuine affection and sympathy for him. He speculated not at all, and +more than ever his instruction of Matilda became dependent upon her +caprice. + +Her uncle now gave her a salary of five shillings a week and upon her +first payment she went out and bought a cigar for her mentor. She gave +three half-pence for it and he smoked it and she wore the band on her +little finger. To guard against such presents in the future he bought +himself a box of fifty Manilas. + +Mrs. Copas began to sound him as to his resources. Losing patience +with his evasions she asked him at last bluntly if he were rich. He +turned his cigar round his tongue and said: + +"It depends what you mean by rich." + +"Well," she replied cautiously, feeling her ground, "could you lay +your hands on fifty pounds without selling anything?" + +"Certainly I could, or a hundred." + +"A hundred pounds!" + +Her eyes and mouth made three round O's and she was silenced. + +Both were astonished and both sat, rather awkwardly, adjusting their +financial standards. She took up her knitting and he plied his cigar. +They were sitting on boxes outside the stage door in the warm August +sunlight. She gave a discreet little cough and said: + +"You don't . . . you didn't . . . have a wife, did you?" + +"No. I have never had a wife." + +"Think of that now. . . . You'd have a house-keeper maybe?" + +"A married couple looked after me." + +"Well, I never! Well, there's never any knowing, is there?" + +He had learned by this time that there was nothing at all behind Mrs. +Copas's cryptic utterances. If there were anything she could arrive at +it by circumlocution, and in her own good time would make it plain. +Her next remark might have some connection with her previous train of +thought or it might not. She said in a toneless, detached voice: + +"And to think of you turning up with our Matilda. And they do say how +everything's for the best. . . . It's a pity business is so bad here, +isn't it?" + + + +Business was very bad. The faithful few of the district who always +patronized Mr. Copas year after year attended, but they amounted to no +more than fifty, while the young people were drawn off by the +kinematograph. They even sank so far as to admit children free for +three nights in the hope that their chatter would incite their parents +to come and share the wonders they had seen. On the fourth night only +four old women and a boy paid for admission. + +The situation was saved by a publican on the other side of the square +who, envious of his rival's successful enterprise with the +kinematograph, hired the theater for a week's boxing display, by his +nephew, who was an ex-champion of the Midlands with a broken nose and +reputation. + +That week was one of the most miserable depression. Mr. Copas drank +freely. Mrs. Copas never stopped chatting, the company demanded their +salaries up to date, accepted a compromise and disappeared, and the +ex-champion of the Midlands took a fancy to Matilda. He followed her +in the streets, sent her half-pounds of caramels, accosted her more +than once and asked her if she did not want a new hat, and when she +snubbed him demanded loudly to know what a pretty girl like her was +doing without a lad. Chivalrously, not without a tremor, Mr. Mole +offered himself as her escort in her walks abroad. They were +invariably followed by the boxer whistling and shouting at intervals. +Sometimes he would lag behind them and embark upon a long detailed and +insulting description of Mr. Mole's back view; sometimes he would +hurry ahead, look round and leer and make unpleasant noises with his +lips or contemptuous gestures with his hands. + +Matilda had found a certain spot by a canal where it passed out of the +town and made a bee-line across the country. There was a bridge over a +sluice which marked the cleavage between the sweet verdure of the +fields and the soiled growth of the outskirts of the town. It was a +lonely romantic spot and she wished to visit it again before they +left. She explained to her friend that she wanted to be alone but +dared not because of her pursuer, and her friend agreed to leave her +on the bridge and to lurk within sight and earshot. + +They had to go by tram. The boxer was twenty yards behind them. They +hurried on, mounted the tram just as it was starting, and +congratulated themselves on having avoided him. When they reached the +bridge there he was sitting on the parapet, whistling and leering. +Matilda flamed scarlet and turned to go. Boiling with fury Old Mole +hunched up his shoulders, tucked down his head (the attitude familiar +to so many Thrigsbians), and bore down on the offender. He grunted +out: + +"Be off." + +" 'Ave you bought the bally bridge?" + +And he grinned. The coarseness and beastliness of the creature +revolted Mr. Mole, roused him to such a pitch of furious disgust, that +he lost all sense of what he was doing, raised his stick, struck out, +caught the fellow in the chest and sent him toppling over into the +pool. He leaned over the parapet and watched the man floundering and +splashing and gulping and spitting and cursing, saw his face turn +greeny white with hard terror, but was entirely unmoved until he felt +Matilda's hand on his arm and heard her blubbering and crying: + +"He's drowning! He's drowning!" + +Then he rushed down and lay on his stomach on the bank and held out +his stick, further, further, as far as he could reach, until the lout +in the water clutched it. The boxer had lost his head. He tugged at +the stick and it looked for a moment as though there would be two men +in the water. It was a question which would first be exhausted. Grayer +and grayer and more distorted grew the boxer's face, redder and redder +and more swollen Old Mole's, until at last the strain relaxed and +Matilda's tormentor was drawn into shallow water and out on to the +bank. There he lay drenched, hiccoughing, spitting, concerned entirely +with his own discomfort and giving never a thought either to the +object of his desires or his assailant and rescuer. At last he shook +himself like a dog, squeezed the water out of his sleeves, sprang to +his feet and was off like a dart along the towpath in the direction of +the tall fuming chimneys of the town. + +Matilda and Old Mole walked slowly out toward the setting sun and in +front of them for miles stretched the regiments of pollarded willows +like mournful distorted human beings condemned forever to stand and +watch over the still waters. + +"Life," said Old Mole, "is full of astonishments. I should never have +thought it of myself." + +"He was very nearly drowned," rejoined Matilda. + +"It is very singular," said he, more to himself than to her, "that +one's instinct should think such a life worth saving. A more bestial +face I never saw." + +"I think," said she, "you would help anybody whatever they were like." + +She took his arm and they walked on, as it seemed, into the darkness. +Until they turned, neither spoke. He said: + +"I am oddly miserable when I think that in a fortnight the school will +reopen and I shall not be there. I suppose it's habit, but I want to +go back and I know I never shall." + +"I don't want never to go back." + +"Don't you? But then you're young and I'm rather old." + +"I don't think of you as old. I always think of you as some one very +good and sometimes you make me laugh." + +"Oh! Matilda, often, very often, you make me want to cry. And men +don't cry." + +A little scornfully Matilda answered: + +"_Don't_ they!" + +Through his mournfulness he felt a glow of happiness, a little aching +in his heart, a sort of longing and a pleasant pride in this excursion +with a young woman clinging to his arm and treating him with sweet +consideration and tenderness. + +"After all," he thought, "it is certainly true that when they reach +middle age men do require an interest in some young life." + +So, having fished out a theory, as he thought, to meet the case, he +was quite content and prepared, untroubled, to enjoy his happiness. + +He did thoroughly enjoy his happiness. His newly awakened but +unpracticed imagination worked like that of a sentimental and +self-cloistered writer who, having no conception of human +relationships, binds labels about the necks of his personages-- +Innocent Girlhood, Middle-aged Bachelorhood, Mother's Love, Manly +Honor, English Gentleman--and amuses himself and his readers with +propping them up in the attitudes meet and right to their affixed +characters. Except that he did not drag the Deity into it, Old Mole +lived perfectly for a short space of time in a neatly rounded +novelette, with himself as the touching, lamb-like hero and Matilda as +the radiant heroine. He basked in it, and when on her he let loose a +flood of what he thought to be emotion she only said: + +"Oh! Go on!" + +True to his sentimentality he was entirely unconscious of, absolutely +unconcerned with, what she might be feeling. He only knew that he had +been battered and bewildered and miserable and that now he was +comfortable and at his ease. + +The appointed end of all such things, in print and out of it, is +marriage. Outside marriage there is no such thing as affection between +man and woman (in that atmosphere passion and desire do not exist and +children are not born but just crop up). True to his fiction--and how +many men are ever true to anything else?--Old Mole came in less than a +week to the idea of marriage with Matilda. It was offensive to his +common sense, so repugnant indeed that it almost shocked him back into +the world of fact and that hideous mental and spiritual flux from +which he was congratulating himself on having escaped. He held his +nose and gulped it down and sighed: + +"Ah! Let us not look on the dark side of life!" + +Then he asked himself: + +"Do I love her? She has young dreams of love. How can I give her my +love and not shatter them?" + +And much more in this egoistic strain he said, the disturbance in his +heart, or whatever organ may be the seat of the affections, having +totally upset his sense of humor. He told himself, of course, that she +was hardly the wife for a man of his position, but that was only by +way of peppering his emotions, and he was really rather amazed when he +came to the further reflection that, after all, he had no position. To +avoid the consternation it brought he decided to ask Matilda's hand in +marriage. + + + +As it turned out, to the utter devastation of his novelette, it was +his hand that was asked. + +He bought Matilda a new camisole. He had heard the word used by women +and was rather staggered when he found what it was he had purchased. +Confusedly he presented it to Innocent Girlhood. She giggled and then, +with a shout of laughter, rushed off to show Mrs. Copas her gift. He +did not on that occasion stammer out his proposal. + +He took her for three walks and two tram-drives at fourpence each, but +she was preoccupied and morose, and gave such vague answers to his +preliminary remarks that his hopes died within him and he discussed +the Insurance Act and Lancashire's chances of defeating Yorkshire at +Bradford. Moreover, Matilda was pale and drawn and not far from being +downright ugly, far too plain for a novelette at all events. He felt +himself sliding backward and could hear the buzz and roar of the chaos +within himself, and the novelette was unfinished and until he came to +the last jaunting little hope in the future, the last pat on the back +for the hero, the final distribution of sugar-plums all round, there +would be no sort of security, no sealed circle wherein to dwell. He +felt sick, and the nausea that came on him was worse than the fear and +doubt through which he had passed. He was like a man after a long +journey come hungry to an inn to find nothing to eat but lollipops. + + + +When they returned from their last tram-drive they had supper with Mr. +and Mrs. Copas, who discussed the new actors whom they had engaged, as +only two of the old company were willing to return. The new comic had +acted in London, in the West End, had once made his twenty pounds a +week. They were proud of him, and Mr. Copas unblushingly denounced the +Drink as the undoing of many a nartist. Very early in the evening, +before any move had been made to clear the plates and dishes away, +Matilda declared herself tired, and withdrew. Mr. Copas went on +talking and Mrs. Copas began to make horrible faces at him, so that +Old Mole, in the vagueness of his acute discomfort, thought mistily +that perhaps they were at the beginning of an altercation, which would +end--as their altercations ended. However, the talk went on and the +grimaces went on until at last Mr. Copas perceived that he was the +object of them, stopped dead, seized his hat and left the room. Mrs. +Copas beamed on Mr. Mole. She leaned back in her chair and folded her +arms. They were bare to the elbow and fat and coarse and red. She went +on beaming, and nervously he took out a cigar and lit it. Mrs. Copas +leaned forward and with a knife began to draw patterns with the +mustard left on the edge of a plate. + +"We'll be on the move again soon, Mr. Mole." + +"I shall be glad of that." + +"What we want to know, what I want to know and what Mr. Copas wants to +know is this. What are you going to do about it?" + +"I . . . I suppose I shall go with you." + +"You know what I mean, Mr. Mole. Some folk ain't particular. I am. And +Mr. Copas is very careful about what happens in his theater. If it +can't be legitimate it can't be and there's nothing more to be said. +. . . Now, Mr. Mole, what are you going to do?" + +"My good woman! I haven't the least idea what you are talking about. I +have enjoyed my stay with you. I have found it very instructive and +profitable and I propose to----" + +"It's Matilda, Mr. Mole. What's done is done. We're not saying +anything about that. Some says it's a curse and some says it's the +only thing worth living for. Matilda's my own husband's niece and I've +got to see her properly done by whether you're offended with a little +plain speaking or not, Mr. Mole." + +She had now traced a very passable spider's web in mustard on the +plate. + +"If you need to be told, I must tell you, Mr. Mole. Matilda's in the +way." + +No definite idea came to Mr. Mole, but a funny little throb and +trickle began at the base of his spine. He dabbed his cigar down into +half a glass of beer that Mr. Copas had left. + +"We've talked it out, Mr. Mole, and you've got to marry her or pay up +handsome." + +Marry! His first thought was in terms of the novelette, but those +terms would not embrace Mrs. Copas or her present attitude. His first +glimpse of the physical fact was through the chinks of his sentimental +fiction, and he was angry and hurt and disgusted. Then, the fiction +never having been rounded off, he was able to escape from it--(rare +luck in this world of deceit)--and he shook himself free of its dust +and tinsel, and, responding to the urgency of the occasion, saw or +half-saw the circumstances from Matilda's point of view. Mentally he +swept Mrs. Copas aside. The thing lay between himself and the girl. +Out of her presence he could not either think or feel about it +clearly. Only for himself there lay here and now, before him, the +opportunity for action, for real, direct, effective action, which +would lift him out of his despond and bring his life into touch with +another life. It gave him what he most needed, movement, uplift, the +occasion for spontaneity, for being rid, though it might be only +temporarily, of his fear and doubt and sickness of mind. Healthily, or +rather, in his eagerness for health, he refused to think of the +consequences. He lit another cigar, steadying himself by a chair-back, +so dazzled was he by the splendor of his resolution and the rush of +mental energy that had brought him to it, and said: + +"Of course, if Matilda is willing, I will marry her." + +"I didn't expect it of you, being a gentleman," returned Mrs. Copas, +obliterating her spider's web, "and, marriage being the lottery it is, +there are worse ways of doing it than that. After all, you do know +you're not drawing an absolute blank, which, I know, happens to more +than ever lets on." + + + +Mr. Mole found that it is much easier to get married in life than in +sentimental fiction. He never proposed to Matilda, never discussed the +matter with her, only after the interview with Mrs. Copas she kissed +him in the morning and in the evening, and as often in between as she +felt inclined. He made arrangements with the registrar, bought a +special license and a ring. He said: "I take you, Matilda Burn, to be +my lawful wedded wife," and she said: "I take you, Herbert Jocelyn +Beenham, to be my lawful wedded husband." Mrs. Copas sat on the +registrar's hat, and, without any other incident, they were made two +in one and one in two. + +In view of the approaching change in his condition he had written to +his lawyer and his banker in Thrigsby, giving orders to have all his +personal property realized and placed on deposit, also for five +hundred pounds to be placed on account for Mrs. H. J. Beenham. + +The day after his wedding came this letter from the Head Master: + +"MY DEAR BEENHAM:--I am delighted that your whereabouts has been +discovered. All search for you has been unavailing--one would not have +thought it so easy for a man to disappear--and I had begun to be +afraid that you had gone abroad. As I say, I am delighted, and I trust +you are having a pleasant vacation. I owe you, I am afraid, a profound +apology. If there be any excuse, it must be put down to the heat and +the strain of the end of the scholastic year. I was thinking, I +protest, only of the ancient foundation which you and I have for so +long served. The Chairman of the Governors, always, as you know, your +friend, has denounced what he is pleased to call my Puritanical +cowardice. The Police have made inquiries about the young woman and +state that she is a domestic servant who left her situation in +distressing circumstances without her box and without a character. I +do apologize most humbly, my dear Beenham, and I look to see you in +your place at the commencement of the approaching term." + +Old Mole read this letter three times, and the description of his wife +stabbed him on each perusal more deeply to the heart. He tore the +sheet across and across and burned the pieces on the hearth. Matilda +came in and found him at it: and when she spoke to him he gave no +answer, but remained kneeling by the fender, turning the poker from +one hand to the other. + +"Are you cross with me?" she said. + +"No. Not with you. Not with you. Not with you." + +"You don't often say things three times." + +She came and laid her hands on his shoulders, and he took them and +kissed them, for now he adored her. + + + +In the evening came a knock at the front door. Mr. Mole was at the +theater arranging for a new play with which to reopen when the boxing +season, which had been extended, was over. The slut of a landlady took +no notice, and the knock was repeated thrice. Matilda went down and +opened the door and found on the step a short, plump, rotund, elegant +little man with spectacles and a huge mustache. He asked for Mr. +Beenham, and she said she was Mrs. Beenham. He drew himself up and was +very stiff and said at the back of his throat: + +"I am your husband's brother." + +She took him upstairs to their sitting-room, and he told her how +distressed he was at the news that had reached him and to find his +brother living in such a humble place. He added that it was a serious +blow to all his family, but that, for his part, the world being what +it was and life on it being also what it was, he hoped that all might +be for the best. Matilda let him have his say and tactfully led him on +to talk about himself, and he told her all about his practice at the +Chancery Bar, and the wine at his club, and his rooms in Gray's Inn, +and his collection of Battersea china, and his trouble with the +committee of his golf club, and his dislike for most of his relations +except his brother Herbert, who was the last man in the world, as he +said, he had ever expected to go off the rails. She assured him then +that Herbert was the best and kindest of men, and that it would not be +her fault if their subsequent career did not astonish and delight him. +She did not drop a single aitch, and, noticing carefully his London +pronunciation, she mentally resolved to change her broad a's and in +future to call a schoolmaster a schoolmarster. . . . Their +conversation came abruptly to an end, and she produced a pack of cards +and taught him how to play German whist. From that he led her to +double-dummy Bridge, and they were still at it when his brother +returned. Matilda was scolded for being up so late, kissed, by both +men, and packed off to bed. + +Whisky was produced. Said brother Robert: + +"Well, of all the lunatics!" + +"So you've been shocked and amazed and horrified. Do the others know?" + +"Not yet. . . . I thought I'd better see you first." + +"All right. Tell them that I'm married and have become a rogue and a +vagabond." + +"You're not going on with this?" + +"I am." + +"Don't be a fool. Your wife's perfectly charming. There's nothing +against her." + +"That's had nothing to do with it. I'm going on for my own +satisfaction. I've spent half my life in teaching. I want to spend the +rest of it in learning." + +"From play-actors? Oh! come!" + +"My dear Robert, life isn't at all what you think it is. It isn't what +I thought it was. I'm interested. I'm eager. I'm keen. . . ." + +"And mad. . . ." + +"Maybe. But I tell you that life's got a heart to it somewhere, and +I'm going to find my way to it." + +"Then you're not going back?" + +"Never: neither to the old work, nor to the old kind of people." + +"Not even when I tell you that Uncle Jocelyn is dead at last and has +left us each ten thousand! Doesn't that make any difference, H. J.?" + +H. J. received this intelligence almost with dismay. It took him back +into the family councils, the family speculations as to Uncle +Jocelyn's will, the family squabbles over Uncle Jocelyn's personal +effects and their distribution, the family impatience at Uncle +Jocelyn's unconscionable long time in dying. And the vision of it all +irritated and weighed heavily on him. Often in Thrigsby he had said to +himself that when Uncle Jocelyn died he would retire. And now Uncle +Jocelyn was dead and he found his legacy rather a bewilderment than a +relief. It was such a large sum of money that it made him fall back +into his old sense of the grotesque in his relations with Mr. Copas +and his galley, just when he was congratulating himself on being able +to enter on his new life with real zest and energy. + +"No," he said, "that makes no difference. I shall stay where I am." + +"If there is ever any trouble," replied Robert, "I shall be only too +glad to help." + +"Thank you." + +Robert tapped at his mustache and said: + +"I suppose being married won't interfere with your golf." + +"I'm afraid it will." This came very tartly. + +"Er. . . . Sorry." + +That had flicked Robert on the raw. He had been feeling indulgent +toward his demented brother until his more than doubtful attitude +toward ten thousand pounds. When that was followed with the +renunciation of golf he was genuinely distressed and went away +muttering behind his mustache: + +"I give it up. I give it up. 'Pon my honor. _Non compos,_ don't +y'know, _non compos_." + + + +Nothing would induce Old Mole to visit Thrigsby again, and his +solicitor had to send a clerk down with documents for his signature. +When all the legal threads were tied up he told Matilda the extent of +his fortune, and how he had been asked to return to his position at +the school. + +"Are you sorry?" she asked. + +"No." + +"You sha'n't ever be, for me. Will you read to me now?" + +And he read the first two acts of "King Lear." + +"That isn't the play you were reading the other day. The one about +Venice and the man who was such a good soldier." + +He had begun "Othello," but it had filled him with terror, for it had +brought home to him the jealousy that was gnawing at his heart, +creeping into his bones. Delivered from sentimentality by his +surrender to his own generous impulse, sanded over as he was by years +of celibacy, he had day by day more swiftly yielded to this woman whom +he had taken for his wife, and had arrived at a passion torn, knotted, +and twisted by jealousy of that other whom he had never known, whose +child now waxed in her womb and brought her to long periods of almost +self-hypnotized inward pondering, so that, though she was all grace, +all tenderness and gratitude toward him, she was never his, never, +even in their most pleasant moments, anything but remote. The agonies +through which he passed made him only the more determined to be gentle +with her, and often when he took her hand and pressed it, and she gave +him not the pressure in return for which he hoped and so longed, he +would be unable to bear it and would go out and walk for miles and cry +out upon the injustice of the world. And then he would think that +perhaps she loved him, perhaps it was an even greater torture to her +to have this other between them; surely if that were so it must be +keener suffering for her since it was her doing and her folly and not +his. And he would hate the stain upon her, give way before the +violence of his hatred, and call her unworthy and long with a sick +longing for purity, an ideal mating, the first kindling in both man +and woman so that each could be all to the other, wholly, with never +so much as a thought lost in the past, never so much as the smallest +wear and usage of anterior desire. . . . He would persuade himself +that she did not love him at all; that she and the old bawd had +entrapped him by sordid and base cunning. And those were the worst +hours of all. But when he was with her and she gave him her smile or +some little sudden friendly caress he would feel comforted and very +sure of her and of the future when they would both forget, and then +both his hatred and his longing for a perfect world would fall away +from him and he would see them as absurd projections of those +contrasts which arise and haunt the half-comprehending mind. And he +would tell himself that all would be well; that they would be happy in +the child which would be his also, for the love he had for her. And +his jealousy would return. + +Therefore he read "King Lear," and the pity of it purged him, though +he was not without feeling that he, too, was cast out upon the barren +places of the earth to face the storm and meet disaster. Feeling so he +said to Matilda: + +"Money and material things seem to have nothing to do with life at +all. Here am I with you, whom I love. . . ." + +"Do you?" + +"I love you." + +"Thank you." + +"With you, and no possible anxiety as to the future, and yet I seem to +myself to be on the very brink of explosion and disaster." + +"Dear man, I wish you wouldn't think so much." + +"I must think, or my feelings swamp me." + +She thrilled him by taking his hand, and she said: + +"Do you know what I want?" + +"No. You shall have it." + +"I want to make you happy." + +That was the most definite assurance of her feeling for him she had as +yet given him. It soothed his jealousy, made it easier for him to +conquer it, but presently it laid him open to a new dread. The time +for her confinement was drawing on, and he began to think that out, +too; the violence and bloodiness of birth haunted him, the physical +pain it entailed, the possibility of its being attended by death. She +had promised him happiness, and she might die! He became +over-scrupulous in his treatment of her and worried her about her +health so that she lost her temper and said: + +"After all, it's me that's got to go through with it, and _I_ don't +think about it." + +That brought him up sharp, and he held his peace and watched her. +Truly she did not think about it. She accepted it. It was to her, it +seemed, entirely a personal matter, perfectly in the order of things, +to be worried through as occasion served. It might go well, or it +might go ill, but meanwhile there were the things of the moment to be +attended to and the day's pleasure to be seized. He was humbled and a +little envious of her. For a little while he indulged in an orgy of +self-reproach, but she only laughed at him and told him that when she +had so much cause for feeling depressed he might at least comfort her +with the sight of a cheerful face. He laughed, too, and told himself +he was a selfish ass and that she was made that way and he was made +another, and that perhaps men and women are made so, men thinking and +women accepting, or perhaps they only become so in the progress of +their lives. + +Matilda's baby came four months after their marriage. It was +still-born. + + + + +II + +MARRIAGE + +_Sie war liebenswürdig und er liebte sie: aber er war nicht +liebenswürdig und sie liebte ihn nicht._ + + + +II + +MARRIAGE + +MATILDA kept her promise and made her husband happy. She reduced him +to that condition wherein men and women believe that never has the +world been visited by such love and that they will go on loving +forever and ever. This she achieved by leaving his affections to look +after themselves and concentrating all her energies on seeing that he +was properly fed and clothed, had the requisite amount of sleep and +just enough cosseting to make him wish for more, which he did not get. +She left the ordering of their coexistence in his hands, and he, being +happy, span a cocoon of charming fancies about it, and showed little +disposition to change. Therefore they continued with Mr. Copas and +became acquainted with the four quarters of England and the two or +three kinds of towns which in vast numbers have grown on it, like +warts on the face of Oliver Cromwell. Bemused by the romance of love +and the sense of well-being that its gratification brings, he observed +very little and thought less, and he did not perceive that he was +falling into a routine as dispirited as that in which he had gone +round and round out of adolescence into manhood and out of manhood +into middle age. Such is the power of love--or rather of a certain +very general over-indulged variant of it--that it can lift a man out +of space and time and set him drifting and dreaming through a larger +portion of his allotted span than he can afford to lose. As there is a +sort of peace in this condition, it is highly prized: indeed, it +passes for an ideal, being as material as a fatted pig into whose +sides you can poke your finger, as into a cushion; it has the further +merit that it needs no effort to attain, but only a fall and no +struggle. Old Mole fell into it and prized it and told himself that +life was very good. When he told his wife that life was very good she +said that it was a matter of opinion and it depended what you happened +to want. + +"What do you want?" he asked. + +She thumped her chest with the odd little teasing gesture that was +perhaps most characteristic of her, and said: + +"Something big." + +"Aren't you content?" + +"Oh, yes. But I want to know, to find out." + +He stretched his legs and, with a beautiful sense of enunciating +wisdom, he remarked: + +"There is nothing to know, nothing to find out. Here are we, a man and +a woman, fulfilling the destiny of men and women, and, for the rest, +happy enough in the occupation to which circumstances and our several +destinies and characters have brought us. I am perfectly happy, my +dear, most surprisingly happy when I look back and consider all +things. I have no ambition, no hopes, and, I fancy, no illusions; most +happily of all, I have no politics. I did not make the world and I do +not believe that I can undo anything good or evil which, for the +world's purposes, is necessary to be done. . . ." + +He had developed a habit of talking and did not know it. She had taken +refuge in silence and was aware of it. + +Once she asked him if he did not feel the want of friends. + +"Friends?" he answered. "I want nothing while I have you." + +She made no reply and he was left hurt, because he had expected +appreciation of his entire devotion. + + + +She was happy, too, but more keenly than he, for she was a little +dazed by her astounding luck, and behind her pleasure in him and his +unfailing kindness and consideration lay the sting of uneasiness and +the dread that the comfort of such charming days could not last. +Ignorant, untaught, unprepared, love had been for her a kiss of the +lips, a surrender to the flood of perilous feeling, a tampering with +forces that might or might not sweep you to ruin: a matter of fancy, +dalliance, and risk. She had fancied, dallied, dared, and when she had +thought to be swept to ruin--and that swift descent also had had its +sickening fascination--she had been tumbled into this security where +love was solid, comfortable, omnipresent, and apparently all +providing. She was perpetually amazed at her husband and chafed only +against herself because she could not share his complacency. It was +easy for her to assimilate his manners and to take the measure of his +refinement. With talk of her brothers and sisters she would lead him +on to tell of his family, and especially of the women among whom he +had spent his boyhood, and she would contrast herself with them and +rebel against everything in herself that was not harmonious with their +atmosphere. And she found it increasingly difficult to get on with her +aunt, Mrs. Copas. + +The new comic, John Lomas, was a great success. He was a fat little +man in the fifties with a thorough knowledge of his business, which +was to make any and every kind of audience laugh. A wonderful stock of +tricks he had, tricks of voice, of limbs, of gesture, of facial +expression, nothing but tricks, inexhaustible. He cared about nothing +in the world but what he called "the laugh," and when he got one he +wanted another, and always had a quip or a leer or a cantrip to get +it. But he was a rascal and a drunkard, and had lost all sense of the +fitness of things and always went on too long until his audience was +weary of him. Therefore he had come down and down until he found an +appetite to feed that was gross enough to bear with his insistence. +. . . He said--it may have been true--that he had played before the +King of England, and he was full of stories of the theaters in London, +the real nobby theaters where the swells paid half a guinea for a seat +and brought their wives and other people's wives in shining jewels and +dresses cut low back and front. He had played in every kind of piece, +from the old-fashioned kind of burlesque to melodrama, drama, and +Shakespeare, and he had never had any luck, but had always been on the +point of making a fortune. "Charley's Aunt," he said, had been offered +to him, and he had taken an option, but at the last moment his backers +failed him. "And look at the money that had made and was still +making." His first stage of intoxication was melancholy, and then he +would weep over the mess he had made of his life and grow maudlin and +tell how badly he had treated the dear little woman who had been his +wife so that she had left him and gone off with a bloody journalist. +When that mood passed he would grow excited and blustering, and brag +of the slap-up women he had had when he was making his thirty pounds a +week. His most intimate confessions were reserved for Matilda, for he +despised Copas because he had never known anything better than a +fit-up. And of Mr. Mole he was rather scared. + +"I don't know," he would say to Matilda. "I don't know what it is, but +your guv'nor ain't one of us, is he now?" + +And when Matilda agreed that Mr. Mole was different he called her a +silly cuckoo for not making him take her to London and the Continong +to have a high old time. + +He could play the piano in a fumbling fashion, and he used to sing +through the scores of some of the old pieces he had been in, with +reminiscences of the players who had been successful in them and full +histories of their ups and downs and their not unblemished lives, all +with a full-throated sentimentality that made every tale as he told it +romantic and charming. Broken and rejected by it as he was, he +worshiped the theater and gloried in it, and the smell of the grease +paint was to him as the smell of the field to a Jewish patriarch. + +One day he insisted that Matilda should sing, and he taught her one of +the old coon songs that had haunted London in the days of his +prosperity. At first she was shy and sang only from her throat, and he +banged out the accompaniment and drowned her voice and told her that +really no one would hear her but the conductor. She must sing so that +she could feel as if her voice was a little bigger than herself. The +phrase seized her imagination, and she tried again. This time she +produced a few full notes and then had no breath left to compass the +rest. However, he was satisfied, and said she'd do for the chorus all +right. + +"And some of those gels, mark you," he said, "do very well for +themselves, in the way of marriage, and out of it." + +He taught her to dance, said she had just the feet for it. "Not real +slap-up dancing, of course, but the sort you get in any old London +show; the sort that's good enough with all the rest--and you've got +that all right, my dear--and not a bit of good without it." + +The development of these small accomplishments gave her a very full +pleasure, greater confidence in herself, and a feeling of +independence. She took a naïve and childish pride in her body from +which these wonders came. They gave her far keener delight than "the +acting" had ever done, but she never connected them with her ambition. +They were a purely personal secret treasure, an inmost chamber whither +she could retire and let go, and be expansively, irresponsibly +herself. + + + +Toward the end of the first year of their marriage, in the harsh +months of the close of the year, they were for six weeks in a city +that sprawled and tumbled over the huge moors of Yorkshire. It rained +almost continuously, and it was very cold, but in that city, which +almost less than any other of the industrial purgatories of the +kingdom appreciates art and the things of the mind, they prospered. +John Lomas got his fill of laughter, and, the kinematograph being no +new thing there, the theater weathered that competition. + +Matilda wrote to her sister, Mrs. Boothroyd, whose husband was +employed at the municipal gasworks, and sent her a pass. She gave her +news: how she was married and happy and enjoying her work with her +uncle. The Boothroyd family only knew of Matilda's disaster and +nothing of her subsequent history. Mr. Boothroyd, who was a deacon at +his chapel, forbade his wife to take any notice of the letter, and she +obeyed him, but, when he was on the night shift at the works, she made +use of the pass. + +The program consisted of Mr. Mole's "Iphigenia," and a farce +introduced into the repertory by John Lomas from what he could +remember of a successful venture at the old Strand Theater in London. +Matilda appeared in both pieces. She was so successful that Mrs. +Boothroyd, who sat in the front row, swelled with pride, and, as she +clapped her hands, turned to her neighbor: + +"Isn't she good? And so pretty, too! Whoever would have thought it? +But there always was something about her. She's my sister, you know." + +"Indeed? Then I am pleased to meet you. She is my wife." + +"Well, I never! . . ." + +Mrs. Boothroyd seized Old Mole by the hand and shook it warmly, while +she giggled with excitement. She bore a faint resemblance to Matilda, +but looked worn, had that pathetic, punctured appearance which comes +from overmuch child-bearing. Throughout the rest of the performance +she only glanced occasionally at the stage and devoted her attention +to scanning her brother-in-law's appearance. At the close of the +second piece she said: + +"I _am_ glad. It would never ha' done for her to 'ave a young 'usband. +She was always the flighty one." + +This sounded ominously to Old Mole, who for more than a year now had +been young with Matilda's youth, and so comfortably accustomed to it +that he never dared in thought dissever himself from her. He rejoined +that his sister-in-law would be glad to know that Matilda was settled +down. + +They went behind and found her hot and flustered, painted, and half +out of the gipsy dress in which she had made her last appearance. When +she saw Mrs. Boothroyd she gave a cry of delight, rushed to her and +flung her arms round her neck and kissed her. + +"Didn't Jimmy come, too?" + +"No; Jimmy was at the works, and couldn't come." + +Matilda asked after all the Boothroyd children and her own brothers +and sisters, and all their illnesses and minor disasters were +retailed. Mr. and Mrs. Copas came in and embraced Bertha Boothroyd, +whom they had not seen since she was a little girl, and when she said +how proud she was of Matilda they replied that she had every reason to +be. John Lomas appeared with stout and biscuits, and the occasion was +celebrated. Warmed by this conviviality, Mrs. Boothroyd invited them +all to tea with her on the next day but one, then, alarmed at the +thought of what she had done, gave a little frightened gasp, was pale +and silent for a few moments, and at last said she must be home to +give Jim his supper when he came back. + +She kissed and was kissed. Her disquietude had blown the high spirits +of the party. When she had gone Matilda said: + +"Jim's a devil. Bertha's had a baby every year since she was married, +and he thinks of nothing but saving his own soul." + + + +Next day came a note from Bertha saying she was afraid her little +house would not accommodate the whole party, but would Matilda bring +her husband. "Is Mr. Mole an actor?" she asked. "I told Jim he +wasn't." + + + +Bertha's address was 33 June Street. It was a long journey by tram, +and then Matilda and her husband had to walk nearly a mile down a +monotonous road intersected with little streets. The name of the road +was Pretoria Avenue, and on one side the little streets were called +after the months of the year, and on the other after the twelve +Apostles. The Boothroyds therefore lived in the very heart of the +product of the end of the nineteenth century. Their front door opened +straight on to the street, they had a little yard at the back, and +their house consisted of eight rooms. The parlor door was unlocked for +the visit, and, amid photographs of many Boothroyds, testimonials to +the worthiness of James Boothroyd and his Oddfellows' certificate, tea +was laid, none of your proper Yorkshire teas, but afternoon tea with +thin bread and butter. Five little Boothroyds in clean collars and +pinafores were placed round the room, and stared alternately at the +cake on the table and their aunt and their new uncle. Old Mole +endeavored to avoid their gaze, but the room seemed full of round +staring gray eyes, and when he considered the corpulent American organ +that took up the whole wall opposite the fireplace, he was astonished +that so many people could be crammed into so small a space. Then he +estimated that there were at least sixty other exactly similar houses +in the street, that from January to December there were streets in +replica, not to mention those on the other side of the road which were +named from John to--surely not to Judas? He remembered then that one +street was called Paul Street. . . . Dozens and dozens of houses, each +with its Boothroyd family and its American organ. Dejectedly he told +himself that these were the poor, until, glancing across at Matilda, +he remembered that it was from such a house, among dozens of such +houses, that she had come. That thought colored his survey, and he +reminded himself, as nearly always he was forced to do when +considering her actions or any episode in her history, that his own +comfortable middle-class standards were not at all proper to the +consideration of the phenomena of mean streets. Desperately anxious to +make himself pleasant to Matilda's sister, he asked heavily: + +"Are these all----?" + +She was in such a flutter that she did not leave him time to finish +his sentence, took him to be referring to the children, and said: +"Yes, they were all hers, and there were two more in the kitchen." + +With more tact Matilda cut the cake and gave a piece to each of the +five children. Mrs. Boothroyd said she was spoiling them, and Matilda +retorted: + +"If they're good children you can't spoil them." + +And the children giggled crumbily and presently they sidled and edged +up to their aunt and began to finger her and pluck at her clothes. +Seeing his wife so set Old Mole off on an entirely new train of +thought and feeling, and he began to contrast the Copas atmosphere +with this domestic interior. Very queerly it gave a sort of life to +that crusted old formula that had, with so many others, gone by the +board in his eruption from secondary education, wherein it was laid +down that a woman's place is her home. He could never, without +discomfort, apply any formula to Matilda, but to see her there, with +the bloom on her, in her full beauty, with the five little children at +her knees, made this idea so attractive that he was loath to +relinquish it: nor did he do so until Matilda asked if she might see +the house, when she and Mrs. Boothroyd and the five children left him +alone with the ruins of the cake and the American organ. + +He was profoundly uneasy. He had not exactly idealized the Copas +theater and all its doings, but he had come to them on the crest of a +violent wave of reaction and had been apt to set them against and +above everything in the world that was solid and stolid and workaday. +It had been enchanted for him by Matilda, and she had in June Street +set an even more potent spell upon him and wafted him not into any +kingdom of the imagination, but into the warm heart of life itself. In +the Copas world he had made no allowance for children: in June Street, +in dull industrial respectability, children were paramount. They +surrounded Matilda and set him, in his slow fashion, tingling to the +marvel of her. His response to this miracle took the form of a desire +to open his pockets to the children. He took out a handful of money, +and had selected five shillings when the door opened and a man +entered, a dark, white-faced, thin-lipped man, with dirty hands and an +aggressive jut of the shoulders. + +"Ye've been tea-partying, I see," said the man. + +Old Mole explained his identity. The man put his head out of the door +and yelled to his wife. She returned with Matilda, but the children +did not come. James Boothroyd ignored the visitors to his house and +said to his cowering wife: + +"You'll clean up yon litter an' you'll lock t'door. What'll neighbors +say of us? I don't know these folk. You'll lock t'door and then you'll +gi' me me tea in t'kitchen." + +There was no sign of anger in the man. He had taken in the situation +at a glance and was concerned only to bring it to the issue he +desired. His relations by marriage were spotted by a world which he +shunned as darkest Hell, and he would have none of them. + +With as much dignity as he could muster, Old Mole led his wife out +into June Street. He was filled only with pity for Bertha. + +Said Matilda: "Didn't I tell you he was a devil?" + +Later in their lodging he asked her: + +"Are all the men in those streets like that?" + +"If they're religious, they're like that. If they're not religious +they're drunk. If they're not drunk you never know when they're going +to leave you. That's the sort of life I came out of and that's the +sort of life I'm never going back into if I can help it." + +"You won't need to, my dear." + +"You never know." + +With which disquieting assurance he was left to reflect that she +seemed to have been as much upset by her visit to June Street as +himself. He was tormented by a vision of England, this little isle, +the home of heroes and great men, groaning beneath the weight of miles +of such streets and sinking under the tread of millions of men like +James Boothroyd. Lustily he strove for a cool, intellectual +consideration of it all, a point from which the network of the meanish +streets of the cities of England could be seen as justifiable, +necessary, and unto their own ends sufficient, but, seen from the +Copas world, they were repulsive and harsh; viewed through Matilda +they were touched with magic. + + + +They were both unsettled and passed through days of irritation when +they came perilously near to quarreling. In the end they made it up +and found that they had conquered new territory for intimacy. On that +territory they discussed their marriage, and he told her that he would +like her to have a child. She burst into tears, and confessed that +after her calamity the doctor had told her it was very improbable she +ever would. He was for so long silent on that, being numbed by the +sudden chill at his heart, that she took alarm and came and knelt at +his side and implored him to forgive her, and said that if he did not +she would go out on to the railway or into the canal. Then he, too, +wept, and they held each other close and sobbed out that the world was +very, very cruel, but they must be all in all to each other. And he +said they would go away and settle down in some pretty place and live +quietly and happily together right away from towns and theaters and +everything. She shook her head, and, with the tears streaming down her +cheeks, she said: No, she did not want to be a lady; at least, not +that sort of a lady. He made many suggestions, but always her mind +flew ahead of his, and she had constructed some horrid sort of a +picture of the existence it would entail. At last he gave it up and +said he supposed if there was to be a change it would come of its own +accord. + + + +It came. + +Mrs. Copas, quite suddenly and for no apparent reason, decided that +she was middle-aged, entirely altered her style of dressing and doing +her hair, and, as the outward and visible sign of the advent of her +maturity, set her heart on a black silk gown. She cajoled and teased +and bullied her husband, but in vain. He was replenishing the +theatrical wardrobe and could not be led to take any interest in hers. +She pursued Mr. Mole with hints and flattery, but he could not or +would not see her purpose. He had decided that Matilda should be +dressed in a style more befitting his wife than she had adopted +heretofore, and was spending many happy and weary hours in the shops +patronized by the wives of clerks and well-to-do tradespeople. +Incidentally he discovered a great deal about what women wear and its +powerful influence over their whole being. In her new clothes Matilda +was more dignified, more handsome, more certain of herself, and she +gained in grace. . . . Mrs. Copas took to haunting their lodgings and +was nearly always there when a new hat or a new jacket came home from +the shops. She would insist on Matilda's trying them on, and would go +into loud ecstatic praise and long reminiscences of the fine garments +she had had when she was a young woman, and Mr. Copas was the most +attentive husband in the world. + +An old peacock without its tail is a sorry sight, and the young birds +scorn him. Matilda did not exactly scorn her aunt, but her continued +presence was an irritant. She was not yet at her ease in the +possession of many fine clothes and was entirely set on gaining the +mastery of them and of the accession of personality they brought. Mrs. +Copas was a clog upon this desire, and therefore when, after many +hints and references, she came suddenly to the point and asked +pointblank for a loan of four pounds wherewith to buy a black silk +gown, Matilda flushed with anger and exasperation and replied curtly +that her husband was not made of money. + +"No, dearie, I know, but I'd so set my heart on a black silk gown." + +And the towsled old creature looked so pathetic and disappointed that +Matilda was on the point of yielding; but indeed she was really +alarmed at the amount of money that had been spent--more than twenty +pounds--and she followed up her reply with a firm No. + +Mrs. Copas took it ill, and set herself to making things unpleasant +for Mr. Mole and his wife. She had control of affairs behind scenes +and also of the commissariat, and it was not long before she had +provoked a quarrel. Matilda told her she was a disagreeable old woman; +to which she hit back with: + +"Some women don't care how they get husbands." + +Following on that there was such a sparring and snarling that in the +end Mr. Copas declared that his theater was not big enough for the two +of them, and that Matilda must either eat her words and beg her aunt's +pardon or go. As the most injurious insults had come from her aunt, +Matilda kicked against the injustice of this decree and flounced away. +She said nothing to her husband of what had taken place. They were at +the beginning of December, and already the hoardings of the town were +covered with announcements of the approaching annual pantomime at the +principal theater, together with the names of the distinguished +artistes engaged. Matilda dressed herself in her very smartest and for +the first time donned the musquash toque, tippet and muff she had been +given. They were the first furs she had ever possessed, and she felt +so grand in them that she was shy of wearing them. When she had walked +along several streets and seen herself in a shop window or two, they +gave her courage for her purpose, and she told herself that she was, +after all, as good as anyone else who might be wanting to do the work, +set her chin in the air, went to the theater, and asked to see the +manager. The doorkeeper had instructions not to turn away anything +that looked promising and only to reject those who looked more than +thirty-five and obviously had no chance of looking pretty even behind +the footlights. He did not reject Matilda. She was shown into the +manager's presence, stated her wishes and accomplishments and +experience. The manager did not invite her either to sing or to dance, +but asked her if she minded what she wore. She had seen pantomimes in +Thrigsby, and she said she did not mind. + +"All right, my dear," said the manager, who was good looking, young, +but pale and weary in expression. And Matilda found herself engaged +for the chorus at one pound a week. + +She told Lomas first, and he was delighted. When it came to her +husband she found it rather difficult to tell him, was half afraid +that he would forbid her to pursue the adventure, and half ashamed, +after his great kindness, of having acted without consulting him. +However, she was determined to go on with it and to uproot him from +the Copas theater. She began by telling him of her quarrel with her +aunt. + +"I thought that was bound to happen," he said. + +"Yes. It came to that that uncle said I must go. What do you think +I've done?" + +"Bought a new dress?" + +"No. Better than that." + +"Made friends with the Lord Mayor?" + +"Funny! No." + +"What have you done, then?" + +"I've got an engagement at the theater, the real, big theater where +they have a proper stage, and a stage door and a box office, and a +manager who wears evening dress." + +"Indeed? And for how long?" + +"It may be for ten weeks and it may be for thirteen. It was fifteen +last year." + +"And what am I to do?" + +She had not thought about him and was nonplussed. However, he needed +very little cajoling before he gave his consent to her plan, and she +told him that if he got bored he could easily go away by himself and +come back when he wasn't bored any longer. Inwardly he felt that the +difficulty was not going to be so easily settled as all that, but he +was on the whole relieved to be rid of Mr. Copas, who had arranged to +move on as soon as the pantomime opened to the distraction of the +public and the devastation of his business. When Mr. Mole announced +his intention of remaining the actor was affronted and refused to +speak to him again. Matilda said, a little maliciously, that he was +afraid of being asked for the money he owed them, and that was her +parting shot after Mrs. Copas, who got her own back with the loud +sneer in Mr. Mole's presence: + +"There's not many married women would wear tights and not many +husbands would let 'em." + +Old Mole gasped, and looked forward with dread to the first +performance of the pantomime. He was spared the indignity of tights, +for the fifty women in the chorus were divided into "girls" and +"boys," in accordance with their size, and Matilda was a "girl." She +took her work very seriously, put far more energy into it than she had +ever done into "Iphigenia" or "Josephine." The theater, one of the +largest in England, awed her by the size of its machinery, and she was +excited and impressed by all the talk and gossip she heard of the +doings of the theaters and the halls. She disliked most of her +colleagues in the chorus, and of the principals only one was not too +exalted to take notice of her. This was a young actor named, +professionally, Carlton Timmis (pronounced Timms), who played the +Demon King. He was very attentive and kind to her, and when she asked +if she might introduce him to her husband he was obviously dismayed, +but expressed himself as delighted. He was a rather beautiful young +man and very romantic, and he and Old Mole found much to talk of +together. + +"You can't think," said Timmis, "what a relief it is to meet a man +with a soul. Among all those idiots one is parched, withered, dried +up." + +And much the same thought was in Old Mole's mind. Looking back he was +astonished that he could for so long have tolerated the unintelligent +society in which he had been cast. Timmis had decided, if erratic, +opinions, and he loved nothing better than gloomily to grope after +philosophical conceptions. Being very young and unsuccessful, he was +pessimistic and clutched eagerly at everything which encouraged him in +his belief in a world blindly responding to some mysterious law of +destruction. Old Mole was inclined toward optimistic Deism and +materialism, and they struck sparks out of each other, Timmis moving +in a whirl of nebulous ideas, and his interlocutor moving so slowly +that, by contrast, he seemed almost rigid. + +"Take myself," Timmis would say. "Can there be any sense in a world +which condemns me to play the Demon King in an idiotic pantomime, or +indeed in a world which demands, indulges, encourages, delights in +such driveling nonsense as that same pantomime?" + +"There is room for everything in the world, which is very large," +replied Old Mole. + +"Then why are men starved, physically, morally and spiritually?" + +"The universe," came the reply, between two long puffs of a cigar, +"was not made for man, but man was made for the universe." + +(This was an impromptu, but Old Mole often recurred to it, and indeed +declared that his philosophy dated from that day and that utterance.) + +"But why was the universe made?" + +"Certainly not from human motives and not in terms of human +understanding. To hear you talk one would think the whole creation was +in a state of decomposition." + +"So it is. That is its motive force, an irresistible rotting away into +nothing. I don't believe anything but decomposition could produce that +pantomime." + +"The pantomime is so small a thing that I think it impossible for it +to be visibly affected by any universal process. It is simply a human +contrivance for the amusement of human beings, and you must admit that +it succeeds in its purpose." + +"It has no purpose. It succeeds in spite of its stupidity by sheer +force of the amiable cleverness of an overpaid buffoon and the charm +and physical attractions of two or three young women." + +Old Mole was forced to admit the justice of this criticism, and to +drive it home Timmis recited the eight lines with which in the cave +scene he introduced the ballet: + + + _Now Sinbad's wrecked and nearly drowned, you see. + He thinks he's saved, but has to deal with me. + I'll wreck him yet and rack his soul as well-- + A shipwrecked sailor suits my purpose fell. + I'll catch his soul and make it mine for aye + And he'll be sorry he ever stepped this way. + But who comes here to brave my cave's dark night? + Aha! Oh, curse! It is the Fairy Light._ + + +Matilda had been listening to them, and she said: + +"Doesn't she look lovely when she comes on all in white? Such a pretty +voice she has, too." + +"You like the pantomime, my dear?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +"Could you say why?" + +"It's pretty and gay, and it's wonderful to hear the people in that +great big place laughing and singing the choruses." + +"You see, Timmis, the pantomime has justified its existence." + +"But what on earth has it got to do with Sinbad?" + +"Nothing. Why should it? Sinbad is an Eastern tale. The pantomime is +an English institution. It reflects the English character. It is +heavy, solid, gross, over-colored, disconnected, illogical and +unimaginative. On the other hand, it is humorous, discreetly sensual, +varied and full of physical activity. It affords plenty to listen to +and nothing to hear, plenty to look at and nothing to see, and it is +like one of those Christmas puddings which quickly make the body feel +overfed and provide it with no food." + +"Anyhow," said Matilda, "it's a great success, and they say it will +run until after Easter." + +It did so: the tunes in it were whistled and sung in the streets, the +comedians' gags became catchwords, the principal buffoon kicked off at +a charity football match, and, upon inquiry, Old Mole found that +clerks, schoolboys and students visited the theater once a week, and +that among the young sparks of the town, sons of mill-owners and +ironmasters, there was considerable competition for the favors of the +chorus ladies. Some of these phenomena he remembered having observed +in Thrigsby, and at least one of his old pupils had come to grief +through a lady of the chorus and been expelled by his affrighted +family to the Colonies. By the end of the fifth week he was thoroughly +sick of it all, and he began to agree with Timmis that the success of +the show was very far from justifying it. It was so completely lacking +in character as to be demoralizing. His third visit left him clogged +and thick-witted, as though he had been breathing stale air. It was a +poison: and if it were so for him, what (he asked himself) must it be +for young minds and spirits? . . . And yet Matilda throve in it. She +liked the work and she now liked the company, who, being prosperous, +were amiable, and they liked her. Most of all, she loved the +independence, the passage from the solid, safe, warmly tender +atmosphere with which her husband surrounded her to the heat, the rush +and the excitement of the theater. When he left her at the stage door +she would give a shrug of the shoulders that was almost a shake, give +him a swift parting smile that he always felt might have been given to +a stranger, and with a quick gladness dart through into the lighted +passage. . . . Before many weeks had passed she had letters, flowers, +presents, from unknown admirers. He asked Timmis if there was any harm +in them, and the actor replied that it was the usual thing, that women +had to look after themselves in the theater, and that these attentions +pleased the management. They pleased Matilda: she laughed at the +letters, decorated their rooms with the flowers, and left the presents +with the stage doorkeeper, who annexed them. Old Mole definitely +decided that he disliked the whole business and began to think +enviously of James Boothroyd, who was religious and a devil, but did +at least have his own way in his own house. To achieve that the first +thing necessary was to have a house, and he half resolved to return to +his old profession--not considering himself to be fit for any other. +But he never rounded the resolution and he never broached his thoughts +to Matilda. He told himself that by Easter it would be all over and +they would go away, perhaps abroad, see the world. . . . Then he +realized that apart from Matilda he had no desires whatever, that his +affections were entirely engaged in her, and that, further, he was +spasmodically whirled off his feet in a desire that was altogether +independent of his will, obedient only to some profound logic either +of his own character or of the world outside him, to mark and consider +the ways of men. Rather painfully he was aware of being detached from +himself, and sometimes in the street, in a tram, he would pull himself +up with a start and say to himself: + +"I don't seem to be caring what happens to me. I seem to be altogether +indifferent to whatever I am doing, to have no sort of purpose, while +all these men and women round me are moving on with very definite +aims." + +Deliberately he made the acquaintance of men teaching in the little +university of the place and in its grammar school. He saw himself in +them. He could talk their language, but whereas to them their terms +were precise and important, to him they were nothing but jargon. . . . +No: into that squirrel cage he would not go again. They seemed happy +enough and pleased with themselves, but, whereas he could enter fully +into their minds, the new regions that he had conquered for himself +were closed to them. They complained, as he had done in Thrigsby, of +the materialism of their city, and in moments of enthusiasm talked of +the great things they could do for the younger generation, the future +citizens of the Empire, if only some of the oozing wealth of the +manufacturers could be diverted to their uses. But the city had its +own life, and they were no more a part of it than he had been of +Thrigsby. . . . When they had cured him of his discontent he was done +with them, and took refuge in books. He bought in a great store of +them and fumbled about in them for the threads of philosophy he was +seeking. He procured stimulation, but very little satisfaction, and he +was driven to the streets and the public places. Very secret was the +life of that city. Its trades were innumerable. Everything was +manufactured in it from steel to custard powder. It owed its existence +to the neighboring coalfields, its organization to a single family of +bankers whose interests were everywhere, in almost every trade, in the +land, in the houses, in the factories, in the supply of water and +lighting, and everywhere their interests were trebly safeguarded. The +city lived only for the creation of wealth and by it. With the +distribution of wealth and the uses it was put to it had no concern; +nor had its citizens time to consider them. Their whole energies were +absorbed in keeping their place in the markets of the world, and they +were too exhausted for real pleasure or domestic happiness. When Old +Mole considered the life of that city by and large, James Boothroyd +appeared to him as its perfect type. And yet he retained his optimism, +telling himself that all this furious energy was going to the forging +of the city of the future. + +"The bees," he said, "build the combs in their hives, the ants the +galleries in their hills, and men their sprawling cities, and to +everything under the sun there is a purpose. Let me not make the +mistake of judging the whole--which I cannot see--by the part." + +He had reached this amiable conclusion when Carlton Timmis entered his +room, sat down by the table and laid a bulky quarto envelope on it. He +was agitated, declined the proffered cigar, and broke at once into the +following remarkable oration: + +"Mr. Mole, you are one of the few men I have ever met who can do +nothing with dignity and without degradation. Therefore I have come to +you in my distress to make a somewhat remarkable request. And it is +due to you and to myself to make some explanation." + +He seemed so much in earnest, almost hysterical, and his great eyes +were blazing with such a fervor that Old Mole could not but listen. + +"My real name," said Timmis, "is Cuthbert Jones. My father is a small +shopkeeper in Leicestershire. He is a man, so far as I can discover, +devoid of feeling, but with a taste for literature and--God knows why, +at this time of day!--the philosophy of the Edinburgh school. He had a +cruel sense of humor and he made my mother very unhappy. He encouraged +me to read, to write, to think, to be pleased with my own thoughts. It +amused him, I fancy, to see me blown out with my own conceit, so that +he might have the pleasure of pricking my bladder-head and then +distending it again. For weeks together I would have his praise, and +then nothing but the most bitter gibes. I had either to cling to my +conceit to keep my head above water or sink into the depths of misery +and self-distrust. I devoured the lives of illustrious men and +attributed their fame to those qualities in them which I was able to +find in myself. I sought solitude, avoided companions of my own age, +and I was always desperately, wretchedly in love with some one or +other. I really believed myself to be a genius, or rather I used to +count over my symptoms and decide one day that I was, the next that I +was not. All this roused my father to such a malicious delight, and +with his teasing he made my life so intolerable that at last I could +stand it no longer, and I ran away. I walked to London, and then, +after applying in vain for work at the newspaper offices, I obtained a +situation in a theater as a call boy. I could not possibly live on +what I earned, and should have been in a bad way but for a kind +creature, a dresser, who lodged me in her house, took my wages in +return, and allowed me pocket money and money for my clothes. I wrote +to my father and received an extraordinary letter in which he +applauded my action and expressed his belief that nothing could +prevent a man of genius from coming to the top. 'It is as impossible +to keep a bad man up as to keep a good man down,' he said. I have +neither gone down nor up, Mr. Mole. As I have grown older I have +slipped into one precarious employment after another. No one pays any +attention to me, no one, except yourself, has ever troubled to +discover my thoughts on any subject, and often, when I have been +inclined to think myself the most miserable of men, I have found +correction in the memory of my boyish belief in my genius. . . . Such +changes of fortune as I have had have come to me through women. All +the kindness I ever received came through them, and every disaster +that has crushed me has arisen through my inability to stop myself +from falling in love with them. . . . You will understand what I mean +when I talk of the life of the mind. That life has always been with +me, and it has perhaps been my only real life. I have had great +adventures in it. I have aimed and wrestled and struggled toward a +goal that has many times seemed to me immediately attainable." + +He paused and brushed back his hair, and his eyes set into an +expression of extraordinary wistful longing and into his voice came a +sweetness most musical and moving. + +"There is, I believe, a condition within the reach of all men wherein +the selfish self is shed, the barrier broken down between a man and +his vision and purpose, so that his whole force can be concentrated +upon his object and his every deed and every thought becomes an act of +love. I have many a time come within reach of this condition, but +always just when I seemed most sure I have toppled over head and ears +in love with some woman, whom in a very short space of time I despised +and detested. When I met you I was uplifted and exalted and come +nearer to my goal than ever before, and now, more fatuously, more +idiotically than ever, I am in love. . . . I give it up. I am forced +to the conclusion that I am one of those unhappy beings who are +condemned to live between one state and the other, to be neither a +slave bent on eating, drinking, sleeping and the grosser pleasures, +nor a free man satisfying his every lust and every desire, by the way, +only the more sturdily and mightily to go marching on with the great +army of friends, lovers and comrades. . . . In short, Mr. Mole, I am +done for." + +"Well, well." Old Mole was aware of the entire inadequacy of this +either as comment or as consolation, but he was baffled by the +self-absorption which had gone to the making of this elaborate +analysis: and yet he had been stirred by the Demon King's vision of +the possibilities of human nature and roused by the words "every deed +and every thought an act of love." There was a platonic golden +idealism about it that lifted him back into his own youth, his own +always comfortable dreams, and, contrasting himself with Timmis (or +Jones), he saw how immune his early years had been from suffering. +Timmis might be done for, but if anyone was to blame it was his +malicious, erratic father. Then, with his mind taking a wide sweep, he +saw that there could be no question of blame or of attaching it, since +that father had also had a father who perhaps suffered from something +worse than Edinburgh philosophy. There could be no question of blame. +The world was so constructed that Timmis (or Jones) was bound to be +out of luck and to fail, just as it seemed to be in the order of +creation that he himself, H. J. Beenham, should be comfortable and +beyond the reach of the cares most common to mankind. There were fat +kine and lean kine, and, come what may, the lean kine would still +light upon the meager pasture. + +There be fat men and lean men, but men have this advantage over kine, +that they can understand and help each other. + +So Old Mole nursed his knee and told himself that Timmis was obviously +sincere in believing himself to be done for, and therefore for all +practical purposes he was done for, and there was no other useful +course to pursue than to listen to what further he might have to say, +and then, from his point of view, to consider the position and see if +there were not something he had overlooked in his excited despair. + +Timmis concluded his tale, and nothing had escaped him. His own +opinion of his moral condition must be accepted: as to his material +state, that could not possibly be worse. He had loved, wooed and won a +lady in the chorus upon whom the manager had cast a favorable eye and +the light of his patronage. There had been a scene, an altercation, +almost blows. Timmis's engagement ceased on the spot, and, as he said, +he now understood why actors put up with so much insult, insolence and +browbeating on the part of their managers. He had three shillings in +his pocket with which to pay his rent and face the world, and he was +filled with disgust of women, of the theater, of himself, and would +Mr. Mole be so kind as to lend him fifty pounds with which to make a +new start in a new country; he believed that in fresh surroundings, +thousands of miles away from any philosophy or poetry, or so-called +art, he could descend to a lower level of existence, and perhaps, +without the intervention of another disastrous love affair, redeem his +false start. He was not, he said, asking for something for nothing--no +man born and bred in England could ever bring himself to ask for or to +expect that!--he was prepared to give security of a sort which only a +man of intelligence and knowledge of affairs would accept. He had +brought a play with him in typescript. It was called "Lossie Loses." +In his time Timmis had written many plays, and they were all worthless +except this one. Most of them were good in intention but bad in +performance: he had burned them. This was bad in intention but good in +execution, and one of these days it would become a considerable +property. An agent in London had a copy, he said, and he would write +to this man and tell him that he had transferred all his rights to Mr. +Mole. He then produced a pompous little agreement assigning his +property and stating the consideration, wrote his name on it with a +large flourishing hand, and passed it over with the play to his friend +in need. After a moment's hesitation, during which he squashed his +desire to improve the occasion with a few general remarks, Old Mole +thought of the unlucky creature's three shillings and of the +deliverance that fifty pounds would be to him, and at once produced +his checkbook and wrote out a check. + +No man has yet discovered the art of taking a check gracefully. Timmis +shuffled it into his pocket, hemmed and ha'd for a few seconds, and +then bolted. + +Old Mole took up his play and began to read it. It did not interest +him, but he could not put it down. There was not a true emotion in it, +not a reasonable man or woman, but it was full of surprising tricks +and turns and quiddities, was perpetually slopping over from sugary +tenderness to shy laughter, and all the false emotions in it were +introduced so irrelevantly as never to be thoroughly cloying, and +indeed sometimes to give almost that sensation of delighted surprise +which comes truly only from the purest and happiest art. Not until it +was some moments out of his hands did Old Mole recognize the thing in +all its horrid spuriousness. Then he flung it from him, scowled at it, +fumed over it, and finally put it away and resolved to think no more +about it or of Carlton Timmis. + +That night when he met Matilda she was in high delight. The "second +girl" was ill; her understudy had been called away to the sick bed of +her only surviving aunt, and she had been chosen to play the part at a +matinée to see if she could do it. Her name would not be on the +program, but she would have ten lines to speak and one verse in a +quartet to sing, and a dance with the third comedian. Wasn't it +splendid? And couldn't they go and have supper at the new hotel just +to celebrate it? All the girls were talking about the hotel, and she +had never been to a real restaurant. + +It is hard not to feel generous when you have given away fifty pounds, +and Old Mole yielded. They had oysters and grilled kidneys, and they +drank champagne. Matilda had never tasted it before and she made a +little ceremony of it. It was so pretty (she said), such a lovely +color, and the bubbles were so funnily busy. He drank too much of it +and became amorous. Matilda was wonderfully pretty and amusing in her +excitement, and he could not take his eyes off her. + +"Tell me," he said, "do you really like this life?" + +"I love it. It's something like what I've always wanted to be. In some +ways it's better and some ways it's worse." + +"I don't see much of you now." + +"You like me all the better when you do see me." + +"We're not getting on much with your education." + +"Education be blowed." + +He was distressed and wished she had not said "be blowed." She saw his +discomfort and leaned forward and patted his hand. + +"Don't you fret, my dear. There's a good time coming." + +But unaccountably he was depressed. He was feeling sorry he had +brought her. There was a vulgarity, a sensuousness in the glitter and +gilt of the restaurant that sorted ill with what in his heart he felt +and was proud to feel for Matilda. He was sorry that she liked it, but +saw, too, that she could not help but be pleased since to her it was +all novel and dazzling. Hardest of all to bear, he was forced to admit +that he had no immediate alternative to lay before her. + +They drove home in a taxi, and she caressed him and soothed him and +told him he was the dearest, kindest, gentlest and most considering +husband any girl could have the luck to find. And once again, +ominously, he was struck by the strangeness of the word husband on her +lips. For a short while he was haunted by the figure of Timmis, with +his disgust of women even while he loved one of them. But he shook +away from that and told himself that if there was something lacking in +his relations with his wife the fault must lie with him, for he at +least had a certain scale of spiritual values, while she had none, +nor, from her upbringing, could she have had the opportunity of +discovering any in herself or her relations with those about her. + +She said he thought too much, but without thought, without passionate +endeavor, how could marriage fail to sink into brutish habit? Was that +too fastidious? Since there is an animal element in human life, were +it not as well to deal with it frankly and healthily on an animal +level? That offended his logic. There could be no element in life that +was not harmonious with every other element. The gross indulgence of +sex had always been offensive to him, a stupid protraction of the +heated imprisonment of adolescence, a calamity that must result in +arrested development. Marriage had forced him to think about these +things, and he was determined, so far as in him lay, to think about +them clearly, without dragging in literature, or sentiment, or +prejudice. In marriage, admittedly, lay the highest spiritual +relationship known, or ever to be known, to human beings. In marriage, +obviously, the body had its share. If the body's share were regarded +as separate from the rest, as an unfortunate but not unpleasant +necessity, then, being separate, how could it be anything but a clog +upon the full and true union? It was impossible for him to think of +sex as a clot in the otherwise free mating of souls, and, indeed, his +experience assured him that the exercise of his sex gave him not only +the most wonderful deliverance from physical obsessions, but also from +the uneasy and unprofitable brooding of the mind. + +But he was uneasy and anxious in his marriage, came to believe that it +was because his wife was content with so little when he desired to +give her so much more, and blamed himself for his apparent inability +to set forth his gift of emotion and human fellowship in terms that +she could understand. + + + +He went to see her play her part in the pantomime and suffered agonies +of nervousness for her. She delivered her ten lines without mishap, +sang her part in the quartet inaudibly, and her dance in the duet was +applauded so loudly that at last the conductor tapped his little desk, +and Matilda came tripping forth again with her comedian, bowed, kissed +her hand, and went through the movements--absurd, banal, pointless as +they were--with a shy grace and a breathless, childish pleasure that +were charming. He was swept into the collective pleasure of the +audience and clapped his hands with them and felt that the Matilda +there on the stage was not his Matilda, but a creature belonging to +another world, of whose existence he was aware, while nothing in his +world could have any influence or any bearing on her whatsoever. . . . +He would meet her at the stagedoor, and she would be his Matilda, +while the other remained behind, as it were, inanimate in her charmed +existence. Both were infused with life from the same source of life; +the essence passed from one to the other, and therefore there was not +one Matilda but three Matildas. + +He lost himself in this mystic conception and was timely rescued by +her meeting him as he passed through the vestibule. She took his arm +and hugged it and asked him if he liked it. + +"Wasn't it good getting an encore? That dance has only been encored +six times before." + +He told her how nervous he had been. + +"I wasn't a bit nervous once I was on, but in the wings it was awful." + +She said she wanted to take him behind the scenes so that he could see +what a real theater was like. They passed through the stagedoor and +along narrow, dusty passages, up steep flights of stone stairs, she +chatting gaily in spite of the frequent notices enjoining silence, and +every now and then they were stopped and Matilda was embraced by male +and female alike, and all the women said how glad they were, and the +men said: "good egg" or "top hole." Suddenly out of the narrow, dusty +ways they came upon the stage, huge and eerie. There was only a faint +light, the curtain was up, and there were tiny women in the auditorium +dropping white cloths from the galleries and shrouding all the seats. +Never had Old Mole had such a sense of emptiness and desolation. A +man's voice came from far up above the stage, and it sounded like a +thin ghostly mocking. There was a creaking and a rasping, and a great +sheet of painted canvas descended, the wings were set in place, and a +flight of stairs was wheeled up and clamped: the scene was set for the +opening of the pantomime. Suddenly the lights were turned on. Matilda +began to hum the opening bars of the overture. Old Mole blinked. He +was nearly blinded. The colors in the scenery glowed in the light. He +had the most alarming sense of being cut off from his surroundings, of +being projected, thrust forward toward the mysterious, empty +auditorium with its shrouded seats and the little women bustling up +and down in it. Almost irresistibly he was impelled to shout to them, +to engage their attention, to make them look at him. His mind eased +and a thrill of importance ran through him: never had he seemed to +himself to bulk so large. He was almost frightened: the immense power +of the machinery, the lighted stage and the darkened auditorium +alarmed and weighed crushingly upon him. + +"It's like a vault," said Matilda, "with no one in front. But when +it's full, on a Saturday night, hundreds and hundreds of faces, it's +wonderful." + +To him it was not at all like a vault, but like an engine disconnected +from its power. The mind abhors a vacuum, and he was striving to fill +the emptiness all about him, thronging the auditorium with imaginary +people, and struggling to occupy the magic area of light in which he +stood. In vain: he was impotent. He felt trapped. + +"Let us go," he said. + +On the stairs they met the manager. + +"Hullo, Tilly," he said. "You're a good girl." + +"Thanks." + +Old Mole hated the young man, for he was common and loose in manner +and in no way worthy of the enchanted Matilda or of the marvelous +organism, the theater, in which she seemed to live so easily and +freely. + +His thoughts were much too confused for him to impart them to her, and +he was vastly relieved when they left the theater and she became his +Matilda. + +That night he read to her. He had been delighting in "Lucretius," and +he had marked passages, and he turned to that beginning: + +"Iam iam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor Optima. . . ." + +He translated for her: + +" 'Now no more shall a glad home and a true wife welcome thee, nor +darling children race to snatch thy first kisses and touch thy heart +with a sweet silent content; no more mayest thou be prosperous in thy +doings and a defence to thine own; alas and woe!' say they, 'one +disastrous day has taken all these prizes of thy life away from +thee'--but thereat they do not add this, 'and now no more does any +longing for these things assail thee.' This did their thought but +clearly see and their speech follow they would deliver themselves from +much burning of the heart and dread. 'Thou, indeed, as thou art sunk +in the sleep of death, wilt so be for the rest of the ages, severed +from all weariness and pain.' . . . + +"Yet again, were the nature of things to utter a voice and thus with +her own lips upbraid one of us, 'What ails thee, O mortal, that thou +fallest into such vain lamentation? Why weep and wail at death? For +has thy past life and overspent been sweet to thee, and not all the +good thereof, as though poured into a cracked pitcher, has run through +and perished without joy, why dost thou not retire like a banqueter +filled with life, and, calmly, O fool, take thy sleep? But if all thou +hast had is perished and spilled and thy life is hateful, why seekest +thou yet to add more which shall once again all perish and fall +joylessly away? Why not rather make an end of life and labor? For +there is nothing more that I can contrive and invent for thy delight; +all things are the same forever. Even were thy body not yet withered, +nor thy limbs weary and worn, yet all things remain the same, didst +thou live on through all the generations. Nay, even wert thou never +doomed to die'--what is our answer?" + +"Don't you believe in God?" asked Matilda. + +It came like a question from a child, and he had the adult's +difficulty in answering it, the doubt as to the interpretation that +will be put upon his reply. + +"I believe," he said slowly, "in the life everlasting, but my life has +a beginning and an end." + +"And you don't think you go to Heaven or Hell when you're--when you're +dead?" + +"Into the ground," he said. + +Matilda shivered, and she looked crushed and miserable. + +"Why did you read that to me?" she said at last. "I was so happy +before. . . . I've always had a feeling that you weren't like ordinary +people." + +And she seemed to wait for him to say something, but his mind harped +only on the words: "For there is nothing more that I can contrive and +invent for thy delight," and he said nothing. She rose wearily and +took her hat and coat and the musquash collar that had been her pride, +and left him. + +For hours he sat over the fire, brooding, flashing occasionally into +clear logical sequences of thought, but for the most part browsing and +drowsing, turning over in his mind women and marriage and the theater +and genius, the authentic voice of the nature of things, the spirit of +the universe that sweeps into a man's brain and heart and burns away +all the thoughts of his own small life and fills him with a music that +rings out and resounds and echoes and falls for the most part upon +deaf ears or upon ears filled only with the clatter of the marketplace +or the sweet whisperings of secret, treacherous desires. And he +thought of the engines in that city, day and night, ceaselessly +humming and throbbing, weaving stuffs and forging tools and weapons +for the clothing and feeding of the bodies of men: the terrifying +ingenuity of it all, the force and the skill, the ceaseless division +and subdivision of labor, the multiplication of processes, the +ever-increasing variety of possessions and outward shows and material +things. But through all the changes in the activities of men, behind +all their new combinations of forces "all things are the same forever +and ever. . . ." He remembered then that he had hurt Matilda, that she +had resented his not being "like ordinary people," resented, that is, +his acceptance of the unchanging order of things, his refusal to +confuse surface change with the mighty ebb and flow of life. It was, +he divined, that she had never reached up to any large idea and had +never conceived of any life, individual or general, outside her own. +To her, then, the life everlasting must mean _her_ life, and he +regretted having used that phrase. She was concerned, then, entirely +with her own existence--(and with his in so far as it overlapped +hers)--and life to her was either "fun" or something unthinkable. +. . . . It seemed to him that he was near understanding her, and he +loved her more than ever, and a rare warmth flooded his thoughts and +they took on a life of their own, were bodied forth, and in a sort of +ecstasy, thrilling and triumphant, he had the illusion of being lifted +out of himself, of soaring and roaming free and with a power +altogether new to him, a power whereof he was both creator and +creature, he saw out of his own circumscribed area of life into +another life that was no replica of this, but yet was of the same +order, smaller, neater, trimmer, concentrated, and distilled. There +was brilliant color in it and light and shade sharply distinct, and +everything in it--houses, trees, mountains, hills, clouds--was rounded +and precise: there was movement in it, but all ordered and purposeful. +The sun shone, and round the corner there was a selection of moons, +full, half, new, and crescent, and both sun and moon could be put away +so that there should be darkness. As for stars, there were as many as +he chose to sprinkle on the sky. . . . At first he could only gaze at +this world in wonder. It sailed before him in a series of the most +dignified evolutions, displaying all its treasures to him; mountains +bowed and clouds curtseyed, and Eastern cities came drifting into +view, and ships and islands; and there were palaces and the gardens of +philosophers, sea beaches whereon maidens sang and mermaids combed +their hair; and there were great staircases up and down which moved +stately personages in silence, so that it was clear there was some +great ceremony toward, but before he could discover the meaning of it +all the world moved on and displayed another aspect of its seemingly +endless variety. And he was sated with it and asked for it to stop, +and at last with a mighty effort he became more its creator than its +creature, and, as though he had just remembered the Open Sesame, it +stayed in its course. It stayed, and in a narrow, dark street, with +one flickering light in it, and the brilliant light of a great +boulevard at the end of it, he saw an old white-bearded man with a +pack on his back and a staff in his hand. And the old man knew that he +was there, and he beckoned to him to come into the street. So he went +and followed him, and without a word they turned through a little dark +gateway and across up a courtyard and up into a garret, and the old +man gave him a sack to sit on and lifted his packet from his back and +out of it built up a little open box, and hung a curtain before it. +Old Mole settled on his sack and opened his lips to speak to the old +man, but he had disappeared. + +The curtain rose. + + + + +III + +INTERLUDE + +_I may have lost my judgment and my wits, but I must confess I liked +that play. There was something in it._ + +THE SEAGULL + + + +III + +INTERLUDE + +_Go now, go into the land + Where the mind is free and the heart +Blooms, and the fairy band + Airily troops to the dusty mart; +And the chatter and money-changing + Die away. In fancy ranging, +Let all the inmost honey of the world + Sweeten thy faith, to see unfurl'd +Love's glory shown in every little part + Of life; and, seeing, understand._ + + +BY a roadside, at the end of a village, beneath the effigy of a god, +sat a lean, brown old man. He had no covering for his head and the +skin of the soles of his feet was thickened and scarred. In front of +him were two little boxes, and on his knees there lay open a great +book from which he was reading aloud in an unknown tongue. + +From the village there came a young man, richly clad and gay, attended +by two slaves. He saluted the effigy of the god and asked the old man +what he might be reading. The old man replied that it was the oldest +book in the world and the truest, and when he was questioned about the +boxes he said that one of them contained riches and the other power. +The young man looked into them and saw nothing. He laughed and spoke +to one of his slaves, saying the old and the poor must have their +fancies since there was nothing else for them, and, upon his orders, +the slave filled the boxes with rice, and at once there sprung up two +mighty trees. The slaves fled howling and the young man abased himself +before the effigy of the god and stole away on his knees, praying. The +old man raised his hands in thanksgiving for the shade of the trees, +lifted them out of the boxes, and once more arranged them before him. + +In the wood hard by arose the sound of high words and out upon the +road, brawling and storming, tumbled two youths, comely and tall and +strong. They stopped before the old man and appealed to him. + +"Our father," said he who first found breath, "is a poor man of this +village, and I am Peter and my brother is Simon. Two days ago, on a +journey, we saw the picture of the loveliest maiden in the world. We +do not know her name, but we are both determined to marry her, and +there is no other desire left in us. We have fought and wrestled and +swum for her, but can reach no conclusion. I will not yield and he +will not yield. Is all our life to be spent in wrangling?" + +The old man closed his book and replied: + +"The loveliest maiden in the world is Elizabeth, daughter of the +greatest of emperors. If you are the sons of poor men how can you ever +hope to lift eyes to her? Look now into these boxes and you shall be +raised to a height by which you shall see the Emperor's daughter and +not be hidden in the dust of her chariot." + +They looked into the boxes, and Simon saw in the one a piece of gold, +but Peter looked as well into the other, and in it he saw the face of +his beloved princess and had no thought of all else. Simon asked for +the first box and Peter for the second, and they received them and +went their ways, Simon to the village and Peter out into the world, +each gazing fascinated into his box. + +"To him who desireth little, little is given," said the old man. "And +to him who desireth much, much is given; but to neither according to +the letter of his desire." + +By the time he reached his village Simon had five gold pieces in his +pocket, and as soon as he took one piece from the box another came in +its place. He lent money to every one in the village at a large rate +of interest and was soon the master of it. There began to be talk of +him in the town ten leagues away and there came men to ask him for +money. He moved to the town and built himself a big house, and it was +not long before he began to look to the capital of the country. + +When he moved to the capital he had six houses in different parts of +the country, racehorses, picture galleries, mines, factories, +newspapers, and he headed the list of subscribers to the hospitals +patronized by the Royal Family. At first, in the great city, he was +diffident and shy among the illustrious personages with whom he +fraternized, but it was not long before he discovered that they were +just as susceptible to the pinch of money as the carpenter and the +priest and the bailiff and the fruiterer in his village. It was quite +easy to buy the control of these important people without their ever +having to face the unpleasant fact. More than one beautiful lady, +among them a duchess and a prima donna of surpassing loveliness, +endeavored to cajole him and to discover his secret. In vain; he could +not forget the Princess Elizabeth, and now ambition spurred him on. He +was wearying of the ease with which fame and position and the highest +society could be bought, and began to lust for power. With his native +peasant shrewdness he saw that society consisted of the People, of +persons of talent and cunning above them, of the descendants of +persons of talent and cunning left high and dry beyond the reach of +want, of ornamental families set at the head of the nations, of a few +ingenious minds who (so far as there was any direction) governed the +workings and interlockings of all the parts of the whole. They had +control of all the sources of money except his box, and he determined, +to relieve his boredom and also as a means of reaching his Princess, +to pit his power against theirs. + +He was never ashamed of his mother, and she came to stay with him once +a year for a week, but she never ceased to lament the loss of her +other son, Peter, from whom no word had come. One night she had a +dream, and she dreamed she saw Peter lying wounded in a thicket, and +she knew perfectly where it was and said she must go to find him. +Simon humored her and gave her money for a long voyage. She went back +to her own village and out upon the road until she came to the effigy +of the god, for this was the only god she knew, and she prayed to him. +The old man appeared before her and told her to go to her home, for +Peter would return to her before she died. At this she was comforted, +and went home to her husband and sent Simon back his money, because +she was afraid to keep so large a sum in the house. + +It was said in the capital that the land of the greatest of emperors +was the richest of all countries, but the people were the stupidest +and had no notion of its wealth. The financiers were continually +sending concessionaires and adventurers, but they came away +empty-handed. Simon had now paid his way into the royal circle, and +for defraying the debt on the royal stable had been ennobled. He +suggested to the King that he should send an embassy to invite the +greatest of emperors and his daughter to pay a visit to the capital to +see the wonders of their civilization. + +The embassy was sent, the invitation accepted, and the Emperor and the +Princess arrived and their photographs were in all the illustrated +papers. They did not like this, for in their own country only one +portrait of the Emperor was painted, and that was the life work of the +greatest artist of the time. The Princess was candor itself, and said +frankly what she liked and what she did not like. She liked very +little, and after she had been driven through the capital she sent for +the richest man in the country, and Simon was brought to her. He bowed +before her and trembled and told her that all his wealth was at her +service. So she told him to pull down all the ugly houses and the dark +streets and to make gardens and cottages and to give every man in them +a piece of gold. + +"They will only squander it," said Simon. + +"Let them," replied the Princess Elizabeth. "Surely even the most +miserable may have one moment of pleasure." + +"In your country are there no poor?" + +"There are no rich men. There are good men and bad men, and the good +are rewarded, and honored." + +As she ordered, so it was done, and the poor blessed the Princess +Elizabeth, but the financiers muttered among themselves, and they +arranged that one of their agents should go to the Emperor's country, +stir up sedition, and be arrested. Then they announced in their +newspapers international complications, said day after day that the +national honor was besmirched, and demanded redress. The Emperor and +the Princess Elizabeth hurriedly left the capital and returned to +their own country. Simon had declared his admiration for the Princess +and she had snubbed him. His newspapers added to the outcry, and he +ordered a poet to write a national song, which became very popular: + + + _We ain't a fighting nation, + But when we do, we do. + We've got the ships, we've got the cash, + We've got the soldiers, too._ + + _So look out there and mind your eye, + We're out to do, we're out to die, + For God and King and country._ + + +But in the Emperor's country all the songs were in praise of the +Princess Elizabeth, and when she heard that ships of war were on the +seas and huge vessels transporting soldiers, she consulted with the +Minister and gave orders for all weapons to be buried and for all +houses to be prepared to receive the guests and the great hall of the +palace to be made ready for a banquet. + +Her Minister was Peter, and she delighted in his wisdom and never +wearied of listening to the tale of his adventures, how in his quest +he had been cheated, and robbed, and beaten, and cast into prison, and +scourged, and bastinadoed, and incarcerated for a lunatic, and mocked +and despised, nearly drowned by a mountain torrent, all but crushed by +a huge boulder that came crashing down a hillside and carried away the +tree beneath which he was sleeping; and how all these afflictions did +but intensify his vision of that which he loved, so that the pain and +the terror of them fell away and he was left with the glorious +certainty of being near his goal. He did not tell her what that was +because it was very sweet to serve her, and he knew that she was proud +and had rejected the hands of the greatest and handsomest princes of +her father's dependencies. It was very pleasant for him to see her +emotion as he told his tale, and when she almost wept on the final +adventure, how, as he neared her father's city, he was set upon by a +band of peasants, who believed him to be a blasphemer and a wizard +because of his box, and left for dead, and how he awoke to find her +bending over him, then he could scarcely contain himself, and he would +hide his face and hasten from her presence. + +He had a little house in one of her private parks, and whenever she +was in any difficulty she came to consult him, for his sufferings had +made him sensible, and his devotion to a single idea gave him a +nobility which she found not in her other courtiers. + +It was he, then, who advised the cordial reception of the hostile +armies, for he had observed, in the numerous assaults of which he had +been the victim, that when he hit back he only incensed his adversary +and roused him to a madder pitch of cruelty. Also he had lived among +soldiers and knew them to be slaves of their bellies and no true +servants of any cause or idea. Therefore, he gave this counsel, and it +was followed, and the army was disbanded, and the citizens prepared +their houses and decorated the city against the coming of the army. +When they arrived, all the populace turned out to see them, and the +generals and captains were met by the chief men, the poets, and the +philosophers, and the scholars, and made welcome. There were feasting +and fireworks, and the harlots devoted themselves to the service of +the country, and by night a more drunken army was never seen. Their +guns and ammunition were thrown into the harbor, and next day they +were allowed to choose whether they would return to their own country +or stay and become citizens of this. Nine-tenths of the soldiers chose +to stay, many of them married and made honest women of the devoted +creatures who had been their pleasure, and thus the causes of virtue +and peace were served at once. The soldiers and their wives were +scattered up and down the country, work was found for them, and both +lost the rudeness and brutality induced by their former callings. + +The other tenth returned to their own country. Simon and the +financiers heard their galling story and told the people that a +glorious victory had been won and the nation's flag, after horrible +carnage, planted over yet another outpost of the Empire. There was +immense enthusiasm. Shiploads of Bibles were sent out, and a hundred +missionaries from the sixty-five different religious denominations. + +Peter's advice was sought, and he ordered a cellar to be prepared. The +Bibles were stored in this, and the missionaries were set to translate +them back into the original languages. They had got no further than +the twentieth chapter of Genesis when they declared their willingness +to be converted to the religion of the country; but there was no +professed religion, for, when the Princess had asked Peter what her +father could best do to serve his subjects and make his name blessed +among them, he had replied: + +"Let him abolish that which most engenders hypocrisy. Let him +establish the right of every man to be himself. Let there be good men +and bad men--since there must be good and bad--but no hypocrites. Let +him withdraw his support from that religion which maintains priests, +superstition and prejudice, and it will topple down. Faith is an act +of living, not a creed." + +At first the Emperor was afraid that if the State religion toppled he +would come crashing down, but he could deny his daughter nothing, and +he withdrew his support. In less than a year there was not a sign of +the professed religion, and no one noticed its absence. There was a +marked improvement in the behavior of the people and their good sense, +which made it possible for Peter's advice to be followed in dealing +with the foreign army. There was a notable decrease in crime, and +litigation became so infrequent that half the Courts of Justice were +closed, and the Attorneys and Advocates retired into the country or +adopted the profession of letters. With the money released by the +disestablished religion and the reduced Courts of Justice the Emperor +founded universities and schools and set apart money to endow +maternity and medicine, saying: "We have all money enough for our +pleasure, but it is when the shadow of a natural crisis comes over us +that we are in need." + +The Princess was loud in praise of her Minister, and the people and +the men of letters declared that the Emperor really was the greatest +ruler the world had ever seen. The Emperor swallowed it all as a good +monarch should, but Peter was overcome with tenderness for his +Princess, and, dreading lest he should betray his secret, he asked her +leave to depart for a while, and betook him to his own country and his +village to see his mother. + +She lay upon her deathbed and was very feeble. Simon had sent her some +calf's-foot jelly, but was too deeply engaged to come. Peter sat by +her bedside and told her about his Princess, and she patted his hand +and laughed merrily, and said: + +"You always were a bonny liar, laddie. Kiss me and take my blessing." + +Peter kissed her and took her blessing, and she died. + +He went to the roadside where he had come by his box and his vision, +but the old man was not there, the trees were cut down, and the effigy +of the god had rotted away and only the stump of it was left. He +planted an acorn in the place to mark the beginning of his joy in +life, but, knowing that the act of breathing is prayer enough, he +decided to go away and think no more about his good fortune or his bad +fortune, or the profit he had drawn from both. He sighed over the +thousands of miles that separated him from his Princess, and decided +each day to reduce them by at least thirty. + +The news of the war had only just reached that part of the country, +and he heard men talking of the glorious victory. At first he was +alarmed, but when he heard more he laughed and told the men the truth. +They took and ducked him in the horse pond for a spy and a traitor, +and when he crawled out they thrashed him with whips until they had +cut his clothes in ribbons and his flesh into weals. Then they put him +in the old stocks and left him there for a day and a night. He was +cold and hungry, and his bones ached, but when he found himself near +to counting his miseries and wishing himself dead, then he took out +his box and gazed at the image of the Princess and said to it: + +"Yet will I live to serve you. My life is nothing except it go to +sustain the wonder of yours." + +So he bore this calamity, as he had borne so many others, for her +sake. + +He had no other clothes, and when he was released he patched and +mended his suit and made his way, working and singing for his bread, +to the capital. There he inquired after his brother, and men looked +awed as they pronounced his name, and they all knew his house and the +names of his racehorses, but of the rest they could tell very little. +Peter went to the magnificent house, ragged as he was, and asked to +see his brother. Two lackeys and a butler opened the door, and they +lifted their noses at him. The butler said his lordship had brothers +and fathers and cousins coming to see him all day long, but Peter +persisted, and was told he might be his lordship's brother, but his +lordship was away on his lordship's yacht and no letters were +forwarded. + +Having no other interest in the capital, Peter set out on his return, +and when he came to the frontier of the fortunate land that had nursed +his Princess he was greeted with tidings that made his heart sink +within him. A handsome stranger told him that the Emperor had enclosed +the commons and great tracts of forest, and prospected the whole +country for coal and oil and metals and precious stones, and how the +poets and the philosophers and the scholars were cast down from their +high places, and, most lamentable of all, how the Princess was +imprisoned because she would not marry the new Emperor of Colombia, +who had arrived in his yacht with untold treasures, and how her +private parks were taken for menageries, racecourses and football +grounds. Peter buried his head in his arms and wept. + +With the stranger he journeyed toward the capital. Over great tracts +of the country there hung black clouds of smoke; new cities meanly +built, hastily and without design, floundered out over the hills and +meadows; pleasant streams were fouled; sometimes all the trees and the +grass and plants and hedgerow bushes were dead for miles; and in those +places the men and women were wan and listless and their poverty was +terrible to see: there were tall chimneys even in the most lovely +valleys, and in them were working pregnant women and little children, +and Peter asked the stranger whose need was satisfied by their work. + +"There are millions of men upon the earth," answered the stranger, +"and what you see is industrial development. It drives men to a frenzy +so that they know not what they do." + +And when they came to the capital they found the frenzy at its height. +It was no longer the peaceful and lovely city of Peter's happiness; +gone were the gardens and groves of myrtle and sweet-scented laurel; +gone the beautiful houses and the noble streets; tall buildings of a +bastard architecture, of no character or tradition, towered and made +darkness; huge hotels invited to luxury and lewdness; the Emperor's +ancient palace was gone, and its successor was like another hotel, and +in the avenue, where formerly the most gracious and distinguished of +the citizens used to make parade amid the admiration and applause of +their humble fellows, was now a throng of foreigners and vulgarians, +Jews, Levantines, Americans, all ostentation and display. . . . +Beneath the splendor and glitter linked a squalor and a sordid misery +that called aloud, and called in vain, for pity. And in the outskirts +were again the chimneys and the factories with the machines thudding +night and day, and round them filth and poverty and disease. . . . The +priests were back in their place to give consolation to the poor, who +were beyond consolation, and the Courts of Justice were housed in the +largest building in the world. At every street corner newspapers were +sold. + +In a new thoroughfare driven boldly through the most ancient part of +the city and flanked absurdly with common terraces of houses, they +found a thin crowd standing in expectation. The two Emperors were to +go by on their way to open the new Technical College and Public +Library. They passed swiftly in an open carriage, and a faint little +cheer went up, so different from the vast roar that used to greet the +Emperor and the Princess in all their public appearances. The Emperor +looked haggard and nervous, as though he were consumed with a fever, +but the Emperor of Colombia was fat as a successful spider. Peter +gasped when he saw him, for he was Simon. But he said nothing, and +they passed on. + +Saddest sight of all were the prosperous, well-fed women gazing with +dead eyes into the shop windows wherein were displayed fashionable +garments and trinkets, overwhelming in their quantity. + +Preferable to that was the avenue with the Jews and the Levantines and +the Americans. Thither with the stranger Peter returned, and he met a +poet, lean and disconsolate, who had been his intimate friend. They +three talked together, and the poet asked if there were no power to +cool the heat and reduce the frenzy in the blood of the inhabitants of +the country. Said the stranger: + +"There is a power which makes the earth a heaven; a power without +which the life of men is no more than the life of tadpoles squirming +in a stagnant pond." + +Peter said the power must be Love: the poet declared it was +Imagination. + +"Love in itself," said the stranger, "is a human, comfortable thing; +with the light of imagination, love is the living word of God in the +heart of man." + +And behold the stranger stood before them, an angel or genius clad all +in white with wings of silver that rose above him and beat to flight, +and away he soared to the sun. And the poet raised his head, and in a +loud voice declaimed musical words, and Peter sobbed in his joy, but +the Jews and the Levantines and the Americans had seen nothing, and +wearily they drove and walked along the avenue, scanning each other in +sly envy. + +Hard and bitter was the lot of the people, and their loyalty to the +Emperor was shaken. There were none now to bless his name, none to +call him the greatest of rulers, and only the priests praised him for +his wisdom in yielding to the tide of progress. There was little +happiness anywhere: the old superstitions and prejudices were restored +to currency, the tyranny of public opinion was enthroned again, and +books were written and plays performed to fortify its authority. + +Every day Simon sent the Princess richer presents and messengers to +crave the boon of an audience; but the Princess made no reply and +would never leave her apartments. Every day she used to stand at her +window and gaze in the direction where Peter's country lay and pray +for his return. One day her ape was with her, and he chattered +excitedly and hurled himself into the sycamore tree that grew beneath +her window. He returned in a moment with an empty box. She looked into +it and saw the image of Peter, as he was, ragged and unhappy, but with +adoration in his eyes. Then she could no longer dissemble, but, with +happy tears, she confessed to herself that she loved him. . . . Next +day she walked in her garden, and on the other side of the little +stream marking its boundary she saw Peter. They told their love, and +he swore to deliver her and not to see her again until he had done so. +With a brave heart she wished him Godspeed and threw him back his box, +in which she had concealed three kisses and a lock of her hair. + +For forty days and forty nights did Peter remain in solitude, +wrestling with himself and cogitating how he might best accomplish the +salvation of his adored Princess and the country that was dearer to +her even than himself. Step by step he followed Simon's career from +the time when he had chosen the box with the piece of gold to the +golden ruin he had brought upon thousands of men. Then he resolved to +send his own box to his brother; nay, himself to take it. He procured +gorgeous apparel, and immense chests, and camels and horses and +elephants, disguised a hundred and fifty of his friends in Eastern +apparel, and in this array presented himself at the Summer Palace, +where his brother was lodged. The doors were opened to him, and he was +passed on from lackey to lackey until he found himself in his +brother's presence. Simon greeted him cordially and asked for his +news, and how he had fared. + +"I have all my desires," said Peter. "I have fulfilled my destiny, and +I am come to give you my box. It has served me well." + +Greedily Simon snatched the box and opened it to see what treasure it +might contain. He saw no image of beauty therein, but only himself, +and the vision of his own soul crushed by the weight of his +possessions, and the pride died in him and all the savage lusts to +gratify which he had plotted and schemed and laid waste, and he +groaned: + +"All my power is but vanity and my hopes are in the dust. I am become +a monster and unworthy of the Princess Elizabeth." + +His words rang through the Palace, and his servants and those who had +called themselves his friends fell upon his possessions and divided +them and fled from the country. So deserted, he embraced Peter and +vowed that his brother's love was now a greater treasure to him than +all he had sought in his folly. They took counsel together and decided +that they had best persuade the greatest of emperors to grant his +people a Parliament so as to avert the imminent revolution. They did +that, but it was too late. Peter's procession through the streets to +the Summer Palace had alarmed the people with the dread of another +Imperial visitor as injurious as the last, and they had made +barricades in the streets, and sacked the great hotels, and dragged +the Emperor and all his counsellors and courtiers into the stews and +there slaughtered them. The Princess Elizabeth was released and +loyally acclaimed, and it was only on her intercession that Peter and +Simon were spared. She granted the people a Parliament, and the Courts +of Justice were taken for its House, and she opened and prorogued it +in the regal manner. + +After a year of mourning, during which the wisest of laws were framed +for the control of the mines and the factories and all the sources of +wealth, and land and water were made all men's and no man's property, +and the children were trained to believe in the revealed religion of +love as the living word of God in the heart of man, then the Princess +announced her marriage with her Minister and adviser, Peter, the son +of a poor man, and they lived happily with their people, and all men +loved and praised Peter, and Peter praised and worshiped the Princess +Elizabeth. They lived to a ripe old age, gathering blessings as they +went, and they had sixteen children. + +But Simon returned to his own country and his village, taking with him +the two boxes. Out of the one he never took another piece of gold, and +into the other he never looked until he was at peace with himself and +knew that he could gaze upon his soul undismayed. When he looked into +it he saw Peter and the Princess and their children, for all his love +was with them. Then he went out upon the road, and beneath an enormous +oak tree he found the lean, brown old man with his great book on his +knees, reading aloud. He laid the boxes at his feet and bowed to him +and said: + +"It is well." + +The old man bowed, and, turning a page in his book, he read: + +"It is well with the world. Man frets his peace in his little hour on +this earth, whereof he is and whereto he returns; but it is well with +the world." + + + +The curtain fell. The little theater disappeared, and all that he had +seen and heard in it buzzed in Old Mole's head, and the colors whirled +and a flood of emotion surged through his body, and the spell of it +all was upon him. He shifted uneasily upon the sack on which he was +seated, and there came a rent in it. Inside it was a corpse, and, when +he peered at it in horror, he knew that it was himself. + +The enchantment broke, and, shivering and very cold, he fell back into +the world of familiar things, the room in the lodging house, with the +fire out, and above his head, in the first floor front, lay Matilda, +sleeping. He went up to her, and she lay with her hair back over her +pillow and her hand under her cheek, and he said: + +"I will live to serve you. For my life is nothing except it go to +sustain the wonder of yours." + + + +Old Mole was much astonished at this effort of his imagination, and +later on wrote and rewrote it many times, but what he wrote was no +more than the pale echo of what he had heard, the faded copy of what +he had seen. When he came to analyze and diagnose his condition he +concluded that the vivid impressions produced on his unexercised +receptive mind had induced a kind of self-hypnotism in which he had +been delivered up to the power of dreams subject peculiarly to the +direction of his logical faculty. He could not remember having eaten +anything that would account for it. + + + + +IV + +TOYS + +_Worte! Worte! Keine Thaten! +Niemals Fleisch, geliebte Puppe, +Immer Geist und keinen Braten, +Keine Knödel in der Suppe._ + +ROMANCERO + + +IV + +TOYS + +WHEN the pantomime came to an end (as it did before a packed house, +that cheered and cheered again and insisted on speeches from the +comedians and the principal boy and the principal girl, and went on +cheering regardless of last trains and trams and closing time) Matilda +was told that, if she liked and if she had nothing better to do, she +could return again next year. She declared her pleasure at the +prospect, but inwardly determined to have something a great deal +better to do. She had drawn blood from the public and was thirsting +for more of it. Her condition was one with which Old Mole was destined +to become familiar, but now he was distressed by her excitement, +insisted that she was tired (she looked it), and decided on a holiday. +She would only consent on condition that he allowed her to take +singing lessons and would pay for them. Still harping on economy--for +she could not get the extent and fertility of his means into her +head--she pitched on Blackpool because she had a sort of cousin there +who kept lodgings and would board them cheap. He tried to argue with +her, and suggested London or Paris. But London had become to her the +heaven to which all good "professionals" go, and Paris was very little +this side of Hell for wickedness, and her three months in the theater +had had the curious result of making her set great store by her estate +as a married woman. To Blackpool they went and were withered by the +March winds and half starved by Matilda's cousin, who despised them +when she learned that they were play actors. They were miserable, and +for misery no worse setting could be found than an empty pleasure +city. They frequented the theater, and very quickly Matilda made +friends with its permanent officials and arranged for her singing +lessons with the conductor of the orchestra, who was also organist of +a church and eked out a meager living with instruction on the violin, +'cello, piano, organ, flute, trombone, tympani, voice production and +singing--(all this was set forth on his card, which he left on Old +Mole by way of assuring himself that all was as it should be and he +would be paid for his trouble). Matilda had four lessons a week, and +she practiced most industriously. "It was not," said her instructor, +"as though she were training for op'ra, but just to get the voice +clear and refine it. . . ." He was very genteel, was Mr. Edwin Watts, +and he did more for her pronunciation in a week than Old Mole had been +able to accomplish in a year and more. His gentility discovered the +gentleman in his pupil's husband, and he invited them to his house, +and gave them tickets for concerts and the Tower and a series of organ +recitals he was giving in his church. He was a real musician, but he +was alone in his music, for he had an invalid wife who looked down on +his profession and would admit none of his friends to the house, which +she filled with suites of furniture, china knickknacks, lace curtains +and pink ribbons. The little man lived in perpetual distrust of +himself, admired his wife because he loved her, and submitted to her +taste, regarding his own as a sort of unregenerate longing. Neither +Old Mole nor Matilda were musical, but, when his wife was out to tea +with the wife of the bank manager or the chemist, Watts would invite +them to his parlor and play the piano--Bach, Beethoven, Chopin--until +they could take in no more and his music was just a noise to them. But +there was no exhausting his capacity or his energy, and when they were +thoroughly worn out he used to play "little things of his own." He was +very religious and full of cranks, a great reader of the +advertisements in the newspapers, and there was no patent medicine, +hair restorer, magnetic belt, uric acid antidote that he had not +tried. He was proud of it, and used to say: + +"I've tried 'em all except the bust preservers." + +It was precisely here that he and Old Mole found common ground. With +his new mental activity Old Mole had become increasingly sensitive to +any sluggishness in his internal organs and began to resent his +tendency to fleshiness. He and Mr. Watts had immense discussions, and +the musician produced remedies for every ailment and symptom. + +Matilda said they were disgusting, but Old Mole stuck to it, smoked +less, ate less, took long walks in the morning, and attained a +ruddiness of complexion, a geniality of manner, a sense of wellbeing +that helped him, with surprising suddenness, to begin to enjoy his +life, to delight in its little pleasures, and to laugh at its small +mischances and irritations. With a chuckling glee he would watch +Matilda in her goings out and her comings in, and he preferred even +her assiduous practicing to her absence. He was amazed at the +swiftness with which, on the backward movement of time, his past life +was borne away from him, with his anxieties, his unrest, his +bewilderment, his repugnance in the face of new things and new people. +He found that he was no longer shy with other men, nor did he force +them to shyness. He lost much of his desire to criticize and came by a +warm tolerance, which saved him from being conscious of too many +things at once and left him free to exist or to live, as the case +might be. He felt ready for anything. + +When, therefore, Matilda announced that Mr. Watts had procured her an +engagement with a No. 2 Northern Musical Comedy Company, touring, "The +Cinema Girl" and "The Gay Princess," he packed up his traps, told +himself that he would see more of this astonishing England, and went +with her. She had two small parts and was successful in them. And now, +when she was in the theater, he no longer skulked in their lodgings +nor divided her existence into two portions--his and the theater's, +but went among the company, joined in their fare and jokes and +calamities, played golf with the principal comedian and the manager, +and saw things with their eyes. This was easy, because they saw very +little. They liked and respected him, and soon discovered that he had +money. Matilda's lot was made comfortable and her parts were enlarged. +Neither she nor her husband attributed this to anything but her +talent, and it made them very happy. Her name was on the program, and +they cut out all the flattering references to her in the newspapers +and pasted them into a book, and it were hard to tell which read them +the oftener, he or she. He felt ready for everything, expanded like a +well-tended plant; but with his unrest had gone much of his sympathy +and the tug and tear of his heart on the sight of misery. He watched +men now as they might be dolls, pranked up and tottering, flopping +through their daily employments, staggeringly gesticulating through +anger and love, herding together for pleasure and gain, and when both +were won (or avoided), lurching into their own separate little houses. +In this mood it pleased him to be with the dolls of the theater, +because they were gayer than the rest, farded, painted, peacocking +through their days. He caught something of their swagger, and, looking +at the world through their eyes, saw it as separate from himself, full +of dull puppets, bound to one place, caught in a mesh of streets, +while from week to week he moved on. The sense of liberty, of having +two legs where other men were shackled, was potent enough to carry him +through the traveling on Sundays, often all day long, with dreary +waits at empty, shuttered stations, and blinded him to the small +miseries, the mean scandals, the jealousies, rivalries and wounded +sensibilities which occupied the rest of the company. . . . There was +one woman--she was perhaps forty-five--who sat opposite to him on +three consecutive Sundays. She played, in both pieces, the inevitable +dowager to chaperone the heroine; she was always knitting, and, with +brows furrowed, she stared fixedly in front of her; her lips were +always moving, and every now and then she would nod her head +vigorously, or she would stop and stare desperately, and put her hands +to her lips and her heart would leap to her mouth. At first Old Mole +thought she was counting the stitches; but once, in the train, she +laid aside her knitting and produced a roll of cloth and cut out a +pair of trousers. Her lips went more furiously than ever, and suddenly +her eyes stared and she held out her hand with the scissors as though +to ward off some danger. Old Mole leaned across and spoke to her, but +she was so taken up with her own thoughts that she replied: + +"Yes, it's better weather, isn't it?" jerked out a watery smile and +withdrew into herself. When Old Mole asked Matilda why the woman +counted her stitches even when she was not knitting, and why, +apparently, she dropped so many stitches when she was, Matilda told +him that the woman had lost her voice and her figure and could make +very little money, and had a husband who was a comedian, the funniest +fellow in the world off the stage, but when he was "on" all his humor +leaked away, and though he worked very hard no one laughed at him, and +he, too, made very little money. They had six children, and all the +time in the train the woman was making calculations. She often +borrowed money, but that only added to her perplexity, because she +could not bear not to pay it back. + +This story almost moved Old Mole, but his mood was too strong for him, +and the woman only came forward to the foreground of the puppet show, +a sort of link between the free players, the colored, brilliant dolls, +and the drab mannikins who lived imprisoned in the background. + +His was a very pleasant mood to drift in and lounge and taste the +soothing savor of irony, which dulls sharp edges and tempers the +emphasis of optimism or pessimism. It seems to deliver the soul from +its desire for relief and sops its hunger with a comfortable pity. But +it is a lie. Old Mole knew it not for what it was and hugged it to +himself, and called it wisdom, and he began to write a satire on +education as he had known it in Thrigsby. He reveled in the physical +labor of writing, in the company of his ideas as they took shape in +the furnace of concentration, and what he had intended to be a short +pamphlet grew into an elaborate account of his twenty-five years of +respectable and respected service, showing the slow submergence of the +human being into the machine evolved for the creation of other +machines. . . . He was weeks and months over it. The tour did not come +to an end as had been anticipated, but was continued through the +holiday months at the seaside resorts. They returned to Blackpool in +August, and then he finished his work and read it to Edwin Watts. The +musician had an enormous reverence for the printed word, and had never +met an author before. His emotionalism warmed up and colored the +dryness and bitterness of Old Mole's tale, and he saw in it only a +picture of suppression and starved imagination like his own. He +applauded, and Old Mole was proud of his firstborn and determined to +publish it. In his early days he had revised and prepared a book of +Examination Papers in Latin accidence for a series, and to the +publisher he sent his "Syntax and Sympathy." It had really moved Edwin +Watts, and he composed in its honor a sonata in B flat, which he +dedicated "To the mute, inglorious Miltons of Lancashire." It was +played on the pier by a municipal band, but did not immediately +produce any ebullition of genius. + +When Old Mole told Matilda that he had written a book she asked: + +"Is it a story?" + +"A sort of story." + +"Has it a happy ending? I can't see why people write stories that make +you miserable." + +"It's a wonderful book," said Edwin Watts. + +And Old Mole said: + +"I flatter myself there are worse books written." + +When Watts had gone Matilda said: + +"If it's not a nice book I couldn't bear it." + +"What do you mean--you couldn't bear it?" + +"If it's like that Lucretius you're so fond of I'd be ashamed." + +In the intoxication that still endured from the fumes of writing he +had been thinking that the book was not incomparable with "De Rerum +Natura," something between that and the Satires of Juvenal. + + + +In a few weeks his manuscript returned with a polite letter from the +publisher declining it, desiring to see more of Mr. Beenham's work, +and enclosing his reader's report. It was short: + +" 'Syntax and Sympathy' is satire without passion or any basis of love +for humanity. There is nothing more damnable. The book is clever +enough. It would be beastly in French--there is a plentiful crop of +them in Paris; in England, thank God, with our public's loathing of +cleverness, it is impossible." + +The author burned letter and report, and at night, when Matilda was at +the theater, buried the manuscript in the sands. + + + +If there be any man who, awaking from a moral crisis, finds himself +withered by the fever of it and racked with doubt as to his power to +go boldly and warmly among his fellowmen without being battered and +bewildered into pride or priggishness or cold egoism or thin-blooded +humanitarianism, let him go to Blackpool in holiday time. There he +will find hundreds of thousands of men, women and children; he will +hear them, see them, smell them, be jostled and chaffed by them. He +will find them in and on the water, on the sands, in the streets, in +the many public places, shows and booths, in the vast ballrooms, +straggling and stravading, smoking, drinking, laughing, guffawing, +cracking coarse jokes, singing bawdy and patriotic songs with equal +gusto, making music with mouth-organs, concertinas, cornets; young men +and maidens kissing and squeezing unashamed, and at night stealing out +to the lonely sands; old men and women gurgling over beer and tobacco, +yarning over the troubles that came of just such lovemaking in their +young days; and all hot and perspiring; wearing out their bodies, for +once in a way, in pleasure, gross pleasure with no savor to it nor +lasting quality, but coarse as the food they eat, as the beds they lie +on, as the clothes they wear; forgetting that their bodies are, day +in, day out, bent in labor, forgetting the pinch and penury of their +lives at home, forgetting that their bodies have any other than their +brutish functions of eating, drinking, sleeping, excretion and +fornication. . . . Old Mole watched it all, and, true to his ironical +mood, he saw the mass in little, swarming like ants; in the early +morning of the great day these creatures were belched forth from the +black internal regions of the country, out upon the seashore; there +they sprawled and struggled and made a great clatter and din, until at +the end of the day they were sucked back again. Intellectually it +interested him. It was a pageant of energy unharnessed; but it was all +loose, unshaped, overdone, repeating itself again and again, so that +at last it destroyed any feeling he might have had for it. He saw it +through to the end, to the last excursion train going off, crammed in +every compartment, with tired voices singing, often quite beautifully, +in harmony. + +Matilda had refused to go out with him. She came home very late from +the theater, and said she had been helping the knitting woman cut out +some clothes. He asked her if she had ever seen the crowds in the +pleasure city. She looked away from him, and with a sudden, almost +imperceptible, gesture of pain replied: + +"Once." + +He knew when that was, and with a tearing agony the old jealousy +rushed in upon him and with a brutality that horrified him, that was +whipped out of him, to the ruin of his self-control, he ground out: + +"Yes. I know when that was." + +Her hand went tugging up to her breast and she said with passionate +resentment: + +"You ought never to say a thing like that to me." + +His blood boiled into a fury and he turned on her, but she was gone. +He wrestled with himself, toiled and labored to regain his will, the +mastery of his thoughts and his feelings. The jealousy died away, but +no other emotion came to take its place. He regained his will, saw +clearly again, but was more possessed by his irony than before. He was +no longer its master, no longer drifting comfortably, but its slave, +whirled hither and thither at its caprice--and it was like a hot gusty +wind blowing in him before a storm. All the color of the world was +heavy and metallic, but it was painted color, a painted world. He was +detached from himself, from Matilda, and he and she passed into the +puppet show in the miserable liberty of the gaily painted dolls: free +only in being out of the crowd, sharing none of the crowd's energy, +having no part in any solidarity. + +He made himself a bed on the hard horsehair sofa in their room and lay +hour by hour staring at the window panes, listening to the distant +thud and thunder of the sea, watching for the light to come to make +plain the window and show up the colors of the painted world. + +In the morning they avoided each other, and she spent the day with the +knitting woman, he with Edwin Watts, and, when, at night, she returned +from the theater, he was asleep. It was the first time they had +strangled a day, and it lay cold and dark between them. He admitted +perfectly that he was at fault, but to say that he was sorry was a +mockery and an untruth. He was not sorry, for he felt nothing. + +They bore the burden of their sullen acquiescence in silence into the +third day, and then she said: + +"If you want me to go, I'll go." + +"No! No! I'll go." + +Silence had been torture, but speech was racking. They were at the +mercy of words, and there was an awful finality about the word _go_ +which neither desired and yet neither could qualify. . . . Plainly she +had been weeping, but that exasperated him. She, at any rate, had +found an outlet, and he had discovered none. And all the time he was +haunted by the futility, the childishness of it all. + +"Where will you go?" she asked. + +"Does it matter?" + +"I suppose not. But some one must look after you." + +He muttered unintelligibly. + +Was he--was he coming back? Of course he was. He would let her know. + +He went to Paris and stayed in his old hotel in the Rue Daunou. The +exhilaration of the journey, the spirit of amusement that is in the +air of the city of light, buoyed him up for a couple of days. He dined +skillfully and procured the glow of satisfaction of a bottle of fine +wine, sought crowds and the curious company of the boulevards, but as +soon as he was alone again his inflation collapsed and he took pen, +paper and thick paintlike ink and wrote his first letter to her. He +began "my love," crossed that out and substituted "my dearest," tore +up the sheet of paper and began "my dear." He pondered this for a long +time and wrote his initials and circles and squares on the paper, as +it dawned on him that for the first time for nearly thirty years--well +over twenty, at any rate--he was writing a love letter, that it had to +be written, and that the last series upon which he had embarked was no +sort of model for this. He chewed the ends and ragged threads of folly +of his twenties and was astonished at the small amount of truth and +genuine affection he could find in them, wondered, too, what had +become of the waters of the once so easily tapped spring of ardor and +affection. It seemed to him that he could mark the very moment of its +subterranean plunge. It had been, had it not, when he had made his +fruitless effort to escape from Thrigsby, when he had applied--in +vain--for the Australian professorship. Then he had shut and locked +the door upon himself, and he remembered clearly the day, at the +beginning of term, when he had, with glowing excitement and a sort of +tragical humor, saluted his Form Room as his lasting habitation. . . . +Once more he scratched H. J. B. on the paper before him, but saw it +not, for clearly in his mind was the vision of Matilda, lying in her +bed with her hair thrown back over her pillow and her hand beneath her +cheek, and the whiteness of her throat and the slenderness of her +arms, the scent of her hair. . . . His heart was full again. He took +another sheet of paper, and, with no picking of phrases, he wrote: + +"My little one. Are there still the marks of your tears on your +cheeks? There are still the bruises of my own obstinacy upon my barren +old heart. I am here, miles away from you, in another country, but I +am more with you than I have ever been. What a burden I must have been +upon you! It must have been that I must selfishly have felt that. One +would suffer more from being a burden than from bearing a burden. (And +you said: 'Who will look after you?' I think that rasped my blown +vanity more than anything.) One would suffer more, I say, if one were +a withered, parched, tedious old egoist, as I am. Tell me, are there +still the marks of your tears on your cheeks? I cannot bear not to +know. I love you. Now I know that I love you. If this world were +fairyland, you would love me. But this world is this world. And it is +the richer, as I am, by my love for you. + + H. J. B." + +As feverishly and feather-headedly as a boy he skimmed upon the air to +post this letter, and as he slipped it into the box he kissed the +envelope, and as he did so he was overcome by a sense of the delicious +absurdity of his love, of all love, and he bowed low and gravely to +the Opera House and said: + +"You are a pimple on the face of the earth, my friend, but my love is +the blood of its veins." + +He packed his bag before he went to bed, was up very early in the +morning, and, as soon as a certain shop in the Rue de la Paix was +opened, went in and bought a necklace of crystals and emeralds. He was +in London by six o'clock and half an hour later in the northern +express. He reached Blackpool before his letter. The company and +Matilda were gone. It was Sunday. The theater was closed and he had +lost his card of the tour. Watts did not know. He never knew anything. +Companies came and went and he stayed, as he said with his weak, +watery smile, "right there," only thankful that their damnable tunes +were gone with them. Old Mole cursed him for an idiot and hunted up +the stage doorkeeper, whose son was callboy and knew everything. He +routed them out of bed, got the information he needed, and was off +again as fast as a cross-country train could carry him. + +He broke in on Matilda as she was at breakfast, rushed at her +boisterously. Through the long hours in the crawling train, with the +dawn creeping gray, opal, ripe strawberry, over moors and craggy +hills, he had contrived the scene, played a game of Consequences with +himself, what he said to her and what she said to him, but Matilda +peered at him and in a dull, husky voice said: + +"Oh! It's you." + +And fatuously he stood there and said: + +"Yes." + +She was pale and weary and there were deep marks under her eyes. She +said: + +"You didn't leave me any money. It was important. We got here last +night and then they told us there'd be no last week's salary. They +didn't pay us on Friday. We traveled on Sunday as usual, and when we +got here they told us. Some one in London's done something. +Enid"--that was the name of the knitting woman--"Enid looked awful +when they told us, quite ill. I went home with her, and I've been up +with her all night. She didn't sleep a wink, but went on counting and +counting out loud, like she used to do to herself in the train. . . . +I've been up with her all night, but it wasn't any good, because in +the morning, when the dawn came, she got up and walked about and went +into the next room, and when I went after her she was dead. And if I'd +only had a little money. . . . She was a good woman and the only +friend I had, and she killed herself." + +He sat by her side and took her hand and soothed her. + +"But, my dear child, you had plenty of money of your own in the bank, +and your own checkbook." + +"I didn't know I was to spend that. It was in the bank. You never told +me what to do with the book." + +And to find something to say, to draw her thoughts off the miserable +tragedy, he explained to her the mysteries of banking, how, when you +have more money than you can spend--she had never had it and found +that hard to grasp--you pay it into your account and it is entered +into a book, and how, if it is a great deal more than you can spend, +you lend it to the bank and they pay you interest for it and lend it +to other people. She began to grasp it at last and to see that the +money was really hers and she would be putting no injury nor affront +upon the bank by asking for some of it by means of a check. Then she +said: + +"Have we a lot of money in the bank?" + +"Not an enormous quantity, but enough to go on without selling out." + +"What does that mean?" + +He tried to explain the meaning of investments, of stocks and shares, +but that was beyond her capacity and her immediate interest. She had +begun to think practically of her money, and she said: + +"Some of these people have nothing at all." + +And she made him show her how to write a check, and they hunted up all +the poorer members of the company--those who had any money were +already gone in search of work--and she gave them all enough to pay +their rent and for their journey to their homes. Then she wrote to +Enid's husband and gave him all sorts of messages that had not been +entrusted to her, said that thirty-five shillings had been found in +Enid's purse and sent that amount to him. + +They stayed for the inquest, and Enid's husband came. He said what a +good wife she had been to him, and what cruel times they had been +through together, and how he couldn't believe it, and it wasn't like +her to do such a thing, and she would have been another Florence St. +John if she hadn't married him, and he hadn't got the name of a Jonah. +"S'elp me God!" he said, "she was the right stuff on and off the +stage, and them as hasn't had cruel times and been a Jonah won't ever +understand what she's been to me." Through his incoherence there shone +a beauty of dumb, humble and trusting love that now triumphed over +death as it had triumphed over the monotonous, degrading slips and +deprivations of life. Before it Old Mole bowed his head and felt a +sort of envy, a regret that he, too, had not had cruel times and been +a Jonah. + +Clumsily he tried to tell Matilda how he felt, but she could hardly +bear to talk of Enid and closed every reference to her with: + +"If I had known I could have saved her. I ought to have known." + +Even worse was it when he gave her the necklace. + +From the scene of the disaster they had moved to a little fishing +village on the Yorkshire coast where they lodged in the cottage of a +widow named Storm, perched halfway up a cliff, and from the windows +they could see right over the North Sea, smooth as glass, with the +herring fleet dotted like flies on its gleaming surface. Here, he +thought, they could overcome their difficulties and relax the tension +brought about by that last dark experience. There would be health in +the wide sea and the huge cliffs and the moorland air. But it was the +first time Matilda had been out of the crowd, and the peace and the +emptiness induced brooding in her. + +When he gave her the necklace she took it out of its white satin and +velvet case and fingered it and let the light play on it. Then it +seemed to frighten her, and she asked how much it had cost. He told +her. + +"It seems a sin," said she, and put it back in its case. + +That night she received his letter and then only she seemed to +understand why he had given her the necklace, and she came and patted +his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. She began to talk of +Enid, how she never complained and never said an unkind word of +anybody, and how proud she was of two little trinkets, a brooch and a +bangle, given her by her husband, which she said she had never pawned +and never would. + +"The world seems upside down," said Matilda. + +"No. No," he protested. "It is all as it should be, as it must be. My +dear child, I can't tell you how sorry I am. I hurt you, made things +hard for you. I was seeing the world all wrong. Men and women seemed +only toys. . . ." + +"But Enid used to say, you can't expect anything from people when they +have to think of money all day long." + +"When did she say that?" + +"When her husband was out so long and didn't write to her." + +"Did she love him very much?" + +"Yes." + +"And I love you." + +"Yes. But. . . . It's so different." + +He looked at her and she met his gaze. In her eyes there was a +strength, a determination, a depth that were new to her. It stimulated +him, braced him, and he felt that something was awakened in her, +something that demanded of him, demanded, insisted. He was ashamed of +his letter, ashamed that he had given her the necklace, ashamed that +when she demanded of him the glory of life he had thought no higher +than to give her pleasure. + +So he was flung back into torment, and where before he saw humanity +and its infinite variety as smaller than himself, now, with full swing +to the opposite pole of exaggeration, he saw it as immeasurably larger +and superior, full of a mighty purpose, ebbing and flowing like the +sea, while, perched above the fringe of it, he cowered. + +He concealed his distress from her. He was not so far gone but he +could delight in the scents and sounds of the country, and he would +tramp away over the moors or along the cliffs by himself, lie in the +heather and smoke and watch the clouds, real, full-bellied clouds, +lumbering and far off shedding a gray gauze of rain. He would fill his +lungs with the keen air and return home hungry to sup on plain cottage +fare or delicious herrings fresh from the sea. + +One night, to please him, Matilda wore the necklace. It was +pathetically out of place on her cheap little blouse, incongruous in +their surroundings, the stiff, crowded fisherman's parlor. + +It was that decided him. There must be an end of drifting. Sink or +swim, they must endeavor to take their place in the world. They would +go to London. If among the third-rate mummers who had been their +company for so long Matilda could so wonderfully grow and expand, what +might she not, would she not, do among gentler, riper souls? And, for +himself, he would seek out a task. There must be in England men of +active minds and keen imaginations, men among whom he could find, if +not the answers to, at least an interest in, the questions that came +leaping in upon him. They would go to London and make a home, and +Matilda should be the mistress of it. She should live her own life, +and he his, and there would be an end of the strain between them, and +the beginnings of the most fruitful comradeship. + + + +Once again the immediate execution of his plans was frustrated. A +strike was declared on the railways of Great Britain, and it became +impossible for them to move, for they were on a branch line. Letters +and newspapers were brought nine miles by road and there was no lack +of food. The newspapers for a week devoted four columns to the story +of the strike, then three columns, then two, then one. A little war +broke out in the Persian Gulf. That dominated the strike, which lasted +three weeks, and ended in the intervention of the Government, with +neither the companies nor the men yielding. + +The village had its Socialists, the postman and the fish buyer, and, +in the beginning of it, they talked excitedly of a general strike; the +dockers would come out and the carters; every port would be closed, +transport at a standstill; the miners would lay down their tools, and +such frightful losses would be inflicted on the capitalists that they +would be unable to pursue their undertakings. They would be taken out +of their hands and worked by the laborers for the laborers, and then +there would be the beginnings of justice upon the earth and the +laborers would begin to enjoy the good things of the world. Old Mole +asked them what they meant by the good things of the world, and the +answer was strangely Hebraic--a land flowing with milk and honey, +where men labored for six days (eight hours a day) and rested the +seventh day, and had time to talk and think. They set an enormous +value on talking and thinking, and all their enthusiasm was for +"settling questions." The land would be "settled," and education, and +housing, and insurance, and consumption, and lead poisoning. Each +"question" was separated from every other; each existed apart from +everything else, and each had its nostrum, the prescription for which +was deferred until the destruction of the capitalists, and the +liberation of the middle classes from their own middle classishness-- +(for these Socialists detested the middle classes even more than the +capitalists)--had placed the ingredients in their hands. The +"questions" had to be settled; the capitalists had created them, the +middle classes, like sheep, accepted them; the "questions" had to be +settled once for all, and therefore the capitalists had to be ruined +and the middle classes squeezed in their pockets and stomachs until +they surrendered and accepted the new ordering of the world in +justice, brotherhood, and equality. Already the strike was doing +damage at the rate of hundreds and thousands a week, and they had +caught the bulk of the middle classes in their holidays, and thousands +of them would be unable to get back to their work. + +In the thick of it Old Mole, to satisfy himself, walked over to that +town which is advertised as the Queen of Watering Places. There were +thousands of the middle classes on the sands. Their children were +sprawling on sand castles and dabbling in the thin washings of the +sea. Fathers and mothers were lounging in deck chairs, sleeping under +handkerchiefs and hats and umbrellas; grandmothers were squatting in +charge of their grandchildren. Some of them were reading about the +strike in the newspapers. At teatime the beach was cleared as though +all human beings had been blown from it by a sea breeze. An hour later +it was thickly thronged and the pierrots in their little open-air +theater were playing to an enormous audience. The strike had prolonged +their holiday; they were prepared to go on in its monotony instead of +in the monotony of their work and domestic life. They were quite +contented, dully acceptant. There were no trains? Very well, then; +they would wait until there were trains. Respectable, well-behaved, +orderly, genteel people do not starve. . . . And they were right. + +However, it set Old Mole thinking about his own means, the +independence which he owed to no virtue nor talent, nor thrift of his +own, but to a system which he did not understand, to sources which in +the intricacies of their journey to himself were impossible to follow. +Of the many enterprises all over the world, in the profits of which he +had his share, he knew nothing at all. The reports that were sent to +him were too boring or too technical to read. The postman and the fish +buyer assured him that he was living upon the underpaid and overtaxed +labors of thousands of unhappy men and women. He had no reason for +disbelieving them, but, on the whole, his sympathies were with the +middle-classes, his attitude theirs; that respectable, well-behaved, +orderly, genteel people do not starve. Not that he classed himself +with them; he disliked the memory of his colleagues at Thrigsby, of +the men at the golf club at Bigley more than anything, and at this +time he was not moderate in his dislikes. He warmed to the enthusiasm +of the Socialists, but was exasperated by the manner in which, after +having made a clean sweep of everything except themselves and their +kind, they could produce no constructive idea, but only a thin +cerebral fluid, done up in different colored bottles as in a pharmacy. +Just at the point when he found himself beginning to dream of a world +of decent, kindly, human beings delivered (as far as possible) from +their own folly and the tyrannies bred from it, they left humanity +altogether and gloated hectically over their "questions." + +If that were Socialism, he would have none of it; he preferred money. +He told them so, and found that he had uttered the most appalling +blasphemy. They said that Socialism was a religion, the religion that +would save the world. + +Said Old Mole: + +"There have been Hebraism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, the +worship of Isis and Osiris, the worship of the Bull, the Cat, the +Snake, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Phallus; there have been +prophets without number and martyrs more than I can say, saints for +every day in the year and more, and none of them has saved the world. +More than that, I will go so far as to say that none of them has done +as much to raise the standard of living as money." + +"Damn it all," said the fish buyer, "I'm not talking about +superstitions. I'm talking about ideas." + +"Money also is an idea," replied Old Mole, "and it is as generally +misunderstood as any other." + +He was beginning to be rather excited, for he felt that he was getting +the better of the argument, and would not allow himself to see that he +had floundered on to the debater's trick of shunting his opponents on +to unfamiliar country. They had gone up and down one stretch of line, +between two points--capitalism and labor--for so long, without looking +on either side of them, that it needed only a very slight adjustment +or transposition of terms to reduce them to a beating of the void. +They clung to their point, and the postman at last said triumphantly: + +"But money isn't a religion; Socialism is--the religion, the only +religion of the working classes of this country. They've had enough of +the next world; they want a bit o' this for a change." + +"So do I," returned Old Mole, "all of it. I say that money is an idea, +perhaps the only practicable idea in the world at present. It isn't a +religious idea simply because men as a whole are not religious. It has +the advantage over your Socialism that it is a part of life as it is, +while your religion, as you call it, is only a straining after the +future life, an edifice without a foundation, for to bring about its +realization you have to hew and cut and shape human nature to fit into +the conditions of your fantasy. If I wanted to be a prophet, which I +don't--I should base my vision on money. There would be some chance +then of everybody understanding it and really taking it into his life. +If you could make money a religious idea--that is, make money a thing +which men would respect and revere and abuse as little as +possible--you would very likely produce something--deeds, not words +and questions." + +"Don't you call the strike 'doing something'?" cried the fish buyer. + +"We shall see," replied Old Mole. + +The postman filled his cutty and laughed: + +"Don't you see," he said to the fish buyer, "that he is pulling your +leg?" + +So, convinced of their superiority, they abandoned the discussion. + +His tussles with these Jeremiahs of the Yorkshire village gave Old +Mole the confidence he needed, and the exultant glow of a sharpening +of the wits, which are like razors, most apt to cut the wielder of +them when they are most dull. He tortured himself no more with his +failure to satisfy Matilda, but laid all his hopes in the future and +the amusing life in London that he wished to create for her. Intensely +he desired her to develop her own life, to grow into the splendid +creature he now saw struggling beneath the crust of ignorance and +prejudice and shyness and immaturity that hemmed her in. There was +such beauty in her, and he had failed to make it his, a part of +himself, and in his blundering efforts to teach her, to lead her on to +the realization and gift of herself, he had wounded her even when he +most adored her. . . . The dead woman, Enid, had been more to her than +he had ever been. He saw that now. She had known in that woman's lift +something that was not in her own, and she desired it; how much it was +painful to see. She never looked for it in him, but gazed in upon +herself in a sort of pregnancy of the soul. And, like a pregnant +woman, she must be satisfied in her whimsies, she must have her +desires anticipated, she must be given the color and brightness of +life, now before her sensitiveness had passed away for want of fair +impressions. These she had been denied in the young years of her life. +She must have them. . . . She must have them. . . . + +She accepted his proposal to go to London without enthusiasm. She +thought over it for some time and at last she said: + +"Yes. It will be best for you. I don't want you to go away again." + + + +And the night before they left, when the train-service was restored, +she took out the necklace as she was undressing and tried it on, and +looked at herself in the mirror and said: + +"I'd like to wear this in London. But I shall want an evening dress, +sha'n't I?" + +She smiled at him. His heart overflowed and colored the workings of +his mind with a full humor. He thought: + +"If there be ideas, how better can they be expressed than in terms of +Matilda?" + + + + +V + +IN THE SWIM + +_Whoever has an ambition to be heard in a crowd must press, and +squeeze, and thrust, and climb, with indefatigable pains, till he has +exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them._ + +A TALE OF A TUB + + + +V + +IN THE SWIM + +THEY stayed at first in one of the hotels designed to give provincials +bed and breakfast for five shillings, for visitors to London do not +mind in how much they are mulcted in pursuit of pleasure, but resent +the payment of an extra farthing for necessaries. They were high up on +the fifth floor and could see right over many roofs and chimneys to +the dome of St. Paul's. They saw the sights and lunched and dined in +restaurants, and went by river to Greenwich, by tram to Kew, and Old +Mole was forced to admit that it is possible to fall short of a +philosophic conception of happiness and yet to have a very amusing +time. It was Matilda's ambition to go to every theater in London. She +found it possible to enjoy everything, and therefore he was not bored. + +Sheer physical exhaustion brought their pleasure-seeking to an end, +and they set about finding a habitation. On their arrival Old Mole had +written to his brother, but had had no reply. At last a scrubby clerk +arrived with a note: + + +"So glad you have come to your senses. Come to lunch, 1.15.--R. B." + + +They went to lunch in Gray's Inn, and after so much frequenting of +public places it was deliciously peaceful to sink into private +armchairs among personal belongings and a goodly company of books. +Robert was very genial and kissed Matilda and delivered her over to +his laundress for the inevitable feminine preparations for a meal. +While she was away he told Old Mole that he had taken silk, and was +retiring from the Bar, and building himself a house at Sunningdale, +for the links, and was looking out for a suitable tenant. If Old Mole +liked to keep a room for him he could have the place practically as it +stood, on a two-thirds sharing basis. . . . It were hard to find, in +London, a pleasanter place. The windows looked out onto the rookery, +the rooms were of beautiful design and proportion, and there were +eight of them altogether distributed over two floors, communicating by +a charming oak-balustraded staircase. + +"I've lived here for thirty years," said Robert, "and I'd like it kept +in the family." + +Old Mole was delighted. It saved all the vexation and discomfort of +finding and furnishing a house, and here, ready-made, was the +atmosphere of culture and comfort he was seeking and inwardly +designing for the blossoming of Matilda. + +Robert beamed on her when she came in, and said: + +"We've made a plan." + +She was properly excited. + +"Yes. You're going to live here." + +"Here? . . . Oh!" And she looked about among the pictures and the old +furniture and the rich curtains and hangings, and timidly, shyly, as +though she were not certain how they would take it, adopted them. + +They made her sit at the head of the table and placed themselves on +either side of her, and, as Robert poured her out a glass of wine +(Berncastler Doktor), he said: + +"You know, the old place has always wanted this." + +"Wanted--what?" asked Matilda. "I think it's perfect." + +"A charming hostess," said Robert, with an elaborate little bow of +courtliness. + +A fortnight later saw Robert installed at Sunningdale and the Beenhams +in occupation of his chambers. They shared only the dining-room; Old +Mole had the upstairs rooms and Matilda those downstairs. It was his +arrangement, and came from reaction against the closeness in which +they had lived during the long pilgrimage from lodging to lodging. + +Once a fortnight Robert engaged Old Mole to play golf with him, and he +consented because he desired to give Matilda as full a liberty as she +could desire. In the alternate weeks Robert came to stay for two +nights and occupied his room next to Old Mole's. He would take them +out to dinner and the theater, and after it the brothers would sit up +yarning until the small hours, and always the discussion would begin +by Robert saying: + +" 'Pon my honor, women are extraordinary!" And then, completely to his +own satisfaction, he would produce those generalizations which, in +England, pass for a knowledge of human nature, and Old Mole would +recognize them as old companions of his own. They were too absurd for +anger, but Robert's persistence would annoy him, and he would say: + +"When you live with a woman you are continually astonished to find +that she is a human being." + +"Human," answered Robert, sweetening the sentiment with a sip of port, +"with something of the angel." + +"Angel be damned," came in explosive protest, "women are just as human +as ourselves, and rather more so." + +"Ah!" said Robert, with blissful inconsequence, "but it doesn't do to +let 'em know it." + +Robert's contemptuous sentimentalization of women so bothered Old Mole +that he sought to probe for its sources. Among the books in the +chambers were many modern English novels, and he found nearly all of +them, in varying formulæ, dealing axiomatically with woman as an +extraneous animal unaccountably attached to the species, a creature +fearfully and wonderfully ignorant of the affairs of the world, of her +own physical processes, of the most elementary rules of health, +morality, and social existence, capricious, soulless, unscrupulous, +scheming, intriguing, concerned wholly and solely with marriage, if +she were a "good" woman, with the destruction of marriage if she were +"bad"; at best being a sort of fairy--(Robert's "angel")--whose +function and destiny were to pop the sugarplum of love into the mouths +of virtuous men. The most extreme variant of this conception was to be +found in the works of Robert Wherry, who, in a syrupy medium, depicted +women as virginal mothers controlling and comforting a world of +conceited, helpless little boys. Wherry was enormously successful, and +he had many imitators, but none of them had his supreme audacity or +his canny belief in the falsehood which was his only stock in trade. +The trait of Wherry was upon all the novels in Robert's collection. +Even among the "advanced" novels the marks of the beast were there. +They advanced not by considering life, but by protest against Wherry. +They said, in effect, "Woman is not a mother, she is a huntress of +men, or a social worker, or a mistress--(the conscious audacity in +using that word!)--or a parasite, or a tyrant"; and one bold fellow +said, "She has breasts"; he said it not once, but on every fifth page +in every book. Old Mole found him even more disgusting than Wherry, +who at least, in his dexterity, might be supposed to give pleasure to +young girls and foolish, inexperienced persons of middle age--(like +Robert)--and no great harm be done. + +To protect himself against the uncleanness of these books he took down +"Rabelais," which Robert kept tucked away on his highest shelf. And +when he had driven off the torpor in his blood and thoughts induced by +the slavishness of Robert's modern literature, he told himself that it +was folly to take it seriously: + +"There have always been bad books," he said. "The good survive in the +love of good readers. Good taste is always the same, but vicious taste +is blown away by the cleansing winds of the soul." + +All the same, he could not so easily away with modern literature, for +he was suffering from the itch to write, and had already half-planned, +being, like every one else, subject to the moral disease of the time, +an essay on Woman. Wherry and the rest brought him up sharp: they made +him very angry, but they made him perceive in himself many of the +distressing symptoms he had found in them. He gave more thought to +them, and, though he knew nothing of how these books were written, or +of the conditions under which literature was at that time produced and +marketed, he came to see these men and women as mountebanks in a fair, +each shouting outside a little tent. "Come inside and see what Woman +is like." And some showed bundles of clothes, with nobody inside them; +and some showed life-size dolls; and some showed women nude to the +waist; and some showed women with bared legs; and some showed women in +pink fleshings; and some showed naked women who had lost their +modesty, and therefore could not be gazed upon without offence. + +He pondered his own essay, and recognized that its subject was not +Woman, but Matilda. In that gallery he could not show her, nor could +he, without shame, display her to the public view. And therein, it +seemed to him, he had touched the secret of all these lewd +exhibitions. The displayers of them, in their impatient haste to catch +the pennies of the public, or admiration, or whatever they might be +desiring, were presenting, raw, confused and unimagined, their own +unfelt and uncogitated experience, or, sometimes, an extension of +their experience, in which, by an appalling logic, while they limned +life as they would like to live it, they were led to the limits of +unreason and egoistic folly. In presentation or extension, only those +shows had any compelling force in which egoism was complete and entire +lack of feeling relieved the showmen of fine scruples or human +decency. Where shreds of decency were left they only served to show up +the horrible obscenity of the rest. + +Looking at it in this light--and there seemed no other way of +correlating this literature with human life--Old Mole was distressed. + +"It is bad enough," he thought, "when they make a public show of their +emotions, but when they parade emotions they never had, that is the +abomination of desolation." + +Matilda read some of them. She gulped them down at the rate of two in +an evening, but when he tried to discuss them with her she had nothing +to say about them. To her they were just stories, to be read and +forgotten. He tried to persuade himself that she was right, at any +rate more sensible than himself, but could get no further than the +admission of the fact that she had no feeling for literature and would +just as soon read a cash-made piece of hackwork as a masterpiece. That +led him back to the subject of his essay and woman's indifference to +ideas and idealism. He had been considering it as a general +proposition, but he was forced to admit that it was in truth only +Matilda's indifference to his own ideas, and he was not at all sure +but she possessed something much more valuable, a power to assimilate +ideas when they had taken flesh and become a part of the life that is +lived. He knew that he was using her as a test, a touchstone, and +through her he had learned to tolerate many things which his reason +scouted. As a practical criterion for life and living (two very +different things, as he was beginning dimly to perceive)--she was very +valuable to him, but it was when he passed on to the things of art and +found himself faced with the need of getting or begetting clear +conceptions of phenomena, in his search for the underlying, connecting +and resolving truth, that she failed him. She said he thought too +much. Perhaps he did, but it was a part of his way of living, and he +could not rest content with his relation with her, except he had also +his idea of her. It was a relief to him, and he felt he was greatly +advanced along the road by which he was traveling when he found her in +the National Gallery among the five singing women of the _Nativity_ of +Piero della Francesca. That discovery gave her an existence in the +world of art. He told her about the picture and took her to see it. + +"Good Lord!" she said. "Is that what you think I'm like?" + + + +She had thrilled to London. She used to say she would like to go back +into the provinces just to have again the pleasure of arriving at the +station and coming out into the roar of the traffic and the wonderful +London smell. The shops had bowled her over. Cities she had known +where there was one street of elegant shops, towns where there might +be one shop whose elegance lifted it high above all the rest, but here +there were miles and miles of them. She discovered them for herself, +and then took her husband to see the magical region of Oxford Street +and Regent Street. In Bond Street they saw a necklace just like hers, +and a most elegant young man went into the shop and the necklace was +taken out of the window. She saw hats and coats and tailor-mades that +she bought "in her mind," as she said, for she was still scared of +money, and he could not induce her to be anything but frugal. (She +would walk a mile to save a penny bus fare.) . . . When they went into +Gray's Inn and Robert removed his curtains and some of his furniture, +she asked if she might buy some of her things herself, and they +visited the great stores. She quickly lost her awe of them, and when +she had drawn two or three checks for amounts staggering to her who +had lived all her life cooped in by a weekly financial crisis, she +applied her mind to the problem, and did many little sums on scraps of +paper to reassure herself that she had not shaken the bank's faith in +her stability and honesty. It ceased to be a miracle to her, but she +hated drawing checks to herself, for cash vanished so easily and +unaccountably, while for checks made payable to tradespeople she +always had something to show. In this state of mind she decided, and, +as something momentous, announced her decision to buy an evening +dress. It was no light undertaking. A week passed before she found the +material, and when she had bought it--(for in her world you always had +dresses "made up")--she was doubtful of her taste, and as dubious of +Old Mole's. She bought the _Era_ and looked up the address of the +second girl in the pantomime, who remained to her the smartest woman +of her acquaintance. Curiosity as to the address in Gray's Inn brought +the "second girl" flying to her aid; she was delighted to be of use +and undertook to show Matilda the ins and outs of the shops and "the +dear old West End." She gave counsel as to trimming, knew of an +admirable dressmaker near Hanover Square, "ever so cheap." The +dressmaker also sold hats, and Matilda bought hats for herself and her +friend. The dressmaker also sold opera cloaks, and Matilda bought an +opera cloak. The dress and the cloak necessitated, enforced, finer +stockings, shoes, gloves than any Matilda possessed, and these also +she purchased. . . . When all these acquisitions came home she laid +them out on her bed and gazed at them in alarm and pleasure. It was +the middle of the afternoon, but she changed every stitch of her +clothing and donned everything new, the dress and the opera cloak, the +necklace, and, as she had seen the ladies do in the theater, she wore +a ribbon through her hair. In this guise Old Mole surprised her. He +was ravished by her loveliness, but was so taken aback by all these +secret doings, so tickled by her simplicity, that he laughed. He +laughed indulgently, but he sapped her confidence, reduced all her +pleasure to ashes, and there were tears, and she wished she had never +come to London, and she knew she was not good enough for him, but he +need not so plainly tell her so nor scorn her when she tried to make +herself so: other women had pretty clothes, women, too, who were hard +put to it to make a living. + +He soothed her and said if she would wear her silks and fine array he +would take her out next time Robert came. + +"I don't want to go out with Robert." + +"Why not?" + +"If I'm not good enough to know your sister, I'm not good enough to +know your brother." + +"That isn't reasonable." + +She was ruffled and hot, and in her heart annoyed with him for coming +in on her like that, for she had planned to take him by surprise on +their first evening's pleasuring. She did not want to be soothed, and +preferred sparring. + +"Your sister's in town, isn't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you seen her?" + +"No." + +"You have." + +"I have not." + +He knew why she was sparring; he knew that to disappoint a woman in +the vanity of her clothes is more immediately dangerous than to treat +her with deliberate insult or cruelty, but he was exacerbated by her +unfair onslaught on Robert, and he was sore at the attitude taken +toward him by his family. Robert had done his best, but the rest were +implacable; they would not admit his right to his own actions +independent of their opinion. Not content with holding their opinion, +they communicated it to him in the most injurious letters, written at +intervals most nicely calculated for his annoyance. To a philosopher +in search of tolerance and an open mind all this had been ruffling. + +The quarrel blew over. Matilda dried away her tears, and he begged her +pardon and promised to give her another evening dress finer even than +that, made at a real, smart, fashionable, expensive dressmaker's. +. . . Shyly and diffidently they entered a famous house in Albemarle +Street and were told that without an introduction the firm could not +make for madam. A splendid cocotte in glorious raiment swept by them +and out into the street. She had a little spaniel in her arms and a +silver-gray motorcar was awaiting her. Into this she mounted and was +whirled away. With something of both contempt and envy the stately +young woman who had received them gazed after this vision of wealth +and insolence. Old Mole and Matilda felt very small and crept away. + +Old Mole said: + +"The wealth of London is amazing. A man would need at least ten +thousand a year to amuse himself with a woman like that." + +Matilda said: + +"A creature like that!" + +And a little later she said: + +"I think I'll wait for my dress." + +However, she had not to wait, for Old Mole gave the story to Robert, +who, with a nice sense of the fitness of things, told his sister that +he wished to buy a dress for a friend of his, and, armed with her +introduction, he and Matilda went and ordered a gown at an +establishment even more exclusive than that in Albemarle Street. This +establishment was so select that only the most indubitably married or +otherwise guaranteed ladies were served; one there obtained the French +style without the suspicion of French Frenchness. + +The quarrel blew over, but the sensibilities of both were rasped, and +they were cautious and wary with one another, which is perhaps the +greatest trial of the blessed state of matrimony. He labored to be +just to her, to endeavor to understand her. She was, he confessed, in +a difficult position, lifted above her kind--though it was +inconceivable that she could ever have met the fate or assumed the +condition of her sister, Mrs. Boothroyd--and not adopted into his. He +was self-outlawed, driven out of the common mind of his class, and, so +far as he could see, of his country, into his own, and therein he had +as yet discovered no habitation, not even a site whereon to build. She +could not share his adventures and sorrows, and, except himself and +Robert, had no companionship. He asked her if she had no acquaintance +in London, and she confessed to the "second girl," Milly Dufresne. He +proposed that she should ask Miss Dufresne to dinner to provide the +occasion for the wearing of her new gown. She said she did not suppose +he would care for Miss Dufresne, but he protested that her friends +were of course his and he was only too delighted that she had a +companion of her own sex and age. + +The day was fixed (her birthday), the dinner ordered and arranged, a +man hired for the evening to do the waiting. Without a word being +said, it was assumed that there should be the ceremony due to the +necklace and the French (style) gown. + +As he considered all these preparations, Old Mole thought amusedly +that they were not at all for Miss Dufresne and Robert (who had been +invited), but rather a homage paid to their possessions, and, +searching within himself for the causes of the comfort and +satisfaction he felt, he found that this dinner was the first action +which had brought them into harmony with the London atmosphere. +Ethically there was nothing to be said for such a pretence at +hospitality; but as submission to the æsthetic pressure of their +surroundings, as expedience, it was quite wonderfully right. It was +the thin end of the wedge, the first turn of the gimlet in the boring +of the bunghole of the fat barrel of London existence; and, if it were +their fate to become Londoners, they were setting about it with +sufficient adroitness. He was only afraid that Miss Dufresne would +lead him back into the atmosphere of the theater from which he was so +relieved to have escaped. The theater that he had known was only an +excrescence on English life, a whelk or a wen on its reputable bald +head. He had perched on it like a fly, but his concern, his absorbing +concern, was to get at the brains inside that head and the thoughts +inside the brain. + +On the morning of the day fixed for the dinner Robert wired that he +could not come, and Old Mole was left with the awful prospect of +tackling Miss Dufresne alone. His recollection of her was of a most +admirably typical minx with an appetite for admiration and flattery +that had consumed all her other desires. + +"Lord save us!" he said. "I was baffled by that type as a young man; +what on earth can I do with it in my fifties?" + +And in his heart he was fearful of spoiling Matilda's pleasure. This +dread so oppressed him that, finding her flurried and irritable with +the work of preparation, he decided to absent himself, to lunch at +Robert's club, of which he had just been elected a member, and to +soothe himself with a walk through Whitehall and the parks in the +afternoon. + +As he walked--it was a fine spring day with the most beautiful +changing lights and a sweet breeze--he congratulated himself on the +wisdom of having come to London. Marriage might be difficult--there +was no warrant, Scriptural or other, for expecting it to be easy--but +at least in London there was interest. There was not the unrelieved +sordidness of other English cities. There was a tradition, some +attempt to maintain it, graciousness, a kind of dignity--it might be +the dignity of a roast sirloin of beef, but dignity it certainly +was--here and there traces of manners, and leisure not altogether +swamped by luxury. Coming from Thrigsby was like leaving the racket of +the factory for the elegant shop in which the finished articles were +sold. He liked that simile, and there he left his speculations +concerning London. He was not at his ease in this kind of thinking; a +thought was only valuable to him when it was successfully married to +an emotion to produce an image. For London he could find no image, and +when he thought of England he was taken back to his most vivid +emotion, that when in the caravan with Copas they had breasted the +hill and come in view of the Pennine Range: but this was a mere +emotion mated with no thought. As for the Empire, it simply had no +significance. It was a misnomer, or rather, a name given to an +illusion, or, at best, a generalization. It was certainly not an +entity, but only the impossible probability of a universally accepted +fiction. He could not accept it, nor could he accept the loose +terminology of the politicians. For this reason he could never now +read the newspapers except for the cricket and football news in which +his interest was maintained by habit. + +Less and less was he interested in things and ideas that were not +immediately human, and therefore fluid and varying in form and color +as clouds and trees in the wind and birds in the air--and human beings +on the earth. Rigid theory and fixed conceptions actually hurt him; +they were detached, dead, like windfall fruit rotting on the ground, +and everywhere, in books, in the newspapers, in public speeches, he +saw them gathered up and stored, because it was too much trouble to +take the ripe fruit from the tree, or to wait for the hanging fruit to +ripen, or because (he thought) men walk with their eyes to the ground, +even as he had done, and see nothing of the beauty above and around +them. And, thinking so, he would feel an impulse to arise and shout +and waken men, but then, regretfully, he would admit that he was too +old to surrender to this impulse, and would think too much before he +spoke, and would end by prating like Gladstone or roaring like Tom +Paine. + +It seemed to him that the character of London was changed or changing. +He delighted especially in the young men and women, who walked with a +new swagger, almost with freedom, and adorned themselves with gay, +bold colors. The young women especially were limber in their +movements, marvelously adroit in dodging their hampering garments. +Their bodies were freer. They had not the tight, trussed appearance of +the young women of his own day and generation. He delighted especially +in the young women of London. They gave him hopefulness. + +He was pleased to see that the young men delighted in them, also. They +walked with their arms in the arms of the young women in a fine, warm +comradeship, whereas, in his day, and not so long ago neither, the +girls had placed a timid little hand in the arms of their swains and +been towed along in a sort of condescension. It pleased him to see the +young men frankly, and in spite of themselves and their dignity and +breeding, give the proper involuntary salute to passing youth and +beauty. . . . As he sat in St. James's Park a deliciously pretty girl +passed by him, and she repeated nothing of the full homage he paid +her, but then came a tall young man, sober and stiff, in silk hat and +tail coat. They passed, the young man and the young woman: a lifting +of the shoulders in the young man, a tilt of the head in the young +woman, a half-smile of pleasure, and they went their ways. The young +man approached Old Mole. He gave a little start and up went his hand +in the old school salute. Old Mole rose to his feet. + +"My dear fellow. . . ." + +It was A. Z. Panoukian. + +He said: + +"Well, sir----" + +They sat down together. Panoukian bore the old expression which had +always overcast his face when there were discoverable laches in his +conduct, and Old Mole felt himself groping for the mood of jocular +severity with which he had been wont to meet that expression. + +"Well, sir, I never thought----" + +Old Mole found the formula: + +"Panoukian, what have you been up to?" + +"Well, sir, I'm jolly glad to have met you, because I didn't know what +you might have heard." + +"Pray, Panoukian, forget that I was ever your schoolmaster. I am no +longer an academic person, though there are distressing traces of my +old profession in my outlook." + +Panoukian had heard the story, and a grin spread across his face. That +made things easier. He plumped out a full confession and personal +history. + +He had been a rank failure at Oxford. He had no one but himself to +blame, of course. Perhaps he had not given the place a fair trial, but +at the end of his fourth term he had decided that it was no use going +on, and removed himself. It was partly, he thought, that he could not +endure Tibster, and partly that he had lost all power of concentrating +on his work. + +"I don't know," he said, "but at school there was always something to +work for, to get to Oxford. When I got there I seemed to shoot ahead +of it, to see beyond it, and in the place itself I could find nothing +but Tibster and the Tibsterian mind, cut off from the world outside +and annoyed because that world has a voluptuousness which is not in +its own little box. I think I changed physically, grew a new kidney or +another lobe of the brain. Anyhow, the world shrank and I became very +large and unwieldy, and there was nothing positive in my existence +except my dislike of Tibster." + +"Did you smoke a great deal?" asked Old Mole. + +"Only after the crisis." + +"Did you make a verse translation of the Odyssey?" + +"Only the first four books." + +"I imagine, if you had taken your symptoms to Tibster, he would have +put you right. The university has that effect on sensitive +undergraduates, especially on non-Public School men. A sudden growth, +a swift shooting from boyhood into the beginnings of manhood. It is +very touching to watch; but Tibster must have seen it happen so often +that it would be difficult for him to notice that it was happening to +you more violently than usual." + +"I never thought of it from Tibster's point of view." + +"My dear Panoukian, I am only just beginning to see your affairs from +your point of view, or, indeed, to admit that you have a point of view +at all. . . . I hope it was not a great disappointment to your +father." + +Panoukian said his father had died during his second term. He had been +attached to his father and was with him at the end, and perhaps that +was what began the crisis. The business had gone to his brothers, but +he was left enough to live on, and that was how he came to be in +London. For the time being he was acting as secretary, unpaid, to +Tyler Harbottle, M. P. for North Thrigsby and an old friend of his +father's. Old Mole remembered Harbottle, a butter merchant in Thrigsby +and president of the Literary Society, the Field Society, the Linnæan +Society, the Darwin Club, the Old Fogies, and the Ancient Codgers, and +formerly a member of the Art Gallery Committee, and, in that capacity, +provocative of the outcry on the purchase of a picture by so advanced +and startling a painter as Puvis de Chavannes. He asked Panoukian how +he liked the House of Commons, and Panoukian said it was full of +Tibsters with soap and chemicals and money on their brains instead of +Greek and Latin and book philosophy. + +"Harbottle is a Tibster, with a little nibbling mind, picking here and +there, not because he is hungry, but because he is afraid some one +else will get the pieces if he doesn't. I went to him because I wanted +to work; but it isn't work, it's just getting in other people's way. +And there are swarms of Harbottles in the House. I sometimes think +that the whole of politics is nothing but Harbottling. It would be all +very well to have the brake hard on if the country were going to Hell, +but when it is a matter of a long, stiff hill it is heartrending." + +And with a magnificent gesture he swept all the Tibsters and +Harbottles away. Old Mole found his enthusiastic, sweeping +condemnation very refreshing. There was youth in it, and he was +beginning to value youth above all things. Above wisdom and +experience? At least above the caution of inexperience. + +Clearly Panoukian was prepared to go on talking, to leave Harbottle to +go on nibbling without his aid, but Old Mole had begun to feel a +chill, and rose to go. Panoukian was also going toward the India +Office--Harbottle was corresponding with the Secretary about two +Parsees who had been refused their right of appeal to the Privy +Council--and so far they went together. As they parted Old Mole +remembered Matilda's dinner party and Miss Dufresne. Panoukian seemed +an excellent buffer. He invited him, and from the eagerness with which +the invitation was accepted he surmised that Panoukian was rather +lonely in London. Then he felt glad that he had asked him. + + + +The party was very successful. Matilda was delighted to have another +male, and that a young one, to admire her fine feathers, and Panoukian +was obviously flattered and deliciously alarmed to meet a real live +actress who confirmed him in his superstitious notions of the morals +of the stage by flirting with him at sight. He was not very skilful in +his response, but a very little subjugation was enough to satisfy Miss +Dufresne: she only needed to know that she could an she would. He was +very shy, and, with him, shyness ran to talkativeness. With Matilda he +was like a schoolboy; his attitude toward her was a softening and +rounding with chivalry of his attitude toward Old Mole. He hardly ever +spoke to her without calling her Mrs. Beenham: "Yes, Mrs. +Beenham"--"Don't you think so, Mrs. Beenham?"--"As I was saying to +your husband, Mrs. Beenham. . . ." When he left he summoned up courage +to ask Old Mole if he would bring Mrs. Beenham to tea with him. He +lived in the Temple and had a wonderful view of St. Paul's and the +river. Old Mole promised he would do so, and asked him to come in +whenever he liked. + +"It's awfully good of you," said Panoukian, and with that he went off +with Miss Dufresne, who had engaged him to see her into a taxi. +Matilda stood at the head of the stairs and watched them go down. + +"Good night, dearie," called Miss Dufresne, and Panoukian, looking up, +saw Matilda bending over. + +"Good night, Mrs. Beenham," he cried. + +Matilda, returning to the study, said: + +"What a nice voice that boy has got." + +"I used to expect great things of Panoukian," said Old Mole, "but then +neither he nor I had seen beyond Oxford." + +"Is he very clever?" + +"He used to have the sort of cleverness schoolmasters like. It remains +to be seen whether he has the sort of cleverness the world needs. He +is very young." + +"Not so _very_ young." + +"Like your party?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"You looked very pretty." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Good girl. What about bed?" + +But she was loth to move. She began several topics, but soon dropped +them. At last she plunged: + +"Millie's going into a new piece. It's a real play this time. It's +about the stage and there are to be a lot of chorus girls in it. She +says she could get me in easily." + +Old Mole took this in silence. + +"I won't go if you don't like it," she said. + +"Have you said you would go?" + +"Yes, yes." + +"Do you want to?" + +"What else is there for me to do?" + +Indeed, what was there? He was saddened and angry at the use of the +argument. He had wanted her to feel free, to come and to go, so long +only as she treated him with frankness, and here he had so far failed +that she had made arrangements to return to the theater and then asked +for his _post facto_ consent. What was it that kept her in awe of him? +Not his thoughts of her, nor his feeling for her, so far as he knew +either. . . . He kissed her good night and sat sadly brooding over it +all: but it was too difficult for him, and he was tired and his humor +would not come to his aid. He sought refuge in books, but they yielded +him none, and at last Panoukian's phrase recurred to him: + +"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps I am a Harbottler in marriage, nibbling +at love. God help me if I am." + +He thought surely he had reached the worst. But Fate is inexhaustibly +ingenious. He was to have his bellyful of Harbottling. + + + +Among his letters on the morning after the party he found one, the +envelope of which bore in print the name of Langley Brown, Literary +and Dramatic Agent, 9 Coventry Street, W. This letter informed him +that Mr. Henry Butcher, of the Pall Mall Theater, proposed to +immediately produce--(the split infinitive is Mr. Langley Brown's)--a +play called "Lossie Loses," by Carlton Timmis, the rights of which Mr. +Brown believe to be in Mr. Beenham's hands. And would Mr. Beenham call +on Mr. Brown, or, if not, write to give his consent, when the contract +would be drawn up and the play produced. + + + +He had almost forgotten Carlton Timmis. The letter had been forwarded +through his banker. He stared at it, turned it over and over, read it +again. It seemed to be an authentic document. He handed it to Matilda. +She said with awe: + +"Mr. Butcher!" + +And, with unconscious imitation of the humor of the English Bench, Old +Mole asked: + +"Who is Mr. Butcher?" + +This was shocking ignorance. For twenty years and more Mr. Henry +Butcher's name had been in the newspapers, on the hoardings, and his +portrait, his wife's portrait, his baby's portrait, his dog's +portrait, his horse's portrait had appeared in the magazines, and his +commendation of a certain brand of cigarette had for the last ten +years been used by the makers as an advertisement. For all that, his +name and personality had not penetrated Old Mole's consciousness. + +"Did you buy the play?" asked Matilda. + +"I lent him fifty pounds, and he left it with me. I had no very clear +idea as to his intention." + +"Is it a good play?" + +"You shall read it." + +He unearthed it with some difficulty and gave it to her. She read it +and wept over it. + +"Is it a good play?" he asked. + +"I don't know, but it's a lovely part." + + + +He went to see Mr. Brown, a flashy little Cockney who peppered him +with illustrious literary names and talked about everything but the +business in hand. Old Mole asked where Timmis might be, and Mr. Brown +said he had heard from him only once, and that from a place called +Crown Imperial, in British Columbia. + +"A good fellow, Timmis, but cracked. Impatient, you know. I never can +make young writers see that they've got to wait until the old birds +drop off the perch before their masterpieces can come home to roost." + +"Is 'Lossie Loses' a masterpiece?" asked Old Mole innocently. + +"Between ourselves," replied the agent, "I don't think there's much in +it. But Mr. Butcher has been having a lean period lately and wanted +something cheap, and thought he'd try a new author." + +He produced the contract. Old Mole read it through in a sort of dream +and signed it. He was shown out with a hearty handshake, and that very +evening he received from Mr. Brown a check for ninety pounds--a +hundred in advance of royalties less 10 per cent. commission. He was +disconcerted. There was some uncanny wizardry in it that, by merely +walking into an office and signing a paper, one could at the end of +the day be the richer by ninety pounds with never a stroke of work +done for it. His first impulse was to give the check to Matilda, but, +on reflection, he decided to give her forty and to keep the fifty for +Timmis if he could be found. He looked up Crown Imperial, British +Columbia, on the map and in the gazetteer, but there was no mention of +it, and, concluding that it must be a new place, he wrote to Timmis +there in the hope of catching him. When he had posted his letter he +remembered that Timmis might have dropped his stage name, and wrote +another letter to Cuthbert Jones. Then he brushed the play from his +mind. + + + +Within a fortnight it was impossible to walk along any of the main +thoroughfares of London without seeing the words "Lossie Loses," with +the name of Mr. Henry Butcher in enormous letters, and the name of +Carlton Timmis in very small print. + +For the first night Old Mole received, with Mr. Butcher's compliments, +a ticket for Box B. Panoukian and Robert came to dinner. Matilda wore +her first evening dress and the opera cloak, a red ribbon in her hair, +and graced the front of the box with the three men behind her. + +There is a certain manner appropriate to a seat in the front of a +box--a consciousness that is not quite self-consciousness, a certain +setting back of the shoulders, a lifting of the head, a sort of shy +brazenness, an acceptance of being part of the show, and, for all the +pit knows, a duchess. Matilda had caught it to perfection and turned a +dignified profile to the opera glasses directed upon her. Panoukian +pointed out the political personages in the stalls, and, being a great +reader of those glossy photographic papers, which are perhaps the most +typical product of the time, was able to recognize many of the +literary and artistic celebrities of the moment. Actresses glided +fussily to their seats, smiling acknowledgment to the applause of the +groundlings. There was a bobbing up and down, a bowing and a smiling, +a waving of programs and fans from acquaintance to acquaintance, a +chatter and hum of many voices that drowned the jigging overture, and +went droning on into the first few moments of the play. + +Old Mole's memory of it was hazy, but sufficiently alive to quarrel +with some of the impressions he now had of it and to enable him to +distinguish between the work of the actors and the work of the author. +The play was worse and better than he had thought. In his recollection +it was not so entirely unscrupulous in its appeal to the surface +emotions, nor so extraordinarily adroit in sliding off into a dry, sly +and perfectly irrelevant humor just at the moment when those base +appeals looked as though they were going to be pushed so far as to +offend even the thickest sensibilities. Each curtain was brought down +with a neat, wistful little joke, except at the end of the third act, +when, in silence, Lossie, the little unloved heroine of the play, +prepared to cook the supper for the husband who had just left her. In +the fourth act he came back and ate it, so that all ended happily. The +atmosphere was Lancashire, and the actors spoke Scots, Irish, Belfast, +Somerset, and Wigan, but that did not seem to matter. The actress who +played Lossie spoke with a very good Thrigsby accent, and her +performance was full of charm. She had a fine voice and knew how to +use it, and her awkwardness of gesture suited the uncouthness with +which the Lancashire folk were endowed. She and the sad little jokes +carried all before them, and there was tremendous applause at the end +of each act and the close of the play. + +Mr. Henry Butcher made a grateful little speech, and, looking toward +Old Mole's box, said the author was not in the house. All eyes were +turned toward the box, and the shouting was renewed. + +Entirely unconscious of the attention and interest they were arousing, +the party escaped. Robert was hungry and insisted on having oysters. +As they ate them they discussed the play. Robert and Matilda were +enthusiastic, Old Mole was dubious and depressed, and Panoukian +contemptuous. + +"I've seen worse," he said, "but nothing with quite so much +effrontery. It was like having your face dabbed with a baby's powder +puff. I felt all the time that in a moment they would have a child +saying its prayers on the stage. But they never did, and there was +extraordinary pleasure in the continual dread of it, and the continual +sense of relief. And every now and then they made one laugh. I believe +it will succeed." + + + +It succeeded. The critics unanimously agreed that the new play had +charm, and, said one of them: "It is with plays, as with women; if +they have charm, you need look no further. All London will be at +Lossie's feet." + +At the end of the first week Old Mole received a check for one hundred +and ten pounds; at the end of the second a check for one hundred and +twenty-five. He sent two cablegrams to Carlton Timmis and Cuthbert +Jones at Crown Imperial, British Columbia. No answer. Timmis (or +Jones) had disappeared. + +Money poured in. + +The play was bought by cable for America, and five hundred pounds +passed into Old Mole's account. It became almost a horror to him to +open his letters lest they should contain a check. + +Worst of all, the newspapers scented "copy." A successful play, a +vanished author, no one to claim the fame and fortune lying there. One +paper undertook to find Carlton Timmis. It published photographs of +him, scraps of biography and anecdotes, but Timmis remained hidden, +and the newspapers yelled, in effect, "Where is Timmis? The public +wants Timmis. Wireless has tracked a murderer to his doom, surely it +cannot fail to reveal the whereabouts of the public's new darling?" +Another journal found its way to the heart (_i.e.,_ the box office) of +the theater and asked in headlines, "_Is Butcher Paying Royalties_?" +Butcher wrote to say that he was paying royalties to the owner of the +play, whose name was not Carlton Timmis. And at last a third newspaper +announced the name of the beneficiary of the play--H. J. Beenham. +Gray's Inn was besieged. Old Mole was in despair and declared that +they would have to pack up and go away until the uproar had died down, +but, more sensibly, Matilda invited a journalist in, gave him a drink, +and told him the little there was to tell. The next check was for a +hundred and eighty pounds. + +Money poured in. + +Five companies were sent out with "Lossie Loses" in America, three in +England, and the play was given in Australia and South Africa. It was +also published. Money poured in. It came in tens, in hundreds, in +thousands of pounds. It became a purely automatic process, and Old +Mole quickly lost interest in it and ceased to think about it. He told +himself that it would soon come to an end, that such a violent +eruption of gold could not last very long, and his attention was +engrossed by its effects. + +In his own mind it had brought about no moral crisis like that of his +first catastrophe, but, insensibly, it had altered his point of view, +given him a sense of security that was almost paralyzing in its +comfort. All his old thoughts had been in self-protection against the +people with whom he had come in contact, people to whom he was a +stranger, different from themselves, and therefore suspect. But now in +London when he met new people they bowed before him, put themselves +out to ingratiate him, almost, it seemed, though he hated to think so, +to placate him. His name was known. He was Mr. Beenham, and was +somehow responsible for "Lossie Loses," which everybody had seen and +the public so loved that three matinées a week were necessary, and +there were beginning to be Lossie collars and Lossie hats and Lossie +muffs and Lossie biscuits and Lossie corsets. . . . And his sister had +called on Matilda and removed that source of bitterness. And at the +club men sought his acquaintance. He had letters from more than one of +his old colleagues at Thrigsby and several of his former pupils sought +him out. A few of them were distinguished men--a doctor, a barrister, +a journalist, the editor of a weekly literary review. They invited him +to their houses, and he was delighted with the ease and grace with +which Matilda bore herself and was more than a match for their wives, +and became friendly with one or two of them. They moved among people +whose lives were easy and smooth-running in roomy, solidly furnished +houses, all very much like each other in style and taste. The people +they met at these houses in South Kensington and Hampstead were almost +monotonously alike. At the doctor's house they met doctors, at the +barrister's solicitors and more barristers, at the editor's +journalists and writers. They were different only in their +professions: those apart, they were as alike as fossil ammonites in +different strata: and they all "loved" "Lossie Loses." The women were +very kind to Matilda and invited her to their tea parties and "hen" +luncheons. She read the books they read and began to have "views" and +opinions, and to know the names of the twentieth century poets; she +picked up a smattering of the jargon of painting and music just as she +caught the trick of being smart in her dress, and for the same reason, +because the other women had "views" and opinions and talked of music +and painting and were smart in their dress. The eruption of gold into +their lives had blown her desire to return to the theater into the +air. She was fully occupied with dressing, buying clothes, ever more +clothes, and arranging for the hospitality they received and gave. + +Her husband was amazed at the change in her. It was as startling as +the swift growth of a floundering puppy into a recognizable dog. It +was not merely a matter of pinning on clothes and opinions and a set +of fashionable ideas: there was real growth in the woman which enabled +her to wear these gewgaws with ease and grace so that they became her +and were an ornament, absurd it is true, but so generally worn--though +rarely with such tact--that their preposterousness was never noticed +in the crowd. She was gayer and easier, and she seemed to have lost +the tug and strain at her heart. Often in the daytime she was dull and +listless, but she never failed to draw upon some mysterious reserve of +vitality for the evening. + +He was sometimes alarmed when he watched the other women who had not +her freshness, and saw how some of them had ceased to be anything but +views and opinions and clothes. But he told himself that she was not +tied, as the rest were, by their husband's professions, to London, and +that they could always go away when they were tired of it. . . . He +was often bored and exhausted, but he put up with it all, partly +because of the pleasure she was finding in that society, and partly +because he felt that he was getting nearer that indeterminate but +magnetically irresistible goal which had been set before him on--when +was it?--on the night when his thoughts had taken form and life and he +had been launched into that waking dreamland. With that, even the most +violent happenings seemed to have very little to do; they were almost +purely external. One might have a startling adventure every day, and +be no nearer the goal. One might have so many adventures that his +capacity to enjoy them would be exhausted. There was, he felt sure, as +he pondered the existence of these professional people and saw how +many of them were jaded by habit, but were carried on by the impetus +of the habits of their kind, so that they were forever seeking to +crowd into their days and nights far more people, thoughts, ideas, +books, æsthetic emotions than they would hold--there was somewhere in +experience a point at which living overflowed into life and was +therein justified. So much seemed clear, and it was that point that he +was seeking. In his relationship with Matilda, in his love for her, he +had striven to force his way to it. The violence of his meeting with +her, the brutality of his breach with his old existence, had, by +reflex action, led him to violence and brutality even in his kindness, +even in his attempted sympathy. + +That seemed sound reasoning, and it led him to the knowledge that +Matilda had plunged into the life of the professional people with its +round of pleasures and functions, its absorption in tailors and +mummers and the amusers of the people, its entire devotion to +amusement, as a protection against himself. It was an unpleasant +realization, but amid so much pleasantness it was bracing. + + + +Money poured in. "Lossie Loses" was visited by all the Royal Family. +When it had been performed two hundred and fifty times the Birthday +Honors list was published and Henry Butcher was acclaimed "our latest +theatrical knight." He gave a supper party on the stage to celebrate +the two occasions; and he invited Mr. and Mrs. Beenham. + +There were present the Solicitor-General, Mr. Justice Sloppy, the +three celebrated daughters of two dukes, the daughters-in-law of three +Cabinet Ministers, a millionaire, two novelists, five "absolutely +established" dramatists, three dramatic critics, nine theatrical +knights, the ten most beautiful women in London, the Keeper of the +Coptic Section of the South Kensington Museum, Tipton Mudde, the +aviator, and Archdeacon Froude, the Chaplain of the Actors' Union. +There were others who were neither named nor catalogued in the +newspaper (Court and Society) next day. As Mr. Justice Sloppy said, in +the speech of the evening: "For brains and beauty he had never seen +anything like it. . . ." The toasts were the King, Sir Henry Butcher, +Lossie, and the Public, and there, as Panoukian remarked when the +feast was described to him, you have the whole thing in a nutshell, +the topnotch of English philosophy, the expression of the English +ideal, lots of food, lots of drink, lots of talk, of money, of people, +and then a swollen gratitude--"God bless us every one." And Panoukian +then developed a theory that England, the English character, had +reached its zenith and come to flower and fruit in the genius of +Charles Dickens. Thereafter was nothing but the fading of leaves, the +falling of leaves, the drowsing into hibernation. He was excited by +the idea of falling leaves to describe the intellectual and moral +activity of the country. It would seem to explain the extraordinary +predominance of the Harbottles, who were so thick upon every English +institution that Vallombrosa was nothing to it. + +Old Mole met Tyler Harbottle again, and, allowing for Panoukian's +youthful exaggeration, had to admit the justice of his estimate. +Harbottle was very like a falling leaf, blown hither and thither upon +every gust of wind, dropping, skimming, spinning in the air, but all +the time obeying only one impulse, the law of gravity, which sent him +down to the level of the ground, the public. Seeing nothing but the +public, nothing beyond it, hoping for nothing but a comfortable +resting place when at last he came to earth, Harbottle was under the +illusion that the winds that tossed him came from the public, and when +they blew him one way he said, "I will go that way," and when they +blew him another he said, "I will go this." He was a Unionist Free +Trader in theory and by label: in practice he was an indefatigable +wirepuller. By himself he was unimportant, but there were so many of +him and his kind that he had to be placated. + +Old Mole met all the Harbottles. After Sir Henry Butcher's party he +and Matilda were squeezed up into a higher stratum of society. Tipton +Mudde took Matilda up in his monoplane and thereafter their whole +existence grew wings and flew. They now met the people of whom their +professional acquaintances had talked. The triumph of "Lossie Loses" +continued: it was said the play would beat the record of "Our Boys." +Money poured in, and almost as bewildering was the number of +invitations--to vast dinner parties, to at homes, to drawing-room +meetings, to boxes at the Opera, to luncheons at the luxurious hotels, +to balls, to political receptions, to banquets given to celebrate +honors won or to mark the end of a political campaign, or to welcome +an actor-manager home from Australia. Whenever a Harbottle pulled out +a plum from the pie than the subtler Harbottles buzzed like flies +around it and arranged to eat and drink and make merry or at least to +make speeches. + +For a time it was very good fun. Old Mole and Matilda did as the +Harbottles did. They had so many engagements that they were compelled +to buy a motorcar and to engage a chauffeur. Without it Matilda could +never have found time to buy her clothes. She went to the dressmaker +patronized by all the female Harbottles, but the dressmaker made for +an old-fashioned duchess, who adhered to the figure of the nineties +and refused to be straight-fronted. The female Harbottles fled from +this horrid retrogression and made the fortune of an obscure little +man in Chelsea. + +It was good fun for a time, and Old Mole was really interested. Here +on the top of English life, its head and front--for the great-leisured +governing classes no longer governed; they had feudal possessions but +not the feudal political power--was a little world whizzing like a +zoetrope. You might peep through the chinks and the figures inside it +would seem to be alive, but when you were inside it there were just a +number of repetitions of the same figures in poses disintegrated from +movement. The machine whizzed round, but what was the force that moved +it? Impossible to enter it except by energy or some fluke that made +you rich enough or famous enough for there to be flattery in your +acquaintance. True, Old Mole only saw the figures inside the machine +arranged for pleasure. They were workers, too, but their pleasure was +a part of their work. Lawyers who were working eighteen hours a day +could find time to visit three great entertainments in an evening; +politicians after an all-night sitting in the House could dine out, +see two acts of the Opera, or the ballet, or an hour or so of a revue, +and then return to the division Lobbies; actors, after two +performances in the day, could come on to a reception at midnight and +eat caviare and drink champagne. There were very few of whom it could +be said that the rout was the breath of their nostrils; but all +continued in it, all accepted it as a normal condition of things, as +the proper expression of the nation's finest energies. Impossible to +avoid it, furtherance of ambition and young devotion to an ideal both +led to it. . . . Pitchforked into it so suddenly, with so many vivid +impressions after wanderings, Old Mole felt how completely it was cut +off from the life of the country, because from the inside and the +outside of the machine things looked so entirely different. He had to +go no further than his own case. On all hands he heard it said so +often that "Lossie Loses" was a wonderful play--"so delicate, so +fanciful, so full of the poetry of common things"--that it needed only +a very little weakening of his critical faculty for him to begin to +believe it and greedily to accept the position it had given him. As it +was, knowing its intrinsic falsehood and baseness, he marveled that +people of so much intelligence could be bemused by success into such +jockeying of their standards. But he began to perceive that there were +no standards, neither of life nor of art. There could not be, for +there was no time for valuation, just as there was no time for +thinking. Here and there he found an ideal or two, but such wee, worn, +weary little things, so long bandied about among brains that could not +understand them and worried into a decline by the shoddy rhetorical +company they had been forced to keep. Arguing from his own case, Old +Mole came to the conclusion that the whole whirligig had come about +from a constant succession of decent ordinary mortals having been, +like himself, the victims of an eruption of gold which had carried +them, without sufficient struggle or testing of imagination or moral +quality, to an eminence above their fellows, upon which, in their +bewilderment, they were conscious of nothing but a dread of falling +down. In that dread, sharing no other emotion, they clung together +fearfully, met superficially, were never content unless they were +meeting superficially, creating flattery and even more flattery to +cover their dread. And, as they were forever gazing downward into the +depths from which they had been raised, it was impossible for them to +see more than a yard or so further than their own feet. Fearful of +taking a false step, they never moved; their minds curled up and went +to sleep. They could create nothing, and could only imitate and +reproduce. They had abandoned the dull habits of the middle class and +yet were the slaves of middle-class ideas. There were very charming +people among them, but they accepted good-humoredly that England had +nothing better to offer. They had pleasant houses in Town and in the +country, delightful and amusing people to visit them, to keep them +from boredom, and they asked no more. + +Old Mole studied the history of England, the railway frenzy, the +growth of the manufacturing districts, the foundation of the great +shipbuilding yards, the immense eruption of gold that had swept away +the old, careless, negligent, ruling squires, and set in their place +those who could survive the scramble. And the scramble had never +ceased; it had been accepted as the normal state of things. The heat +and excitement of the rout gave the illusion of energy, which, being +without moral direction, was pounced upon by the English desire for +comfort and the appearance of solidarity, the mania for having the +best of everything in the belief that it will never be bettered. So +against the inconveniences of an antiquated system of laws, a mean and +narrow code of morals, the consequences of their own reckless +disregard of health in the building of the great cities of industry, +in the payment of those who labored in them, they padded themselves in +with comfort, more and more of it. + +"Almost," said Old Mole, "I am persuaded to become a Jew, to sweat the +sweaters, pick the profits, rule the world in honor of the cynical +Hebrew god who created it, and live in uneasy triumph in the domestic +virtues and worship of the flesh uncrucified." + + + +Once you have been drawn into the machine it is very difficult to get +out of it. Old Mole struggled, but money and invitations came pouring +in. "Lossie Loses" survived two holiday seasons. During the second the +actress who played Lossie went away on her vacation, and Matilda, +urged on by Butcher, with whom she had become friendly, played the +part, was successful, and gave the piece a new spurt of vitality. It +was not a brilliant performance, but then a brilliant performance +would have killed the play. The play needed charm, Matilda had it, +and, by this time, among so many expertly charming women, she had +learned how to manipulate it. Her appearance on the stage extended her +popularity among her distinguished acquaintances, but subtly changed +her status, and she had to learn how to defend herself. Her life +became more exciting and she expanded in response to it. She +distressed Old Mole by talking about her adventures, and he began to +think it was really time to go. + + + +They went abroad for several months, to Paris, Florence, Rome, Sicily, +Algiers, but as they stayed in luxurious and expensive hotels they +might almost as well have stayed in London. Old Mole discovered +nothing except that the eruption of gold must have been universal and +that the character of the English nation had found its most obvious +expression in its stout, solid, permanent telegraph poles. + +They returned to London, and Matilda accepted a small part in a new +play by a famous dramatist, who had borrowed "Lossie" from the +"greatest success of the century," called her "Blendy," and set her to +leaven the mixture he had produced after the two years' hard work +fixed as the proper quantum by Henrik Ibsen. + +More success. + +And Old Mole, feeling that he was now beyond all hope of escape, since +he was suffering from a noticeable fatty degeneration of the will, had +argued with Matilda, but she had had her way, for he could find no +rejoinder to her plea that it was "something to do." + +He refused to leave Gray's Inn. She was tired of it; said the rooms +were cramped, but he clung to it as an anchorage. + +There was a steadying of their existence. She took her work seriously, +and rested as much as possible during the day. In the evenings he +missed her, and he detested having his dinner at half-past six. But +the discomfort was a relief and gave him a much needed sharpening of +the wits. Every night he met her at the theater and made more +acquaintances in it. He applied his theory of the eruption of gold to +them, and, studying them for that purpose, was amazed to find how +little different they were from Mr. Copas and the miserable John +Lomas. Copas had been untouched by the eruption. These men, and +particularly Henry Butcher and Matilda's manager, were Copas varnished +and polished. Beneath the varnish they were exactly the same; +self-important, self-centered, entirely oblivious of life outside the +theater, utterly unheeding of everything outside their profession that +could not be translated into its cant and jargon, childishly jealous, +greedy of applause, sensitive of opinion, boys with the appetites and +desires of grown men, human beings whose development had been +arrested, who, in a healthy society, would be rogues and vagabonds, or +wandering adventurers, from sheer inability to accept the restrictions +and discipline imposed by social responsibility. They were cruelly +placed, for they were in a position needing adult powers, having +audiences night after night vaster than could be gathered for any +divine or politician or demagogue; they had to win their own +audiences, for no theater was subsidized; and when they had won them +they were mulcted in enormous sums for rent; they were sucked, like +the other victims of the eruption, into the machine, the zoetrope, and +being there, in that trap and lethal chamber of spontaneity, they had +to charm their audiences, with nothing more than the half-ideas, the +sentimental conventions, the clipped emotions of their fellow +sufferers. They were squeezed out of their own natures, forced into +new skins, could only retain their positions by the successful +practice of their profession, and were forced to produce plays and +shows out of nothing, being robbed both of their Copas-like delight in +their work and of their material for it. Their position was calamitous +and must have been intolerable without the full measure of applause +and flattery bestowed on them. + +Clearly it was not through the theater that Old Mole could find the +outlet he was seeking. + +He turned wearily from its staleness, and told himself, after long +pondering of the problem, that he had been mistaken, that he had been +foolishly, and a little arrogantly, seeking in life the imaginative +force, the mastery of ideas and human thoughts and feelings that he +had found in literature. Life, maybe, proceeds through eruption and +epidemic; art through human understanding and sympathy and will. . . . +That pleased him as a definite result, but at once he was offended by +the separation, yet, amid so much confusion, it was difficult to +resist the appeal of so clean and sharp a conception. It lost the +clarity of its outline when he set it against his earlier idea of +living brimming over into life. . . . There were then three things, +living, life and art, a Trinity, three lakes fed by the same river. +That was large and poetic, but surely inaccurate. For, in that order, +the lakes must be fed by a strange river that flowed upward. . . . +Anyhow, it was something to have established the three things which +could comprise everything that had penetrated his own consciousness, +three things which were of the same essence, expressions of the same +force. Within the action and interaction there seemed to be room for +everything, even for Sir Henry Butcher, even for Tyler Harbottle, M.P. + +He had arrived at the sort of indolent charity which, in the machine, +passes for wisdom and sanity, the unimaginative tolerance which furs +and clogs all the workings of a man's mind and heart. It is not far +removed from indifference. . . . In his weariness, the exhaustion and +satiety of the modern world, he measured his wisdom by the folly of +others, and in his satisfaction at the discrepancy found conceit and +thought it confidence. He began to write again and returned to his +projected essay on Woman, believing that he had in his idea +disentangled the species from Matilda. He was convinced that he had +risen above his love for her, to the immense profit of their +relationship, which had become more solid, settled and pleasurable. As +he had planned when they came to London, so it had happened. They had +gone their ways, seemed for a time to lose sight of each other, met +again, and were now--were they not?--journeying on apace along life's +highway, hailing the travelers by the road, aiding the weary, cracking +a joke and a yarn with those of good cheer, staying in pleasant inns. + +"Something like a marriage!" thought he. "Life's fullest adventure." + +And he measured his marriage against those of the men and women in the +machine; sour captivity for the most part, or a shallow, prattling and +ostentatious devotion. + +His essay on Woman was only a self-satisfied description of his +marriage. Out of the writing of it came no profit except to his +vanity. Preoccupied with questions of style, he pruned and pared it +down, refashioned and remodeled it until at last he could not read it +himself. Having no convenient sands in which to bury it, he gave it to +Panoukian to read. + +Panoukian was in that stage of development (which has nothing to do +with age) when a man needs to find his fellows worshipful and looks +for wonders from them. He was very young, and kindness from a man +older than himself could bowl him over completely, set his affections +frothing and babbling over his judgment, so that he became enslaved +and sycophantish, and prepared, mentally if not physically, to stand +on his head if it so happened that the object of his admiration could +be served by it. He was in a nervous state of flux, possessing small +mastery over his faculties, many of which were only in bud; his life +was so little his own, was so shapeless and unformed that there could +be no moderation in him; his admirations were excessive, had more than +once landed him in the mire, so that he was a little afraid of them, +and to guard against these dangers sought refuge in intolerance. To +prevent himself seeing beauty and nobility and being intoxicated by +them, he created bugbears for himself and hated them, and was forever +tracking them down and finding their marks in the moot innocent +persons and places. He was very young, mightily in love with love, so +that he was forever guarding himself from coming to it too early and +being fobbed off with love cheapened or soiled. His passion was for +"reality," of which he had only the most shapeless and uncommunicable +conception, but he was always talking about it with fierce +denunciations of all the people who seemed to him to be deliberately, +with criminal folly, burking it. For this reality his instinct was to +preserve himself, and he lived in terror of his loneliness driving him +to headlong falls from which he might never be able to recover. He was +a full-blooded, healthy young man and must have been wretchedly +unhappy had it not been that people, in their indolent, careless way, +were often enough kind to him to draw off some of his accumulated +enthusiasm in an explosive admiration and effusive, though tactfully +manipulated, affection. Old Mole was kinder to him than anyone had +ever been except his father, but then his father had had no other +methods than those of common sense, while in Old Mole there was a +subtlety always surprising and refreshing. Also Old Mole was prepared +almost indefinitely, as it seemed, to listen to Panoukian's views and +opinions and rough winnowing of the wheat from the chaff of life, so +far as he had experienced it. + +Panoukian therefore read Old Mole's manuscript with the fervor of a +disciple, and found in it the heat and vigor which he himself always +brought to their discussions. The essay, indeed, was like the master's +talk, cool and deliberate, broken in its monotony by comical little +stabs of malice. The writing was fastidious and competent. Panoukian +thought the essay a masterpiece, and there crept a sort of reverence +into his attitude toward its author. This was an easy transition, for +he had never quite shaken off the rather frightened respect of the +pupil for the schoolmaster. Then, to complete his infatuation, he +contrasted Old Mole with his employer, Harbottle. + +And Old Mole was fond of Panoukian. At first it was the sort of amused +tenderness which it is impossible not to feel on the sight of a leggy +colt in a field or a woolly kitten staggering after a ball. Then, by +association and familiarity, it was enriched and became a thing as +near friendship as there can be between men of widely different ages, +between immaturity and ripeness. It saved the situation for both of +them, the young man from his wildness, the older from the violent +distortion of values which had become necessary if he were to move +easily and comfortably in the swim. Above all, for Old Mole, it was +amusing. For Panoukian nothing was amusing. In his intense longing for +the "reality" of his dreams he hated amusement; he detested the vast +expenditure of energy in the modern world on making existence charming +and pleasant and comfortable, the elaborate ingenuity with which the +facts of life were hidden and glossed over; he despised companionable +books, and fantastical pictures and plays, luxurious entertainments, +magazines filled with advertisements and imbecile love-stories, +kinematographs, spectacular football, could not understand how any man +could devote his energies to the creation of them and retain his +sincerity and honesty. He adored what he called the English genius, +and was disappointed and hurt because the whole of English life was +not a spontaneous expression of it, and he found one of his stock +examples in architecture. He would storm and inveigh against the +country because the English architectural tradition had been allowed +to lapse away back in the dark ages of the nineteenth century. He had +many other instances of the obscuring or sudden obliteration of the +fairest tendencies of the English genius, and to their mutual +satisfaction, Old Mole would put it all down to his theory of the +eruption of gold. + +Nearly all Panoukian's leisure was spent at Gray's Inn or out with Old +Mole and Matilda, or with them on their visits to those of their +friends to whom they had introduced him. He was good-looking, well +built, easily adept at ball-games--for he possessed a quick, sure +eye--and his shy frankness made him likeable. The charm of English +country life would soften his violence and soothe his prejudices, but +only the more, when he returned to London, would he chafe against the +incessant pursuit of material advantages, the mania of unselective +acquisition, the spinning and droning of the many-colored humming-top. + +From the first moment he had been Matilda's slave, and no trouble was +too great, no time too long, no task too tedious, if only he could +yield her some small service. He would praise her to Old Mole: + +"She is so real. Compare her with other women. She does all the things +they do, and does them better. She takes them in her stride. She can +laugh with you, talk with you, understand what you mean better than +you do yourself, give you just the little encouragement you need, and +you can talk to her and forget that she is a woman. . . . You don't +know, sir, what an extraordinary difference it has made in my life +since I have known you two." + +That would embarrass Old Mole, and he found it impossible to say +anything without jarring Panoukian's feelings. Therefore he would say +nothing, and later he would look at Matilda, watch her, wait for her +smile, and wonder. Her smile was the most surprising, the most +intimate gift he ever had from her. Often for days together they would +hardly see each other and, when they met, would have little to say, +but he would watch until he could meet her gaze, win a smile from her, +and feel her friendliness, her interest, and know that they still had +much to share and were still profoundly aware of each other. He would +say to her sometimes: + +"I don't see much of you nowadays." + +She would answer: + +"But you are so interested in so many things. And I like my life." + +And in the gentle gravity with which she now spoke to him, which was +in every gesture of her attitude toward him, he would discern a fuller +grace than any he had hoped to find in her. She was so trim and neat, +so well disciplined, so delicate and nice in all she did; restrained +and subtle but with no loss of force. Even her follies, the absurd +modish tricks she had caught in the theater and among the women who +fawned on her, seemed no impediment to her impulse should the moment +come for yielding to it. She was no more spendthrift of emotion and +affection than she was of money, and, almost, he thought, too thorough +in her self-effacement and endeavor to be no kind of burden upon him. + +"I am so proud of you!" he would say. + +And she would smile and answer: + +"You don't know, you never will know, how grateful I am to you." + +But her eyes would gaze far beyond him, through him, and light up +wistfully, and he would have a queer discomfortable sensation of being +a sojourner in his own house. Then he would think and puzzle over +Panoukian's rapturous description of her. She was discreet and +guarded: only her smile was intimate; her thoughts, if she had +thoughts, were shy and never sought out his; demonstrative she never +was. She led a busy, active life, the normal existence of moneyed or +successful women in London, and she was distinguished in her +efficiency. She had learned and developed taste, and was ever +transforming the chambers in Gray's Inn, driving out Robert and +installing in every corner of it the expression of her own +personality. After the first dazzling discovery of the possibilities +of clothes she had rebelled against the price charged by the +fashionable dressmakers and made her own gowns. Robert used to twit +her about her restlessness, and declared that one week when he came he +would find her wearing the curtains, and the next her gown would be +covering the cushions. Old Mole used to tease her, too, but what she +would take quite amiably from Robert she could not endure from him. + +"I thought you'd like it," she would say. + +"But, my dear, I do like it!" + +"Then why do you make fun of me?" + +And sometimes there would be tears. Once it came to a quarrel, and +after they had made it up she said she wanted a change, and went off +to stay with Bertha Boothroyd. In two days she was back again with the +most maliciously funny description of Jim's reception of her and his +absolute refusal to leave her alone with Bertha lest she should be +contaminated. Then she was gay and light-hearted, glad to be back +again and more busy than ever, and when Panoukian came to see them she +teased him out of his solemnity and earnestness almost into tears of +rage. She told him he ought to go to Thrigsby and work, find some real +work to do and not loaf about in London, in blue socks and white +spats, waiting until he was old enough to be taken seriously. + +He went away in the depths of misery, and she said to Old Mole: + +"Why don't you find him something to do?" + +"I? How can I find him. . . ?" + +"Don't you know that you are a very important person? You know +everybody who is anybody, and there is nobody you can't know if you +want to. Think of the hundreds of men in London who spend their whole +lives struggling to pull themselves up into your position so that in +the end they may have the pleasure of jobbing some one into a billet." + +"That," said Old Mole, "is what Panoukian calls Harbottling." + +She made him promise to think it over, and he began to dream of a +career for Panoukian, a real career on the lines of Self-Help. + +In his original pedagogic relation with Panoukian he had blocked out +for him an ascent upon well-marked and worn steps through Oxford into +the Home Civil Service, wherein by the proper gradations he should +rise to be a Permanent Under-Secretary and a Knight, and a credit to +the school. To the altered Panoukian and to Old Mole's changed and +changing mind that ambitious flight was now inadequate. Panoukian was +undoubtedly intelligent. Old Mole had not yet discovered the idea that +could baffle him, and he was positively reckless in his readiness to +discard those which neither fitted into the philosophy he for the +moment held nor seemed to lead to a further philosophy at which he +hoped to arrive. Every day Panoukian became more youthful and every +day more breathlessly irreverent. Nothing was sacred to him: he +insisted on selecting his own great men, and Old Mole was forced to +admit that there was some wisdom in his choice. He read Voltaire and +hated organized religion; Nietzsche and detested the slothfulness and +mean egoism of the disordered collection of human lives called +democracy; Butler and quizzed at the most respected and dozing of +English institutions; Dostoevsky and yearned out in a thinly +passionate sympathy to the suffering and the diseased and the victims +of grinding poverty. He was not altogether the slave of his great men: +after all they were dead; life went on and did not repeat itself, and +he (Panoukian) was in the thick of it, and determined not to be +crushed by it into a cushioned ease or the sodden insensibility of too +great misery. + +"My problem," he would say, "is myself. My only possible and valid +contribution to any general problem is the effective solution of that. +In other words, can I or can I not become a human being? If I succeed +I help things on by that much; if I fail, I become a Harbottle and +retard things by that much. Do you follow me?" + +Old Mole was not at all sure that he did, but he found Panoukian +refreshing, for there was in him something both to touch the +affections and excite the mind, and in his immediate surroundings +there was very little to do as much. There were men who talked, men +who did little or nothing else; but they lacked warmth, they were +Laputans living on a floating island above a land desolate in the +midst of plenty. Among such men it was difficult to conceive of +Panoukian finding a profitable occupation. Take him out of politics, +and where could he be placed? For what had his education fitted him? +Panoukian had had every kind of education. He had begun life in an +elementary school, passed on by his own cleverness to a secondary +school, and from that to the university where contact with the ancient +traditions of English culture, manhood and citizenship had flung him +into revolt and set him thinking about life before he had lived, +braying about among philosophies before he had need of any. There was +a fine stew in his brain, a tremendous array of ideas beleaguering +Panoukian without there being any actual definite Panoukian to +beleaguer. Certainly Old Mole could not remember ever having been in +such a state himself, nor in any generation subsequent to his own +could he remember symptoms which could account for the phenomenon. He +had to look far to discover other Panoukians. They were everywhere, +male and female. He set himself to discover them; they were in +journalism, in science, in the schools of art, on the stage, writing +wonderfully bad books, producing mannered and deliberately ugly verse, +quarreling among themselves, wrangling, detesting each other, +impatient, intolerant, outraging convention and their affectionate and +well-meaning parents and guardians, united only in the one savage +determination not to lick the boots of the generation that preceded +them. When they could admire they worshiped; they needed to admire; +they wanted to admire all men, and those men whom they found +unadmirable they hated. + +It was all very well (thought Old Mole) for Matilda with her cool +common sense to say that Panoukian must do something. What could he +do? His only positive idea seemed to be that he would not become a +Harbottle; and how better could he set about that than by living among +the species with the bitterness of his hatred sinking so deep into his +soul that in the end it must become sweetness? In theory Panoukian was +reckless and violent; in practice he was affectionate and generous, +much too full of the spasmodic, shy kindness of the young to fit into +the Self-Help tradition. Indeed, it was just here that the Panoukians, +male and female, were so astonishing. For generations in England +personal ambition had been the only motive force, the sole measure of +virtue, and it was personal ambition that they utterly ignored. They +were truly innocent of it. Upon that axis the society in which they +were born revolved. They could not move with it, for it seemed to them +stationary, and it was abhorrent to them. Their thoughts were not the +thoughts of the people around them. They could neither speak the old +language nor invent a new speech in which to make themselves +understood. Virtue they could perceive in their young hunger for life, +but virtue qualified by personal ambition and subserving it they could +not understand. They were asking for bread and always they were +offered stones. . . . Old Mole could not see what better he could do +than be kind to Panoukian, defend him from his solitude and give him +the use of the advantages in the "swim" of London which he had no mind +himself to employ. + + + +One of the few definite and tangible planks in Panoukian's program was +a stubborn conviction that he must have an "idea" of everything. It +was, he insisted, abominable to live in London unless there was in his +mind a real conception of London. + +"You see," he would say, "it would be charming and pleasant to accept +London as consisting of the Temple, the House and Gray's Inn, with an +imperceptible thread of vitality other than my own to bind them +together. We've had enough of trying to make life charming and +pleasant. All that is just swinish rolling in the mud. Do you follow +me? We've had enough. We were begotten and conceived and born in the +mud, and we've got to get out of it; and, unless you see that mud is +mud, you can't see the hills beyond, and the clear rivers, and the +sky. Can you?" + +"No, you can't," said Old Mole, groping about in his incoherence, and +speaking only because Panoukian was waiting for a shove into his +further speculations. + +"I mean, London may be all in a mess, which it is, but if I haven't a +clear idea of the mess I can't begin to mop it up, and I can't begin +on it at all until I've cleaned up the bit of the mess that is in +myself, can I? I mean, take marriage, for instance." + +"By all means, take marriage." + +"Well, you're married and I'm not, but it isn't a bit of good +screaming about marriage unless your own marriage is straightened out +and,--you know what I mean?--understood, is it? . . ." + +So he would go on, whirling from one topic to another--marriage, +morals, democracy, the will to power,--thinking in sharp contrasts, +sometimes hardly thinking, but feeling always. Vaguely, without +objects, catching himself out in some detestable sentimentality, +admitting it frankly and going back again over his whole argument to +pluck it out. Panoukian was to himself a weedy field, and with bowed +back and stiffened loins he was engrossed in stubbing it. It was +exhausting to watch him at it, and when, as sometimes happened, Old +Mole saw things through Panoukian's eyes he was disquieted. Then there +seemed no security in existence; civilization was no longer an +achievement, but a fluid stream flowing over a varied bed--rock, +pebbles, mud, sand; society was no establishment, but a precarious, +tottering thing, a tower of silted sands with an oozy base, blocking +the river, squeezing it into a narrow and unpleasant channel. In the +nature of things and its law the river would one day gather unto +itself great waters and bear the sands away. . . . Meanwhile men +strove to make the sand heap habitable, for they were born on it, +lived and died on it, and never looked beyond. Their whole lives were +filled with dread of its crumbling, their whole energies devoted to +building up against it and against the action of wind and rain and +sun. They built themselves in and looked not out, and made their laws +by no authority but only by expediency. And the young men, in their +vitality too great for such confinement, knew that somewhere there +must be firm ground, and were determined to excavate and to explore. +And Old Mole wished them well in the person of Panoukian. + + + +That young man set himself to discover London. He was forever coming +to Gray's Inn with exciting tales of streets discovered down by the +docks or in the great regions of the northern suburbs. He set himself +to walk from end to end of it, from Ealing to West Ham, from Dulwich +to Tottenham, and he vowed that there were men really living in it, +and he began to think of the democracy as a real entity, to be exalted +at the thought of its power. Old Mole demurred. The democracy had no +power, since it knew not how to grasp it. Its only instrument was the +vote, which was the engine of the Harbottles, the nibblers, the +place-seekers, the pleasure-hunters, those who scrambled to the top of +the sandy tower, where in the highest cavern there were at least air +and light and only the faintest stench from the river's mud. Here +there was so much divergence between Old Mole and Panoukian that they +ceased to talk the same language, and Old Mole would try another tack +and reach the stop-gap conclusion that the difference came about from +the fact that Gray's Inn was very comfortable, while Panoukian's +chambers in the Temple were bleak and bare. That was unsatisfactory, +for Panoukian would inveigh against comfort and vow, as indeed was +obvious, that no one had yet devised a profitable means of spending a +private income of thirty thousand a year. After reading an economic +treatise he came to the conclusion that the whole political problem +resolved itself into the wages question. Old Mole hated problems and +questions. They parched his imagination. His whole pleasure in +Panoukian's society lay in the young man's power to flood ideas with +his vitality. He argued on economic lines and gradually forced the +young man up to the spiritual plane and then gave him his conception +of society as a sand heap. That fired Panoukian. Was it or was it not +necessary for human beings to live upon shifting ground, with no firm +foothold? And he said that the great men had been those who had gone +out into the world and brought back tales of the fair regions +contained therein. + +"They have dreamed of fair regions," said Old Mole, "but no man has +ever gone out to them." + +"Then," said Panoukian, "it is quite time some one did." + +Matilda came in on that, caught the last words, and asked hopefully: + +"What is it you are going to do?" + +"He is going," said Old Mole, "to discover the bedrock of life and +live on it." + +"Is that all?" Matilda looked disappointed. "I hoped it was something +practical at last." + +The two men tried to carry on the discussion, but she closured it by +saying that she wanted to be taken out to dinner and amused. Panoukian +flew to dress himself in ordered black and white, and Matilda said to +Old Mole: + +"The trouble with you two is that you have too much money." + +"That, my dear, is the trouble with almost everybody, and, like +everybody else, we sit on it and talk." + +"It would do you both a world of good to have some real hard, +unpleasant work." + +"I can't agree with you. For twenty-five years I had real, hard, +unpleasant work five days in the week, and it profited neither myself +nor anybody else. I went on with it because it seemed impossible to +leave it. It left me, and my life has been a much brighter and +healthier thing to me. Panoukian is young enough to talk himself into +action. I shall go on talking forever." + +And he went on talking. Matilda produced a workbox and a pile of +stockings and began darning them. They sat one on either side of the +fireplace, and in the chimney sounded the explosive coo of a pigeon. + +"My dear," said Old Mole, "you know, I believe in Panoukian. I believe +he will make something of himself. I fancy that when he is mature +enough to know what he wants he will be absolutely ruthless in making +for it." + +"Do you?" + +Matilda rolled a pair of stockings up into a ball and tossed them into +a basket on the sofa some yards away. It was a neat shot, and Old Mole +admired the gesture with which she made it, the fling of the arm, the +swift turn of the wrist. + +"I do," he said. "Until then there can be no harm in his talking." + +"No. I suppose not. But you do go on so." + + + +Panoukian returned. Matilda made ready, and they set out. Old Mole +took them up to the Holborn gate and watched them walk along toward +Chancery Lane. It was a July evening. He watched them until they were +swallowed up in the hurrying crowd, the young man tall and big, +towering above Matilda small and neat. He saw one or two men in the +street turn and look at her, at them perhaps, for they made a handsome +couple. He admired them and was moved, and a mist covered his +spectacles. He took them off and wiped them. Then, kindling to the +thought of a quiet evening to end in the excitement of their return, +he walked slowly back under the windows flaring in the sunset. + +"Truly," he said, "the world is with the young men. There can be no +pleasanter task for the middle-aged than to assist them, but, alas! we +can teach them nothing, for, as the years go by, there is more and +more to learn." + + + +He sat up until half-past one with the chamber growing ever more chill +and empty, and his heart sinking as he thought of accidents that might +have befallen them. He was asleep on their return and never knew its +precise hour. They gave a perfectly frank and probable account of +their doings: dinner at a grill-room, a music-hall, supper at a German +restaurant, and then on to an At Home at the Schlegelmeiers', where +there had been a squash so thick that once you were in a room it was +impossible to move to any of the others. They had been wedged into the +gallery of the great drawing-room at Withington House, where the +principal entertainment had been a Scotch comedian who chanted lilting +ballads. It was this distinguished artist's habit to make his audience +sing the chorus of each song, and it had been diverting to see +duchesses and ladies of high degree and political hostesses singing +with the abandon of the gods at an outlying two-shows-a-night house: + + + _Rolling, rolling in the heather, + All in the bonny August weather, + There was me and Leezy Lochy in the dingle, + There was Jock and Maggie Kay in the dell, + For ilka lassie has her laddie, + And ilka laddie has his lassie, + And what they dae together I'll na tell, + But Leezy, Leezy Lochy in the dingle, + Is bonny as the moon above the heather._ + + +Matilda sang the song all through and made Old Mole and Panoukian +troll the chorus. There were a freshness and warmth about her that +were almost startling, full of mischief and sparkling fun. She teased +both the men and mysteriously promised them a great reward if they +could guess a riddle. + +"My second is in woman but not in man, my first is French, I have two +syllables, and you'll never guess." + +"Where did you get it?" asked Panoukian. + +"I made it up." + +So they tried to guess and soon confessed themselves beaten. Then she +told them that the second half of the riddle was _sense_, because she +never knew a man who had it; and the first half was _non_ and together +they made _nonsense_, because she felt like it. + +Her mood lasted for five days. Panoukian came in every evening--(she +was rehearsing for a new play, but only in the daytime)--and they +frolicked and sang and burlesqued their own solemn discussions. On the +sixth day her high spirits sank and she was moody and silent. She +forbade Panoukian to come in the evening. He came at teatime, and she +stayed out. One day Old Mole had tea with Panoukian. They walked in +the Temple Gardens afterward, and Panoukian blurted out: + +"I don't know if your wife has told you, sir, but after we left the +Schlegelmeiers' it was such a glorious night, and we were so glad to +be in the air again, that we took a taxi and drove down to Richmond +and came back in the dawn. There wasn't any harm in it, as you and I +see things, but I've been thinking it over and come to the conclusion +that you ought to know." + +A sudden anger took possession of Old Mole, and he retorted: + +"Of course, if there were any harm in it, you wouldn't tell me." + +"Hang it all, sir. You haven't any right to say that to me." + +"No, no. Quite right. I haven't. No. I beg your pardon. I'm glad to +see you such friends. She isn't very good at making friends. +Acquaintances come and go, but there seem to be very few people whom +she and I can share." + +"I have the profoundest respect for her," said Panoukian. "As we were +coming back in the dawn she told me all her life. The things she has +suffered, the misery she has come through." + +And they fraternized in their sympathy for Matilda. Panoukian gave an +instance of her early sufferings. She had never told it to her +husband, and he returned to Gray's Inn puzzled and uneasy, to find her +sitting idle, doing nothing, with no pretence at activity. He was +tender with her, and asked if she might be ill. She said no, but she +had been thinking and wanted to know what was the good of anything. +She said she knew she never could be like the other women they knew; +it wasn't any good, they seemed to feel that she was different and +hadn't had their education and pleasant girlhood, and they only wanted +her because they thought she was a success. He told her that he wanted +nothing less than for her to be like the other women, that he never +wanted her to live in and be one of the crowd, but only to be herself, +her own brave, delightful self. + +"That's what Arthur says." (They had begun to call Panoukian _Arthur_ +during their few days of high spirits.) "He says you've got to be +yourself or nothing. And I don't understand, and thinking makes it so +hard. . . ." She did not want him to speak. She said, "You still love +me? You still want me?" + +And there came back to him almost the love of their wanderings, the +old desire with its sting of jealousy. + +For three days after that she never once spoke to him. + + + +It seemed she wrote to Panoukian, for he appeared again on her last +night before the opening of the new play, and was there when she +returned from the dress rehearsal. She shook hands with him, made him +sit by the fireplace opposite Old Mole, took up some sewing, and said: + +"Now talk." + +After some diffidence Panoukian began, and they came round to "Lossie +Loses," the last weeks of which had at length been announced. It would +have run for two years and two months. Panoukian's theory of its +success was that people were much like children, and once they were +pleased with a story wanted it told over and over again without a +single variation. + +"The public," said Matilda, "are very funny. When they don't listen to +you, you think them idiots; when they do, you adore them and think +them wonderful." + +"I have never felt anything but contempt for them for liking 'Lossie +Loses,' " said Old Mole. + +"But then," put in Panoukian, "you did not write it. If you had, you +would be persuaded by now that it is a masterpiece. That is how +Harbottles are made: they attribute their flukes to their skill and +insist on being given credit for them." + +"I often wonder," said Old Mole, "what the man who wrote it thinks +about it. He must surely know by now." + +"He must be dead." Matilda swept him out of consideration with her +needle. "I don't believe any man would have let it go on so long and +not come forward." + +Panoukian examined the ethical aspect of the situation, and from that +they passed to the discussion of morals, whether there was in fact any +valid morality in England, or simply those things were not done which +were unpleasant in their consequences. The Ten Commandments were +presumably the basis of the nation's morality, since they were read +publicly in places of worship every Sunday (though the majority of the +adult population never went near any place of worship). How many of +the Commandments were closely observed, how many (in the general +custom) met with compromise, how many neglected? Murder and the more +obvious forms of theft were punished; deliberate and wicked fraud, +also, but at every turn the morality had been modified, its bad +admitted to be not always and altogether bad, its good equally subject +to qualification. It had been whittled and chipped away by +non-observance until practically all that was left was a bad +consisting of actions which were a palpable nuisance to society, with +never a good at all. + +"Either," said Panoukian, "the Jewish morality has never been suitable +for the Western races or they have never been intelligent enough to +grasp its intention or its applicability to the facts of life and the +uses of society." + +"I wish you wouldn't use so many long words," said Matilda. + +But Panoukian rushed on: + +"I can't believe in the justice of a morality which is based on the +idea of punishment. It is inevitable that such a system should set a +premium on skill in evading consequences rather than on right action." + +"I believe," said Old Mole, "in tolerance, you can't begin to hold a +moral idea without that." + +"Right," said Matilda, "is right and wrong is wrong. I always know +when I'm doing right and when I'm doing wrong." + +"But you do it all the same?" asked Panoukian. + +"Oh, yes." + +"And so does every healthy human being. So much for morality." + +"Don't you believe that people are always punished?" asked Old Mole. + +"Certainly not. There are thousands of men who go scot free, and so +sink into self-righteousness that more than half their faculties +atrophy, and not even the most disastrous calamity, not even the most +terrible spiritual affliction, can penetrate to their minds." + +"That," said Old Mole, "is the most horrible of punishments and seems +to me to show that there is a moral principle in the universe. I find +it difficult to understand why moralists are not content to leave it +at that, but I have observed that men apply one morality to the +actions of others and another to their own. The wicked often prosper, +and the righteous are filled with envy and pass judgment, wherein they +cease to be righteous." + +"My father," said Matilda, "was a very bad man, but I was fond of him. +My mother was a good woman, and I never could abide her." + +"It is all a matter of affection," quoth Panoukian with more than his +usual emphasis. + +"I agree," muttered Old Mole. + +And all three were surprised at this conclusion. They were uneasily +silent for a moment or two, when Panoukian departed. Then Matilda rose +and came to her husband and held out her hand. He took it in both his +and looked up at her. + +"Good night," she said. + +"Good night." + +"Until to-morrow." + +And slowly the smile he loved came to her face. Warmed by it and +encouraged, he said: + +"Is anything worrying you?" + +The smile disappeared. + +"No. Nothing. I'm beginning to think about things, and you. It's all +so queer. . . . Good night." + +And she was gone. + + + +He attended the first night of the new play. Matilda had a larger +part, and one very short scene of emotion, or, at least, of what +passed for it in the English theater of those days, that is to say it +was a nervous and sentimental excitement altogether disproportionate +to the action, and not built into the structure of the play, but +plastered on to it to conceal an alarming crack in the brickwork. +Matilda did very well and only for a moment let the scene slip out of +the atmosphere of gimcrackery into the air of life. She did this +through defective technique, but that one moment of genuine feeling, +even in so false a cause, was so startling as to whip the audience out +of its comfortable lethargy into something that was so near pleasure +that they could not but applaud. It was an artistic error, since it +was her business to be as banal and shallow as the play, which had +been made with great mechanical skill so that it required only the +superficial service of the actors, and, unlike the candle of the Lord, +made no attempt to "search out the inward parts of the belly." In her +part Matilda had to discover and betray in one moment her love for the +foppish hero of the piece, and being, as aforesaid, wanting in her +technical equipment, drew, for the purpose of the scene, on her own +imagination, and that which--though she might not know it--had +possession of it. The audience was startled into pleasure, Old Mole +into something like terror. There was in the woman there on the stage +a power, a quality, an essence--he could not find the word--on which +he had never counted, for which he had never looked, which now, he +most passionately desired to make his own. He knew that it was not +artistry in her, his own response to it had too profoundly shaken him; +it was living fire, flesh of her flesh, and marvelously made her, for +the first time, kin and kind with him. And he knew then that he had +been living on theory about her, and was so contemptuous of it and of +himself that he brushed aside all thought of the past, all musings and +speculations, and was all eagerness to join her, to tell her of the +amazing convulsion of himself, and how, at last, through this +accident, he had recognized her for what she was. . . . He could not +sit through the rest of the play. Its artificiality, its inane +falsehood disgusted him. He went out into the brilliantly lighted +streets and walked furiously up and down, up and down, and on. And the +men and women in the streets seemed small and mechanical, utterly +devoid of the vital principle he had discerned in his wife's eyes, +voice, gesture, as she played her part. They were just a crowd, +mincing and strutting, bound together by nothing but the capacity to +move, to place one leg before another and proceed from one point to +another of the earth's surface. He had that in common with them, but +nothing else: nothing that bound him to them. (So he told himself, and +so truly he thought, for he was comparing a moment of real experience +with a series of impressions made on him by his surroundings.) He +walked up and down the glittering streets, streaked with white and +yellow and green and purple lights, and the commotion in him waxed +greater. . . . When he returned to the theater Matilda was gone, and +had left no message for him. + +He found her in her bed, with the light on, reading. She had undressed +hastily and her clothes were littered about the room in an untidiness +most unusual with her. She stuffed what she was reading under her +pillow. + +"You didn't wait for me," he said. + +"No. I didn't want to see anybody. I rushed away before the end." + +"Anything wrong?" + +"I hate the theater. I hate it all, the people in it, the blinding +lights, the painted scenery, the audience, oh! the audience! I don't +ever want to go near it again. It's just playing and pretending. +. . ." + +"The piece was certainly nothing but a pretence at drama." + +"Oh! Don't talk about it." + +"But I want to know what has upset you." + +"I can't tell you. I don't know myself. I only know that I'm +miserable, miserable. Just let me be." + +He had learned that when she was ill or out of sorts or depressed she +never had any desire left in her but to curl up and hide herself away. +At such times the diffidence inherent in her character seemed wholly +to master her, and there was no rousing her to a better grace. He +withdrew, his exaltation dampened, and repaired to his study, where in +the dark at his desk in the window he sat gazing out into the night, +at the few lighted windows of the Inn, and the bruise-colored glow of +the sky. He could think only of her and now it seemed to him that he +could really lose himself and live in her, and through her come to +love. He remembered how, when she was rehearsing, he had asked how she +was progressing, and she had replied: "I shall never get it. Either +the part's all wrong or I am." And that evening she had "got it," +reached what the author had been fumbling after, the authentic note of +human utterance, the involuntary expression of love. It had alarmed +himself: how devastating must it then have seemed to her! It was +almost horrible in its irrelevance. It came from neither of them and +yet it was theirs, but not for sharing. It had driven her, like a +beast on a stroke of illness, to hide away from him, but through her +and only through her could he approach it. The abruptness of its +outburst, its geyser-like upward thrust, made it alone seem natural +and all their life of habit artificial and shabby; how much more then +the stale and outworn tricks of the theater! He approached it, +worshiping, marveling at the sense of release in his soul, and knew +that, with the power it gave him, he had bitten through the crust of +life, whereat he had been nibbling and gnawing with his mind and +picking with the chipped flints of philosophies. And he was awed into +humility, into admission of his own impotence, into perception, clear +and whole, of the immensity of its life's purpose, of its huge force +and mighty volume bearing the folly and turbulence of mind and flesh +lightly on its bosom, so that a man must accept life as to be lived, +can never be its master, but only its honorable servant or its +miserable slave. He had then the sense of being one with life, from +which nothing was severed, not the smallest bubble of a thought, not +the least grain of a desire, of possessing all his force and a +boundless reserve of force, and he whispered: + +"I love." + +And the mighty sound of it filled all the chambers of his life, so +that he was rich beyond dreams. + +He laid his head in his arms and wept. His tears washed away the +stains of memory, the scars and spotted dust upon his soul, and he +knew now that he had no longer to deal with an idea of life, but with +life itself, and he was filled with the desperate courage of his +smallness. + + + +For a brief space after a storm of summer rain the world is a place of +glowing color, of flowing, harmonious lines. So it was now with Old +Mole, and he discovered the charm of things. His habitual life went on +undisturbed, and he could find pleasure even in that. His love for +Matilda reduced him to a sort of passiveness, so that he asked nothing +of her, gave her of himself only so much as she demanded, and was +content to watch her, to be with her, to feel that he was in no way +impeding her progress. + +She showed no change save that there was a sort of effort in her +self-control, as though she were deliberately maintaining her old +attitude toward him. She never made any further allusion to her avowed +hatred of the theater, and returned to it as though nothing had +suffered. He told himself that it was perhaps only a mood of +exhaustion, or that, though she might have passed through a crisis, +yet it was possible for her to be unaware of it, so that its effects +would only gradually become visible and very slowly translated into +action. After all, she was still very young, and the young are +mercifully spared having to face their crises. . . . When he went to +see her play her part again she had mastered her scene by artistry; +the almost barbaric splendor of her outburst was gone; she had a trick +for it, and her little scene became, as it was intended to be, only a +cog in the elaborate machinery by which the entertainment moved. + +This time Panoukian was with him, and denounced the piece as an +abomination, a fraud upon the public--(who liked it immensely)--and he +produced a very ingenious, subtle diagnosis of the diseases that were +upon it and submitted it to a thorough and brutal vivisection, act by +act, as they sat through it. Old Mole was astonished to find that +Panoukian's violence annoyed him, offended him as an injustice, and, +though he did not tell him so, saw clearly that he was applying to the +piece a standard which had never for one moment been in the mind of +the author, whose concern had been to the best of his no great powers +to contrive an amusing traffic which should please everybody and +offend none, supply the leading actors with good and intrinsically +flattering parts, tickle the public into paying for its long-continued +presentation, and so pay the rent of the theater, the formidable +salary list, and provide for the satisfaction of his pleasures, the +caprices of his extremely expensive wife, and his by no means peculiar +mania for appearing in the columns of the newspapers and illustrated +journals; pure Harbottling; but it had nothing at all to do with what +Panoukian was talking about, namely, art. It was certainly all out of +drawing and its moral perspective was all awry, but it was hardly more +fantastical and disproportionate than Panoukian's criticism. It was +entirely unimportant: to apply a serious standard to it was to raise +it to a level in the mind to which it had no right. Of the two, the +author and Panoukian, he was not sure but Panoukian was the greater +fool. However, extending his indulgence from one to the other, he let +the young man talk his fill, and said nothing. He had begun to +treasure silence. + +He loved the silent evenings in Gray's Inn, where he could sit and +smoke and chuckle over the world's absurdity, and ponder the ways of +men so variously revealed to him in the last few years, and gloat over +his own happiness and dream of the days when Matilda should have come +to the full bloom of her nature and they would perfectly understand +each other, and then life would be a full creation, as full and +varied, as largely moving as the passing of the seasons. He had +delightful dreams of the time when she would fully share his silence, +the immense region beyond words. He was full of happiness, gummy with +it, like a plum ripe for plucking--or falling. + +In his fullness of living--the very top, he told himself, of his age, +of a man's life--he found it easy to cover paper with his thoughts and +memories, delightful and easy to mold them into form, and to amuse +himself he began a work which he called "Out of Bounds," half +treatise, half satire on education, dry, humorous, mocking, in which +he drew a picture of the members of his old profession engaged in +hacking down the imaginations of children and feeding the barren +stumps of their minds with the sawdust of the conventional curricula. +He was very zestful in this employment, perfectly content that Matilda +should be even less demonstrative than before, telling himself that +she was wrestling with the after effects of her crisis and would turn +to him and his affection when she needed them. He made rapid progress +with his work. + +"Lossie Loses" came to an end at last, and he counted the spoils. He +had gained many thousands of pounds--(the play was still running in +America)--a few amusing acquaintances, a career for his wife, and an +insight into the workings of London's work and pleasure which he would +have found it hard to come by otherwise. He chuckled over it all and +flung himself with fresh ardor into his work. + +After the hundredth performance of her play Matilda declared that she +was tired, and wanted a rest, and she threw up her part. She came to +him and said she wished to go away. + +"Very well. Where shall we go?" + +"I want to go alone." + +And she waited as though she expected a protest from him. For a moment +she gazed at him almost with pleading in her eyes, and then she +governed herself, stood before him almost assertively and repeated: + +"Alone." + +In the aggression he felt the strain in her and told himself she was +wanting to get away from him, to break the habit of their life, to +come back to him fresh, to advance toward him, reach up to the prize +he held in his hands. He told himself that to break in upon her +diffidence might only be to thicken the wall she--(he said it was +she)--had raised between them. He said: + +"Won't you mind?" + +"No. I want to be alone." + +"Where will you go then?" + +"I don't know. Anywhere. By the sea, I think." + +He suggested the Yorkshire coast, but she said that was too far and +she didn't like the North. + +"Oh! No!" he said. "Want to forget it?" + +She passed that by. + +He took down a map, and she looked along the south coast and pitched +on a place in Sussex, because it was far from the railway and would +therefore be quiet. He left his work, wired to the hotel for rooms, +sat and talked to her as she packed, saw her off the next morning and +returned to his work, rejoicing in the silence and emptiness of the +chambers. + +He sent her letters on to her without particularly noticing their +superscription. On the third day a letter came for her, and he +recognized the handwriting as Panoukian's. He sent that on. When his +work went swimmingly and his pen raced he wrote to her, long, droll, +affectionate epistles: when his work hobbled then he did not write and +hardly gave a thought to her. She wrote to him in her awkward hand +with gauche, conventional descriptions of the scenery amid which she +was living. He read them and they gave him fresh light on education. +He was reaching the constructive part of his work, and it began to +take shape as an exposition of the methods by which the essential +Matilda might have been freed of the diffidence and self-distrust +which hemmed her in. That brought him to feminism, and he imagined a +description of women in Trafalgar Square screaming in a shrill +eloquence for deliverance from the captivity into which they had been +cast by the morals of the sand heap. He was keenly interested in this +scene, and, as he had sketched it, was not sure that he had the +topography of the Square exact. + +One evening, therefore, he dined at his club, meaning to walk home by +the Square and the Strand. He was drawn into an argument and did not +set out before ten o'clock. It was one of those nights when heavy +clouds lumber low over the city and absorb the light, break the chain +of it so that the great arcs are like dotted lanterns, and behind them +buildings loom. He turned down Parliament Street to get the full +effect of this across the Square, and then came up across and across +it, carefully observing how the great thoroughfares lay in relation to +the Nelson Column. As, finally, he was crossing to the Strand he was +almost dashed over by a taxicab, drew back, looked up, saw his wife +gazing startled out of the window. He stared at her, but she did not +recognize him and seemed to be entirely absorbed in the fright and +shock of the avoided accident. He followed the car with his eyes. It +had turned sharply in the middle of the road to pass into the +southward stream of traffic. He saw it slow down and draw up outside a +huge hotel, and hurried after it. The porter came out and opened the +door. Matilda stepped to the pavement, and after her Panoukian. They +passed in through the revolving door of the hotel just as he reached +the pavement. The porter staggered in with Matilda's portmanteau. + +Old Mole lunged forward on an impulse. He reached the door and glared +through the glass. The hall was full of people, there was a great +coming and going. He could see neither Matilda nor Panoukian. He +turned and walked very slowly down the steps of the hotel. There were +four steps. He reached the pavement and was very careful not to walk +on the cracks. At the edge of the pavement he stopped and stared +vacantly up at the Nelson Column. Small and black against the heavy +clouds stood the statue, and almost with a click Old Mole's brain +began to think again, mechanically, tick-tocking like a clock, +fastening on the object before his eyes, and clothing it with +associations. + +"Nelson--Romney--Lady Hamilton--Lady Hamilton--Emma--Nelson's +enchantress--Nelson," and so on all over again. . . . The action of +his heart was barely perceptible, a slow beat, a buzzing at his ears. +"Nelson--Romney----" + +He stood gazing up at the statue. The clouds behind it moved and gave +it the appearance of moving. It was very certain that the sword moved. +. . . "England expects. . . ." He gazed fascinated. A little crowd +gathered. Men and women stood around and behind him and gazed up. He +was aware of them, and he said: + +"Idiots." + +But he could not move. The crowd spread over the pavement and blocked +the way. A policeman appeared and moved them on. He jostled Old Mole. + +"Move on, there. You're causing an obstruction." + +Old Mole stared at him stupidly. + +The officer spoke to him again, but made no impression. Old Mole +stared at the hotel as though he were trying to remember something +about it, but he did not move. The officer hailed a taxi, bundled him +into it, and drove with him to the police station. In the charge room +there was confabulation, and Old Mole gaped round him: the furniture, +the large men in uniform swam mistily before him. One of the men +approached him sympathetically, and he heard a voice say: + +"Can't make nothink of it, sir." + +His brain fastened on that as expressing something that it was trying +to get clear. He felt a slight relaxation of the numbness that was +upon him. + +Another voice said: + +"What's your name?" + +"Name?" said Old Mole. + +The man in front of him said: + +"The Inspector says: What's the name?" + +"Panoukian," said Old Mole. + + + + +VI + +OUT OF IT + +_When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing._ + +THE QUEEN OF HEARTS + + + +VI + +OUT OF IT + +THE name acted as an aperitive on Old Mole's faculties, he opened his +eyes and mouth very wide and ate his breath like a fish, and began +eloquently to apologize to the policemen for the trouble he had given +them. He diagnosed his condition as a brief suspension of the +reasoning faculties, a perfectly normal affliction to which all men +were liable. The policemen listened to him stolidly and exchanged +slow, heavy winks, as to say that they had indeed drawn a strange fish +out of the sea of London. Their prize was soon able to give a coherent +account of himself, and they let him go with no worse than a request +to pay the cost of the cab in which he had been brought. + +There was heavy rain when he reached the streets. The people were +coming out of the theaters and halls, scurrying along under umbrellas, +darting for cover, wrestling their way into cabs and omnibuses and +Tube stations. The streets were like black mirrors, or deep sluggish +rivers, with the lights drowned in them. The people were all hurrying +to get out of the rain. Old Mole was indifferent to it, and more +acutely than ever was he visited by the sense of having nothing in +common with them. By sheer force of numbers they presented themselves +to his mind as obscene. At one point he was caught in a crowd and so +offended by the smell of warm flesh, wet clothes and heated india +rubber that he was for a moment possessed by a desire to strike the +nearest man. He restrained himself and walked on. In front of him +there were a brace of marketable women profiting by the weather to +display their legs up to their knees. His mind raced back to the +Puritanism in which he had been nurtured, and he was filled with the +Antonine heated horror of women. . . . All the way home he was beset +with sights and scenes that accentuated his disgust. + +It was not until he reached Gray's Inn that he was faced with the +pathetic absurdity of his situation, and then he found it unthinkable. +There was not an object in the chambers but cried aloud of Matilda. +She had made the place beautiful, changed its tone from masculine to +feminine, and she was there though she was absent. It was very grim +and horrible; like coming on the clothes of a beloved creature of +whose death he had been told. He played with the idea of death +voluptuously. She was dead, he told himself; his own end was not far +off. The shadow of it was over the place. He went from room to room, +fingering her possessions, touching the stuffs and garments he had +last seen in her hands. He opened her wardrobe and thrust his hands +among her soft gowns. He stood by her bed and patted the pillow and +smoothed the coverlet. He caught sight of himself in her mirror and +told himself that he could see her face, too. And she was very young, +too young to be dead: and he was startlingly, haggardly old. Surely +the end could not be far off. + +He went from room to room, picturing her in each as he had last seen +her. + +He pushed his mood of horror to its extremity so that he was nigh sick +with it. + +All night in his study he prowled round and round. He locked himself +in, locked the outer door, locked all her rooms and pocketed the keys. +She would not, she should not, come back. No one should enter. The +obscenity of the streets clung to him and he could see his situation +in no other light. All his life he had regarded the violation of +marriage as a thing so horrible that it could only happen among +monsters and therefore so remote from himself as to find no place in +his calculations. There was a certain side of human life which was +settled by marriage. Outside it was obscenity, from the poison of +which marriages were impregnably walled in. The walls were broken +down; a filthy flood swamped the fair city of his dreams, and for a +short while he was near mad with thoughts of lust and jealousy and +revenge. He knew it but could not away with it. There was an +extraordinary pleasure, a giddy delight in yielding to the flood, +giving rein to the long penned up forces of the animal in him, and +breaking into childish, impotent anger. + +Slowly he lingered, and he began to imagine, to invent, what others +would think of him--Robert, his sister, his acquaintances at the club, +and there was a sort of pleasure in the writhing of his vanity. He +despised himself for it, but he wallowed in it. Never before had he +seen such a quantity of mud and its appeal was irresistible. + +When at last he crawled out of it he sat in rueful contemplation of +himself and went back to the cause of it all: the averted accident in +Trafalgar Square, the hotel door swinging--the low-hanging clouds, the +crowd, the Nelson statue. . . . Nelson: Emma. And Old Mole laughed: +after all, there were distinguished precedents, Sir William Hamilton, +most of the friends of Julius Cæsar, Hans von Bülow, George II. The +thing had happened even in Thrigsby, but there it had been only a tale +to laugh at, with pitying condemnation for the husband and a sudden, +irrepressible envy of the lover; envy, neither more nor less; he felt +gratified at the honesty of this admission, though not a little +surprised at it. It was like a thin trickle of cold water upon his +fever, invigorating him, so that he struggled to break through the +meshes of sentimentality in which he had been caught. He broke free, +and to his astonishment found himself sitting at his desk and turning +over the closely written sheet which he had left on the blotting pad. +He corrected a serious mistake in the topography of Trafalgar Square +and went on writing. . . . The outcry of the women against the moral +atmosphere of the sand heap reached up to a noble eloquence in which +were declared their profound pity and sympathy for the men trapped in +sensuality and habitual vice. They declared their ability to think of +men as suffering human beings, wounded and deformed by ignorance and +prejudice, and asked only for the like true chivalry from men. He +drained the vat of his ideas dry, and, at last, at five o'clock in the +morning, exhausted, he went to bed. + +He awoke to a sense of novelty and unfamiliarity in his surroundings +and in himself, welcomed the new day with the thankfulness of health, +splashed lustily in his bath, jovially slapped his belly as he dried +himself, and chuckled at its rotundity, regarded it as a joke, the +private particular joke of middle age. Almost it seemed as though his +body had a separate personality of its own, certainly it had many +adventures, many inward happenings of which he was not aware, a +variety of processes beyond his discernment. That amused him mightily. +. . . He remembered the horrors of the night. It must have been a +nightmare! Of course, a nightmare was often followed with a feeling of +health and a grotesque humor! + +There were three letters on his breakfast table. One was from Matilda, +posted the day before at the Sussex village. She said she was well, +though the weather was bad, and she was getting rather more loneliness +than she had bargained for. She sent her love and hoped he was happy +without her. He tore up the letter and burned it, and turned back the +thoughts and memories it had summoned forth. He applied himself +hungrily to his breakfast and took careful note of the process of +eating, trying to discover why it should be pleasant and why, slowly, +it should take the zest off his appetite for the day's doings. + +"Queer," he thought, "how little interest we take in the body. It +might be an unfailing source of entertainment. It is not so certain +neither that it is not wiser than the mind." + +All day he harped on thoughts of the body and was fiercely busy +scrubbing his own clean of the base ideas of the night. He was fairly +rid of them at last toward evening, but his mind was in a horrid +confusion, and he was rather alarmed at the hard appearance of +actuality taken on by his body. It blotted everything else out. He saw +it in the masked light and shade of dirt and cleanliness. From that he +went on to the other seeming opposites--life and death, love and hate, +vice and virtue, light and darkness--found so many of them that he was +semi-hypnotized and sank into an unthinking contemplation. There was +good and there was bad, two points, in the catenary of which he was +slung as in a hammock, with the void beneath. . . . Life as an exact +equation was an impossible, appalling idea; but he could not break +free from it. He could not escape from the trite dualism of things. +. . . From the stupor of ideas he returned to his body and found in +that the same tyranny of the number two: he had two eyes, two ears, +two hands, two feet, two lungs, two kidneys. It comforted him greatly +to reflect that he had only one heart, one nose, one mouth. + +"Bah!" he said, "I am making a bogey of my own shadow." + +And he resolved to take a Turkish bath before dining at the club. He +did so, and was baked and kneaded and pummeled and lathered back into +a tolerable humor, and, as he lay swathed in warm towels and smoking +an excellent cigar, he faced the situation, yielded to it, let it +sting and nip at his heart, and was so racked with its pain that he +could form no clear idea of it, nor struggle, but only lie limp and +pray to God, or whatever devil had let such furies loose upon him, +that the worst might soon be over before he was betrayed into any +brutal or foolish act. He was amazed to find that his vanity had been +slain: it had died in the night of shock, so he diagnosed it. No +longer was he concerned with what other people would think of himself. +The cruel pain twinged the sharper for it, and he saw that vanity is a +protective crust, a shell grown by man to cover his nakedness. . . . +His general ideas were clear enough: and the amusement of them served +to distract him in his agony. It tickled him to think of a Turkish +bath in Jermyn Street as the scene of such a mighty sorrow, and said: + +"So much the better for the Turkish bath. It becomes the equal of Troy +or Elsinore or the palace of Andromache, and nobler, for mine is a +real and no poet's tragedy. It is a true tragedy, or, my vanity being +dead, I should not bother my head about it. . . . Is my vanity dead? I +have shed it as a crab his claw or a lizard his tail. It will grow +again." + +He sank deep into pain until it seemed to him he could suffer no more, +and then he went over to his club and dined fastidiously--a crab (to +inspect its claw), a quail, and a devil on horseback, with a bottle of +claret, very deliberately selected in consultation with the head +waiter. Throughout his meal he read the wine list from cover to cover +and back again, and thought how closely it resembled the Thrigsby +school list. It contained so many familiar names that he was put out +at its not including Panoukian's, and of Panoukian slowly he began to +think: at first sleepily and in the gross content of his good dinner, +as a wine, heady, sparkling, inclined to rawness, too soon bottled, or +too soon uncorked, he could not be certain which. Then he thought of +Panoukian as a man, and a savage anger burst in upon him, and he +thought of Panoukian's deed as the atmosphere of the club dictated he +should think of it. Panoukian had acted dirtily and dishonorably: he +should be hounded out, hounded out. Panoukian had wormed himself into +his (Old Mole's) affections and trust, to betray both. He had shown +himself a cad, a blackguard, a breaker of the laws of hospitality and +good society. . . . There was a solid plumpness in this conception of +Panoukian that pleased Old Mole almost sensually, gave him the same +sort of mouth-watering anticipation as the breast had done of the +quail he had just eaten. He had Panoukian nicely dished up, brown, +done to a turn: he would poise the knife for one gloating moment, +plunge it in, and cleave the ripe morsel from breast to back. +Panoukian had been cooked by his own actions: he deserved the knife +and the crunch of teeth. Old Mole, like many another good man wronged, +felt ogreish. . . . He began in his head (and with the aid of the wine +in his head) to compose letters to Panoukian, commencing "Sir" or +"Dear Sir," or, without approach, plunging into such a sentence as: +"No matter how public the place, or how painful to myself, I shall, +when I next meet you, be obliged to thrash you." + +And he gloated over the thoughts of thrashing Panoukian: mentally +chose the stick, a whippy cane; the fleshy portion of Panoukian's +anatomy under the tails of his too-much-waisted coat. He rejoiced in +the scene. It might be in the House, under the eyes of all the +Harbottles: or, better still, in the Temple before the grinning +porters. + +He was brought to himself by a crash and a tinkle. He had waved his +fork in the air and knocked over his last glass of claret. The head +waiter concealed his annoyance in fatherly solicitude and professional +business, and suggested another half-bottle. Weakly Old Mole +consented, and while he was waiting, after collecting his thoughts, +found that they had left Panoukian and come to Matilda. Her image was +blurred: his love had become sorrow and a creeping torment, and the +torment was Matilda, the blood in his veins, inseparable from himself. +And because she was inseparable Panoukian became so, too. There could +be no gain in thrashing Panoukian: that was just blustering nonsense; +"defending his honor" was the phrase. Idiots! He looked round at the +other diners. What was the good of defending that which was lost? What +was there to defend? You might as well ask a sea captain whose ship +had been blown up by a mine why on earth he did not use his guns. +. . . Further, honor was a word for which he could find no precise +meaning. It was much in vogue in the theater, from Copas to Butcher. A +woman's honor apparently meant her chastity. A man's honor, in some +very complicated way, seemed to be bound up in the preservation of +woman's, as though she herself were to have no say in the matter. No; +honor would not do: it was only a red herring trailed across the +scent. + +Next came the cause of morality, which demanded the punishment of +offenders. To his consternation he found himself thinking of the +affair impersonally, pharisaically, inhumanly, detaching himself from +Matilda, thrusting her violently away, giving her a dig or two with +the goad of self-righteousness, and swelling at the neck with +conscious rectitude. Why? . . . She must suffer for her sins. + +Sin? _Sünde, pécher._ He thought of it in three or four languages, but +in all it created an impression of overstatement and, more, of bad +taste. He had lived for so long with a warm, intimate idea of Matilda +that he resented the intrusion of morality, bidding him stand above +her, judge and condemn. It might be simpler, the easiest attitude to +adopt--a suit of ready-made mental clothes, reach-me-downs--but it was +uncomfortable, cold, and, most astonishing of all, degrading. It was +to be impersonal in a desperately personal matter. _Ça ne va pas._ + + + _Du bist wie eine Blume. + So rein und schön und hold . . ._ + + +Like nearly every lover who has any acquaintance with the German +language, he had tagged Heine's verses on to his beloved. He clutched +at them now. They were still apt. He used them as a weapon with which +to drive back the cause of morality, but he was still very far from +the mastery of himself and the affair--_l'affaire Panoukian._ He was +the victim of a fixed idea--the taxicab, the hotel door swinging +round, the low-hanging clouds, the Nelson statue. . . . George II had +caused the death of Königsmarck, but his sympathies had never been +with George II; besides that was a monarch, and not even the success +of "Lossie Loses" and his acquaintance with half the Cabinet would +enable him with impunity to procure the death of Panoukian. Apart from +the defence of honor and the cause of morality, what do men do in the +circumstances? + +He was to receive instruction. . . . + +In the reading room he picked up an evening newspaper. It was pleasant +to hold a tangible object in his fingers and to pass into the reported +doings of the great and the underworld. He had heard gossip of the +final catastrophe of a notoriously wretched marriage. The divorce +proceedings were reported in the paper. The husband--Old Mole knew him +slightly and did not like him--gave evidence to show himself as a +noble and generous creature, near heartbroken, and the woman, whom his +selfishness had driven into a desperate love, as light or hysterical. +It was such a distortion of the known facts, such an audacious +defiance of the knowledge common to all polite London, that Old Mole +was staggered. He read the report again. One sentence of the evidence +was almost a direct appeal for sympathy. Knowing the man, he could +picture him standing there, keeping his halo under his coat-tails and +donning it at the right moment. It was theatrical and very adroit. + +"Bah!" said Old Mole. "He is groveling to the public, sacrificing even +his wife to the many headed." + +And his sympathies were with the woman. At least she had shown +courage, and the man had lied and asked for admiration for it: so +honor was defended and the cause of morality served. + +A little knot of men in the room were discussing the case. Their +sympathies were with the man. + +"If a woman did that to me," said the nearest man, "I'd thrash her, I +would. Thank God, I'm a bachelor." + +"I don't know what women are coming to," said a fat little man, as +cosily tucked into his chair as a hazel nut in its husk. "They seem to +think they can do just as they please." + +A tall thin man said: + +"It all began with the bicycle. Women have never been the same since +bicycles came in." + +"It wouldn't have been so bad," said the fat little man, "if they'd +cut and run." + +And Old Mole repeated that sentence to himself. + +"What I can't understand is," said the first speaker, who seemed the +most indignant, "why he didn't shut her up until she had come to her +senses. After all, we are all human, and that is what I should have +done. If women won't regard the sacredness of the home, where are we?" + +"Surely," said Old Mole, incensed into speaking, "it depends on the +home." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," retorted the nearest man with some heat. "It +does not. In these matters you can't make exceptions. Home is home, +and there is no getting away from it. If a woman grows sick of her +home it is her own fault and she must stick to it, dree her own weird, +as the Scotch say. Destroy the home and society falls to the ground." + +And Old Mole, sharpened by argument, replied: + +"Society is no more permanent than any other institution. Its +existence depends entirely on its power to adapt itself to life. It is +certainly independent of the innumerable sentimental ideas with which +men endeavor to plaster up the cracks in its walls, among which I must +count that of home." + +The three men gaped at him. He continued: + +"Home, I conceive, has a meaning for children. It is the place in +which they grow up. We make homes for our young as the birds make +nests for theirs. When the children go forth then the home is empty +and is no longer home. Men are no longer patriarchs and no more do +they gather the generations under one roof-tree. . . . In the case +under discussion there were no children, therefore there was never a +home to defend or regard as sacred. Man and woman alike had placed +themselves in a false position. What further they had to suffer we do +not know. We know that the man took refuge in the closest egoism, and +the woman finally in the restless adventure of which we know no more +than has been reported to a newspaper by a dull and mechanical +shorthand writer. My own view is that, where there are no children, +society at large is not interested. Society is only interested in any +marriage in so far as it will provide children to ensure its continued +existence. Once children are born it is interested to see that they +are fed, clothed and educated. (How effectively our present society +pursues that interest you may easily observe if you will visit East or +South London.) Beyond that its interference, explicit or covert, seems +to me to be an unwarrantable intrusion into the privacy of the human +soul. No one of us here is in a position to judge of the affair which +is the occasion of your argument, and . . . and . . . I beg your +pardon for interfering with it." + +He rose and passed out the room, leaving three very surprised clubmen +behind him. But none of them could be more surprised than himself: +surprised and relieved he was. He had been sickened at the idea of a +woman being delivered up to the chatter of idle tongues, and in the +violence of his distress had come by an absolute certainty that any +dignified issue to his present affection could only come through an +unprejudiced and unsentimental consideration of the whole facts. It +was not going to be easy; but, dear God, he wanted something +difficult, something really worth doing to counteract his misery. When +he thought of himself and the ache at his heart he was blinded with +tears and could see the facts only from one angle--his own. + + + _Du bist wie eine Blume, + So rein und schön und hold . . ._ + + +Seen from that angle, Matilda was reduced in stature, distorted, ugly, +mean. But he had loved her, loved her, and must still have the truth +of her: more than ever before he needed to understand her. The beauty +and delight and youth he had enjoyed in her must not go down in +bitterness. + +One saying he took away with him from the club: + +"It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd cut and run." + +Perhaps, he thought to himself, they had "cut and run." And for him it +became worse, to think that she had gone, without a word, with never a +complaint, just gone. He remembered the night when she had said she +was miserable, when he had found her in her bed, after the play, with +her room in a litter. And he fell to thinking of the trials he must +have put upon her, probing for all the possible offences, secret, +subtle, unsuspected, of body and soul that might be laid at his door. +There were many that he could think of, but his darkest hours came +then when he perceived the fine balance, the perilous poise of married +life, the imperceptible dovetailing of interests and habits and +humors, the regions beyond perception where souls meet. Its nice +complications were almost terrifying: at thousands of points men and +women might fail, offend each other, crush each other, destroy, never +dreaming of the cause, never, at the time, marking the effect. For +such an adventure there need be heroism: to break, when even failure +and offence and mutual exasperation bind, strength and courage +superhuman or despairing. And men judge! And condemn! They measure +this subtlest and most searching relationship with opinions and dull +compromise and rules. + +He was tortured with the thought of all the injuries he might have +done her, and he invented more, invented burdens that he had never put +upon her to account for her going away from him, with never a word. +For three days he lived in this torment, winding about and about from +general to particular and back again by the most circuitous route, a +_Rundreise_ with the current morality for Baedeker. And every now and +then the obsession would stab home to his heart--the hotel door +swinging, the flat infidelity. Once, when the pain was so mortal that +he could contain himself no longer, he wrote to her at the hotel. He +posted the letter. That was on the second day. On the third he was in +an agony. No answer came. + +On the fourth day a telegram arrived from the Sussex village and an +hour later she, brown, healthy, with a grand swing in her walk, a new +depth of bosom, a squarer carriage of the shoulders; a rich bloom on +her. She kissed his cheek. + +He stared and stared at her. He looked for change in her. + +"You!" + +"Didn't you get my telegram?" + +"Oh! yes." + +"I'll take my things off, and we'll have some tea." + +She left him. He stood at the head of the little stairs leading down +to her apartments, and he trembled and was near weeping. In her room +he could hear her singing to herself, happily, blithely as a bird, +with a full note that caught at his heart. She seemed to sing no song, +but a melody, young and joyous with a full summer gaiety. The sun +shone through the staircase window upon his hand where he clutched the +balustrade. He was gripping it so tight that the veins stood out and +the skin on his knuckles was white. A tear fell on his hand and he +looked down at it. It was a plump, podgy, puckered middle-aged hand. + +He whisked back into his room as he heard her door open. + +They had tea, and he could not take his eyes off her. She thought he +looked ill and pulled down. On his desk she saw the pile of his +papers. + +"You've been writing," she said. "You've been overdoing it. It's never +safe to leave a man alone." + +"Yes," he replied. "I have written a good deal." + +"Is it a story?" + +"No. Not exactly a story." + +"Is it finished?" + +"No. I doubt if it will ever be finished now." + +She began to talk of the theater. She had been wired for to resume her +part, as her understudy was proving unsatisfactory. Further she had +had two offers. One to appear in a new musical comedy, the other of a +part in a play to be produced at a little "intellectual" theater for +eight matinées. She felt inclined, she said, to accept both. It would +mean very hard work, but it would be experience, and it was flattering +to be noticed by the superior persons of the stage. And she asked his +advice. He thought it might be too much for her to have so much +rehearsing and to play in the evening as well. That she brushed aside. +She was feeling splendid, strong enough to act a whole play. + +"You are becoming a regular Copas," he said. + +She laughed; he, too, and they plunged into reminiscences of the old +days. + +"I sometimes think," he said, "that those were the happiest months of +my life." + +"Nonsense. There's always more and more in front." + +"For you." + +She went off into peals of laughter, for she had just remembered the +encounter with the prize-fighter. Her sturdy gaiety simply swept him +off his feet, and he could only follow in the train of her mood. They +made so merry that they lost count of the time, and she suddenly +sprang to her feet with a cry and scurried away, dinnerless, not to be +late at the theater. + +"I ought to have told her," he said to himself. "I ought to have said: +'I know.' . . . But how fine she looked! How happy she must be!" + +Happy? There was something in her mood beyond happiness: a zestful +strength, a windiness that seemed to blow through every cranny of her +soul, whipping the blood in her veins, so that she could not pause for +states and conditions of the spirit, nor check herself to avoid +unhappiness in herself or others. She was like a ship in full sail, +bending to the wind, skimming over tossing seas. She was gallant. She +was what he had always hoped she might become. There was in her such a +new flood of vitality that he felt ashamed at the thought of bidding +her pause to submit to his inquisition. Impossible to check her +flight, cruel suddenly to present her with the meanness of what she +had done while she was still glowing with its splendor. + +He had caught something of her glow, and now he wrestled to break free +of rules of conduct and moral codes, and he began, at last, to +consider his problem in terms of flesh and blood. There were three +points of view to be mastered: three lives knotted together in a +tangle and the weakest strand would be broken. + +He felt hopeful. There would be a fight for it, and to that he +thrilled. He had the exaltation of one on the brink of great +discovery. + + + +He went to fetch her from the theater. The stagedoor lay at the back +in an alley joining two great thoroughfares. As he entered the alley +from one end he saw Matilda and Panoukian leave by the other, and he +had his arm in hers. Old Mole turned, with the fluttering sense of an +escape, glad not to have met them. And when he had controlled himself +he was amused to think that they could not have dreaded the encounter +more than he. + +He took a long walk to delay his return, and when he reached the +chambers they were in darkness. He crept softly down the little stairs +and tried her door. It was locked. + +In a moment's panic he thought that this time she had really "cut and +run," and he was almost stunned with his terror of it. It was too +soon, too soon: it would be disastrous; he would be left without +understanding, to the mercy of the obsession; he had not all the +threads in his hands; until he had, it would be rash folly to snap. He +stood against her door, with his ear to the panel, holding his breath, +straining to hear. There were explosive noises in the house. From the +room he could catch nothing for them. Closer and closer he pressed to +the door, his ear against the panel. He lurched and the panel creaked. +Silence. He heard her stir in her bed. + +She was there! That was all he wanted to know. On tiptoe he crept +away. . . . She was there! He would yet gather all the threads and +then he or she would snap. One or other would be broken. + +What had he then? The evidence of his own eyes. Was that not enough? +It was enough for prescribed remedies, to which he could not resort +without revenge, for which he had not now the least desire. What his +eyes had seen was so isolated, so severed from the rest of his life as +to be monstrous and injurious. By itself it was damnable harlotry. +(There was a sort of boyish satisfaction in fishing out the words of a +grosser age with which to bespatter it and make it even more offensive +to pure-mindedness.) But, as he loved the woman, it could not stand by +itself. He was in it, too. Actions cannot be judged by themselves. +There must have been an antecedent conspiracy of circumstance and +fault to lead to such misdemeanor. + +With a tight control of himself he could now almost think of it +without jealousy (hardly any of that was left but the quick, shallow +jealousy of the brute), but he could not think of it without passion, +and through that he could discern its inherent passion and, faintly, +respond to it. That put an end to all mean suspicions of a conspiracy +against himself, or of cowardly contriving to enjoy stolen fruit and +leave no trace. . . . She had locked the door against him. So much was +definite, and he had a sort of envying admiration for her that she +could be precise while he was still floundering and groping for +understanding. . . . Certainly he had never seen her so sure of +herself. + +But then, if she were so sure, why did she not "cut and run." Then it +would not be so bad. For a flash he saw the thing with the eyes of a +fat clubman; the passion in him ebbed and he lost grip, and blundered +into a mist. A lunge forward cleared him. She was sure of herself, so +sure that she was giving no thought to her position except as it +immediately presented itself. The new factor in her life called for no +change, and everything she had was enriched by it, her possessions, +her work, even her domestic life. It must all seem to her clear gain, +and therefore she was sure. She loved her love, and everything that +had led to it, and therefore she was sure. + +From that flight upward Old Mole came to the sensation of falling. He +was possessed by a prevision, felt that in a moment he would see all +things plain, would know exactly what was going to happen. He strained +forward, felt sleep overcoming him, struggled against it, and fell +asleep. + + + +Then Matilda was busy all day rehearsing, and, during the little time +he had with her, she talked the slang and gossip of the theater. Once +she asked after the work, and he read a little of it to her, and she +liked it and he plucked up courage to go on with it. She laughed at +his cuts at women and admitted that he had thrust home at more than +one of her own foibles. He had written part of a chapter on the +_Theater as Education._ She could make nothing of that. The theater to +her was a place in which you played "parts," sometimes good and +sometimes bad, and you were always waiting for the supreme, +all-conquering "part" to turn up. She did what she was asked to do to +the very best of her ability; that was her work and she did not look +beyond it. The flattering side of London, its pleasures, fashions and +functions had fallen into the background and she gave it just the +attention which her interest seemed to demand. It never struck her as +strange that she should be given no more of a play than her own part +to read, and if she had been given the play would probably not have +read it. She learned her part, movements and gestures, cues during +rehearsal, and never watched any scene in which she did not appear. + +By her part in the "intellectual" play she was mystified. None of her +Copas or Butcher tricks were in the least suited to it. She had an +enormous part to learn: all talk, gibes at marriage, and honor, and +wealth, and domesticity, all the fetishes of the theater in which she +was beginning to find her footing. The manager of the theater was his +own producer; he had chosen her because she looked the part, "the +rising temperament," he called it, and he added to her bewilderment +with the invention of elaborate detail to break the flood of talk, +and, in the absence of action, to bind the play together. Everyone in +that theater spoke of the play with awe, so she concealed her +perplexity and brought it to Old Mole. + +"There are no scenes in it," she said. "No cues. Nothing you can take +hold of. I say my lines: the other people in the play don't seem to +take any notice of them, but just go on talking. I suppose it's very +clever, but it isn't acting. I don't believe even my uncle could do +anything with it." + +He recommended her to read the play, and she procured a copy from the +author. When she had read it she said: + +"I know why nothing happens in it. There isn't a soul in it who cares +about anybody else. It's all teasing. They can't do anything else +because they don't care. And they have nothing really to talk about, +so I suppose that's why they discuss the Poor Law Commission, and the +Cat and Mouse Bill, and the Social Evil and all sorts of things I +never heard of." + +Old Mole read it, and found it clever, amusing, but sterilizing and +exhausting, and, in its essence, he could not find that it was very +different from "Lossie Loses" or the contrivances of the Butcher +repertory. It was just as unimaginative. It had come into existence, +not from any spiritual need, but entirely to rebut Butcherdom. +Butcherdom shadowed it. The author in writing his play seemed first of +all to have thought what would happen in a Butcher entertainment in +order to decide on something different. He had not moved from Butcher +back to life, but had run from Butcher down a blind alley. And the +result was an almost brilliant hotchpotch with a strong savor of +hatred and contempt and the tartness of isolation. Contempt for +Butcher might be its strongest motive, but alone it could not account +for it. Old Mole sought loyally for the best, but could find nothing +nobler than the desire for admiration. The author was not scrupulous, +nor was he ingenious; his bait for reputation was the ancient and +almost infallible trick of measuring his cleverness by the stupidity +of others. + +It lacked theatrical effectiveness and therefore it was impossible to +get its meaning or even a drift of it into Matilda's head. She learned +her lines like a parrot, delivered them like a parrot--(thoroughly to +the satisfaction of the producer)--looked charming in her expensive +gowns and attracted the notice of the critics. The author told an +interviewer that his play was a masterpiece of its kind, and that +Matilda was one of the most remarkable actresses on the English stage. +The piece ran for its eight matinées and was then heard of no more, +but to Old Mole it had much value. It set him wondering. The stage had +nothing to show but the false emotions of Butcherdom and the absence +of emotion of the "intellectuals." The theater must express the life +of the country or it could not continue to exist, as it indubitably +did. There was always a new playhouse being built. Money was poured +into the theater through the stagedoor and through the box-office, but +its best efforts were shown in childish fancy. It was at its +healthiest and least odiously pretentious in the presentation of +melodrama, with its rigid and almost idiotic right and wrong, its +stupid caricature of the workings of the human heart. If it had a +tradition, melodrama was its only representative. The plays of +Shakespeare were melodrama in the hands of a man of genius. Without +genius the national drama was heavy and lumpish, stolidly clinging to +unquestioned and untested values, looking for no higher rewards in +life than riches and public esteem. + +It was astonishing to Old Mole that he could be so deeply interested +in these things. He had expected to be absorbed in his sorrow and the +problem of handling it. Then he found that he was testing the two +theaters, the Butcherish and the "intellectual," by the passion that +had flamed into his heart through his love for Matilda at the moment +when it had been outraged. In neither was there a spark to respond to +his fire. The Butcher theater was a corpse; the intellectual theater +that same corpse turned in its grave. And it amused him to imagine how +his case would be handled in them; in the one it would be measured by +rule of thumb--the eternal triangle, halo'd husband, weeping wife, +discomfited lover, or, if violent effects were sought for, the woman +damned to an unending fall, the two men stormily thanking their vain +and shallow God they were rid of her; in the other it would be talked +out of court, husband and wife would never rise above a snarl, and +lover would go on talking; in both men and women would be cut and +trimmed to fit in with a formula. In the one the equation would be +worked out pat; in the other it would go sprawling on and on like the +algebraic muddle of a flurried candidate in an examination who has +omitted a symbol and gone on in desperate hope of a result. + +Old Mole had discarded formulæ. He was dealing with a thing that had +happened. Judgment of it, he said, was futile. The issue of it +depended not on himself alone. As its consequences unfolded themselves +he must apply the test of passion, grasp and, so far as possible, +understand, and let passion burn its way to an outlet. + +Familiarity with this mystery, straining on from day to day, soon made +it possible for him to accept the surface happenings of life without +resentment. + + + +For her part in the musical comedy Matilda took singing and dancing +lessons, so that she was out all day and every day. She was to receive +a salary twice as large as any she had yet earned, and would be +financially independent even though she indulged her extravagance, +than which nothing was less probable. In all the working side of her +life he took a very comfortable pride. If she was not altogether his +creation, at least he had helped her to shape herself, and it was a +delight to see her character taking firm lines. And, as he watched +her, he thought of the current sentimental prating of motherhood and +its joys and its concomitant pity of men debarred from them, the +absurdity of the segregation of the sexes: as if love were not in its +essence creative; as if it had not begun to create before it reached +consciousness; as if men could only take the love of woman, as in a +pitcher, to spill it on the ground; as if love were not always beyond +giving and taking, reaching out and out to create, lifting half-formed +creatures into Being. . . . By the side of the other two theaters the +musical comedy stage seemed almost to shine in candor, and he was glad +that Matilda--the Matilda of his creation--should pass into it to +charm the chuckle-heads out of their dullness. + +She passed into it gleefully and he was able to separate her from that +other Matilda in whom there was a passion at grips with his. He was +certain now that it was passion and no vagary, for, day by day, under +her working efficiency, she gained in force, and warmth and stature. + +For five weeks Panoukian had made no appearance in Gray's Inn. Then +one day he came with a fat Newfoundland puppy, a present for Matilda. +She was out. Old Mole received him. + +"Hullo!" + +"How do! sir." + +They stood looking at each other, Old Mole holding the door back, +Panoukian hesitating on the threshold with the puppy in his arms. + +Old Mole thought: + +"I will speak to him. I will tell him what I think of him. I will make +him feel what he is." + +He said: + +"Come in." + +"Are you alone?" asked Panoukian. + +"Yes. Come in." + +They entered Old Mole's study, Panoukian first. + +"She said she wanted a dog, so I brought her this." + +Panoukian put the puppy on the floor, walked over to the cigarette box +and helped himself. + +Old Mole opened his mouth to speak, but it was dry and he could make +no sound. He ran his tongue over his lips. At last he shot out: + +"Panoukian!" + +Panoukian was pulling the puppy from under the bookcase. He turned and +faced Old Mole with his schoolboy expression of wondering what now +might be his guilt. He looked so young that none of the words with +which Old Mole was preparing to crush him--scoundrel, traitor, +villain, blackguard--was anything but inept. He was just engagingly, +refreshingly young; younger than he had ever been, even as a boy. The +discontent, the hardness and strain of revolt had faded from his eyes; +they were clear and bright. He was as fresh as the morning. Plainly he +had no thought beyond the puppy and the pleasure he had hoped to bring +with it, and was startled by the harshness of the pedagogic note in +Old Mole's exclamation, startled into shyness. + +Old Mole's determination crumbled away: his laudable resolve was +whisked away from him. He excused himself with this: + +"I have no right to speak to him before I have come to an +understanding with her." + +There was embarrassment between them, the awkwardness of master and +pupil. To bridge it he said: + +"It is a long time since you have been to see us." + +Directly he had said it he knew that he had contributed to their +deception, but while he was seeking a means of withdrawal Panoukian +pounced on his opportunity and dragged their three-cornered +relationship back to the old footing: and Old Mole could not +altogether disguise his relief. + +"Yes," he said. "I've been so busy. Old Harbottle is running a private +ball, and there's been a tremendous lot of work up and down the +country." + +"Up and down the country," repeated Old Mole. + +"Yes. Harbottle's beginning to listen to what I say. I've been giving +him some telling questions lately, and he's already cornered the Front +Bench twice. . . . The old idiot is beginning to discover the uses of +impersonal unpopularity as an instrument of success. He would never +have taken the plunge by himself, and he's very grateful to me." + +"So you are beginning to do something?" + +"You can't do much in politics. I used to think you could. You can't +do first-rate things, but I'm beginning to realize that it's a +second-rate job." He grinned. "The odd thing is that, since I realized +that, I'm getting quite to like old Harbottle. He's second-rate. He +doesn't know it, of course, because he hasn't the least notion of what +a first-rate man is like. He is perfectly cast-iron second-rate. Most +surprising of all is that I am beginning to see that every man has the +right to be himself--subject, of course, to every other man's right to +kick him for it." + +"Eh?" + +Old Mole was startled. Tolerance was the last thing he expected from +Panoukian; it was entirely out of keeping with his boyishness. He +waited for more, but nothing came; and this was the most astonishing +of all, for there Panoukian sat, boyish, glistening with youth, +enunciating a maxim of tolerance, and actually relishing silence. +Panoukian, having nothing more to say, was content to say nothing! +. . . It was too bad. Almost it seemed that he had gone through all +his misery for nothing. He had striven to master his situation only at +every turn to be met with the triumph of the unexpected. He had +decided to start by seeing the affair from Matilda's point of view and +Panoukian's, and now, ludicrously, maddeningly, they had both changed, +and both, apparently, were being intent on showing an amicable front +to him. They were--and he writhed at the thought--they were trying to +spare his feelings. + +An admirable maxim that! Panoukian, of course, had every right to be +Panoukian; _ergo,_ if needs must, to change into another Panoukian. +The young man's placid, contented, comfortably absorbed silence was +exasperating. + +"Panoukian!" said Old Mole. + +Panoukian groped out of his silence. + +"Yes, sir." + +(Ludicrously boylike he looked, all wide-eyed, deliberate innocence.) + +"There is a passage in Montaigne which, I think, excellently +illustrates the observation you made some time ago. It is over there +at the end of the bookcase." + +Panoukian rose and strolled over to the shelf indicated, his back +toward Old Mole, who sprang to his feet, strode, breathing heavily, +glared fixedly at the round apex of the angle of Panoukian and lunged +out in a lusty kick. The young man pitched forward, righted himself, +and swung round, with his hand soothing the coat-tail-covered portion +of his body. + +"Why the Hell did you do that?" he grunted. + +"To illustrate your maxim," said Old Mole, "and also to relieve my +feelings." + +"If you weren't who you are and what you are," retorted Panoukian +sharply, "I should knock you down." + +To that Old Mole could not find the apt reply, and once again, +ruefully, he was forced to see that he had been betrayed into an +absurdity. In that moment he hated Panoukian more than anyone he had +ever known. He had been whirled by the unexpectedness of Panoukian +into throwing away his one flawless weapon, his dignity, and without +it he was powerless. Without it he could not even draw on the +prescribed attitudes and remedies for gentlemen in his position. All +the same he was thoroughly pleased to have caused Panoukian pain, and +hoped he would be forced to take his meals from the mantelpiece for a +day or two. + +They stood glaring at each other, both wondering what would happen +next. Panoukian retired gracefully from the conflict by stooping to +pick up the puppy. Old Mole snorted, grabbed his hat, and stumped away +and out of the chamber. + + + +The callousness of Panoukian! The effrontery! That he should dare to +show his face, and such an unabashed, innocent face! Where was that +conscience which makes cowards of us all? . . . At any rate, thought +Old Mole, after being kicked Panoukian would not venture to appear +again. But was that so sure? Was it so certain that his unpremeditated +act of violence would jolt Panoukian's conscience into activity? +Having swallowed the indignity of his position, would he not the more +easily be able to digest affront and insult and humiliation? How if +the kick had not settled the affair Panoukian? + +From his own uneasiness and almost shame Old Mole knew that it had +not, that possibly it might have only the effect of crystallizing the +change of relation between himself and Panoukian, of obliterating the +tie of affection, of equalizing matters, of slackening the rein on +Panoukian, of releasing him from every other claim upon his affection, +except the violent outpouring of love which had swept him into +disregard for convention, and honor, and the cause of morality. If +there be degradation in violence, it affects the kicker as well as the +kicked. Old Mole found himself very near understanding Panoukian. +Clearly he had come to the chambers on an impulse. Matilda had desired +a dog, he had seen the very dog, and come racing with it. Encountering +Old Mole for the first time since the eruption in their affairs, he +had carried the scene through with an admirable candor. There was no +shiftiness in him, nor slyness: that would have been horrible, the +sure indication of a beastly intrigue. No: either Panoukian was so +possessed by his emotions, by the joy of what was probably his first +full affair of the heart, that he could give no thought either to his +own position or Matilda's or her husband's; either that or he was so +intent on his passion, so absorbed by it, as to be lifted beyond +scruples or thought of impediment, and was tearing away like a bolting +horse, regardless of the cart behind or the cart's occupants. In +either case Old Mole felt that he had something definite to deal with, +genuine feeling and no farded copy of it. And he felt sorry for the +kick and wished he could withdraw it. + +The very next day Panoukian came to dinner at half-past six. Matilda +brought him. They had met by chance in the Strand, and she had +persuaded him to come back with her. + +The meal was to all appearances like hundreds of others they three had +had together. Old Mole sat at the head of the table, with Matilda on +one side of him, Panoukian on the other, and he watched them. They did +not watch him. They grinned at each other like happy children, and +made absurd jokes and teased, and their most ordinary remarks seemed +to have a secret and profound meaning for them. Sometimes they +explained their references to Old Mole, and then it was always +"We"--Panoukian said: "We," Matilda: "Arthur and I" . . . and beneath +all their talk there seemed to be a game, but a game in all +seriousness, of fitting their personalities together. Every now and +then, when they were filled with a bubbling consciousness of their +wealth, they would throw a scrap to Old Mole out of sheer lavishness +and babyish generosity. But other thought for or of him they had +obviously none. They were not embarrassed by his presence, nor, to his +amazement, was he by theirs. Only he was distressed, when they threw +him a scrap of their happiness, to find that he knew not what to do +with it, and could only put it away for analysis. + +"I analyze and analyze," he thought, "and there are they with the true +gold in their hands, hardly knowing it for precious metal." + +Oh, yes! They were in love, and they had no right to be in love, and +it was his duty to put an end to it. + +But how? + +He could only say: "This woman is my wife. I forbid her to explore any +region of life which I cannot enter. She has no entity apart from me; +her personality can find no food except what I am able or choose to +provide for her." + +That was impossible, for it was not true. + +More humanly he might say: + +"I can understand that you love each other. But I cannot condone the +selfishness it has led you to, or the secrecy. . . ." + +There he stopped. There was no secrecy. They were disguising nothing. +They did not tell him because their intimacy was, as yet, so +preciously private an affair that it could not bear talking of; and he +bowed to that and respected their reticence. + +Matilda went to tidy her hair and he was left alone with Panoukian. +They could find nothing to say to each other. The minds of both were +full of the woman. Without her they fell apart, each into his separate +world. And Old Mole knew that the issue of the adventure lay with her, +and he knew that Panoukian looked for no issue and was living blindly +in the present. He felt sorry for Panoukian. + +The evening papers were thrust through the door. Panoukian fetched +them and gave them to his host. The largest event of the day was the +grave illness of Sir Robert Wherry. + +"Dear, dear," said Old Mole. + +"I shouldn't have thought he was human enough to be ill," said +Panoukian. + +"It is ptomaine poisoning, set up by a surfeit of oysters." + +"There'll be a terrific funeral. He was the greatest of Harbottlers. +He loved the public and his love was requited." + +And Old Mole thought of that other Harbottler who had so loved the +public that he had trampled his wife in the mud to retain its esteem. + +Matilda returned: + +"Who's coming to the theater with me?" she said, and her eyes lighted +on Panoukian and she gave him a smile more profound, more subtle, more +tenderly humorous than any she had ever bestowed on Old Mole. Both men +rose. Old Mole reached the door first. With graceful generosity +Panoukian bowed, yielded his claim, kissed Matilda's hand, and took +them to the door. Old Mole went first. Halfway down the stairs Matilda +turned: + +"Oh! Arthur," she said, "the puppy's a perfect darling." + + + +As coarse men take to drink, or philandering, or tobacco, to relieve +the strain of existence, so Old Mole took to work. His "Out of Bounds" +(Liebermann, pp. 453, 7_s._ 6_d._ net) is a long book, but it was +written, revised, corrected in proof and published within six months. +It was boomed, and lay, unread, on every one's drawing-room table. He +received letters about it from many interesting personages, and from +his sickbed Robert Wherry gave it his pontifical blessing. The +Secretary of State for Education asked Old Mole to dinner, and +declared sympathy with the criticism of the prevailing system, but +shook his head dubiously over the probability of his department taking +any intelligent interest in it. + +"I quite agree," he said, "that you ought to get at children through +their imaginations, but imagination isn't exactly a conspicuous +quality of government departments." + +"Then I don't see how you can govern," said Old Mole. + +"We don't," said the Secretary of State. "We take orders, like +everybody else, but we are in a position to pretend that we are giving +them. A government department is a great wheel going round very, very +slowly, shedding regulations upon the place beneath. Every now and +then, when none of the permanent officials is looking, an intelligent +man can slip a real provision into the feeder and trust to luck for +its finding the right need and the right place. . . . But it is not +often we have the advantage of such thoroughly informed criticism, Mr. +Beenham. The country is lamentably little interested in education, +considering how much it has suffered from it." + +"I have suffered from it." + + + +He was amused by his celebrity. Every little group had a cast for him, +but none of their bait attracted him in the least. He preferred to +swim in his own waters, leisurely, painfully in the wake of Panoukian +and Matilda. They at least knew where they were going, were possessed +by an immediate object. Where all the politicians and scribes were +looking away from their own lives toward a reorganized society based +on a change in humanity, a change not in degree but in kind, Panoukian +and Matilda were changing, growing, responding to natural necessity. +They were loving, loving themselves, loving life, their bodies, their +minds, everything that body and mind could apprehend. + +"There is no social problem," said Old Mole, "there is only the moral +problem, and that is settled by the act of living, or left in a +greater tangle by the refusal to live." + + + +One night as he returned home from a dinner at a literary and artistic +club he stood at the head of the little stairs looking down into the +darkness. He was filled with regret for the past that had contained so +much pleasantness and appalled by the vision of the future stretching +on without Matilda, for it would be without her though she stayed +under his roof. Between the theater and the other she gave so much +that she had very little left for him--so little: gentleness and +kindness and consideration, things which it were almost kinder not to +give. It were best, he thought, that she should go and make her own +life, with or without the other. She had her career, her work: friends +she would always make, acquaintances she could always have in +abundance. . . . And yet she stayed. He had felt dependent on her for +the solution, for the proof, as it were, that the three angles of a +triangle are equal to two right angles. But she stayed. There must +then be something that she treasured in her life with him. . . . And +he was curious to know what it might be. Almost before he was aware of +it he was down the little stairs and at her door, listening, and he +was chilled with pity. She was weeping, and smothering the sound of +it. + +"Poor child!" he thought. + +And he tapped lightly at her door. No sound. Again he tapped. She came +then. + +"I heard you," he said. "It was more than I could bear." + +She led him into her room and made him sit on her bed as she slithered +into it again. She would not have the light turned on. + +"I couldn't bear you to be unhappy. You have been so happy." + +"Yes," she said. + +"Do you want to go?" he asked. + +"I'm afraid." + +At first he thought she meant she was afraid of the tongues of the +many, but that fear could be no more than superficial. Hers was deep. +It seemed to shake her as an angry wind a tree. + +"Well, well," he said. + +She reached out in the darkness for his hand. In silence she pressed +his hand, and then: + +"You never know," she said. + +It was all she could tell him, that she was suffering. He said: + +"There is nothing to fear," and in silence he pressed her hand. + +"You _have_ been good to me." + +There was a knell in the words. They were the epitaph of their life +together. + +"I think," he said, "that, if we were so foolish as to tot up the +gains on either side, mine would be the greater." + +Again she pressed his hand. + +"I'm not a bit like Josephine really, am I?" + +"My dear child." He was very near tears. "My dear child, not a bit." + +So he left her. + +What was she afraid of? His judgment of her? That had come up as a +dark rain-heavy cloud. But it had passed without shedding its waters. +Now, yielding to the tenderness and pity she had just roused in him, +he was led to an inly knowledge of her. She was afraid of her love, +afraid of her own devouring absorption in it. (Something of the kind +he had known himself, in early days with her.) So she clung to +material things, to the existence they had together builded, to his +own proven kindness, and, as she clung, only the fiercer burned the +flame within her, flickering destruction to everything she cherished. +Sooner or later she must yield. He saw that, but also he knew that to +precipitate the severance might be forever to condemn her to her +dread, so that she would be withered with it. But if, of her own +despair, or fierce ecstasy, or sudden illumination of the inmost +friendliness of what she feared, came surrender, then would she win +through to the ways of brightness, and be mistress of her own life and +love. He had passed his own alternative, an easy choice; he could see +on to hers, a more grinding test. He shuddered for her, and, knowing +its peril, made no move to help. + + + +Often he would absent himself from the chambers for days together. The +atmosphere was too explosive, the strain too great. She would see him +to the door and kiss his cheek, and her eyes would say: + +"Perhaps I shall be gone when you come back. You understand?" + +And he would turn his eyes away because they said too much. + +But she did not go. + + + +For many weeks she did not see her lover. Old Mole knew that because +she was home earlier from the theater and was rarely out in the +afternoon, and spent much time in writing--she who could never write +without an effort--letters, the charred fragments of which he found in +the hearth. Then she was restless and frantically busy: + +Ruefully he would think: + +"Idiots! They are trying to give it up for me." + +What if they did give it up? He began excitedly to persuade himself +that they would redeem their fault, find nobility in self-sacrifice. +But that would not do. He was too wary a guardian of his egoism. That +would not do. They had nothing to gain from it. They could give him +back nothing. They had taken nothing from him. What she had been to +her lover was something which she had never been, never could be, to +him. . . . That was how he now phrased it to himself. His love had +fashioned her, shaped her, made her lovely: it had needed another love +to breathe life into her. And, warming into life, she was afraid of +life. + +He saw Panoukian in the street. Lean the young man was, and drawn, and +pale, prowling: a figure of thin hunger, famished and desperate. He +saw Old Mole and swerved to avoid him, but he was not quick enough, +and his arm was squeezed with a timid friendliness. He gave a nervous +start, butted forward with his head and snarled: + +"Go to Hell!" + +And he broke away and wriggled like an eel into the crowd. + +"God help us!" said Old Mole, "for we are making pitiable fools of +ourselves. The vulgar snap and quarrel would be better than this. +. . . No, it would not." + + + +It was painfully amusing to him to see Matilda's face in the +picture-postcard shops. The photographers had touched her up into a +toothy popular beauty, blank, expressionless, fatuous. It was the +woman's face with the woman painted out: just a mask, signifying +nothing, never a thought, never a feeling, never a desire, and not a +spark of will. To thousands of young men it would serve as an ideal of +womanhood, and they would slop their calfish emotions over it; they +would go to see her in the theater, covet her with mealy +lasciviousness. What a filthy business was the theater! He wished to +God he had never let her enter it, and told himself things would have +been very different then. But would they? What had he given her to +hold her? What ultimately had he given her? Tenderness and little +kindnesses, indulgence and fondling: but those were only so many +trinkets, little flowers plucked in the hedgerows and passed to the +fair companion. But finally, finally, what had he given her? And +bitterly he said: + +"Instruction. . . . A damned ugly word." + +She had been his pupil, he her master. At every step he had instructed +her, not tritely as a Mr. Barlow, but he had been Barlowish, and that +was bad. He had never admitted her to equality. How could he? He had +never admitted himself to equality with his inmost self. He had +always, as it were, instructed himself, set out upon the crowded way +of life with mnemonic precepts, and gathered more and more of them, so +that he had never, after childhood, drawn upon his innate knowledge, +that was more than knowledge. Without its use his life had, for +convenience, been split up into parts more and more, with passing +years, at variance with each other. And when the time came to give his +life he was no longer master of it. He could lend this and that and +the other part; lend, in usury, for only a life can be given. . . . He +had brought her to suffering: the much he had given her, the +pleasantness and ease, making her only the more intimately feel her +need of the more he might have given. He had brought her to suffering +and through her suffering he was beginning to learn. + +When he thought of her suffering he was tempted to say to her--perhaps +not in words--"You will not go. I will. I will leave you free." But +that would be to lay her under another obligation, and once more to +instruct. The thing was beyond good and evil now: they three were +passing through the inmost fire of life. Absurdly he thought of the +three Hebrews of the Bible and of an old rhyme his nurse had been used +to gabble at him and Robert when they were little boys: + + + _Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, + Shake the bed, + Make the bed, + And into bed you go._ + + +For a moment or two, like a proper Englishman, he sighed for the happy +state of childhood. Then he shook that off. + +"Bah!" he said. "We sacrifice the whole of our lives to the ideas +implanted in us during the first foolish years of them." + + + +Sir Robert Wherry lay adying. He had never been able to resist an +obituary. Never an illustrious man died but Wherry rushed into print, +preferably in the _Times_ newspaper, with reminiscence and +lamentation. So, as he lay adying, he composed many obituaries of +himself. There were reporters at his door waiting upon his utterances. +They came as regularly as the bulletins. As each might be his last, it +was carefully framed to rival Goethe's or Nelson's or the Earl of +Chatham's final words. Three of them began: "We men of England . . ." +one "My mother said . . ." two with the word "Love . . ." and once, +remembering William Blake, he raised his head and prated of angels. +Last, with the true inspiration of death, faithful to himself and the +work of his life, he turned and smiled at his nurse and his wife and +daughter and said: "Give my love to my public." So he died, and there +were tears in thousands of British homes that night. + +His death crowded every other topic to the back pages of the +newspapers. There were columns of anecdotes and every day brought a +fresh flood of tributes from divines, lecturers, novelists, +dramatists, publicists of all kinds. One newspaper sent this +reply-paid telegram to Old Mole: + + + _Please send thirty-six words on Wherry._ + + +Having no other use for the printed form, Old Mole filled it in thus: + + + _He sold sugar.--Beenham._ + + +His tribute was not printed. + +There arose a mighty quarrel as to whether or no Wherry should be +buried in Westminster Abbey. The Poets' Corner was crowded. Only an +indubitable immortal should have the privilege of resting his bones +there. The voices of the nation stormed in argument. Were the works of +Wherry literature? Men of acknowledged greatness had found +(comparatively) obscure graves. Was there not a risk? . . . There was +no risk, said the other side. The heart of the nation had been moved +by Wherry, the life of the Empire had been made sweeter because Wherry +had lived and written. + +Lady Wherry was consulted. A picture of her appeared, with a +black-edged handkerchief in front of her face, in the illustrated +morning papers. And under it was printed her historic reply: + +"Bury him by all means----" + +Emotion cut short her words. + +The argument was finally taken for decision to high places. Those in +them had read the works of Wherry and, like the smallest servant in a +suburban garret, had been moved to tears by them. + +It was arranged. The Dean and Chapter bowed to the decision. + +There was to be a procession. All the celebrities were invited, and, +as one of them, Old Mole was included. None was omitted. Never a man +who had so much as thrust his nose into the limelight was left out. + +In the music-halls it was announced on the kinematograph screens that +special films would be presented of the funeral of Sir Robert Wherry, +and the audiences applauded. + +Old Mole was in the forty-fifth carriage, with Sir Henry Butcher and +the actress who had created "Lossie," now an actress-manageress. There +were kinematograph operators at every street corner, and Tipton Mudde, +the aviator, had received a special dispensation from the Home +Secretary allowing him to fly to and fro above the procession and to +drop black rosettes into the streets. + +It was a wet day. + +In the Abbey Old Mole was placed in the north transept, and he sat +gazing up into the high, mysterious roof where the music of the great +organ rolled and muttered. Chopin's Dead March was played and Sir +Henry Butcher muttered: + +"There comes the bloody heart-tear." + +An anthem was sung. Wherry's (and Gladstone's) favorite hymn, "O God, +our help in ages past." Apparently there was some delay, for another +hymn was sung before the pallbearers and the private mourners came +creeping up the nave. + +There was silence. The Psalms were sung. + +Old Mole heard a reedy, pleasant voice: + +". . . For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal +shall put on immortality: then shall be brought to pass the saying +that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is +thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? . . ." + +Behind him he heard a droning voice: + +". . . A solemn and impressive ceremony. There'll be sermons preached +on it on Sunday. We have offered a prize for the best sermon in my +paper, 'People and Books.' It was in 'People and Books' that Robert +Wherry was first discovered to be a great man. We printed his first +serial. I never thought he would reach the heights he did. . . ." + +The reedy voice was raised in a toasty fullness: + +"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full +of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, as a flower: he fleeth as it +were a shadow and never continueth in one stay." + +Through the words came the droning voice: + +"He was slow in the beginning. He had doubts and was fool enough to +want to plague the public with them. The public wants certainties. It +wants winners. I told him that he might have doubts, but they were his +own private affair and that it was foolish to commit them to writing. +I had ado to make him heed me, but he did heed me, and he got so that +he couldn't fail. It wasn't in him to fail. He could think just the +exact nothing that the public thinks a month or two before they begin +to think it themselves. He was fine for religion and home life and +young love and all that, but you had to keep him off any serious +subject. He knew that, after a time. He knew himself very well, and he +would take infinite trouble. He had no real sense of humor, but he +learned how to make jokes,--little, sly jokes they were, shy things as +though they were never sure of being quite funny enough. It took him +years to do it, but he could do it. There've been a million and a half +of his books sold. We'll sell fifty thousand this week. . . . Man! I +tell ye, I've had a hard fight for it. I've had thirty press agents up +and down the country, working day and night, sending in stuff from the +moment he was ill. I was with him when he ate the oysters. I had sick +moments when I thought the newspapers weren't going to take it up. I +put the proposition to the kinematograph people and their interest +carried it through. It was a near thing. The Dean hadn't read the +man's works. I had to find some one above the Dean who had. . . . I +helped to make Robert Wherry what he was. I couldn't, in decency, fail +to give my services to his fame and procure him the crowning glory of +. . ." + +Old Mole, straining forward, heard the reedy voice: + +". . . We give Thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased Thee to +deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world. +. . ." + +Sick at heart, Old Mole edged into the aisle and crept out into the +air, gratefully drawing in great breaths of it, and thanking the Lord +for His mercy in leaving the sky above London and suffering the winds +to blow through it and the rain to fall upon it. + + + +In his chambers he found a thin brown man, grave and dignified and +dried by the sun. + +"You don't know me, Mr. Beenham?" he said. + +Old Mole scanned him. + +"No. I can't say I do." + +"Cuthbert Jones. You may remember. . . ." + +Carlton Timmis! + +"Sit down, sit down," said Old Mole. "I _am_ glad to see you. I wrote +to you, wired to you at a place called Crown Imperial." + +"A dirty hole." + +"You heard about your play?" + +"Only six weeks ago. In Shanghai. I picked up an old illustrated +paper. There was a portrait of Miss Burn in it. I hear she is a +success. . . . I was told there is a company touring the China coast +with the play." + +"It is still being performed," said Old Mole. "It has been translated +into German, French, Italian, Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, Japanese. +. . ." + +"Not into Chinese, I hope." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I live in China." + +"You haven't come back, then?" + +"To see my father, that is all. As soon as he heard I was thousands of +miles away nothing would satisfy him but I must come and see him. He +is very ill, I believe, and as I grow older I find that I like to +think of him and am, indeed, fond of him. I want to hear him talk +Edinburgh philosophy again." + +"Your play, up to date, has made sixty-four thousand pounds." + +The brown man sat up in his chair and laughed. + +"It has all been carefully invested and will very soon have grown into +seventy thousand. I have had the use of it for two years. I propose +now that we go over to the bank and execute a transfer." + +"No, thank you." + +"No? You must. You must." + +"No, thank you. I have brought home three hundred pounds to support my +father in his old age. I require nothing for myself. I am perfectly +happy. I am a teacher of English in a Chinese government school two +hundred miles from the railway, with no telegraph or telephone. I have +a wife, a Chinese, who is a marvelous housekeeper, a most admirable +mother, as stupid as a cow, and she resolutely refuses to learn +English. I have not been able altogether to shake off my interest in +the theater, but the traveling Children of the Pear-tree Garden give +me greater pleasure than I ever had from any English company in or out +of the West End. They are sincere. They are rascals, but they love +their work. . . ." + +"But the play, and the----" + +". . . Money. . . . If I were you, Mr. Mole, I should drop it over +Waterloo Bridge. I came today to return you your fifty pounds, for +which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I am glad--and sorry--that +you have been repaid so plentifully." + +He could not be prevailed on to take a penny, and presently they +stopped arguing about it, and Timmis instructed Old Mole in the ways +of the Chinese, how they were a wise people who prized leisure above +all things, and so ordered their lives as to preserve the simplicity +of the soul, without which, it is clear, the brain must be overwrought +and dislocated through its vain efforts to do the work of the mind. He +drew such a charming picture of Chinese life that Old Mole, with the +folly of London etched upon his brain, could not but applaud his +decision to return. They talked of many things and wagged their heads +over the strange chances of life, and they parted the richer by each +other's respect and admiration and friendly wishes. + + + +And Old Mole returned to the strain of his existence. Impossible, he +thought, to stay in London. Equally impossible to retain so huge a sum +of money. It would go on swelling like a tumor, and, like a tumor, it +would create a stoppage either in his own life or in someone's else. +Had it not already done so? Had it not played its part in the +tragi-comedy that was not yet come to its climax? Had it not raised +him to an absurd height, blown him out into a caricature of himself, +pulled out his nose, goggled his eyes, given him a hunch back and a +pot belly, forced him into overfeeding, overdrinking, over-talking, +into writing a ridiculous, pontifical, instructive book, choked his +humor and played the very devil with his imagination? He pondered this +question of the money and at last he had an inspiration. He went down +over Blackfriars Bridge and into the slums of Southwark. In a foul +street he called at a house and asked how many people there might be +living in it. He was told twenty-three: four families. In another +there were thirty-one. In another he was asked in by the woman, and +there was a corpse on the bed, and there were three children eating +bread and jam for their dinner on the table only a yard from it, and +the woman was clearly going to have another child. He asked the name +of the landlord of that house, and next day sought him out. He bought +the house: he went on buying until he had the whole row, then the +whole street, then the next street and the next, and the next, until +his money was all gone but ten thousand pounds. Then he gave orders +for all the foul houses to be pulled down and a garden to be made. +. . . He was told that it would be impossible--that he would have to +get permission from the Borough Council, and the County Council, and +Parliament. + +"Can't I do what I like with my own?" he said. + +"It's a question," said the rent collector who had taken him under his +wing, "whether the Council can afford to do without the rates. If you +pull the houses down, sir, you'll only make the overcrowding worse, +because they must live somewhere, sir, and, bless you, they don't mind +it. They're born in it and they die in it. You and I, sir, don't like +the smell, but they don't never notice it." + +But Old Mole stuck to it and the houses were pulled down and a garden +was made, and he said not a word about it to a soul. It was only a +very little garden because, though he had bought many houses, he could +not buy the land on which all of them were built because it was very +dear. + +Almost best of all he liked the destructive part of the undertaking. +Pulling down houses was in his mood and sorted with his circumstances. +From his own house he had set his face. + +He had received a letter from Panoukian: + + +"DEAR SIR,--You have eyes in your head and must have seen what I have +been at no pains to conceal from you. I have lived through weeks of +torture now and would live through many more if there were anything to +be gained. I have been led to write this by the enclosed letter, which +I can show you, I think, without betrayal. _Ich kann nicht mehr._ +. . . This may be a shock to you, no doubt it will cause you much +pain, but I believe you have the humanity to attempt to understand and +to believe me when I say that I was never, in my heart, more your +friend than I am now. I think it is for you to help in so much +suffering." + + +The enclosed letter was from Matilda. Old Mole's eye clouded as he +read it: + + +"My dear, I can't let you go. I can't, I can't. I've tried so hard, I +have. It isn't wrong to love like that. I can think of nothing else. +He's been so kind, too. But I'm spoiling your life. I can love you, my +dear, but I'm not the woman you ought to have. I can love you, my +dear, but I'm not young and sweet like you ought to have. All this +thinking and suffering has made me hard in my heart, I think. There's +such a lot between me and you, my dear. I could fight through it with +you, but that would be so hard on you. It's not as if he was a bad +man, but he's so kind. He always understands, but not like you, my +darling: he only understands with his mind. I've tried not to write to +you and to make it easy for you, but I can't not write to you now. I +must, even if it's for the last time. I love you." + + +It was an untidy, blotched scrawl. Never had Old Mole seen such a long +letter from Matilda. Very carefully he folded it up and placed it in +his pocketbook. + +He went down to her room, and, as he knew he would, found her boxes +packed, her wardrobe, her drawers, empty. The puppy, now a tolerable +dog, was gazing ruefully at her trunks, ominous of departure. + +She came in, was startled to see him, recovered herself, and smiled at +him. + +"Will you come with me?" he said. + +She followed him upstairs. + +"I have something to show you." + +He led her to his room. On the floor were his bags, hatbox, rug, +packed, strapped and labeled. + +"I am going," he said. "The puppy will not mind my going." + + + + +VII + +APPENDIX + +A LETTER FROM H. J. BEENHAM TO A. Z. PANOUKIAN, M.P. + +_"For two years it was the fashion among the English to cut out the +appendix; but the fashion died and appendices are now retained."_ + +OBSERVATIONS AMONG THE ENGLISH, BY C. L. HUNG (BRETZELFRESSER COMPANY, +HONG KONG AND NEW YORK). + + + +VII + +APPENDIX + +CAPRAIA. + +MY DEAR PANOUKIAN, + +So you have become a politician! I had hoped for better things. + +It is ten years now since I left England, so that I can write to you +without the prickly heat of moral prejudice. It is a year since I saw +you in Venice, you and her. She had her arm in yours and you did not +see me. You saw nothing but her, and she saw nothing but you, and it +was clear to me that you were enjoying your tenth honeymoon, which is, +surely, a far greater thing than the first, if only you can get to it. +You came out of St. Mark's, you and she, and I was so close that I +could have touched you. I shrank into the shadow and watched you feed +the pigeons, and then you had tea on the sunlit side of the Piazza and +then you strolled toward the Rialto. I took a gondola to the station +and fled to Verona, for I could have no room in your tenth Eden. +Verona is the very place for a bachelor, which, I there discovered, I +have never ceased to be. Verona belongs to Romeo and Juliet, and no +other lovers may do more than pass the day there, salute and speed on +to Venice. But a bachelor may stay there many days: he will find an +excellent local wine, good cigars built round straws, passable food, +and the swift-flowing Adige wherein to cast his thoughts. This I did, +with a blessing or two to be conveyed to you in Venice. I hope you +received them. The Adige bears thoughts and blessings and sewage with +equal zest to his goal, as I would all men might do. + +I stayed for a month in Verona and I remember little of it but some +delicious plums I bought in the marketplace and ate in the +amphitheater, spitting the stones down into the arena with a dexterity +I have only seen equaled by Matilda in the days of my first +acquaintance with her. That is far back now, but there is not a moment +of it all that I do not like to remember, and there in the +amphitheater I told myself the whole adventure as a story from which I +was detached. It moved me more than the house of Juliet, more than all +the sorrows of the Scaligers, for it is a modern story and, as Molière +said, _"Les anciens sont les anciens et nous sommes les gens +d'aujourd'hui."_ + +_Aujourd'hui!_ To-day! That is the marvel, that out of the swiftly +moving, ever changing vapor which is life we should achieve anything +so positive. To-day never goes. There is a thing called yesterday, but +that is only the dust-bin at the door into which we cast our refuse, +our failures, our worn-out souls. There is a thing called to-morrow, +but that is the storehouse of to-day, bursting with far better things, +emotions, loves, hopes, than those we have discarded. But into to-day +the whole passionate force of the universe is poured, through us, +through all things, and therefore to-day is marvelous. + +Here in Italy there is some worship of to-day. There are times and +times when it is enough to be alive; and there are times when the +light glows magically and the whole body and being of a man melt into +it, thrill in worship, and then, however old he be, however burdened +with Time's tricks of the flesh, in his heart there are songs and +dancing. + +In England we cling to the past, we never know to-day, we never dare +open the storehouse of tomorrow, for we are all trained in the house +of Mother Hubbard. I have loved England dearly since I have lived away +from her. I can begin, I think, to understand. She is weary, maybe; +she has many hours of boredom. She is, alas, a country where grapes +grow under glass, where, I sometimes think, men do not grow at all. +She is a country of adolescents; her sons seem never to be troubled by +the difficulties which beset the adult mind; they rush ahead, careless +of danger because they never see it; their lives hang upon a +precarious luck: they are impelled, not, I believe, as other nations +fancy, by greed or conceit, but by that furious energy which attends +upon the adolescent hatred of being left out of things. A grown man +can tolerably gauge his capacity, but the desires of a youth are +constantly excited by the desires of others; he must acquire lest +others obtain; he must love every maiden and yield to none; he must be +forever donning new habits to persuade himself that he is more a man +than the grown men among whom enviously he moves. He is filled with a +fevered curiosity about himself, but never dares stay to satisfy it, +lest he should miss an opportunity of bidding for the admiration and +praise of others which he would far rather have than their sympathy. +Sympathy he dreads, for it forces him back upon himself, brings him +too near to seeing himself without excitement. . . . So far, my +observations, carefully selected, take me. + +There have been grown men in England, wonderful men, men all strength +and sympathy and love, with powers far surpassing the intelligence of +other races: but mark how the English treat them. They set them on a +pinnacle, give them the admiration they despised, take none of their +sympathy, raise horrible statues to their memory, and, to protect +themselves against their thought, the mighty force of truth in their +souls, breed dwarfish imitations of them, whom they adore and love as +men can only love those of their own moral race. No other country less +deserves to have great men, and no other country has gotten greater. +This astonishing phenomenon has produced that complacency which is the +only check on the fury of England's adolescent energy. Without it, +without the Brummagem dignity in which such complacency takes form, +she would long ago have rushed to her destruction. With it she has a +political solidity to which graver and more intelligent nations can +never aspire. + +But I should not talk politics to a politician. Nothing, I think you +will agree, can reconcile conceptions bred in the House of Commons +with those begot outside it. It has never yet been accomplished, and I +gather, from the few English journals I see, that the attempt to do so +is all but abandoned. + +I am writing to you to-day because I wished to do so in Verona, but +was there too deep in an emotional flux to be able to write anything +but bad poetry or a crude expression of sympathy, which, as it would +have been gratuitous, must have been offensive. To-day, in Livorno +(which our sailors have chewed with their tobacco into Leghorn), I +found among my papers a letter written to you by Matilda nearly twelve +years ago. It belongs to you and I send it. + +Yesterday in Livorno I found a marionette show and that set me +thinking of England and the theater and many other subjects which used +to absorb me during the hectic years of my life when I dwelt in Gray's +Inn. And I wished to communicate with England and could find no one to +whom I am so nearly attached as you. I was engaged to visit Elba, and +was there this morning, but was so distressed with the thought of the +extreme youthfulness of England's treatment of the great Napoleon that +I left my party and crossed over to Capraia, which you will find on +the map, and here, under the hot sun, with a green umbrella over my +bald head, I am writing. I can see Elba. With my mind's eye I can see +England, and, indeed, when soberly I turn the matter over, I conclude +that her treatment of Napoleon has not been nearly so shameful as her +treatment of Shelley or Shakespeare. Shelley wrote one play; it has +never openly been acted. Shakespeare wrote many plays; they have been +Butchered, reduced from the dramatic to the theatrical. + +The marionettes stirred me greatly. The drama they played was +familiar--husband, wife, and lover--the treatment conventional, though +the dialogue had the freshness of improvisation. It was often bald as +my head, and in the more passionate moments almost heartbreakingly +inarticulate. It was a tragedy; the husband slew the lover, the wife +stabbed herself, the husband went mad, and they lay together in a limp +heap, while from the street outside--where, I felt sure, there were +gay puppets carelessly strolling--came the most comic, derisive little +tune played upon a reed. (It must have been a reed, for it was most +certainly puppet and no human music, and, for that, only the more +stirring.) The whole scene is as living to my mind as any experience +of my own, and, indeed, my own adventures in this life have been +illuminated by it. In the English theater I have never seen a +performance that did not thicken and obscure my consciousness. I could +not but contrast the two, and you find me sitting on an island +striving to explain it. + +In the first place the performance of these marionettes compelled my +whole-hearted interest because the play was detached from life, was +not palpably unreal under the artificial light, and therefore could +begin to reflect and be a comment upon life in a degree of success +dependent, of course, upon the mind behind it. It was a common but a +simple mind, skilled in the uses of the tiny theater, versed in its +tradition, and always nice in its perception of the degrees of emotion +proper to be loosed for the building up of the dramatic scenes. It was +not truly an imaginative mind, not a genuinely dramatic mind, but it +was thoroughly loyal to the imagination which has created and +developed the theater of the marionettes. Except that the showman had +a marked preference for the doll who played the husband, the balance +of the play was excellently maintained, and the marionettes did +exactly as they were bid. Thus between the controlling mind of the +theater, the mind in its tradition, and my own there was set up a +continuous and unbroken communication, and my brain was kept most +exaltingly busy drawing on those forces and passions, those powers of +selection and criticism which make of man a reasoning and then a +dramatic animal. You may be sure that I fed the drama on the stage +with that other drama, through which you and I floundered so many +years ago. I longed to cry out to the husband that he should think +less of himself and what the neighbors would say and more of his wife, +who, being between two men, enamored of one and dedicated to the +other, was in a far worse plight than himself, who was torn only +between his affection and his pride. But tradition and convention and +his own brainless subservience to his passion were too strong for him, +and he killed the lover; would have killed the woman, too, but she was +too quick for him. I wept, I assure you. I was sorrowful. Judge, then, +of my relief and delight when the curtain rose again and those same +three puppets, with others, played the merriest burlesque, a +starveling descendant, I fancy, of the _commedia dell' arte._ Where +before they had surrendered to their passions, now my three puppets +played with them at nimble knucklebones. The passion was no less +genuine, but this time they were its masters, not its slaves, they had +it casked and bunged and could draw on it at will. My lady puppet +coquetted with the two gentlemen, set them wrangling for her, +wagering, dicing, singing, dancing, vying with each other in +mischievous tricks upon the town, and at last, owing, I suspect, to +the showman's partiality, she sank into the husband puppet's arms and +the lover puppet was propelled by force of leg through the window. +(Pray, my dear Panoukian, admire the euphemism to spare both our +feelings.) And now I laughed as healthily and heartily as before I +wept. . . . Now, said I to myself, in England I should have been +tormented with a picture, cut up by the insincerity of the actors into +"effective" scenes and episodes, of three eminently respectable +persons shaking themselves to bits with a passion they had never had; +or, for comedy, there would have been the ribaldry of equally +respectable persons twisting themselves into knots in their attempts +to frustrate the discovery of a mis-spent night. Now, thought I, this +brings me near the heart of the mystery. There are few men and women +born without the kernel of passion. There are forty millions of men +and women in the British Isles; what do they do with their passion? +What, indeed--let us be frank--had I done with my own? + +Now do you perceive why I am writing to you? + +First of all, let us agree that boyhood is the least zestful part of a +man's life. His existence is not then truly his own, he is a +spectator; he is absorbed in gazing upon the great world which at a +seemingly remote period he is to enter. Then he is apprenticed, +initiated by the brutal test of a swift growth and physical change; +easily he learns the ways, the manners, the pursuits of men; the +conduct of the material world, the common life, is all arranged; he +has but to slip into it. That is easy. But his own individual life, +that is not so easy. He soon perceives, confusedly and mistily, that +into that he can only enter through his passion, through its +spontaneous and inevitable expression. He knows that; you know it. I +know it. They are a miserable few who do not know it. But in England +he can find none to share his knowledge. He is left alone with his +dread, with so much sick hope thrust back in him, for want of a +generous salute from those who have gone before, that it rots away in +him and eats into his natural faith. He asks for a vision of manhood +and is given a dull imitation of man, strong, silent, brutal, and +indifferent. He must admire it, for on all sides it is admired. As a +child he has been taught to babble of gentle Jesus; as a youth he +finds that same Jesus turned--by the distorting English +atmosphere--into a hard Pharisee, blessing the money changers. His +passion racks his bones and blisters his soul. His inmost self yearns +to get out and away, to spend itself, to find its due share in the +ever-creating love. He dare not so much as whisper his need, for none +but shameful words are given him to express it. "All's well with the +world," he is told. "All's wrong with myself," he begins to think. In +other men, older men, he can find no trace of passion, only temper and +lewdness, with a swagger to both. They bear both easily. His passion +becomes hateful to him; he begins to chafe against it, to spurn it, to +live gaily enough in the common life, to choke the vision of his own +life. So it has been with you, with me, with all of us. + +There are works of art, it is true. Grown men understand them; +adolescents hate them, for works of art reveal always the fulfilment +of passion; they begin to flower at the point to which passion has +raised the soul; they are the record and the landmarks of its +after-journeyings, its own free traveling. To the soul in bondage all +that is but babble and foolish talk, just as, to the adolescent, the +simplicity of the grown man is folly. That a man should believe in +human nature--as he must if he believes in himself--is, in adolescent +eyes, suspect. . . . Have you not heard intelligent Englishmen say +contemptuously of a man that he is an idealist, as who should say +idiot? + +Passion leads to idealism, to belief that there is a wisdom greater +than the wisdom of men, a knowledge of which the knowledge of men is +but a part, a pulse in the universe by which they may set the beat of +their own. + +What do the English do with their passion? They strangle it. + +What did I do with my own? I let it ooze and trickle away. I accepted +my part in the common life, and of my own life preserved only certain +mild delights and dull passive joys, which became milder and duller as +the years went by. I was engaged in educating the young. I shudder to +think of it now. When I think of the effect those years, and that +curriculum, had upon my own mind I turn sick to imagine the harm it +must have done to the young, eager minds--(the dullest child's mind is +eager)--entrusted to my care by their confiding, worthy, and +adolescent parents. It is a horror to me to look back on it, and I +look back as little as may be. + +But to-day, in the security of glorious weather, the impregnable peace +of my island slung between blue sea and sky, I can look back with +amused curiosity, setting my infallible puppets against the blustering +half-men whom I remember to have inhabited those portions of England +that I knew. I do not count myself a freeman, but one who has escaped +from prison and still bears the marks of it in his mind; it is to rid +myself of those marks that I am thus wrapt in criticism, and not to +condemn the lives of those who are left incarcerated. Impossible to +condemn without self-condemnation. No doubt they are making the best +of it. . . . I find that I cannot now think of anything in the world +as separate from myself; the world embraces all things, and so must I; +but to do so comfortably I must first understand everything that is +sufficiently imaged to be within the range of my apprehension. Neither +more nor less can I attempt. If more, then I am plunged in error and +confusion; if less, then am I the captive of my own indolence, and +such for the greater part of my life I have been. + +When I look back on my experience in London I cannot but see that I +never became a part of it, never truly lived in its life. That may +have been only because a quarter of a century spent as an autocrat +among small boys is not perhaps the ideal preparation for living in a +crowd, a herd without a leader, in which there is no rule of manners +but: Be servile when you must, insolent when you can. Possibly the +majority are so bred and trained that such a flurry and scurry seem to +them normal and inevitable. I am sure very many are convinced that +without intrigue and wirepulling they cannot get their bread, or the +position which will ensure a continued supply. There they certainly +are; wriggling and squirming and pushing; they like it; they make no +move to get out of it; their existence is bound up in it and they +fight to preserve it without looking further. They will tell you that +they are assisting "movements," but they are only following fashions. +. . . What movement are you in? + +Matilda, I gather, is a fashion. I never knew her follow anything but +her own desire, and as her desires are human and reasonable she has +risen by the law of gravity above the rout, above the difficulties of +her own nature, above any incongruities that arise between her +individuality and the conventions of the common life of England. And +of course she rises above the work she has to do, the idiotic songs +written for her, the meaningless dances devised to sort with the +pointless tunes. And when she suffers from the emptiness of it all, +she has you, and she has the memory of myself to guard her against the +filthy welter from which she sprang. She used me--(you will let her +read this)--and I am proud to have served her. + +There are many people like Matilda, comedians and entertainers, who +develop a certain strength of personality in their revolt against the +conditions of their breeding. It is impossible to educate them. Their +intentions are too direct. . . . Not all of them succeed, or have the +luck to become the fashion. You are one of them yourself, my dear +Panoukian, and in the days when I was living with you two I used +excitedly to think that there was a whole generation of them; that the +young men and women of England were at last insisting on growing out +of adolescence. Sometimes I felt very sure of it, but I was too +sanguine. Life does not act like that; there are no sudden general +growths. There are violent reactions, but they are soon swallowed up +in the great forward flow. + +"Comedians and entertainers" I said just now. You are all that, all +you public characters. You depend upon the crowd, you are too near +them. You are in dread of falling back, and also you are aware that +the size of a man can only be gauged at a distance, and you have to +contend with the charlatan. A better comedian you may be, but he has +not your scruples, your sensitiveness, and is therefore more dexterous +at drawing the crowd's attention. . . . Again I turn with relief to my +puppets; they have no temptation to insincerity; they obey the +strings, play their parts, and are put back into their boxes. They +need no bread for body or mind. They have no life except the common +life of the stage, no individuality and no torturing need of +fulfilling it. + +But you comedians--writers, actors, politicians, divines--are raised +above the common life by the degree in which you have developed your +individual lives, including your talents, by work, by energy, +sometimes deplorably by luck. The validity of your claims is tested by +your ability to break with the common life, and pass on to creation +and discovery which shall bring back into the common life power to +make it more efficient. + +I must define. By the common life I mean the pooling of energy which +shall provide all members of the community with food, clothing, house +room, transport, the necessaries of existence, and such luxuries as +they require. Its concern is entirely material. Where it governs +moral, ethical, and spiritual affairs it is an injurious infringement, +and cannot but engender hypocrisy. How can you pool religion, or +morality, without degrading compromise? The world has discarded +kingcraft and priestcraft and come to mobcraft. That will have its +day. Mobcraft is and cannot but be theatrical. In a community of human +beings who are neither puppets nor men there is a perpetual shuffling +of values among which to live securely there is in all relations an +unhealthy amount of play-acting;--take any husband and wife, father +and son, mother and daughter, lover and lover, or, Panoukian, +schoolmaster and pupil. Life is then too like the theater for the +theater to claim an independent existence. And that, I think, is why +there is no drama in England. That is why the play-actors have columns +and columns in the newspapers devoted to their doings, their portraits +in shops and thoroughfares, their private histories (where presentable +or in accordance with the public morality of the common life) laid +bare. + +That view of English life so freezes me that I lie back under my +umbrella and thank God for the Italian sun. + + + +Has it always been so in England? I think not. Garrick was a +self-respecting, if a conceited, individual. He believed in his work +and he had some dramatic sense. The theater had no credit then; even +his genius could not raise it to the level of English institutions. +But his genius made him independent, and still the theater was +parasitic upon the Court. Subsequently the English Court, which, never +since Charles II, had taken any genuine interest in it, repudiated the +theater which then had healthily to struggle for its existence. I +fancy that in Copas--(Matilda's uncle)--I found the last genuine +survivor of the race of mummers of which Henry Irving was the last +triumphant example. They strangled the theater with their own +personalities, for only by the strength of their personalities could +they force themselves upon the attention of an England huddled away in +dark houses, grimly, tragically, in secrecy, play-acting. With every +house a playhouse, how can the theater be taken seriously? With so +much engrossing pretence in their homes, men have no need of +professional mummers; with a fully developed Nonconformist conscience, +an Englishman can be his own playwright, mummer, and audience. He +grudges the money paid to professional actors, despises any +contrivance they can show him, spurns the whole affair as a light +thing, wantonness, a dangerous toy that may upset the valuations by +which he arrives at his own theatrical effect. + +There was a time when the Englishman's home was his theater. My own +home was like that: year in, year out there was a tremendous groveling +before God, and a sweaty wrestling with the Devil, and a barometrical +record of prowess in both was kept. Human relations sneaked in when no +one was looking, took the stage when the curtain was down; I was +lucky, and on the whole had a good time in spite of the show, which, I +am bound to say, I thoroughly enjoyed. My father was a very fine man +at the groveling and the wrestling (and knew it), but in his human +relations he was awkward, heavy, and blundering in the very genuine +tenderness which he could not always escape;--and I think he knew +that, too, poor wretch. + +There must be fewer such homes now, but still an enormous number. God +and Devil are not so potent, but the habit of posturing remains, has +been handed down and carried over into human relations--(at least God +and Devil did protect us from that!)--so that there is not one, not +the most intimate and sacred, but is made subtly the occasion of +self-indulgence, easy, complacent, and devastating; the epidemic +disease consequent on the airless years from the Reform Bill to the +South African War--(you will remember the histrionics before, during +and after that tragedy of two nations). The old English +home--theatrical and oleographic--has been destroyed by it, and I +rejoice as I rejoice to hear that the Chinese women are abandoning the +folly of stunting their feet. We used to stunt the soul, the +affections, human passions. Unbind the China woman's feet and she +suffers agonies, so that she cannot walk. Thus it has been with us; we +have suffered mortal agonies; we have been saved from madness by the +inherited theatrical habit, by which we have shuffled through the +human relationships enforced by our natural necessities and the +inconsiderate insistence upon being born of the next generation. We +have shuffled through them, I say, and we have made them charming, but +we have not yet--shall we ever?--made them beautiful. There has been +no true song in our hearts, only songs without words _à la_ +Mendelssohn, nor yet a full music in our blood. We have imitated these +things, from bad models, drawn crude sketches of them. I, for +instance, play-acted myself into marriage; when it came to getting out +of it, play-acting was of no avail, though even for that emergency, as +you know, the English game has its rules. . . . I could not conform to +them, and in that I believe I shared in the general experience of the +race. I was pitchforked out of the old theatricality into the new and +found it ineffective. That must be happening every day, in thousands, +perhaps in millions, of cases. . . . I feel hopeful, and yet unhappy, +too, for my experience came to me too late. I have been able to +discard; but, for the new life--_vita nuova_--I have not wherewith to +grasp, to take into myself, to make my own. Even here on this island, +in this country of light, I do not seem to myself to be fully alive, +but am an outsider, a spectator, even as I was when a small boy, and I +shall go down into this warm earth hardly riper than I was when I was +born, nurtured only by one genuine experience and that negative. But +for that I am thankful. It has made it possible for me to ruminate, if +not to act, to rejoice in the possession of my uncomely and unwieldy +body, to be content with that small fragment of my soul which I have +mastered. + +(It is really delightful to be writing to you again. It brings you +before me, as a boy, a little piping boy; as a posturing and conceited +youth--do you remember the cruel snub inflicted on you by Tallien, the +French master? I had sent you to him with a message, and he said: +"Tell Mr. Beenham I will take no message from his conceited puppy." +You! A prefect!--as a heated and quite too Stendhalian young man. It +is charming.) + +But I am rueful when I reflect that I solved my difficulty, which, +after all, was a portion of the English difficulty, by leaving +England. I should have stayed; fought it out; wrestled through with it +until the three of us were properly and in all eyes established in +that new relation to which inevitably we should have come. I was too +old. I was too much under the habit of thinking of consequences; too +English, too theatrical to believe that life does not deal in neat and +finished endings. I could see nothing before me but the ugly +conventional way of throwing mud at the woman and bringing you to an +unjust and undeserved ruin, or the way most pleasing to my +sentimentality, of withdrawing from the scene and leaving you to make +the best of it; as, no doubt, you have done, since you are both +successful personages and well in the limelight, and able to go +triumphantly from honeymoon to honeymoon. + +Are there children? I hope there are children! + +And there begins my real difficulty. Not that I care about legitimacy. +No reasonable child will ask more than to be conceived in a healthy +body, born in a clean atmosphere, and bred in a decently ordered home. +But if there are children you should not be separated. Perhaps you are +not. Perhaps I have been long enough absent for your world to forget +my existence. But I have my doubts. I too much dread the English +atmosphere not to feel that it must have been too strong for you, and +you will have accepted your parts in the play. + +But, if there are children, there should be no play-acting in their +immediate surroundings, in the love that brought them into being. + +How I wish you could have seen my marionettes! We should then have an +emotional meeting point. As it is, I seem to be dancing round and +round you almost as agilely as though I were with you in England, in +the thick of polite London. That surely is what you need, on your +thickly populated island, a point at which the lower streams of +thought can converge, so that your existence may more resemble a noble +estuary than a swampy delta. + +You will see that I am sane enough to be thinking more of your +(possibly non-existent) children than of you. There are two clear +ideas in my head, and they desire each other in marriage--the idea of +children and the idea of the theater. But, alas! I fear it is beyond +me to bring them together. I cannot reach beyond my marionettes, which +are, after all, only the working models of the theater I should like +to conceive, and, having conceived, to create and set down in England +as a reproach to the clumsy sentimental play-acting of English life. +That would, I believe, more powerfully than any other instrument, +quell the disease. If you had a theater which was a place of art it +would lead you on to life, and you would presently discard the sham +morals, imitation art, false emotions, and tortuous thoughts with +which you now defend yourselves against it. + +I have written much under my umbrella. I hope I have said something. +At least, with this, I shake you by the hand and we three puppets +dance on through the merry burlesque which our modern life will seem +to be to the wiser and healthier generations who shall come after us. + +The old are supposed to be in a position to advise the young. I have +learned through you, and yet I may give you this counsel: "If ever you +find yourself faced with a risk, take it." Love, I conclude, is a +voyager, and it is our privilege to travel with him; but, if we stay +too long in the inn of habit, we lose his company and are undone. + +Yours affectionately, + + H. J. BEENHAM. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +Images of the source text used in this transcription are available +through the Internet Archive. See: + +archive.org/details/oldmolebeingsurp00cannrich + +The British first edition published by Martin Secker was used to +confirm specific readings (e.g., hyphenation) of the source text. +Images of this edition are also available through the Internet +Archive. See: + +archive.org/details/oldmolebeingsurp00canniala + +The following change was noted: + +-- p. 207: or a parasite, or a tyrant;--A closing quotation mark was +inserted between "tyrant" and the semicolon. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Mole, by Gilbert Cannan + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43423 *** |