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diff --git a/old/64814-0.txt b/old/64814-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e36af4d..0000000 --- a/old/64814-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6941 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Little Mexican & Other Stories, by Aldous -Huxley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Little Mexican & Other Stories - -Author: Aldous Huxley - -Release Date: March 14, 2021 [eBook #64814] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MEXICAN & OTHER STORIES *** - - - - - LITTLE MEXICAN - AND OTHER - STORIES - - - - -BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - ANTIC HAY: A NOVEL - CROME YELLOW: A NOVEL - MORTAL COILS: SHORT STORIES - LIMBO: SHORT STORIES - LEDA: AND OTHER POEMS - ON THE MARGIN: NOTES & ESSAYS - - - - - LITTLE - MEXICAN - - & OTHER STORIES - - BY ALDOUS HUXLEY - - LONDON - CHATTO & WINDUS - 1924 - - - - - _PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN_ - _ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - UNCLE SPENCER _page_ 1 - - LITTLE MEXICAN 155 - - HUBERT AND MINNIE 213 - - FARD 236 - - THE PORTRAIT 247 - - YOUNG ARCHIMEDES 271 - - - - -UNCLE SPENCER - - -Some people I know can look back over the long series of their childish -holidays and see in their memory always a different landscape--chalk -downs or Swiss mountains; a blue and sunny sea or the grey, -ever-troubled fringe of the ocean; heathery moors under the cloud with -far away a patch of sunlight on the hills, golden as happiness and, -like happiness, remote, precarious, impermanent, or the untroubled -waters of Como, the cypresses and the Easter roses. - -I envy them the variety of their impressions. For it is good to have -seen something of the world with childish eyes, disinterestedly -and uncritically, observing not what is useful or beautiful and -interesting, but only such things as, to a being less than four -feet high and having no knowledge of life or art, seem immediately -significant. It is the beggars, it is the green umbrellas under -which the cabmen sit when it rains, not Brunelleschi’s dome, not the -extortions of the hotel-keeper, not the tombs of the Medici that -impress the childish traveller. Such impressions, it is true, are of -no particular value to us when we are grown up. (The famous wisdom of -babes, with those childish intimations of immortality and all the rest, -never really amounted to very much; and the man who studies the souls -of children in the hope of finding out something about the souls of -men is about as likely to discover something important as the man who -thinks he can explain Beethoven by referring him to the savage origins -of music or religion by referring it to the sexual instincts.) None the -less, it is good to have had such childish impressions, if only for -the sake of comparing (so that we may draw the philosophic moral) what -we saw of a place when we were six or seven with what we see again at -thirty. - -My holidays had no variety. From the time when I first went to my -preparatory school to the time when my parents came back for good -from India--I was sixteen or seventeen then, I suppose--they were all -passed with my Uncle Spencer. For years the only places on the earth’s -surface of which I had any knowledge were Eastbourne, where I was at -school; Dover (and that reduced itself to the harbour and station), -where I embarked; Ostend, where Uncle Spencer met me; Brussels, where -we changed trains; and finally Longres in Limburg, where my Uncle -Spencer owned the sugar factory, which his mother, my grandmother, had -inherited in her turn from her Belgian father, and had his home. - -Hanging over the rail of the steamer as it moved slowly, stern -foremost, through the narrow gullet of Ostend harbour, I used to -strain my eyes, trying to pick out from among the crowd at the quay’s -edge the small, familiar figure. And always there he was, waving his -coloured silk handkerchief, shouting inaudible greetings and advice, -getting in the way of the porters and ticket-collectors, fidgeting with -a hardly controllable impatience behind the barrier, until at last, -squeezed and almost suffocated amongst the grown men and women--whom -the process of disembarkation transformed as though by some malevolent -Circean magic into brute beasts, reasonless and snarling--I struggled -to shore, clutching in one hand my little bag and with the other -holding to my head, if it was summer, a speckled straw, gaudy with the -school colours; if winter, a preposterous bowler, whose eclipsing -melon crammed over my ears made me look like a child in a comic paper -pretending to be grown up. - -“Well, here you are, here you are,” my Uncle Spencer would say, -snatching my bag from me. “Eleven minutes late.” And we would dash for -the custom-house as though our lives depended on getting there before -the other trans-beasted passengers. - -My Uncle Spencer was a man of about forty when first I came from my -preparatory school to stay with him. Thin he was, rather short, very -quick, agile, and impulsive in his movements, with small feet and -small, delicate hands. His face was narrow, clear-cut, steep, and -aquiline; his eyes dark and extraordinarily bright, deeply set under -overhanging brows; his hair was black, and he wore it rather long, -brushed back from his forehead. At the sides of his head it had already -begun to go grey, and above his ears, as it were, two grey wings were -folded against his head, so that, to look at him, one was reminded of -Mercury in his winged cap. - -“Hurry up!” he called. And I scampered after him. “Hurry up!” But of -course there was no use whatever in our hurrying; for even when we -had had my little hand-bag examined, there was always the registered -trunk to wait for; and that, for my Uncle Spencer, was agony. For -though our places in the Brussels express were reserved, though he -knew that the train would not in any circumstances start without us, -this intellectual certainty was not enough to appease his passionate -impatience, to allay his instinctive fears. - -“Terribly slow,” he kept repeating. “Terribly slow.” And for the -hundredth time he looked at his watch. “Dites-moi,” he would say, yet -once more, to the sentry at the door of the customs-house, “le grand -bagage...?” until in the end the fellow, exasperated by these questions -which it was not his business to answer, would say something rude; -upon which my Uncle Spencer, outraged, would call him _mal élevé_ and -a _grossier personnage_--to the fury of the sentry but correspondingly -great relief of his own feelings; for after such an outburst he could -wait in patience for a good five minutes, so far forgetting his anxiety -about the trunk that he actually began talking to me about other -subjects, asking how I had got on this term at school, what was my -batting average, whether I liked Latin, and whether Old Thunderguts, -which was the name we gave to the headmaster on account of his noble -baritone, was still as ill-tempered as ever. - -But at the end of the five minutes, unless the trunk had previously -appeared, my Uncle Spencer began looking at his watch again. - -“Scandalously slow,” he said. And addressing himself to another -official, “Dites-moi, monsieur, le grand bagage...?” - -But when at last we were safely in the train and there was nothing -to prevent him from deploying all the graces and amiabilities of his -character, my Uncle Spencer, all charm and kindness now, devoted -himself wholeheartedly to me. - -“Look!” he said; and from the pocket of his overcoat he pulled out a -large and dampish parcel of whose existence my nose had long before -made me aware. “Guess what’s in here.” - -“Prawns,” I said, without an instant’s hesitation. - -And prawns it was, a whole kilo of them. And there we sat in opposite -corners of our first-class carriage, with the little folding table -opened out between us and the pink prawns on the table, eating with -infinite relish and throwing the rosy carapaces, the tails, and the -sucked heads out of the window. And the Flemish plain moved past us; -the long double files of poplars, planted along the banks of the -canals, along the fringes of the high roads, moving as we moved, -marched parallel with our course or presented, as we crossed them at -right angles, for one significant flashing moment the entrance to -Hobbema’s avenue. And now the belfries of Bruges beckoned from far off -across the plain; a dozen more shrimps and we were roaring through -its station, all gloom and ogives in honour of Memling and the Gothic -past. By the time we had eaten another hectogram of prawns, the modern -quarter of Ghent was reminding us that art was only five years old and -had been invented in Vienna. At Alost the factory chimneys smoked; -and before we knew where we were, we were almost on the outskirts of -Brussels, with two or three hundred grammes of sea-fruit still intact -on the table before us. - -“Hurry up!” cried my Uncle Spencer, threatened by another access of -anxiety. “We must finish them before we get to Brussels.” - -And during the last five miles we ate furiously, shell and all; there -was hardly time even to spit out the heads and tails. - -“Nothing like prawns,” my Uncle Spencer never failed to say, as the -express drew slowly into the station at Brussels, and the last tails -and whiskers with the fishy paper were thrown out of the window. -“Nothing like prawns when the brain is tired. It’s the phosphorus, you -know. After all your end-of-term examinations you need them.” And then -he patted me affectionately on the shoulder. - -How often since then have I repeated in all earnestness my Uncle -Spencer’s words. “It’s the phosphorus,” I assure my fagged friends, as -I insist that they shall make their lunch off shellfish. The words come -gushing spontaneously out of me; the opinion that prawns and oysters -are good for brain-fag is very nearly one of my fundamental and, so to -say, instinctive beliefs. But sometimes, as I say the words, suddenly -I think of my Uncle Spencer. I see him once more sitting opposite me -in a corner of the Brussels express, his eyes flashing, his thin face -expressively moving as he talks, while his quick, nervous fingers pick -impatiently at the pink carapaces or with a disdainful gesture drop -a whiskered head into the Flemish landscape outside the open window. -And remembering my Uncle Spencer, I find myself somehow believing -less firmly than I did in what I have been saying. And I wonder with -a certain sense of disquietude how many other relics of my Uncle -Spencer’s spirit I still carry, all unconsciously, about with me. - -How many of our beliefs--more serious even than the belief that prawns -revive the tired brain--come to us haphazardly from sources far less -trustworthy than my Uncle Spencer! The most intelligent men will be -found holding opinions about certain things, inculcated in them during -their childhood by nurses or stable-boys. And up to the very end of our -adolescence, and even after, there are for all of us certain admired -beings, whose words sink irresistibly into our minds, generating there -beliefs which reason does not presume to question, and which though -they may be quite out of harmony with all our other opinions persist -along with them without our ever becoming aware of the contradictions -between the two sets of ideas. Thus an emancipated young man, whose -father happens to have been a distinguished Indian civilian, is an -ardent apostle of liberty and self-determination; but insists that the -Indians are and for ever will be completely incapable of governing -themselves. And an art critic, extremely sound on Vlaminck and Marie -Laurencin, will praise as masterly and in the grand manner--and praise -sincerely, for he genuinely finds them so--the works of an artist whose -dim pretentious paintings of the Tuscan landscape used to delight, -because they reminded her of her youth, an old lady, now dead, but whom -as a very young man he greatly loved and admired. - -My Uncle Spencer was for me, in my boyhood, one of these admired -beings, whose opinions possess a more than earthly value for the -admiring listener. For years my most passionately cherished beliefs -were his. Those opinions which I formed myself, I held more -diffidently, with less ardour; for they, after all, were only the -fruits of my own judgment and observation, superficial rational -growths; whereas the opinions I had taken from my Uncle Spencer--such -as this belief in the curative properties of prawns--had nothing to do -with my reason, but had been suggested directly into the sub-rational -depths, where they seemed to attach themselves, like barnacles, to the -very keel and bottom of my mind. Most of them, I hope, I have since -contrived to scrape off; and a long, laborious, painful process it has -been. But there are still, I dare say, a goodly number of them left, so -deeply ingrained and grown in, that it is impossible for me to be aware -of them. And I shall go down to my grave making certain judgments, -holding certain opinions, regarding certain things and actions in a -certain way--and the way, the opinions, the judgments will not be mine, -but my Uncle Spencer’s; and the obscure chambers of my mind will to the -end be haunted by his bright, erratic, restless ghost. - -There are some people whose habits of thought a boy or a young man -might, with the greatest possible advantage to himself, make his -own. But my Uncle Spencer was not one of them. His active mind darted -hither and thither too wildly and erratically for it to be a safe -guide for an inexperienced understanding. It was all too promptly -logical to draw conclusions from false premises, too easily and -enthusiastically accepted as true. Living as he did in solitude--in a -mental solitude; for though he was no recluse and took his share in -all social pleasures, the society of Longres could not offer much in -the way of high intellectual companionship--he was able to give free -play to the native eccentricity of his mind. Having nobody to check or -direct him, he would rush headlong down intellectual roads that led -nowhere or into morasses of nonsense. When, much later, I used to amuse -myself by listening on Sunday afternoons to the speakers at Marble -Arch, I used often to be reminded of my Uncle Spencer. For they, like -Uncle Spencer, lived in solitude, apart from the main contemporary -world of ideas, unaware, or so dimly aware that it hardly counted, of -the very existence of organised and systematic science, not knowing -even where to look for the accumulated stores of human knowledge. I -have talked in the Park to Bible students who boasted that during the -day they cobbled or sold cheese, while at night they sat up learning -Hebrew and studying the critics of the Holy Book. And I have been -ashamed of my own idleness, ashamed of the poor use I have made of my -opportunities. These humble scholars heroically pursuing enlightenment -are touching and noble figures--but how often, alas, pathetically -ludicrous too! For the critics my Bible students used to read and -meditate upon were always at least three-quarters of a century out of -date--exploded Tübingen scholars or literal inspirationalists; their -authorities were always books written before the invention of modern -historical research; their philology was the picturesque _lucus a non -lucendo_, bloody from by-our-Lady type; their geology had irrefutable -proofs of the existence of Atlantis; their physiology, if they happened -to be atheists, was obsoletely mechanistic, if Christians, merely -providential. All their dogged industry, all their years of heroic -striving, had been completely wasted--wasted, at any rate, so far as -the increase of human knowledge was concerned, but not for themselves, -since the labour, the disinterested ambition, had brought them -happiness. - -My Uncle Spencer was spiritually a cousin of these Hyde Park orators -and higher critics. He had all their passion for enlightenment and -profound ideas, but not content with concentrating, like them, on a -single subject such as the Bible, he allowed himself to be attracted -by everything under the sun. The whole field of history, of science -(or rather what my Uncle Spencer thought was science), of philosophy, -religion, and art was his province. He had their industry too--an -industry, in his case, rather erratic, fitful, and inconstant; for -he would start passionately studying one subject, to turn after a -little while to another whose aspect seemed to him at the moment more -attractive. And like them he displayed--though to a less pronounced -degree, since his education had been rather better than theirs (not -much better, however, for he had never attended any seat of learning -but one of our oldest and most hopeless public schools)--he displayed -a vast unawareness of contemporary thought and an uncritical faith in -authorities which to a more systematically educated man would have -seemed quite obviously out of date; coupled with a profound ignorance -of even the methods by which one could acquire a more accurate or at -any rate a more “modern” and fashionable knowledge of the universe. - -My Uncle Spencer had views and information on almost every subject one -cared to mention; but the information was almost invariably faulty -and the judgments he based upon it fantastic. What things he used to -tell me as we sat facing one another in the corners of our first-class -carriage, with the prawns piled up in a little coralline mountain on -the folding table between us! Fragments of his eager talk come back to -me. - -“There are cypresses in Lombardy that were planted by Julius Cæsar....” - -“The human race is descended from African pygmies. Adam was black and -only four feet high....” - -“_Similia similibus curantur._ Have you gone far enough with your -Latin to know what that means?” (My Uncle Spencer was an enthusiastic -homœopathist, and the words of Hahnemann were to him as a mystic -formula, a kind of _Om mani padme hum_, the repetition of which gave -him an immense spiritual satisfaction.) - -And once, I remember, as we were passing through the fabulous new -station of Ghent--that station which fifteen or sixteen years later I -was to see all smashed and gutted by the departing invaders--he began, -apropos of a squad of soldiers standing on the platform, to tell me -how a German professor had proved, mathematically, using the theories -of ballistics and probabilities, that war was now impossible, modern -quick-firing rifles and machine-guns being so efficient that it was, -as my Uncle Spencer put it, “sci-en-tif-ic-ally impossible” for any -body of men to remain alive within a mile of a sufficient number of -mitrailleuses, moving backwards and forwards through the arc of a -circle and firing continuously all the time. I passed my boyhood in the -serene certainty that war was now a thing of the past. - -Sometimes he would talk to me earnestly across the prawns of the -cosmogonies of Boehme or Swedenborg. But all this was so exceedingly -obscure that I never took it in at all. In spite of my Uncle Spencer’s -ascendancy over my mind I was never infected by his mystical -enthusiasms. These mental dissipations had been my Uncle Spencer’s wild -oats. Reacting from the rather stuffily orthodox respectability of his -upbringing, he ran into, not vice, not atheism, but Swedenborg. He had -preserved--a legacy from his prosperous nineteenth-century youth--an -easy optimism, a great belief in progress and the superiority of modern -over ancient times, together with a convenient ignorance of the things -about which it would have been disquieting to think too much. This -agreeable notion of the world I sucked in easily and copiously with my -little crustaceans; my views about the universe and the destinies of -man were as rosy in those days as the prawns themselves. - -It was not till seven or eight o’clock in the evening that we finally -got to our destination. My Uncle Spencer’s carriage--victoria or -brougham, according to the season and the state of the weather--would -be waiting for us at the station door. In we climbed and away we -rolled on our rubbered wheels in a silence that seemed almost magical, -so deafeningly did common carts and the mere station cabs go rattling -over the cobbles of the long and dismal Rue de la Gare. Even in the -winter, when there was nothing to be seen of it but an occasional green -gas-lamp, with a little universe of pavement, brick wall and shuttered -window dependent upon it and created by it out of the surrounding -darkness, the Rue de la Gare was signally depressing, if only because -it was so straight and long. But in summer, when the dismal brick -houses by which it was flanked revealed themselves in the evening -light, when the dust and the waste-paper came puffing along it in -gusts of warm, stale-smelling wind, then the street seemed doubly long -and disagreeable. But, on the other hand, the contrast between its -sordidness and the cool, spacious Grand’ Place into which, after what -seemed a carefully studied preparatory twisting and turning among the -narrow streets of the old town, it finally debouched, was all the more -striking and refreshing. Like a ship floating out from between the jaws -of a canyon into a wide and sunlit lake, our carriage emerged upon -the Grand’ Place. And the moment was solemn, breathlessly anticipated -and theatrical, as though we were gliding in along the suspended -calling of the oboes and bassoons, and the violins trembling with -amorous anxiety all around us, rolling silently and with not a hitch -in the stage carpentry on to some vast and limelit stage where, as -soon as we had taken up our position well forward and in the centre, -something tremendous, one imagined, would suddenly begin to happen--a -huge orchestral tutti from contrabass trombone to piccolo, from bell -instrument to triangle, and then the tenor and soprano in such a duet -as had never in all the history of opera been heard before. - -But when it came to the point, our entrance was never quite so dramatic -as all that. One found, when one actually got there, that one had -mistaken one’s opera; it wasn’t _Parsifal_ or _Rigoletto_; it was -_Pelléas_ or perhaps the _Village Romeo and Juliet_. For there was -nothing grandiosely Wagnerian, nothing Italian and showy about the -Grand’ Place at Longres. The last light was rosy on its towers, the -shadows of the promenaders stretched half across the place, and in -the vast square the evening had room to be cool and quiet. The Gothic -Church had a sharp steeple and the seminary by its side a tower, and -the little seventeenth-century Hôtel de Ville, with its slender belfry, -standing in the middle of that open space as though not afraid to -let itself be seen from every side, was a miracle of gay and sober -architecture; and the houses that looked out upon it had faces simple -indeed, burgess and ingenuous, but not without a certain nobility, not -without a kind of unassuming provincial elegance. In, then, we glided, -and the suspended oboeings of our entrance, instead of leading up to -some grand and gaudy burst of harmony, fruitily protracted themselves -in this evening beauty, exulted quietly in the rosy light, meditated -among the lengthening shadows; and the violins, ceasing to tremble with -anticipation, swelled and mounted, like light and leaping towers, into -the serene sky. - -And if the clock happened to strike at the moment that we entered, how -charmingly the notes of the mechanical carillon harmonised with this -imaginary music! At the hours, the bells in the high tower of the Hôtel -de Ville played a minuet and trio, tinkly and formal like the first -composition of an infant Boccherini, which lasted till fully three -minutes past. At the half-hours it was a patriotic air of the same -length. But at the quarters the bells no more than began a tune. Three -or four bars and the music broke off, leaving the listener wondering -what was to have followed, and attributing to this fragmentary stump -of an air some rich outflowering in the pregnant and musical silence, -some subtle development which should have made the whole otherwise -enchanting than the completed pieces that followed and preceded, -and whose charm, indeed, consisted precisely in their old-fashioned -mediocrity, in the ancient, cracked, and quavering sweetness of the -bells that played them, and the defects in the mechanism, which -imparted to the rhythm that peculiar and unforeseeable irregularity -which the child at the piano, tongue between teeth, eyes anxiously -glancing from printed notes to fingers and back again, laboriously -introduces into the flawless evenness of “The Merry Peasant.” - -This regular and repeated carillonage was and indeed still is--for the -invaders spared the bells--an essential part of Longres, a feature -like the silhouette of its three towers seen from far away between the -poplars across the wide, flat land, characteristic and recognisable. - -It is with a little laugh of amused delight that the stranger to -Longres first hears the jigging airs and the clashes of thin, sweet -harmony floating down upon him from the sky, note succeeding unmuted -note, so that the vibrations mingle in the air, surrounding the clear -outlines of the melody with a faint quivering halo of discord. After -an hour or two the minuet and trio, the patriotic air, become all -too familiar, while with every repetition the broken fragments at -the quarters grow more and more enigmatic, pregnant, dubious, and -irritating. The pink light fades from the three towers, the Gothic -intricacies of the church sink into a flat black silhouette against the -night sky; but still from high up in the topless darkness floats down, -floats up and out over the house-tops, across the flat fields, the -minuet and trio. The patriotic air continues still, even after sunset, -to commemorate the great events of 1830; and still the fragments -between, like pencillings in the notebook of a genius, suggest to -the mind in the scribble of twenty notes a splendid theme and the -possibility of fifteen hundred variations. At midnight the bells are -still playing; at half-past one the stranger starts yet again out -of his sleep; re-evoked at a quarter to four his speculations about -the possible conclusions of the unfinished symphony keep him awake -long enough to hear the minuet and trio at the hour and to wonder -how any one in Longres manages to sleep at all. But in a day or two -he answers the question himself by sleeping unbrokenly through the -hints from Beethoven’s notebook, and the more deliberate evocations -of Boccherini’s childhood and the revolution of 1830. The disease -creates its own antidote, and the habit of hearing the carillon induces -gradually a state of special mental deafness in which the inhabitants -of Longres permanently live. - -Even as a small boy, to whom insomnia was a thing unknown, I found -the bells, for the first night or two after my arrival in Longres, -decidedly trying. My Uncle Spencer’s house looked on to the Grand’ -Place itself, and my window on the third floor was within fifty yards -of the belfry of the Hôtel de Ville and the source of the aerial music. -Three-year-old Boccherini might have been in the room with me whenever -the wind came from the south, banging his minuet in my ears. But after -the second night he might bang and jangle as much as he liked; there -was no bell in Longres could wake me. - -What did wake me, however--every Saturday morning at about half-past -four or five--was the pigs coming into market. One had to have spent -a month of Saturdays in Longres before one could acquire the special -mental deafness that could ignore the rumbling of cart-wheels over the -cobbles and the squealing and grunting of two or three thousand pigs. -And when one looked out what a sight it was! All the Grand’ Place was -divided up by rails into a multitude of pens and pounds, and every -pound was seething with pink naked pigs that looked from above like so -much Bergsonian _élan vital_ in a state of incessant agitation. Men -came and went between the enclosures, talking, bargaining, critically -poking potential bacon or ham with the point of a stick. And when the -bargain was struck, the owner would step into the pen, hunt down the -victim, and, catching it up by one leather ear and its thin bootlace of -a tail, carry it off amid grunts that ended in the piercing, long-drawn -harmonics of a squeal to a netted cart or perhaps to some other pen -a little farther down the line. Brought up in England to regard the -infliction of discomfort upon an animal as being, if anything, rather -more reprehensible than cruelty to my fellow-humans, I remember being -horrified by this spectacle. So, too, apparently was the German army -of occupation. For between 1914 and 1918 no pig in the Longres market -might be lifted by tail or ear, the penalty for disobedience being a -fine of twenty marks for the first offence, a hundred for the second, -and after that a term of forced labour on the lines of communication. -Of all the oppressive measures of the invader there was hardly one -which more profoundly irritated the Limburgian peasantry. Nero was -unpopular with the people of Rome, not because of his crimes and vices, -not because he was a tyrant and a murderer, but for having built in the -middle of the city a palace so large that it blocked the entrance to -several of the main roads. If the Romans hated him, it was because his -golden house compelled them to make a circuit of a quarter of a mile -every time they wanted to go shopping. The little customary liberties, -the right to do in small things what we have always done, are more -highly valued than the greater, more abstract, and less immediate -freedoms. And, similarly, most people will rather run the risk of -catching typhus than take a few irksome sanitary precautions to which -they are not accustomed. In this particular case, moreover, there was -the further question: How _is_ one to carry a pig except by its tail -and ears? One must either throw the creature on its back and lift it -up by its four cloven feet--a process hardly feasible, since a pig’s -centre of gravity is so near the ground that it is all but impossible -to topple him over. Or else--and this is what the people of Longres -found themselves disgustedly compelled to do--one must throw one’s -arms round the animal and carry it clasped to one’s bosom as though -it were a baby, at the risk of being bitten in the ear and with the -certainty of stinking like a hog for the rest of the day. - -The first Saturday after the departure of the German troops was a bad -morning for the pigs. To carry a pig by the tail was an outward and -visible symbol of recovered liberty; and the squeals of the porkers -mingled with the cheers of the population and the trills and clashing -harmonies of the bells awakened by the carilloneur from their four -years’ silence. - -By ten o’clock the market was over. The railings of the pens had been -cleared away, and but for the traces on the cobbles--and those too the -municipal scavengers were beginning to sweep up--I could have believed -that the scene upon which I had looked from my window in the bright -early light had been a scene in some agitated morning dream. - -But more dream-like and fantastical was the aspect of the Grand’ Place -when, every year during the latter part of August, Longres indulged in -its traditional kermesse. For then the whole huge square was covered -with booths, with merry-go-rounds turning and twinkling in the sun, -with swings and switchbacks, with temporary pinnacles rivalling in -height with the permanent and secular towers of the town, and from -whose summits one slid, whooping uncontrollably with horrified delight, -down a polished spiral track to the ground below. There was bunting -everywhere, there were sleek balloons and flags, there were gaudily -painted signs. Against the grey walls of the church, against the -whitewashed house-fronts, against the dark brickwork of the seminary -and the soft yellow stucco of the gabled Hôtel de Ville, a sea of many -colours beat tumultuously. And an immense and featureless noise that -was a mingling of the music of four or five steam organs, of the voices -of thousands of people, of the blowing of trumpets and whistles, the -clashing of cymbals, the beating of drums, of shouting, of the howling -of children, of enormous rustic laughter, filled the space between -the houses from brim to brim--a noise so continuous and so amorphous -that hearkening from my high window it was almost, after a time, as -though there were no noise at all, but a new kind of silence, in which -the tinkling of the infant Boccherini’s minuet, the patriotic air, and -the fragmentary symphonies had become for some obscure reason utterly -inaudible. - -And after sunset the white flares of acetylene and the red flares of -coal-gas scooped out of the heart of the night a little private day, in -which the fun went on more noisily than ever. And the gaslight striking -up on to the towers mingled half-way up their shafts with the moonlight -from above, so that to me at my window the belfries seemed to belong -half to the earth, half to the pale silence overhead. But gradually, as -the night wore on, earth abandoned its claims; the noise diminished; -one after another the flares were put out, till at last the moon was -left in absolute possession, with only a few dim greenish gas-lamps -here and there, making no attempt to dispute her authority. The towers -were hers down to the roots, the booths and the hooded roundabouts, the -Russian mountains, the swings--all wore the moon’s livery of silver and -black; and audible once more the bells seemed in her honour to sound a -sweeter, clearer, more melancholy note. - -But it was not only from my window that I viewed the kermesse. From the -moment that the roundabouts began to turn, which was as soon as the -eleven o’clock Mass on the last Sunday but one in August was over, to -the moment when they finally came to rest, which was at about ten or -eleven on the night of the following Sunday, I moved almost unceasingly -among the delights of the fair. And what a fair it was! I have never -seen its like in England. Such splendour, such mechanical perfection in -the swings, switchbacks, merry-go-rounds, towers, and the like! Such -astonishing richness and variety in the side-shows! And withal such -marvellous cheapness. - -When one was tired of sliding and swinging, of being whirled and -jogged, one could go and see for a penny the man who pulled out -handfuls of his skin, to pin it up with safety-pins into ornamental -folds and pleats. Or one could see the woman with no arms who opened a -bottle of champagne with her toes and drank your health, lifting her -glass to her lips with the same members. And then in another booth, -over whose entry there waved--a concrete symbol of good faith--a pair -of enormous female pantaloons, sat the Fat Woman--so fat that she could -(and would, you were told, for four sous extra), in the words of the -Flemish notice at the door, which I prefer to leave in their original -dialectical obscurity, “heur gezicht bet heur tiekes wassen.” - -Next to the Fat Woman’s hutch was a much larger tent in which the -celebrated Monsieur Figaro, with his wife and seven children, gave -seven or eight times daily a dramatic version of the Passion of Our -Saviour, at which even the priesthood was authorised to assist. The -Figaro family was celebrated from one end of the country to another, -and had been for I do not know how many years--forty or fifty at least. -For there were several generations of Figaros; and if seven charming -and entirely genuine children did indeed still tread the boards, it -was not that the seven original sons and daughters of old M. Figaro -had remained by some miracle perpetually young; but that marrying and -becoming middle-aged they had produced little Figaros of their own, -who in their turn gave rise to more, so that the aged and original M. -Figaro could count among the seven members of his suppositious family -more than one of his great-grandchildren. So celebrated was M. Figaro -that there was even a song about him, of which unfortunately I can -remember only two lines: - - “Et le voilà, et le voilà, Fi-ga-ro, - Le plus comique de la Belgique, Fi-ga-ro!” - -But on what grounds and in what remote epoch of history he had been -called “Le plus comique de la Belgique,” I was never able to discover. -For the only part I ever saw the venerable old gentleman play was that -of Caiaphas in the _Passion of Our Saviour_, which was one of the -most moving, or at any rate one of the most harrowingly realistic, -performances I ever remember to have seen; so much so, that the voices -of the actors were often drowned by sobs and sometimes by the piercing -screams of a child who thought that they were really and genuinely -driving nails into the graceful young Figaro of the third generation, -who played the part of the Saviour. - -Not a day of my first kermesses passed without my going at least -once, and sometimes two or three times, to see the Figaros at their -performance; partly, no doubt, because, between the ages of nine and -thirteen, I was an extremely devout broad churchman, and partly because -the rôle of the Magdalene was played by a little girl of twelve or -thereabouts, with whom I fell in love, wildly, extravagantly, as one -only can love when one is a child. I would have given fortunes and -years of my life to have had the courage to go round to the back after -the performance and talk to her. But I did not dare; and to give an -intellectual justification for my cowardice, I assured myself that it -would have been unseemly on my part to intrude upon a privacy which I -invested with all the sacredness of the Magdalene’s public life, an -act of sacrilege like going into church with one’s hat on. Moreover, I -comforted myself, I should have profited little by meeting my inamorata -face to face, since in all likelihood she spoke nothing but Flemish, -and besides my own language I only spoke at that time a little French, -with enough Latin to know what my Uncle Spencer meant when he said, -“_Similia similibus curantur_.” My passion for the Magdalene lasted -through three kermesses, but waned, or rather suddenly came to an end, -when, rushing to the first of the Figaros’ performances at the fourth, -I saw that the little Magdalene, who was now getting on for sixteen, -had become, like so many young girls in their middle teens, plump and -moony almost to the point of grossness. And my love after falling to -zero in the theatre was turned to positive disgust when I saw her, a -couple of mornings later before the performance began, walking about -the Grand’ Place in a dark blue blouse with a sailor collar, a little -blue skirt down to her knees, and a pair of bright yellow boots lacing -high up on her full-blown calves, which they compressed so tightly -that the exuberant flesh overflowed on to the leather. The next year -one of old M. Figaro’s great-grandchildren, who could hardly have been -more than seven or eight, took her place on the stage. My Magdalene -had left it--to get married, no doubt. All the Figaros married early: -it was important that there should be no failure in the supply of -juvenile apostles and holy women. But by that time I had ceased to take -the slightest interest either in her, her family, or their sacred -performance; for it was about the time of my fifth kermesse, if I -remember rightly, that my period of atheism began--an atheism, however, -still combined with all my Uncle Spencer’s cheerful optimism about the -universe. - -My Uncle Spencer, though it would have annoyed him to hear any one say -so, enjoyed the kermesse almost as much as I did. In all the year, -August was his best month; it contained within its thirty-one days less -cause for anxiety, impatience, or irritation than any other month; so -that my Uncle Spencer, left in peace by the malignant world, was free -to be as high-spirited, as gay and kind-hearted as he possibly could -be. And it was astonishing what a stock of these virtues he possessed. -If he could have lived on one of those happy islands where nature -provides bananas and cocoanuts enough for all and to spare, where -the sun shines every day and a little tattooing is all the raiment -one needs, where love is easy, commerce unknown, and neither sin nor -progress ever heard of--if he could have lived on one of these carefree -islands, how entirely happy and how uniformly a saint my Uncle Spencer -would have been! But cares and worldly preoccupations too often -overlaid his gaiety, stopped up the vents of his kindness; and his -quick, nervous, and impulsive temperament--in the Augusts of his life -a bubbling source of high spirits--boiled up in a wild impatience, in -bilious fountains of irritation, whenever he found himself confronted -by the passive malignity of matter, the stupidity or duplicity of man. - -He was at his worst during the Christmas holidays; for the season of -universal goodwill happened unfortunately to coincide with the season -of sugar-making. With the first frosts the beetroots were taken out -of the ground, and every day for three or four months three hundred -thousand kilograms of roots went floating down the labyrinth of little -canals that led to the washing-machines and the formidable slicers of -my Uncle Spencer’s factory. From every vent of the huge building issued -a sickening smell of boiled beetroot, mingled with the more penetrating -stink of the waste products of the manufacture--the vegetable fibre -drained of its juice, which was converted on the upper floors of -the building into cattle food and in the backyard into manure. The -activity during those few months of the beetroot season was feverish, -was delirious. A wild orgy of work, day and night, three shifts in -the twenty-four hours. And then the factory was shut up, and for the -rest of the year it stood there, alone, in the open fields beyond the -fringes of the town, desolate as a ruined abbey, lifeless and dumb. - -During the beetroot season my Uncle Spencer was almost out of his mind. -Rimmed with livid circles of fatigue, his eyes glittered like the eyes -of a madman; his thin face was no more than pale skin stretched over -the starting bones. The slightest contrariety set him cursing and -stamping with impatience; it was a torture for him to sit still. One -Christmas holidays, I remember, something went wrong with the machinery -at the factory, and for nearly five hours the slicers, the churning -washers were still. My Uncle Spencer was almost a lost man when he got -back to the Grand’ Place for dinner that evening. It was as though a -demon had possessed him, and had only been cast out as the result of a -horrible labour. If the breakdown had lasted another hour, I really -believe he would have gone mad. - -No, Christmas at Uncle Spencer’s was never very cheerful. But by the -Easter holidays he was beginning to recover. The frenzied making of -sugar had given place to the calmer selling of it. My Uncle Spencer’s -good nature began to have a chance of reasserting itself. By August, -at the end of a long, calm summer, he was perfect; and the kermesse -found him at his most exquisitely mellow. But with September a certain -premonitory anxiety began to show itself; the machinery had to be -overhauled, the state of the labour market examined, and when, about -the twentieth of the month, I left again for school, it was a frowning, -melancholy, and taciturn Uncle Spencer who travelled with me from -Longres to Brussels, from Brussels to Ostend, and who, preoccupied with -other thoughts, waved absent-mindedly from the quay, while the steamer -slowly slid out through the false calm of the harbour mouth towards a -menacing and equinoctial Channel. - -But at the kermesse, as I have said, my Uncle Spencer was at his -richest and ripest. Enjoying it all as much as I did myself, he would -spend long evenings with me, loitering among the attractions of the -Grand’ Place. He was sad, I think, that the dignity of his position -as one of the leading citizens of Longres did not permit him to mount -with me on the roundabouts, the swings, and the mountain railways. But -a visit to the side-shows was not inconsistent with his gravity; we -visited them all. While professing to find the exhibition of freaks -and monsters a piece of deplorable bad taste, my Uncle Spencer never -failed to take me to look at all of them. It was a cardinal point in -his theory of education that the young should be brought as early -as possible into contact with what he called the Realities of Life. -And as nothing, it was obvious, could be more of a Reality than the -armless woman or the man who pinned up his skin with safety-pins, it -was important that I should make an early acquaintance with them, in -spite of the undoubtedly defective taste of the exhibition. It was -in obedience to the same educational principle that my Uncle Spencer -took me, one Easter holidays, to see the Lunatic Asylum. But the -impression made upon me by the huge prison-like building and its -queer occupants--one of whom, I remember, gambolled playfully around -me wherever I went, patting my cheeks or affectionately pinching my -legs--was so strong and disagreeable, that for several nights I could -not sleep; or if I did, I was oppressed by hideous nightmares that -woke me, screaming and sweating in the dark. My Uncle Spencer had to -renounce his intention of taking me to see the anatomy room in the -hospital. - -Scattered among the monsters, the rifle-ranges, and the games of -skill were little booths where one could buy drink and victuals. -There was one vendor, for instance, who always did a roaring trade -by selling, for two sous, as many raw mussels as any one could eat -without coughing. Torn between his belief in the medicinal qualities -of shellfish and his fear of typhoid fever, my Uncle Spencer hesitated -whether he ought to allow me to spend my penny. In the end he gave his -leave. (“It’s the phosphorus, you know.”) I put down my copper, took -my mussel, bit, swallowed, and violently coughed. The fish were briny -as though they had come out of the Dead Sea. The old vendor did an -excellent business. Still, I have seen him sometimes looking anxious; -for not all his customers were as susceptible as I. There were hardy -young peasants who could put down half a pound of this Dead Sea fruit -without turning a hair. In the end, however, the brine did its work on -even the toughest gullet. - -More satisfactory as food were the apple fritters, which were -manufactured by thousands in a large temporary wooden structure that -stood under the shade of the Hôtel de Ville. The Quality, like Uncle -Spencer and myself, ate their fritters in the partial privacy of a -number of little cubicles arranged like loose-boxes along one side of -the building. My Uncle Spencer walked resolutely to our appointed box -without looking to the left hand or to the right; and I was bidden to -follow his example and not to show the least curiosity respecting the -occupants of the other loose-boxes, whose entrances we might pass on -the way to our own. There was a danger, my Uncle Spencer explained to -me, that some of the families eating apple fritters in the loose-boxes -might be Blacks--Blacks, I mean, politically, not ethnically--while -we were Liberals or even, positively, Freemasons. Therefore--but as -a mere stranger to Longres I was never, I confess, quite able to -understand the force of this conclusion--therefore, though we might -talk to male Blacks in a café, have business relations and even be on -terms of friendship with them, it was impossible for us to be known -by the female Blacks, even under a booth and over the ferial apple -fritters; so that we must not look into the loose-boxes for fear that -we might see there a dear old friend who would be in the embarrassing -situation of not being able to introduce us to his wife and daughters. -I accepted, without understanding, this law; and it seemed to be a -perfectly good law until the day came when I found that it forbade me -to make the acquaintance of even a single one of the eleven ravishing -daughters of M. Moulle. It seemed to me then a stupid law. - -In front of the booths where they sold sweets my Uncle Spencer never -cared to linger. It was not that he was stingy; on the contrary, he was -extremely generous. Nor that he thought it bad for me to eat sweets; -he had a professional belief in the virtues of sugar. The fact was that -the display in the booths embarrassed him. For already at the kermesse -one began to see a sprinkling of those little objects in chocolate -which, between the Feast of St. Nicholas and the New Year, fill the -windows of every confectioner’s shop in Belgium. My Uncle Spencer had -passed a third of a lifetime at Longres, but even after all these -years he was still quite unable to excuse or understand the innocent -coprophily of its inhabitants. The spectacle, in a sweet-shop window, -of a little _pot de chambre_ made of chocolate brought the blush of -embarrassment to his cheeks. And when at the kermesse I asked him to -buy me some barley-sugar or a few _bêtises de Cambrai_, he pretended -not to have heard what I asked, but walked hastily on; for his quick -eyes had seen, on one of the higher shelves of the confectioner’s -booth, a long line of little brown pots, on whose equivocal aspect it -would have been an agony to him if, standing there and waiting for -the barley-sugar to be weighed out, I had naively commented. Not -that I ever should have commented upon them; for I was as thoroughly -English as my Uncle Spencer himself--more thoroughly, indeed, as being -a generation further away from the Flemish mother, the admixture of -whose blood, however, had availed nothing against my uncle’s English -upbringing. Me, too, the little brown pots astonished and appalled by -their lack of reticence. If my companion had been another schoolboy of -my own age, I should have pointed at the nameless things and sniggered. -But since I was with my Uncle Spencer, I preserved with regard to -them an eloquent and pregnant silence; I pretended not to have seen -them, but so guiltily that my ignoring of them was in itself a comment -that filled my poor Uncle Spencer with embarrassment. If we could -have talked about them, if only we could have openly deplored them -and denounced their makers, it would have been better. But obviously, -somehow, we could not. - -In the course of years, however, I learned, being young and still -malleable, to be less astonished and appalled by the little chocolate -pots and the other manifestations of the immemorial Flemish -coprophily. In the end I took them almost for granted, like the natives -themselves, till finally, when St. Nicholas had filled the shops with -these scatological symbols, I could crunch a pot or two between meals -as joyously and with as little self-consciousness as any Belgian child. -But I had to eat my chocolate, when it was moulded in this particular -form, out of my Uncle Spencer’s sight. He, poor man, would have been -horrified if he had seen me on these occasions. - -On these occasions, then, I generally took refuge in the housekeeper’s -room--and in any case, at this Christmas season, when the sugar was -being made, it was better to sit in the cheerful company of Mlle Leeauw -than with my gloomy, irritable, demon-ridden Uncle Spencer. Mlle -Leeauw was almost from the first one of my firmest and most trusted -friends. She was a woman of, I suppose, about thirty-five when I first -knew her, rather worn already by a life of active labour, but still -preserving a measure of that blonde, decided, and regular beauty which -had been hers in girlhood. She was the daughter of a small farmer near -Longres, and had received the usual village education, supplemented, -however, in recent years by what she had picked up from my Uncle -Spencer, who occupied himself every now and then, in his erratic and -enthusiastic way, with the improvement of her mind, lent her books from -his library, and delivered lectures to her on the subjects that were -at the moment nearest to his heart. Mlle Leeauw, unlike most women -of her antecedents, felt an insatiable curiosity with regard to all -that mysterious and fantastic knowledge which the rich and leisured -keep shut up in their libraries; and not only in their books, as she -had seen herself (for as a girl had she not served as nursery-maid in -the house of that celebrated collector, the Comte de Zuitigny?) not -only in their books, but in their pictures too--some of which, Mlle -Leeauw assured me, a child could have painted, so badly drawn they -were, so unlike life (and yet the count had given heaven only knew how -much for them), in their Chinese pots, in the patterns of the very -carpets on the floor. Whatever my Uncle Spencer gave her she read -with eagerness, she listened attentively to what he said; and there -emerged, speck-like in the boundless blank ocean of her ignorance, a -few little islands of strange knowledge. One, for example, was called -homœopathy; another the Construction-of-Domes (a subject on which -my Uncle Spencer was prepared to talk with a copious and perverse -erudition for hours at a time; his thesis being that any mason who knew -how to turn the vaulted roof of an oven could have built the cupolas of -St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and Santa Maria del Fiore, and that therefore -the praises lavished on Michelangelo, Wren, and Brunelleschi were -entirely undeserved). A third was called Anti-Vivisection. A fourth -Swedenborg.... - -The result of my Uncle Spencer’s teaching was to convince Mlle Leeauw -that the knowledge of the rich was something even more fantastic than -she had supposed--something unreal and utterly remote from life as it -is actually lived, artificial and arbitrary, like the social activities -of these same rich, who pass their time in one another’s houses, eating -at one another’s expense, and being bored. - -This conviction of the complete futility of knowledge did not make her -any the less eager to learn what my Uncle Spencer, whom she regarded -as a mine and walking compendium of all human learning, could offer -her. And she enchanted him by her respectful attentiveness, by the -quickness of her understanding--for she was a woman of very great -natural intelligence--and her eagerness for every fresh enlightenment. -She did not confide to him her real opinion of knowledge, which was -that it was a kind of curious irrelevant joke on the margin of life, -worth learning for precisely the same reasons as it is worth learning -to handle the fork at table--because it is one of the secrets of the -rich. Admiring my Uncle Spencer sincerely, she yet took nothing that -he taught her seriously, and though, when with him, she believed in -millionth-of-a-grain doses and high spiritual potencies, she continued, -when she felt out of sorts or I had overeaten, to resort to the old -tablespoonful of castor-oil; though with him she was a convinced -Swedenborgian, in church she was entirely orthodox; though in his -presence she thought vivisection monstrous, she would tell me with -gusto of those happy childish days on the farm, when her father cut the -pig’s throat, her mother held the beast by the hind-legs, her sister -danced on the body to make the blood flow, and she held the pail under -the spouting artery. - -If to my Uncle Spencer his housekeeper appeared as he liked to see -her, and not as at ordinary times she really was, it was not that she -practised with him a conscious insincerity. Hers was one of those -quick, sensitive natures that adapt themselves almost automatically to -the social atmosphere in which at the moment they happen to be. Thus -with well-bred people she had beautiful manners; but the peasants from -whose stock she had sprung found her as full of a hearty Flemish gusto, -as grossly and innocently coarse as themselves. The core of her being -remained solidly peasant; but the upper and conscious part of her mind -was, so to speak, only loosely fastened to the foundation, so that it -could turn freely this way and that, without strain or difficulty, -according to changing circumstances. My Uncle Spencer valued her, not -only as a competent, intelligent woman, which she always was in every -company, but also because she was, considering her class and origins, -so remarkably well-mannered and refined, which, except with him and his -likes, she was not. - -With me, however, Mlle Leeauw was thoroughly natural and Flemish. With -her quick and, I might say, instinctive understanding of character, she -saw that my abashed reaction to coprology, being of so much more recent -date than that of my Uncle Spencer, was much less strong, less deeply -rooted. At the same time, she perceived that I had no great natural -taste for grossness, no leaning to what I may call Flemishism; so that -in my presence she could be her natural Flemish self and thus correct -an absurd acquired delicacy without running the risk of encouraging -to any undue or distressing degree a congenital bias in the opposite -direction. And I noticed that whenever Matthieu (or Tcheunke, as they -called him), her cousin’s boy, came into town and paid a call on her, -Mlle Leeauw became almost as careful and refined as she was with my -Uncle Spencer. Not that Tcheunke shared my uncle’s susceptibilities. -On the contrary, he took such an immoderate delight in everything that -was excrementitious that she judged it best not in any way to indulge -him in his taste, just as she judged it best not to indulge my national -prejudice in favour of an excessive reticence about these and similar -matters. She was right, I believe, in both cases. - -Mlle Leeauw had an elder sister, Louise--Louiseke, in the language of -Longres, where they put the symbol of the diminutive after almost every -name. Louiseke, like her sister, had never married; and considering -the ugliness of the woman--for she resembled Mlle Leeauw as a very -mischievous caricature resembles its original, that is to say, very -closely and at the same time hardly at all, the unlikeness being -emphasised in this case by the fact that nature had, for the shaping -of certain features, drawn on other ancestral sources, and worse ones, -than those from which her sister’s face had been made up--considering -her ugliness, I repeat, it was not surprising. Though considering her -dowry, perhaps it was. Louiseke was by no means rich; but she had the -five hundred francs a year, or thereabouts, which her sister also had, -after their father died and the farm was sold, together with another -two hundred inherited from an old aunt of her mother’s. This was a -sufficient income to allow her to live without working in a leisure -principally occupied by the performance of religious exercises. - -On the outskirts of Longres there stands a small béguinage, long since -abandoned by its Béguines, who are now all over Belgium a diminishing -and nearly extinct community, and inhabited by a colony of ordinary -poor folk. The little old gabled houses are built round the sides of a -large grassy square, in the centre of which stands an abandoned church. -Louiseke inhabited one of these houses, partly because the rent was -very low, but also because she liked the religious associations of the -place. There, in her peaked high house, looking out across the monastic -quadrangle to the church, she could almost believe herself a genuine -Béguine. Every morning she went out to hear early Mass, and on Sundays -and days of festival she was assiduous in church almost to the point of -supererogation. - -At my Uncle Spencer’s we saw a great deal of her; on her way to church, -on her way home again, she never failed to drop in for a word with her -sister Antonieke. Sometimes, I remember, she brought with her--hurrying -on these occasions across the Grand’ Place with the quick, anxious -tread, the frightened, suspicious glances to left and right, of a -traveller crossing a brigand-haunted moor--a large bag of green baize, -full of strange treasures: the silver crown and sceptre of Our Lady, -the gilded diadem of the Child, St. Joseph’s halo, the jewelled silver -book of I forget which Doctor of the Church, St. Dominick’s lilies, -and a mass of silver hearts with gilded flames coming out of them. -Louiseke, whose zeal was noted and approved of by M. le Curé, had the -rare privilege of being allowed to polish the jewellery belonging to -the images in the church. A few days before each of the important -feasts the painted plaster saints were stripped of their finery and -the spoil handed over to Louiseke, who, not daring to walk with her -precious burden under her arm as far as her own house in the béguinage, -slipped across the Grand’ Place to my Uncle Spencer’s. There, on the -table in Antonieke’s room, the green baize bag was opened, and the -treasures, horribly dirty and tarnished after their weeks or months of -neglect, were spread out in the light. A kind of paste was then made -out of French chalk mixed with gin, which the two sisters applied to -the crowns and hearts with nail-brushes, or if the work was fine and -intricate, with an old toothbrush. The silver was then wiped dry with a -cloth and polished with a piece of leather. - -A feeling of manly pride forbade me to partake in what I felt to be a -womanish labour; but I liked to stand by with my hands in my pockets, -watching the sisters at work among these regal and sacred symbols, and -trying to understand, so far as my limited knowledge of Flemish and my -almost equally limited knowledge of life would admit, the gossip which -Louiseke poured out incessantly in a tone of monotonous and unvarying -censoriousness. - -I myself always found Louiseke a little forbidding. She lacked the -charm and the quality, which I can only call mellowness, of her sister; -to me she seemed harsh, sour-tempered, and rather malevolent. But it -is very possible that I judged her unfairly; for, I confess, I could -never quite get over her ugliness. It was a sharp, hooky, witch-like -type of ugliness, which at that time I found particularly repulsive. - -How difficult it is, even with the best will in the world, even for a -grown and reasonable man, to judge his fellow-beings without reference -to their external appearance! Beauty is a letter of recommendation -which it is almost impossible to ignore; and we attribute too often -the ugliness of the face to the character. Or, to be more precise, -we make no attempt to get beyond the opaque mask of the face to the -realities behind it, but run away from the ugly at sight without -even trying to find out what they are really like. That feeling of -instinctive dislike which ugliness inspires in a grown man, but which -he has reason and strength enough of will to suppress, or at least -conceal, is uncontrollable in a child. At three or four years old a -child will run screaming from the room at the aspect of a certain -visitor whose face strikes him as disagreeable. Why? Because the ugly -visitor is “naughty,” is a “bad man.” And up to a much later age, -though we have succeeded in preventing ourselves from screaming when -the ugly visitor makes his appearance, we do our best--at first, at any -rate, or until his actions have strikingly proved that his face belies -his character--to keep out of his way. So that if I always disliked -Louiseke, it may be that she was not to blame, and that my own peculiar -horror of ugliness made me attribute to her unpleasant characteristics -which she did not in reality possess. She seemed to me, then, harsh -and sour-tempered; perhaps she wasn’t; but, in any case, I thought so. -And that accounts for the fact that I never got to know her, never -tried to know her, as I knew her sister. Even after the extraordinary -event which, a year or two after my first visit to Longres, was to -alter completely the whole aspect of her life, I still made no effort -to understand Louiseke’s character. How much I regret my remissness -now! But, after all, one cannot blame a small boy for failing to have -the same standards as a man. To-day, in retrospect, I find Louiseke’s -character and actions in the highest degree curious and worthy of -study. But twenty years ago, when I knew her, her ugliness at first -appalled me, and always, even after I had got over my disgust, -surrounded her, for me, with a kind of unbreathable atmosphere, through -which I could never summon the active interest to penetrate. Moreover, -the event which now strikes me as so extraordinary, seemed to me then -almost normal and of no particular interest. And since she died before -my opinion about it had had time to change, I can only give a child’s -impression of her character and a bald recital of the facts so far as I -knew them. - -It was, then, at my second or third kermesse that a side-show, novel -not only for me (to whom indeed everything--fat women, fire-swallowers, -elastic men, and down to the merest dwarfs and giants--was a novelty), -but even to the oldest inhabitants of Longres, who might have been -expected to have seen, in their time, almost everything that the world -had ever parturated of marvels, rarities, monsters, and abortions, -made its appearance on the Grand’ Place. This was a troupe of devil -dancers, self-styled Tibetan for the sake of the name’s high-sounding -and mysterious ring; but actually made up of two expatriated Hindus and -a couple of swarthy meridional Frenchmen, who might pass at a pinch as -the Aryan compatriots of these dark Dravidians. Not that it mattered -much what the nationality or colour of the dancers might be; for on the -stage they wore enormous masks--huge false heads, grinning, horned, -and diabolic, which, it was claimed in the announcement, were those in -which the ritual dances were performed before the Dalai Lama in the -principal convent of Lhassa. Comparing my memories of them with such -knowledge of oriental art as I now possess, I imagine that they came in -reality from the shop of some theatrical property maker in Marseilles, -from which place the devil dancers had originally started. But they -were none the less startling and bloodcurdling for that; just as the -dances themselves were none the less salaciously symbolical, none -the less typically and conventionally “oriental” for having been in -great measure invented by the Frenchmen, who provided all the plot and -dramatic substance of the ballets, while the astonished and admiring -Indians contributed only a few recollections of Siva worship and the -cult of the beneficent _linga_. This co-operation between East and West -was what ensured the performance its success; the western substance -satisfied by its perfect familiarity, while the eastern detail gave -to the old situations a specious air of novelty and almost a new -significance. - -Charmed by the prospect of seeing what he supposed would be a few -characteristic specimens of the religious rites of the mysterious East, -and ambitious to improve my education by initiating me into the secrets -of this Reality, my Uncle Spencer took me to see the dancers. But the -dramatic pantomime of the Frenchmen represented a brand of Reality that -my uncle did not at all approve of. He got up abruptly in the middle -of the first dance, saying that he thought the circus would be more -amusing; which, for me, it certainly was. For I was not of an age to -appreciate either the plastic beauty or the peculiar moral significance -of the devil dancers’ performance. - -“Hinduism,” said my Uncle Spencer, as we threaded our way between the -booths and the whirling machines, “has sadly degenerated from its -original Brahmanistic purity.” And he began to expound to me, raising -his voice to make itself heard through the noise of the steam organs, -the principles of Brahmanism. My Uncle Spencer had a great weakness for -oriental religions. - -“Well,” asked Mlle Leeauw, when we got back for dinner, “and how did -you enjoy the dancers?” - -I told her that my Uncle Spencer had thought that I should find the -circus more amusing. Antonieke nodded with a significant air of -understanding. “Poor man,” she said, and she went on to wonder how -Louiseke, who was going to see the dancers that evening, would enjoy -the show. - -I never knew precisely what happened; for a mystery and, as it were, a -zone of silence surrounded the event, and my curiosity about everything -to do with Louiseke was too feeble to carry me through it. All I know -is that, two or three days later, near the end of the kermesse, young -Albert Snyders, the lawyer’s son, came up to me in the street and -asked, with the gleeful expression of one who says something which he -is sure his interlocutor will find disagreeable: “Well, and what do -you think of your Louiseke and her carryings on with the black man?” - -I answered truthfully that I had heard nothing about any such thing, -and that in any case Louiseke wasn’t our Louiseke, and that I didn’t -care in the least what she did or what might happen to her. - -“Not heard about it?” said young Snyders incredulously. “But the black -man goes to her house every evening, and she gives him gin, and they -sing together, and people see their shadows dancing on the curtains. -Everybody’s talking about it.” - -I am afraid that I disappointed young Snyders. He had hoped to get a -rise out of me, and he miserably failed. His errors were two: first, -to have supposed that I regarded Louiseke as our Louiseke, merely -because her sister happened to be my Uncle Spencer’s housekeeper; -and, secondly, to have attributed to me a knowledge of the world -sufficient to allow me to realise the scandalousness of Louiseke’s -conduct. Whereas I disliked Louiseke, took no interest in her actions, -and could, moreover, see nothing out of the ordinary in what she was -supposed to have done. - -Confronted by my unshakable calm, young Snyders retired, rather -crestfallen. But he revenged himself before he went by telling me that -I must be very stupid and, what I found more insulting, a great baby -not to understand. - -Antonieke, to whom I repeated young Snyders’s words, merely said that -the boy ought to be whipped, specifying with a wealth of precise detail -and a gusto that were entirely Flemish how, with what instrument, and -where the punishment ought to be applied. I thought no more about -the incident. But I noticed after the kermesse was over and the -Grand’ Place had become once more the silent and empty Grand’ Place -of ordinary days, I noticed loitering aimlessly about the streets a -stout, coffee-coloured man, whom the children of Longres, like those -three rude boys in _Struwwelpeter_, pursued at a distance, contorting -themselves with mirth. That year I went back to England earlier than -usual; for I had been invited to spend the last three weeks of my -holidays with a school friend (alas, at Hastings, so that my knowledge -of the earth’s surface was not materially widened by the visit). When -I returned to Longres for the Christmas holidays I found that Louiseke -was no longer mere Louiseke, but the bride of a coffee-coloured -husband. Madame Alphonse they called her; for nobody could bother with -the devil dancer’s real name: it had an Al- in it somewhere--that was -all that was known. Monsieur and Madame Alphonse. But the news when I -heard it did not particularly impress me. - -And even if I had been curious to know more, dense silence continued -to envelop the episode. Antonieke never spoke to me of it; and lacking -all interest in this kind of Reality, disapproving of it even, my -Uncle Spencer seemed to take it silently for granted. That the subject -was copiously discussed by the gossips of Longres I do not doubt; and -remembering Louiseke’s own censorious anecdotage, I can imagine how. -But in my hearing it was never discussed; expressly, I imagine--for -I lived under the protection of Antonieke, and people were afraid of -Antonieke. So it came about that the story remained for me no more -remarkable than that story recorded by Edward Lear of the - - “... old Man of Jamaica - Who casually married a Quaker; - But she cried out, ‘Alack, - I have married a black!’ - Which distressed that old Man of Jamaica.” - -And perhaps, after all, that is the best way of regarding such -incidents--unquestioningly, without inquisitiveness. For we are all -much too curious about the affairs of our neighbours. Particularly -about the affairs of an erotic nature. What an itch we have to know -whether Mr. Smith makes love to his secretary, whether his wife -consoles herself, whether a certain Cabinet Minister is really the -satyr he is rumoured to be. And meanwhile the most incredible miracles -are happening all round us: stones, when we lift them and let them -go, fall to the ground; the sun shines; bees visit the flowers; -seeds grow into plants, a cell in nine months multiplies its weight -a few thousands of thousands of time, and is a child; and men think, -creating the world they live in. These things leave us almost perfectly -indifferent. - -But concerning the ways in which different individuals satisfy the -cravings of one particular instinct we have, in spite of the frightful -monotony of the situation, in spite of the one well-known, inevitable -consummation, an endless and ever-fresh curiosity. Some day, perhaps, -we may become a little tired of books whose theme is always this -particular instinct. Some day, it may be, the successful novelist will -write about man’s relation to God, to nature, to his own thoughts and -the obscure reality on which they work, not about man’s relation with -woman. Meanwhile, however.... - -By what stages the old maid passed from her devoutness and her -censorious condemnation of love to her passion for the Dravidian, I can -only guess. Most likely there were no stages at all, but the conversion -was sudden and fulgurating, like that upon the road to Damascus--and -like that, secretly and unconsciously prepared for, long before the -event. It was the sheer wildness, no doubt, the triumphant bestiality -and paganism of the dances that bowled her over, that irresistibly -broke down the repressive barriers behind which, all too human, -Louiseke’s nature had so long chafed. As to Alphonse himself, there -could be no question about his motives. Devil dancing, he had found, -was an exhausting, precarious, and not very profitable profession. He -was growing stout, his heart was not so strong as it had been, he was -beginning to feel himself middle-aged. Louiseke and her little income -came as a providence. What did her face matter? He did not hesitate. - -Monsieur and Madame Alphonse took a little shop in the Rue Neuve. -Before he left India and turned devil dancer, Alphonse had been a -cobbler in Madras--and as such was capable of contaminating a Brahman -at a distance of twenty-four feet; now, having become an eater of beef -and an outcast, he was morally infectious at no less than sixty-four -feet. But in Longres, luckily, there were no Brahmans. - -He was a large, fat, snub-faced, and shiny man, constantly smiling, -with a smile that reminded me of a distended accordion. Many a pair -of boots I took to him to be soled--for Antonieke, though she was -horrified at having what she called a negro for her brother-in-law, -though she had quarrelled with her sister about her insane and -monstrous folly, and would hardly be reconciled to her, Antonieke -insisted that all our custom should go to the new cobbler. That, as she -explained, “owed itself.” The duty of members of one family to forward -one another’s affairs overrode, in her estimation, the mere personal -quarrels that might arise between them. - -My Uncle Spencer was a frequent caller at the cobbler’s shop, -where he would sit for hours, while M. Alphonse tapped away at his -last, listening to mythological anecdotes out of the “Ramayana” or -“Mahabharata,” and discussing the Brahmanistic philosophy, of which, -of course, he knew far more than a poor Sudra like Alphonse. My Uncle -Spencer would come back from these visits in the best of humours. - -“A most interesting man, your brother-in-law,” he would say to -Antonieke. “We had a long talk about Siva this afternoon. Most -interesting!” - -But Antonieke only shrugged her shoulders. “_Mais c’est un nègre_,” she -muttered. And my Uncle Spencer might assure her as much as he liked -that Dravidians were not negroes and that Alphonse very likely had -good Aryan blood in his veins. It was useless. Antonieke would not be -persuaded, would not even listen. It was all very well for the rich to -believe things like that, but a negro, after all, was a negro; and that -was all about it. - -M. Alphonse was a man of many accomplishments; for besides all the -rest, he was an expert palmist and told fortunes from the hand with a -gravity, a magisterial certainty, that were almost enough in themselves -to make what he said come true. This magian and typically oriental -accomplishment was learnt on the road between Marseilles and Longres -from a charlatan in the travelling company of amusement makers with -whom he had come. But he did the trick in the grand prophetic style, -so that people credited his cheiromancy with all the magical authority -of the mysterious East. But M. Alphonse could not be persuaded to -prophesy for every comer. It was noticed that he selected his subjects -almost exclusively from among his female customers, as though he were -only interested in the fates of women. I could hint as much as I liked -that I should like to have my fortune told, I could ask him outright -to look at my hand; but in vain. On these occasions he was always too -busy to look, or was not feeling in the prophetic mood. But if a young -woman should now come into the shop, time immediately created itself, -the prophetic mood came back. And without waiting for her to ask him, -he would seize her hand, pore over it, pat and prod the palm with his -thick brown fingers, every now and then turning up towards his subject -those dark eyes, made the darker and more expressive by the brilliance -of the bluish whites in which they were set, and expanding his -accordion smile. And he would prophesy love--a great deal of it--love -with superb dark men, and rows of children; benevolent dark strangers -and blond villains; unexpected fortunes, long life--all, in fact, that -the heart could desire. And all the time he squeezed and patted the -hand--white between his dark Dravidian paws--from which he read these -secrets; he rolled his eyes within their shiny blue enamel setting, and -across all the breadth of his fat cheeks the accordion of his smile -opened and shut. - -My pride and my young sense of justice were horribly offended on these -occasions. The inconsistency of a man who had no time to tell my -fortune, but an infinite leisure for others, seemed to me abstractly -reprehensible and personally insulting. I professed, even at that age, -not to believe in palmistry; that is to say, I found the fortunes -which M. Alphonse prophesied for others absurd. But my interest in -my own personality and my own fate was so enormous that it seemed -to me, somehow, that everything said about me must have a certain -significance. And if M. Alphonse had taken my hand, looked at it, and -said, “You are generous; your head is as large as your heart; you will -have a severe illness at thirty-eight, but your life after that will -be healthy into extreme old age; you will make a large fortune early -in your career, but you must beware of fair-haired strangers with blue -eyes,” I should have made an exception and decided for the nonce that -there must be something in it. But, alas, M. Alphonse never did take -my hand; he never told me anything. I felt most cruelly offended, and -I felt astonished too. For it seemed to me a most extraordinary thing -that a subject which was so obviously fascinating and so important as -my character and future should not interest M. Alphonse as much as it -did me. That he should prefer to dabble in the dull fates and silly -insignificant characters of a lot of stupid young women seemed to me -incredible and outrageous. - -There was another who, it seemed, shared my opinion. That was Louiseke. -If ever she came into the shop from the little back sitting-room--and -she was perpetually popping out through the dark doorway like a cuckoo -on the stroke of noon from its clock--and found her husband telling -the fortune of a female customer, her witch-like face would take on an -expression more than ordinarily malevolent. - -“Alphonse!” she would say significantly. - -And Alphonse dropped his subject’s hand, looked round towards the door, -and, rolling his enamelled eyes, creasing his fat cheeks in a charming -smile, flashing his ivory teeth, would say something amiable. - -But Louiseke did not cease to frown. - -“If you must tell somebody’s fortune,” she said, when the customer had -left the shop, “why don’t you tell the little gentleman’s?” pointing to -me. “I’m sure he would be only too delighted.” - -But instead of being grateful to Louiseke, instead of saying, “Oh, -of course I’d like it,” and holding out my hand, I always perversely -shook my head. “No, no,” I said. “I don’t want to worry M. Alphonse.” -But I longed for Alphonse to insist on telling me about my exquisite -and marvellous self. In my pride, I did not like to owe my happiness -to Louiseke, I did not want to feel that I was taking advantage of her -irritation and Alphonse’s desire to mollify her. And besides pride, I -was actuated by that strange nameless perversity, which so often makes -us insist on doing what we do not want to do--such as making love to a -woman we do not like and whose intimacy, we know, will bring us nothing -but vexation--or makes us stubbornly decline to do what we have been -passionately desiring, merely because the opportunity of doing what -we wanted has not presented itself in exactly the way we anticipated, -or because the person who offered to fulfil our desires has not been -sufficiently insistent with his offers. Alphonse, on these occasions, -having no curiosity about my future and taking no pleasure in kneading -my small and dirty hand, always took my refusals quite literally and -finally, and began to work again with a redoubled ardour. And I would -leave the shop, vexed with myself for having let slip the opportunity -when it was within my grasp; furious with Louiseke for having presented -it in such a way that the seizing of it would be humiliating, and with -Alphonse for his obtuseness in failing to observe how much I desired -that he should look at my hand, and his gross discourtesy for not -insisting even in the teeth of my refusal. - -Years passed; my holidays and the seasons succeeded one another with -regularity. Summer and the green poplars and my Uncle Spencer’s -amiability gave place to the cold season of sugar-making, to -scatological symbols in chocolate, to early darkness and the moral -gloom of my Uncle Spencer’s annual neurasthenia. And half-way between -the two extremes came the Easter holidays, pale green and hopefully -burgeoning, tepid with temperate warmth and a moderate amiability. -There were terms, too, as well as holidays. Eastbourne knew me no more; -my knowledge of the globe expanded; I became a public schoolboy. - -At fifteen, I remember, I entered upon a period of priggishness which -made me solemn beyond my years. There are many boys who do not know -how young they are till they have come of age, and a young man is -often much less on his dignity than a growing schoolboy, who is afraid -of being despised for his callowness. It was during this period that -I wrote from Longres a letter to one of my school friends, which he -fortunately preserved, so that we were able to re-read it, years later, -and to laugh and marvel at those grave, academic old gentlemen we -were in our youth. He had written me a letter describing his sister’s -marriage, to which I replied in these terms: - - “How rapidly, my dear Henry, the saffron robe and Hymen’s torches - give place to the nænia, the funeral urn, and the cypress! While your - days have been passed among the jocundities of a marriage feast, mine - have been darkened by the circumambient horrors of death. Such, - indeed, is life.” - -And I underlined the philosophic reflection. - -The horrors of death made more show in my sonorous antitheses than they -did in my life. For though the event made a certain impression upon -me--for it was the first thing of the kind that had happened within my -own personal orbit--I cannot pretend that I was very seriously moved -when Louiseke died, too old to have attempted the experiment, in giving -birth to a half-Flemish, half-Dravidian daughter, who died with her. My -Uncle Spencer, anxious to introduce me to the Realities of Life, took -me to see the corpse. Death had a little tempered Louiseke’s ugliness. -In the presence of that absolute repose I suddenly felt ashamed of -having always disliked Louiseke so much. I wanted to be able to explain -to her that, if only I had known she was going to die, I would have -been nicer to her, I would have tried to like her more. And all at once -I found myself crying. - -Downstairs in the back parlour M. Alphonse was crying too, noisily, -lamentably, as was his duty. Three days later, when his duty had been -sufficiently done and the conventions satisfied, he became all at once -exceedingly philosophic about his loss. Louiseke’s little income was -now his; and adding to it what he made by his cobbling, he could live -in almost princely style. A week or two after the funeral the kermesse -began. His old companions, who had danced several times backwards and -forwards across the face of Europe since they were last in Longres, -re-appeared unexpectedly on the Grand’ Place. Alphonse treated himself -to the pleasure of playing the generous host, and every evening when -their show was over the devils unhorned themselves, and over the -glasses in the little back parlour behind Alphonse’s shop they talked -convivially of old times, and congratulated their companion, a little -enviously, on his prodigious good fortune. - -In the years immediately preceding the war I was not often in Longres. -My parents had come back from India; my holidays were passed with them. -And when holidays transformed themselves into university vacations and -I was old enough to look after myself, I spent most of my leisure in -travelling in France, Italy, or Germany, and it was only rarely and -fleetingly--on the way to Milan, on my way back from Cologne, or after -a fortnight among the Dutch picture galleries--that I now revisited -the house on the Grand’ Place, where I had passed so many, and on the -whole such happy, days. I liked my Uncle Spencer still, but he had -ceased to be an admired being, and his opinions, instead of rooting -themselves and proliferating within my mind, as once they did, seemed -mostly, in the light of my own knowledge and experience, too fantastic -even to be worth refuting. I listened to him now with all the young -man’s intolerance of the opinions of the old (and my Uncle Spencer, -though only fifty, seemed to me utterly fossilised and antediluvian), -acquiescing in all that he said with a smile in which a more suspicious -and less single-hearted man would have seen the amused contempt. My -Uncle Spencer was leaning during these years more and more towards -the occult sciences. He talked less of the construction of domes and -more of Hahnemann’s mystic high potentials, more of Swedenborg, more -of Brahmanistic philosophy, in which he had by this time thoroughly -indoctrinated M. Alphonse; and he was enthusiastic now about a new -topic--the calculating horses of Elberfeld, which, at that time, were -making a great noise in the world by their startling ability to extract -cube roots in their heads. Strong in the materialistic philosophy, the -careless and unreflecting scepticism which were, in those days, the -orthodoxy of every young man who thought himself intelligent, I found -my Uncle Spencer’s mystical and religious preoccupations marvellously -ludicrous. I should think them less ridiculous now, when it is the -easy creed of my boyhood that has come to look rather queer. Now it is -possible--it is, indeed, almost necessary--for a man of science to be -also a mystic. But there were excuses then for supposing that one could -only combine mysticism with the faulty knowledge and the fantastic -mental eccentricity of an Uncle Spencer. One lives and learns. - -With Mlle Leeauw, on these later visits, I felt, I must confess, -not entirely at my ease. Antonieke saw me as essentially the same -little boy who had come so regularly all those years, holiday after -holiday, to Longres. Her talk with me was always of the joyous events -of the past--of which she had that extraordinarily accurate and -detailed memory which men and women, whose minds are not exercised by -intellectual preoccupations and who do not read much, always astonish -their more studious fellows by possessing. Plunged as I then was in all -the newly discovered delights of history, philosophy, and art, I was -too busy to take more than a very feeble interest in my childish past. -Had there been skating on the canals in 1905? Had I been bitten by a -horse-fly, the summer before, so poisonously that my cheek swelled up -like a balloon and I had to go to bed? Possibly, possibly; now that -I was reminded of these things I did, dimly, remember. But of what -earthly interest were facts such as these when I had Plato, the novels -of Dostoievsky, the frescoes of Michelangelo to think of? How entirely -irrelevant they were to, shall we say, David Hume! How insipid compared -with the sayings of Zarathustra, the Coriolan overture, the poetry of -Arthur Rimbaud! But for poor Antonieke they were all her life. I felt -all the time that I was not being as sympathetic with her as I ought to -have been. But was it my fault? Could I rebecome what I had been, or -make her suddenly different from what she was? - -At the beginning of August 1914 I was staying at Longres on my way -to the Ardennes, where I meant to settle down quietly for a month or -so with two or three friends, to do a little solid reading before -going south to Italy in September. Strong in the faith of the -German professor who had proved, by the theories of ballistics and -probabilities, that war was now out of the question, my Uncle Spencer -paid no attention to the premonitory rumbles. It was just another -little Agadir crisis and would lead to nothing. I too--absorbed, I -remember, in the reading of William James’s _Varieties of Religious -Experience_--paid no attention; I did not even look at the papers. -At that time, still, my Uncle Spencer’s convictions about the -impossibility of war were also mine; I had had no experience to make me -believe them unfounded, and, besides, they fitted in very well with my -hopes, my aspirations, my political creed--for at that time I was an -ardent syndicalist and internationalist. - -And then, suddenly, it was all on top of us. - -My Uncle Spencer, however, remained perfectly optimistic. After a -week of fighting, he prophesied, the German professor would be proved -right and they would have to stop. My own feeling, I remember, was -one of a rather childish exhilaration; my excitement was much more -powerful than my shock of horror. I felt rather as I had felt on the -eve of the kermesse when, looking from my window, I gazed down at the -mountebanks setting up their booths and engines in the square below. -Something was really going to happen. That childish sense of excitement -is, I suppose, the prevailing emotion at the beginning of a war. An -intoxicating Bank Holiday air seems to blow through the streets. War is -always popular, at the beginning. - -I did not return immediately to England, but lingered for a few days -at Longres, in the vague hope that I might “see something,” or that -perhaps my Uncle Spencer might really--as I still believed--be right, -and that, perhaps, the whole thing would be over in a few days. My -hope that I should “see something” was fulfilled. But the something -was not one of those brilliant and romantic spectacles I had imagined. -It consisted of a few little troops of refugees from the villages -round Liége--unshaven men, and haggard women with long tear-marks -on their dusty cheeks, and little boys and girls tottering along as -though in their sleep, dumb and stupid with fatigue. My Uncle Spencer -took a family of them into his house. “In a few days,” he said, -“when everything’s over, they’ll be able to go home again.” And when -indignantly Antonieke repeated to him their stories of burnings and -shootings, he wouldn’t believe them. - -“After all,” he said, “this is the twentieth century. These things -don’t happen nowadays. These poor people are too tired and frightened -to know exactly what they are saying.” - -In the second week of August I went back to England. My Uncle Spencer -was quite indignant when I suggested that he should come back with -me. To begin with, he said, it would all be over so very soon. In the -second place, this was the twentieth century--which was what the -Cretans said, no doubt, when in 1500 B.C., after two thousand years of -peace, prosperity, and progressive civilisation, they were threatened -by the wild men from the north. In the third place, he must stay at -Longres to look after his interests. I did not press him any further; -it would have been useless. - -“Good-bye, dear boy,” he said, and there was an unaccustomed note of -emotion in his voice, “good-bye.” - -The train slowly moved away. Looking out of the window, I could see him -standing on the platform, waving his hat. His hair was white all over -now, but his face was as young, his eyes as darkly bright, his small -spare body as straight and agile as when I had known him first. - -“Good-bye, good-bye.” - -I was not to see him again for nearly five years. - -Louvain was burnt on the 19th of August. The Germans entered Brussels -on the 20th. Longres, though farther east than Louvain, was not -occupied till two or three days later--for the town lay off the direct -route to Brussels and the interior. One of the first acts of the -German commandant was to put my Uncle Spencer and M. Alphonse under -arrest. It was not that they had done anything; it was merely to their -existence that he objected. The fact that they were British subjects -was in itself extremely incriminating. - -“Aber wir sind,” my Uncle Spencer protested in his rather rudimentary -German, “im zwanzigsten jahrhunderd. Und der--or is it das?--krieg wird -nicht lang....” he stammered, searched hopelessly for the word, “well, -in any case,” he concluded, relapsing into his own language and happy -to be able to express his astonished protest with fluency, “it won’t -last a week.” - -“So we hope,” the commandant replied in excellent English, smiling. -“But meanwhile I regret....” - -My Uncle Spencer and his fellow-Briton were locked up for the time -being in the lunatic asylum. A few days later they were sent under -escort to Brussels. Alphonse, my Uncle Spencer told me afterwards, -bore his misfortune with exemplary and oriental patience. Mute, -uncomplaining, obedient, he stayed where his captors put him, like a -large brown bundle left by the traveller on the platform, while he goes -to the buffet for a drink and a sandwich. And more docile than a mere -bundle, mutely, obediently, he followed wherever he was led. - -“I wish I could have imitated him,” said my Uncle Spencer. “But I -couldn’t. My blood fairly boiled.” - -And from what I remembered of him in the sugar-making season I could -imagine the depth, the fury of my Uncle Spencer’s impatience and -irritation. - -“But this is the twentieth century,” he kept repeating to the guards. -“And I have nothing to do with your beastly war. And where the devil -are you taking us? And how much longer are we to wait in this damned -station without our lunch?” He spoke as a rich man, accustomed to being -able to buy every convenience and consideration. The soldiers, who had -the patience of poor men and were well used to being ordered hither -and thither, to waiting indefinitely in the place where they were told -to wait, could not understand this wild irritation against what they -regarded as the natural order of things. My Uncle Spencer first amused -them; then, as his impatience grew greater instead of less, he began to -annoy them. - -In the end, one of his guards lost patience too, and gave him a great -kick in the breech to make him hold his tongue. My Uncle Spencer -turned round and rushed at the man; but another soldier tripped him -up with his rifle, and he tumbled heavily to the ground. Slowly he -picked himself up; the soldiers were roaring with laughter. Alphonse, -like a brown package, stood where they had put him, motionless, -expressionless, his eyes shut. - -In the top floor of the Ministry of the Interior the German authorities -had established a sort of temporary internment camp. All suspicious -persons--dubious foreigners, recalcitrant natives, any one suspected -by the invaders of possessing a dangerous influence over his -neighbours--were sent to Brussels and shut up in the Ministry of the -Interior, to remain there until the authorities should have time to -go into their case. It was into this makeshift prison that my Uncle -Spencer and his Dravidian compatriot were ushered, one sweltering -afternoon towards the end of August. In an ordinary year, my Uncle -Spencer reflected, the kermesse at Longres would now be in full swing. -The fat woman would be washing her face with her bosom, the Figaros -would be re-enacting amid sobs the Passion of Our Saviour, the armless -lady would be drinking healths with her toes, the vendor of raw mussels -would be listening anxiously for the first hoarse sound that might -be taken for a cough. Where were they all this year, all these good -people? And where was he himself? Incredulously he looked about him. - -In the attics of the Ministry of the Interior the company was strange -and mixed. There were Belgian noblemen whom the invaders considered it -unsafe to leave in their châteaux among their peasantry. There were a -Russian countess and an anarchist, incarcerated on account of their -nationality. There was an opera singer, who might be an international -spy. There was a little golden-haired male impersonator, who had been -appearing at a music-hall in Liége, and whose offence, like that of my -Uncle Spencer and the Dravidian, was to have been a British subject. -There were a number of miscellaneous Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, caught -on the wrong side of the border. There was an organ-grinder, who had -gone on playing the “Brabançonne” when told to stop, and a whole -collection of other Belgians, of all classes and both sexes, from every -part of the country, who had committed some crime or other, or perhaps -had contrived merely to look suspicious, and who were now waiting to -have their fate decided, as soon as the authorities should have time to -pay attention to them. - -Into this haphazardly assembled society my Uncle Spencer and the -Dravidian were now casually dropped. The door closed behind them; -they were left, like new arrivals in hell, to make the best of their -situation. - -The top floor of the Ministry of the Interior was divided up into one -very large and a number of small rooms, the latter lined, for the most -part, with pigeon-holes and filing cabinets in which were stored the -paper products of years of bureaucratic activity. - -In the smaller chambers the prisoners had placed the straw mattresses -allotted to them by their gaolers; the men slept in the rooms at one -end of the corridor, the women in those at the other end. The big room, -which must once have housed the staff of the Ministry’s registry, still -contained a number of desks, tables, and chairs; it served now as the -prisoners’ drawing-room, dining-room, and recreation ground. There was -no bathroom, and only one washing-basin and one _chalet de nécessité_, -as my Uncle Spencer, with a characteristic euphemism, always called it. -Life in the attics of the Ministry of the Interior was not particularly -agreeable. - -My Uncle Spencer noticed that those of the prisoners who were not -sunk in gloom and a sickening anxiety for the future, preserved an -almost too boisterous cheerfulness. You had, it seemed, either to take -this sort of thing as a prodigious joke, or brood over it as the most -horrible of nightmares. There seemed to be no alternative. In time, no -doubt, the two extremes would level down to the same calm resignation. -But confinement had still been too short for that; the situation -was still too new, dream-like, and phantasmagorical, and fate too -uncertain. - -The cheerful ones abounded in japes, loud laughter, and practical -jokes. They had created in the prison a kind of private-school -atmosphere. Those whose confinement was oldest (and some had been in -the Ministry for nearly a week now, almost from the day of the German -entry into Brussels) assumed the inalienable right of seniors to -make the new arrivals feel raw and uncomfortable. Each freshman was -subjected to a searching cross-examination, like that which awaits the -new boy at his first school. Sometimes, if the latest victim seemed -particularly ingenuous, they would play a little practical joke on him. - -The leader of the cheerful party was a middle-aged Belgian -journalist--a powerful, stout man, with carroty red moustaches and a -high crimson complexion, a huge roaring voice and a boundless gift for -laughter and genial Rabelaisian conversation. At the appearance of the -meek Dravidian he had fairly whooped with delight. So great, indeed, -was his interest in Alphonse that my Uncle Spencer escaped with the -most perfunctory examination and the minimum of playful “ragging.” -It was perhaps for the best; my Uncle Spencer was in no mood to be -trifled with, even by a fellow-sufferer. - -Round poor Alphonse the journalist immediately improvised a farce. -Sitting like a judge at one of the desks in the large room, he had -the Dravidian brought before him, giving him to understand that -he was the German commissary who had to deal with his case. Under -cross-examination the Dravidian was made to tell his whole history. -Born, Madras; profession, cobbler--a clerk took down all his answers -as he delivered them. When he spoke of devil dancing, the judge made -him give a specimen of his performance there and then in front of the -desk. The question of his marriage with Louiseke was gone into in the -most intimate detail. Convinced that his liberty and probably his -life depended on his sincerity, Alphonse answered every question as -truthfully as he possibly could. - -In the end, the journalist, clearing his throat, gravely summed up and -gave judgment. Innocent. The prisoner would forthwith be released. On -a large sheet of official paper he wrote _laissez passer_, signed it -Von der Golz, and, opening a drawer of the desk, selected from among -the numerous official seals it contained that with which, in happier -times, certain agricultural diplomas were stamped. On the thick red wax -appeared the figure of a prize shorthorn cow with, round it, the words: -“Pour l’amélioration de la race bovine.” - -“Here,” roared the journalist, handing him the sealed paper. “You may -go.” - -Poor Alphonse took his _laissez passer_ and, bowing at intervals almost -to the ground, retreated backwards out of the room. Joyously he picked -up his hat and his little bundle, ran to the door, knocked and called. -The sentry outside opened to see what was the matter. Alphonse produced -his passport. - -“Aber wass ist das?” asked the sentry. - -Alphonse pointed to the seal: for the amelioration of the bovine race; -to the signature: Von der Golz. The sentry, thinking that it was he, -not the Dravidian, who was the victim of the joke, became annoyed. He -pushed Alphonse roughly back through the door; and when, protesting, -propitiatively murmuring and smiling, the poor man advanced again to -explain to the sentry his mistake, the soldier picked up his rifle -and with the butt gave him a prod in the belly, which sent him back, -doubled up and coughing, along the corridor. The door slammed to. -Vainly, when he had recovered, Alphonse hammered and shouted. It did -not open again. My Uncle Spencer found him standing there--knocking, -listening, knocking again. The tears were streaming down his cheeks; -it was a long time before my Uncle Spencer could make him understand -that the whole affair had been nothing but a joke. At last, however, -Alphonse permitted himself to be led off to his mattress. In silence -he lay down and closed his eyes. In his right hand he still held the -passport--firmly, preciously between his thick brown fingers. He would -not throw it away; not yet. Perhaps if he went to sleep this incident -at the door would prove, when he woke up, to have been a dream. The -paper would have ceased to be a joke, and when, to-morrow, he showed -it again, who knew? the sentry would present arms and he would walk -downstairs; and all the soldiers in the courtyard would salute and he -would walk out into the sunny streets, waving the signature, pointing -to the thick red seal. - -Quite still he lay there. His arm was crossed over his body. From -between the fingers of his hand hung the paper. Bold, as only the -signature of a conquering general could be, Von der Golz sprawled -across the sheet. And in the bottom right-hand corner, stamped in -the red wax, the image of the sacred cow was like a symbol of true -salvation from across the separating ocean and the centuries. _Pour -l’amélioration de la race bovine._ But might it not be more reasonable, -in the circumstances, to begin with the human race? - -My Uncle Spencer left him to go and expostulate with the journalist on -the barbarity of his joke. He found the man sitting on the floor--for -there were not enough chairs to go round--teaching the golden-haired -male impersonator how to swear in French. - -“And this,” he was saying, in his loud, jolly voice, “this is what -you must say to Von der Golz if ever you see him.” And he let off a -string of abusive words, which the little male impersonator carefully -repeated, distorted by her drawling English intonation, in her clear, -shrill voice: “Sarl esspayss de coshaw.” The journalist roared with -delighted laughter and slapped his thighs. “What comes after that?” she -asked. - -“Excuse me,” said my Uncle Spencer, breaking in on the lesson. He was -blushing slightly. He never liked hearing this sort of language--and -in the mouth of a young woman (a compatriot too, it seemed) it sounded -doubly distressing. “Excuse me.” And he begged the journalist not to -play any more jokes on Alphonse. “He takes it too much to heart,” he -explained. - -At his description of the Dravidian’s despair, the little male -impersonator was touched almost to tears. And the journalist, who, like -all the rest of us, had a heart of gold whenever he was reminded of -its existence--and, like all the rest of us, he needed pretty frequent -reminders; for his own pleasures and interests prevented him very often -from remembering it--the journalist was extremely sorry at what he had -done, declared that he had no idea that Alphonse would take the little -farce so seriously, and promised for the future to leave him in peace. - -The days passed; the nightmare became habitual, followed a routine. -Three times a day the meagre supply of unappetising food arrived and -was consumed. Twice a day an officer with a little squad of soldiers -behind him made a tour of inspection. In the morning one waited for -one’s turn to wash; but the afternoons were immense gulfs of hot time, -which the prisoners tried to fill with games, with talk, with the -reading of ancient dossiers from the files, with solitary brooding -or with pacing up and down the corridor--twenty steps each way, up -and down, up and down, till one had covered in one’s imagination the -distance between one loved and familiar place and another. Up and down, -up and down. My Uncle Spencer sometimes walked along the poplar-lined -high road between Longres and Waret; sometimes from Charing Cross along -the Strand, under the railway bridge and up the hill to St. Paul’s, -and from St. Paul’s to the Bank, and from the Bank tortuously to the -Tower of London, the river, and the ships. Sometimes he walked with his -brother from Chamonix to the Montanvert; from Grenoble over the pass to -the Grande Chartreuse. Sometimes, less strenuously, he walked with his -long-dead mother through the glades of Windsor Forest, where the grass -is so green in early summer that it seems as though each blade were an -emerald illumined from within; and here and there among the oak trees -the dark-leaved rhododendrons light their innumerable rosy lamps. - -In the evening the cheerful ones, with the journalist at their head, -organised entertainments for the amusement of the company. The -journalist himself recited poems of his own composition about the -Kaiser. One of the Frenchmen did some amateur conjuring with packs of -cards, handkerchiefs, and coins. The opera singer bawled out at the top -of his prodigious tenor, “La donna è mobile,” “O sole mio,” and when -something more serious was called for, César Franck’s “Dieu s’avance à -travers la lande”; which last, however, he sang in so richly operatic a -style that my Uncle Spencer, who was very fond of this particular song, -could hardly recognise it. But the most popular turn was always that of -“the celebrated diva, Emmy Wendle,” as the journalist called her, when -he introduced her to the company. The enthusiasm was tremendous when -Emmy Wendle appeared--dressed in an Eton jacket, broad starched collar, -striped trousers, and a top hat, and carrying in her hand a little -cane--did two or three rattling clog dances and sang a song with the -chorus: - - “We are the nuts that get the girls - Ev-ery time; - We get the ones with the curly curls, - We get the peaches, we get the pearls-- - Ev-ery time.” - -And when, at the end of the turn, she took off her top hat, and, -standing rigidly at attention, like a soldier, her childish snubby -little face very grave, her blue eyes fixed on visions not of this -world, sang in her tuneless street-urchin’s voice an astonishingly -English version of the “Brabançonne,” then there was something more -than enthusiasm. For men would suddenly feel the tears coming into -their eyes, and women wept outright; and when it was over, everybody -violently stamped and clapped and waved handkerchiefs, and laughed, -and shouted imprecations against the Germans, and said, “Vive la -Belgique!” and ran to Emmy Wendle, and took her hand, or slapped her -on the back as though she had really been a boy, or kissed her--but -as though she were not a girl, and dressed in rather tight striped -trousers at that--kissed her as though she were a symbol of the -country, a visible and charming personification of their own patriotism -and misfortunes. - -When the evening’s entertainment was over, the company began to -disperse. Stretched on their hard mattresses along the floor, the -prisoners uneasily slept or lay awake through the sultry nights, -listening to the steps of the sentries in the court below and hearing -every now and then through the unnatural silence of the invaded town, -the heavy beat, beat, beat of a regiment marching along the deserted -street, the rumble and sharp, hoofy clatter of a battery on the move -towards some distant front. - -The days passed. My Uncle Spencer soon grew accustomed to the strange -little hell into which he had been dropped. He knew it by heart. A -huge, square room, low-ceilinged and stifling under the hot leads. Men -in their shirt-sleeves standing, or sitting, some on chairs, some on -the corner of a desk or a table, some on the floor. Some leaned their -elbows on the window-sill and looked out, satisfying their eyes with -the sight of the trees in the park across the street, breathing a purer -air--for the air in the room was stale, twice-breathed, and smelt of -sweat, tobacco, and cabbage soup. - -From the first the prisoners had divided themselves, automatically -almost, into little separate groups. Equal in their misery, they -still retained their social distinctions. The organ-grinder and the -artisans and peasants always sat together in one corner on the floor, -playing games with a greasy pack of cards, smoking and, in spite of -expostulations, in spite of sincere efforts to restrain themselves, -spitting on the floor all round them. - -“Mine!” the organ-grinder would say triumphantly, and plank down his -ace of hearts. “Mine!” And profusely, to emphasise his satisfaction, -he spat. “Ah, pardon!” Remembering too late, he looked apologetically -round the room. “Excuse me.” And he would get up, rub the gob of -spittle into the floor with his boot, and going to the window would -lean out and spit again--not that he felt any need to, having spat only -a moment before, but for the sake of showing that he had good manners -and could spit out of the window and not on the floor when he thought -of it. - -Another separate group was that of the aristocracy. There was the -little old count with a face like a teapot--such shiny round cheeks, -such a thin, irrelevant nose; and the young count with the monocle--the -one so exquisitely affable with every one and yet so remote and aloof -under all his politeness; the other so arrogant in manner, but, one -could see, so wistfully wishing that his social position would permit -him to mingle with his spiritual equals. The old count politely laughed -whenever the journalist or some other member of the cheerful party made -a joke; the young count scowled, till the only smooth surface left -in his corrugated face was the monocle. But he longed to be allowed -to join in the horse-play and the jokes. With the two counts were -associated two or three rich and important citizens, among them during -the first days my Uncle Spencer. But other interests were to make him -abandon their company almost completely after a while. - -On the fringes of their circle hovered occasionally the Russian -countess. This lady spent most of the day in her sleeping apartment, -lying on her mattress and smoking cigarettes. She had decided views -about the respect that was due to her rank, and expected the wash-house -to be immediately evacuated whenever she expressed a desire to use it. -On being told that she must wait her turn, she flew into a rage. When -she was bored with being alone, she would come into the living-room to -find somebody to talk to. On one occasion she took my Uncle Spencer -aside and told him at great length and with a wealth of intimate detail -about the ninth and greatest love-affair of her life. In future, -whenever my Uncle Spencer caught sight of her turning her large, dark, -rather protruding eyes round the room, he took care to be absorbed in -conversation with somebody else. - -Her compatriot, the anarchist, was a Jewish-looking man with a black -beard and a nose like the figure six. He associated himself with none -of the little groups, was delighted by the war, which he gleefully -prophesied would destroy so-called civilisation, and made a point of -being as disagreeable as he could to every one--particularly to the -countess, whom he was able to insult confidentially in Russian. It -was in obedience to the same democratic principles that he possessed -himself of the only arm-chair in the prison--it must have been the -throne of at least a _sous chef de division_--refusing to part with it -even for a lady or an invalid. He sat in it immovably all day, put it -between his mattress and the wall at night, and took it with him even -into the wash-house and the _chalet de nécessité_. - -The cheerful party grouped itself, planet fashion, round the radiant -jollity of the journalist. His favourite amusement was hunting -through the files for curious dossiers which he could read out, with -appropriate comments and improvised emendations to the assembled group. -But the most relished of all his jokes was played ritually every -morning when he went through the papers of nobility of the whole Belgic -aristocracy (discovered, neatly stowed away, in a cupboard in the -corridor), selecting from among the noble names a few high-sounding -titles which he would carry with him to the chalet of necessity. His -disciples included a number of burgesses, French and Belgian; a rather -odious and spotty young English bank clerk caught on his foreign -holiday; the Russian countess in certain moods; the male impersonator, -on and off; and the opera singer. - -With this last my Uncle Spencer, who was a great lover of music and -even a moderately accomplished pianist, made frequent attempts to talk -about his favourite art. But the opera singer, he found, was only -interested in music in so far as it affected the tenor voice. He had -consequently never heard of Bach or Beethoven. On Leoncavallo, however, -on Puccini, Saint-Saëns, and Gounod he was extremely knowledgeable. -He was an imposing personage, with a large, handsome face and the -gracious, condescending smile of a great man who does not object -to talking even with you. With ladies, as he often gave it to be -understood, he had a great success. But his fear of doing anything that -might injure his voice was almost as powerful as his lasciviousness -and his vanity; he passed his life, like a monk of the Thebaid, in a -state of perpetual conflict. Outwardly and professedly a member of the -cheerful party, the opera singer was secretly extremely concerned about -his future. In private he discussed with my Uncle Spencer the horrors -of the situation. - -More obviously melancholy was the little grey-haired professor of -Latin who spent most of the day walking up and down the corridor like -a wolf in a cage, brooding and pining. Poor Alphonse, squatting with -his back to the wall near the door, was another sad and solitary -figure. Sometimes he looked thoughtfully about him, watching his -fellow-prisoners at their various occupations with the air of an -inhabitant of eternity watching the incomprehensible antics of those -who live in time. Sometimes he would spend whole hours with closed eyes -in a state of meditation. When some one spoke to him, he came back to -the present as though from an immense distance. - -But, for my Uncle Spencer, how remote, gradually, they all became! They -receded, they seemed to lose light; and with their fading the figure -of Emmy Wendle came closer, grew larger and brighter. From the first -moment he set eyes on her, sitting there on the floor, taking her -lesson in vituperation from the journalist, my Uncle Spencer had taken -particular notice of her. Making his way towards the pair of them, he -had been agreeably struck by the childishness and innocence of her -appearance--by the little snub nose, the blue eyes, the yellow hair, -so stubbornly curly that she had to wear it cut short like a boy’s, -for there was no oiling down or tying back a long mane of it; even -in her private feminine life there was a hint--and it only made her -seem the more childish--of male impersonation. And then, coming within -earshot, it had been “sarl esspayss de coshaw” and a string besides -of less endearing locutions proceeding from these lips. Startling, -shocking. But a moment later, when he was telling them how hardly poor -Alphonse had taken the joke, she said the most charming things and with -such real feeling in her cockney voice, such a genuine expression of -sympathy and commiseration on her face, that my Uncle Spencer wondered -whether he had heard aright, or if that “sarl coshaw” and all the -rest could really have been pronounced by so delicate and sensitive a -creature. - -The state of agitation in which my Uncle Spencer had lived ever since -his arrest, the astonishing and horrible novelty of his situation, -had doubtless in some measure predisposed him to falling in love. -For it frequently happens that one emotion--providing that it is not -so powerful as to make us unconscious of anything but itself--will -stimulate us to feel another. Thus danger, if it is not acute enough -to cause panic, tends to attach us to those with whom we risk it, the -feelings of compassion, sympathy, and even love being stimulated and -quickened by apprehension. Grief, in the same way, often brings with -it a need of affection and even, though we do not like to admit it to -ourselves, even obscurely a kind of desire; so that a passion of sorrow -will convert itself by scarcely perceptible degrees, or sometimes -suddenly, into a passion of love. My Uncle Spencer’s habitual attitude -towards women was one of extreme reserve. Once, as a young man, he -had been in love and engaged to be married; but the object of his -affections had jilted him for somebody else. Since then, partly from a -fear of renewing his disappointment, partly out of a kind of romantic -fidelity to the unfaithful one, he had avoided women, or at least -taken pains not to fall in love any more, living always in a state of -perfect celibacy, which would have done credit to the most virtuous -of priests. But the agitations of the last few days had disturbed all -his habits of life and thought. Apprehension of danger, an indignation -that was a very different thing from the recurrent irritability of -the sugar-making season, profound bewilderment, and a sense of mental -disorientation had left him without his customary defences and in a -state of more than ordinary susceptibility; so that when he saw, in -the midst of his waking nightmare, that charming childish head, when -he heard those gentle words of sympathy for the poor Dravidian, he was -strangely moved; and he found himself aware of Emmy Wendle as he had -not been aware of any woman since the first unfaithful one of his youth -had left him. - -Everything conspired to make my Uncle Spencer take an interest in -Emmy Wendle--everything, not merely his own emotional state, but the -place, the time, the outward circumstances. He might have gone to see -her at the music-hall every night for a year; and though he might have -enjoyed her turn--and as a matter of fact he would not, for he would -have thought it essentially rather vulgar--though he might have found -her pretty and charming, it would never have occurred to him to try to -make her acquaintance or introduce himself into her history. But here, -in this detestable makeshift prison, she took on a new significance, -she became the personification of all that was gracious, sweet, -sympathetic, of all that was not war. And at the end of her performance -(still, it was true, in poorish taste, but more permissible, seeing -that it was given for the comfort of the afflicted) how profoundly -impressive was her singing of the “Brabançonne”! She had become great -with the greatness of the moment, with the grandeur of the emotions to -which she was giving utterance in that harsh guttersnipe’s voice of -hers--singing of exultations, agonies, and man’s unconquerable mind. We -attribute to the symbol something of the sacredness of the thing or -idea symbolised. Two bits of wood set cross-wise are not two ordinary -bits of wood, and a divinity has hedged the weakest and worst of kings. -Similarly, at any crisis in our lives, the most trivial object, or a -person in himself insignificant, may become, for some reason, charged -with all the greatness of the moment. - -Even the “sarl coshaw” incident had helped to raise my Uncle Spencer’s -interest in Emmy Wendle. For if she was gentle, innocent, and young, -if she personified in her small, bright self all the unhappiness -and all the courage of a country, of the whole afflicted world, -she was also fallible, feminine, and weak; she was subject to bad -influences, she might be led astray. And the recollection of those -gross phrases, candidly, innocently, and openly uttered (as the most -prudish can always utter them when they happen to be in an unfamiliar -language, round whose words custom has not crystallised that wealth of -associations which give to the native locutions their peculiar and, -from age to age, varying significance), filled my Uncle Spencer with -alarm and with a missionary zeal to rescue so potentially beautiful and -even grand a nature from corruption. - -For her part, Emmy Wendle was charmed, at any rate during the first -days of their acquaintance, with my Uncle Spencer. He was English, to -begin with, and spoke her language; he was also--which the equally -English and intelligible bank clerk was not--a gentleman. More -important for Emmy, in her present mood, he did not attempt to flirt -with her. Emmy wanted no admirers, at the moment. In the present -circumstances she felt that it would have been wrong, uncomely, and -rather disreputable to think of flirtation. She sang the “Brabançonne” -with too much religious ardour for that; the moment was too solemn, -too extraordinary. True, the solemnity of the moment and the ardour of -her patriotic feelings might, if a suitable young man had happened to -find himself with her in the attics of the Ministry of the Interior, -have caused her to fall in love with a fervour having almost the -religious quality of her other feelings. But no suitable young man, -unfortunately, presented himself. The bank clerk had spots on his -face and was not a gentleman, the journalist was middle-aged and too -stout. Both tried to flirt with her. But their advances had, for Emmy, -all the impropriety of a flirtation in a sacred place. With my Uncle -Spencer, however, she felt entirely safe. It was not merely that he had -white hair; Emmy had lived long enough to know that that symbol was no -guarantee of decorous behaviour--on the contrary; but because he was, -obviously, such a gentleman, because of the signs of unworldliness and -mild idealism stamped all over his face. - -At first, indeed, it was only to escape from the tiresome and -indecorous attentions of the bank clerk and the journalist that she -addressed herself to Uncle Spencer. But she soon came to like his -company for its own sake; she began to take an interest in what he -said, she listened seriously to my Uncle Spencer’s invariably serious -conversation--for he never talked except on profitable and intellectual -themes, having no fund of ordinary small talk. - -During the first days Emmy treated him with the respectful courtesy -which, she felt, was due to a man of his age, position, and character. -But later, when he began to follow her with his abject adoration, -she became more familiar. Inevitably; for one cannot expect to be -treated as old and important by some one at whom one looks with the -appealing eyes of a dog. She called him Uncle Spenny and ordered him -about, made him carry and fetch as though he were a trained animal. -My Uncle Spencer was only too delighted, of course, to obey her. He -was charmed by the familiarities she took with him. The period of her -pretty teasing familiarity (intermediate between her respectfulness and -her later cruelty) was the happiest, so far as my Uncle Spencer was -concerned, in their brief connection. He loved and felt himself, if not -loved in return, at least playfully tolerated. - -Another man would have permitted himself to take liberties in return, -to be sportive, gallant, and importunate. But my Uncle Spencer remained -gravely and tenderly himself. His only reprisal for “Uncle Spenny” -and the rest was to call her by her Christian name instead of “Miss -Wendle,” as he had always solemnly done before. Yes, Emmy felt herself -safe with Uncle Spenny; almost too safe, perhaps. - -My Uncle Spencer’s conversations were always, as I have said, of a very -serious cast. They were even more serious at this time than usual; for -the catastrophe, and now his passion, had brought on in his mind a very -severe fit of thinking. There was so much that, in the light of the -happenings of the last few weeks, needed reconsidering. From the German -professor’s theory to the problem of good and evil; from the idea of -progress (for, after all, was not this the twentieth century?) to the -austere theory and the strange new fact of love; from internationalism -to God--everything had to be considered afresh. And he considered them -out loud with Emmy Wendle. Goodness, for example, was that no more -than a relative thing, an affair of social conventions, gauged by -merely local and accidental standards? Or was there something absolute, -ultimate, and fundamental about the moral idea? And God--could God -be absolutely good? And was there such a vast difference between the -twentieth and other centuries? Could fact ever rhyme with ideal? All -these disturbing questions had to be asked and answered to his own -satisfaction once again. - -It was characteristic of my Uncle Spencer that he answered them -all--even after taking into consideration everything that had -happened--on the hopeful side, just as he had done before the -catastrophe; and what was more, with a deeper conviction. Before, he -had accepted the cheerful idealistic view a little too easily. He had -inherited it from the century in which he was born, had sucked it in -from the respectable and ever-prospering elders among whom he had been -brought up. Circumstances were now making that facile cheerfulness -seem rather stupid. But it was precisely because he had to reconsider -the objections to optimism, the arguments against hopefulness, not -theoretically in the void, but practically and in the midst of personal -and universal calamity (the latter very bearable if one is comfortably -placed oneself, but real, but disturbing, if one is also suffering a -little), that he now became convinced, more hardly but more profoundly, -of the truth of what he had believed before, but lightly and, as he -now saw, almost accidentally. Events were shortly to disturb this -new-found conviction. - -Emmy listened to him with rapture. The circumstances, the time, the -place, inclined her to the serious and reflective mood. My Uncle -Spencer’s discourses were just what she needed at this particular -moment. Naturally superstitious, she lived at all times under the -protection of a small gold lucky pig and a coral cross which had once -belonged to her mother. And when luck was bad, she went to church and -consulted crystal gazers. That time she broke her leg and had to cancel -that wonderful engagement to tour in Australia, she knew it was because -she had been neglecting God in all the prosperous months before; she -prayed and she promised amendment. When she got better, God sent her -an offer from Cohen’s Provincial Alhambras Ltd., in token that her -repentance was accepted and she was forgiven. And now, though she had -seemed to belong to the cheerful party in the attics of the Ministry -of the Interior, her thoughts had secretly been very grave. At night, -lying awake on her mattress, she wondered in the darkness what was the -reason of all this--the war, her bad luck in getting caught by the -Germans. Yes, what could the reason be? Why was God angry with her once -again? - -But of course she knew why. It was all that dreadful, dreadful business -last June when she was working at Wimbledon. That young man who had -waited for her at the stage door; and would she do him the honour of -having supper with him? And she had said yes, though it was all against -her rules. Yes: because he had such a beautiful voice, so refined, -almost like a very high-class West End actor’s voice. “I came to see -the marionettes,” he told her. “Marionettes never seem to get farther -than the suburbs, do they? But I stayed for you.” - -They drove in a taxi all the way from Wimbledon to Piccadilly. “Some -day,” she said, pointing to the Pavilion, “you’ll see my name there, -in big electric letters: EMMY WENDLE.” A hundred pounds a week and the -real West End. What a dream! - -He had such beautiful manners and he looked so handsome when you saw -him in the light. They had champagne for supper. - -In the darkness, Emmy blushed with retrospective shame. She buried -her face in the pillow as though she were trying to hide from some -searching glance. No wonder God was angry. In an agony she kissed -the coral cross. She pulled at the blue ribbon, at the end of which, -between her two small breasts, hung the golden pig; she held the mascot -in her hand, tightly, as though hoping to extract from it something of -that power for happiness stored mysteriously within it, as the power to -attract iron filings is stored within the magnet. - -A few feet away the Russian countess heavily breathed. At the -stertorous sound Emmy shuddered, remembering the wickedness -that slumbered so near her. For if she herself had ceased to -be, technically, a good girl, she was--now that her luck had -turned--ashamed of it; she knew, from God’s anger, that she had done -wrong. But the countess, if sleep had not overtaken her, would have -gone on boasting all night about her lovers. To middle-class Emmy the -countess’s frankness, her freedom from the ordinary prejudices, her -aristocratic contempt for public opinion, and her assumption--the -assumption of almost all idle women and of such idle men as have -nothing better to do or think about--that the only end of life is to -make love, complicatedly, at leisure and with a great many people, -seemed profoundly shocking. It didn’t so much matter that she wasn’t a -good girl--or rather a good ripe widow. What seemed to Emmy so dreadful -was that she should talk about it as though not being good were -natural, to be taken for granted, and even positively meritorious. No -wonder God was angry. - -To Emmy my Uncle Spencer--or shall I call him now her Uncle -Spenny?--came as a comforter and sustainer in her remorseful misery. -His wandering speculations were not, it was true, always particularly -relevant to her own trouble; nor did she always understand what he was -talking about. But there was a certain quality in all his discourses, -whatever the subject, which she found uplifting and sustaining. Thus -my Uncle Spencer quoting Swedenborg to prove that, in spite of all -present appearances to the contrary, things were probably all right, -was the greatest of comforts. There was something about him like a very -high-class clergyman--a West End clergyman, so to say. When he talked -she felt better and in some sort safer. - -He inspired in her so much confidence that one day, while the -journalist was playing some noisy joke that kept all the rest of the -company occupied, she took him aside into the embrasure of one of the -windows and told him all, or nearly all, about the episode on account -of which God was now so angry. My Uncle Spencer assured her that God -didn’t see things in quite the way she imagined; and that if He had -decided that there must be a European War, it was not, in all human -probability, to provide an excuse for getting Emmy Wendle--however -guilty--locked up in the attics of the Ministry of the Interior at -Brussels. As for the sin itself, my Uncle Spencer tried to make her -believe that it was not quite so grave as she thought. He did not -know that she only thought it grave because she was in prison and, -naturally, depressed. - -“No, no,” he said comfortingly, “you mustn’t take it to heart like -that.” - -But the knowledge that this exquisite and innocent young creature -had once--and if once, why not twice, why not (my Uncle Spencer left -to his own midnight thoughts feverishly speculated), why not fifty -times?--fallen from virtue distressed him. He had imagined her, it was -true, surrounded by bad influences, like the journalist; but between -being taught to say “sarl coshaw” and an actual lapse from virtue, -there was a considerable difference. It had never occurred to my Uncle -Spencer that Emmy could have got beyond the “coshaw” stage. And now he -had it from her own lips that she had. - -Celibate like a priest, my Uncle Spencer had not enjoyed the priest’s -vicarious experience in the confessional. He had not read those -astonishing handbooks of practical psychology, fruit of the accumulated -wisdom of centuries, from which the seminarist learns to understand -his penitents, to classify and gauge their sins, and, incidentally--so -crude, bald, and uncompromising are the descriptions of human vice -that they contain--to loathe the temptations which, when rosily and -delicately painted, can seem so damnably alluring. His ignorance of -human beings was enormous. In his refinement he had preferred not to -know; and circumstances, so far, had wonderfully conspired to spare him -knowledge. - -Years afterwards, I remember, when we met again, he asked me after -a silence, and speaking with an effort, as though overcoming a -repugnance, what I really thought about women and all “that sort of -thing.” It was a subject about which at that time I happened to feel -with the bitterness and mirthful cynicism of one who has been only too -amply successful in love with the many in whom he took no interest, and -lamentably and persistently unsuccessful with the one being, in whose -case success would have been in the least worth while. - -“You really think, then,” said my Uncle Spencer, when I paused for -breath, “that a lot of that sort of thing actually does go on?” - -I really did. - -He sighed and shut his eyes, as though to conceal their expression from -me. He was thinking of Emmy Wendle. How passionately he had hoped that -I should prove her, necessarily and _a priori_, virtuous! - -There are certain sensitive and idealistic people in whom the discovery -that the world is what it is brings on a sudden and violent reaction -towards cynicism. From soaring in spheres of ideal purity they rush -down into the mud, rub their noses in it, eat it, bathe and wallow. -They lacerate their own highest feelings and delight in the pain. -They take pleasure in defiling the things which before they thought -beautiful and noble; they pore with a disgusted attention over the foul -entrails of the things whose smooth and lovely skin was what they had -once worshipped. - -Swift, surely, was one of these--the greatest of them. His type our -islands still produce; and more copiously, perhaps, during the last -two or three generations than ever before. For the nineteenth century -specialised in that romantic, optimistic idealism which postulates that -man is on the whole good and inevitably becoming better. The idealism -of the men of the Middle Ages was more sensible; for it insisted, -to begin with, that man was mostly and essentially bad, a sinner by -instinct and heredity. Their ideals, their religion, were divine and -unnatural antidotes to original sin. They saw the worst first and -could be astonished by no horror--only by the occasional miracle of -sweetness and light. But their descendants of the romantic, optimistic, -humanitarian century, in which my Uncle Spencer was born and brought -up, vented their idealism otherwise. They began by seeing the best; -they insisted that men were naturally good, spiritual, and lovely. A -sensitive youth brought up in this genial creed has only to come upon a -characteristic specimen of original sin to be astonished, shocked, and -disillusioned into despair. Circumstances and temperament had permitted -my Uncle Spencer to retain his romantic optimism very much longer than -most men. - -The tardy recognition of the existence of original sin disturbed my -Uncle Spencer’s mind. But the effects of it were not immediate. At -the moment, while he was in Emmy’s pretty and intoxicating presence, -and while she was still kind, he could not believe that she too had -her share of original sin. And even when he forced himself to do so, -her childish ingenuous face was in itself a complete excuse. It was -later--and especially when he was separated from her--that the poison -began slowly to work, embittering his whole spirit. At present Emmy’s -confession only served to increase his passion for her. For, to begin -with, it made her seem more than ever in need of protection. And next, -by painfully satisfying a little of his curiosity about her life, it -quickened his desire to know all, to introduce himself completely into -her history. And at the same time it provoked a retrospective jealousy, -together with an intense present suspiciousness and an agonised -anticipation of future dangers. His passion became like a painful -disease. He pursued her with an incessant and abject devotion. - -Relieved, partly by my Uncle Spencer’s spiritual ministrations, partly -by the medicating power of time, from her first access of remorse, -depression, and self-reproach, Emmy began to recover her normal high -spirits. My Uncle Spencer became less necessary to her as a comforter. -His incomprehensible speculations began to bore her. Conversely, the -jokes of the cheerful ones seemed more funny, while the gallantries of -the journalist and the bank clerk appeared less repulsive, because--now -that her mood had changed--they struck her as less incongruous and -indecorous. She was no longer, spiritually speaking, in church. In -church, my Uncle Spencer’s undemonstrative and unimportunate devotion -had seemed beautifully in place. But now that she was emerging again -out of the dim religious into the brightly secular mood, she found it -rather ridiculous and, since she did not return the adoration, tiresome. - -“If you could just see yourself now, Uncle Spenny,” she said to him, -“the way you look.” - -And she drew down the corners of her mouth, then opened her eyes in a -fishy, reverential stare. Then the grimace in which my Uncle Spencer -was supposed to see his adoration truly mirrored, disintegrated in -laughter; the eyes screwed themselves up, a little horizontal wrinkle -appeared near the tip of the snub nose, the mouth opened, waves of -mirth seemed to ripple out from it across the face, and a shrill peal -of laughter mocked him into an attempted smile. - -“Do I really look like that?” he asked. - -“You really do,” Emmy nodded. “Not a very cheerful thing to have -staring at one day and night, is it?” - -Sometimes--and this to my Uncle Spencer was inexpressibly painful--she -would even bring in some third person to share the sport at his -expense; she would associate the bank clerk, the opera singer, or the -journalist in her mocking laughter. The teasing which, in the first -days, had been so light and affectionate, became cruel. - -Emmy would have been distressed, no doubt, if she had known how much -she hurt him. But he did not complain. All she knew was that my Uncle -Spencer was ridiculous. The temptation to say something smart and -disagreeable about him was irresistible. - -To my Uncle Spencer’s company she now preferred that of the journalist, -the bank clerk, and the opera singer. With the bank clerk she talked -about West End actors and actresses, music-hall artists, and cinema -stars. True, he was not much of a gentleman; but on this absorbing -subject he was extremely knowledgeable. The singer revealed to her the -gorgeous and almost unknown universe of the operatic stage--a world -of art so awe-inspiringly high that it was above even the West End. -The journalist told her spicy stories of the Brussels stage. My Uncle -Spencer would sit at the fringes of the group, listening in silence and -across a gulf of separation, while Emmy and the bank clerk agreed that -Clarice Mayne was sweet, George Robey a scream, and Florence Smithson a -really high-class artist. When asked for his opinion, my Uncle Spencer -always had to admit that he had never seen the artist in question. -Emmy and the bank clerk would set up a howl of derision; and the opera -singer, with biting sarcasm, would ask my Uncle Spencer how a man who -professed to be fond of music could have gone through life without -even making an attempt to hear Caruso. My Uncle Spencer was too sadly -depressed to try to explain. - -The days passed. Sometimes a prisoner would be sent for and examined -by the German authorities. The little old nobleman like a teapot was -released a week after my Uncle Spencer’s arrival; and a few days later -the haughty and monocled one disappeared. Most of the peasants next -vanished. Then the Russian anarchist was sent for, lengthily examined -and sent back again, to find that his arm-chair was being occupied by -the journalist. - -In the fourth week of my Uncle Spencer’s imprisonment Alphonse -fell ill. The poor man had never recovered from the effects of the -practical joke that had been played upon him on the day of his arrival. -Melancholy, oppressed by fears, the more awful for being vague and -without a definite object (for he could never grasp why and by whom he -had been imprisoned; and as to his ultimate fate--no one could persuade -him that it was to be anything but the most frightful and lingering -of deaths), he sat brooding by himself in a corner. His free pardon, -signed Von der Golz and sealed with the image of the Sacred Cow, he -still preserved; for though he was now intellectually certain that the -paper was valueless, he still hoped faintly in the depths of his being -that it might turn out, one day, to be a talisman; and, in any case, -the image of the Cow was very comforting. Every now and then he would -take the paper out of his pocket, tenderly unfold it and gaze with -large sad eyes at the sacred effigy: _Pour l’amélioration de la race -bovine_--and tears would well up from under his eyelids, would hang -suspended among the lashes and roll at last down his brown cheeks. - -They were not so round now, those cheeks, as they had been. The skin -sagged, the bright convex high-lights had lost their brilliance. -Miserably he pined. My Uncle Spencer did his best to cheer him. -Alphonse was grateful, but would take no comfort. He had lost all -interest even in women; and when, learning from my Uncle Spencer that -the Indian was something of a prophet, Emmy asked him to read her hand, -he looked at her listlessly as though she had been a mere male and not -a male impersonator, and shook his head. - -One morning he complained that he was feeling too ill to get up. His -head was hot, he coughed, breathed shortly and with difficulty, felt a -pain in his right lung. My Uncle Spencer tried to think what Hahnemann -would have prescribed in the circumstances, and came to the conclusion -that the thousandth of a grain of aconite was the appropriate remedy. -Unhappily, there was not so much as a millionth of a grain of aconite -to be found in all the prison. Inquiry produced only a bottle of -aspirin tablets and, from the Russian countess, a packet of cocaine -snuff. It was thought best to give the Dravidian a dose of each and -wait for the doctor. - -At his midday visit the inspecting officer was informed of Alphonse’s -state, and promised to have the doctor sent at once. But it was not, -in point of fact, till the next morning that the doctor came. My Uncle -Spencer, meanwhile, constituted himself the Dravidian’s nurse. The -fact that Alphonse was the widower of his housekeeper’s sister, and -had lived in his city of adoption, made my Uncle Spencer feel somehow -responsible for the poor Indian. Moreover, he was glad to have some -definite occupation which would allow him to forget, if only partially -and for an occasional moment, his unhappy passion. - -From the first, Alphonse was certain that he was going to die. To my -Uncle Spencer he foretold his impending extinction, not merely with -equanimity, but almost with satisfaction. For by dying, he felt, he -would be spiting and cheating his enemies, who desired so fiendishly to -put an end to him at their own time and in their own horrible fashion. -It was in vain that my Uncle Spencer assured him that he would not die, -that there was nothing serious the matter with him. Alphonse stuck to -his assertion. - -“In eight days,” he said, “I shall be dead.” - -And shutting his eyes, he was silent. - -The doctor, when he came next day, diagnosed acute lobar pneumonia. -Through the oppression of his fever, Alphonse smiled at my Uncle -Spencer with a look almost of triumph. That night he was delirious and -began to rave in a language my Uncle Spencer could not understand. - -My Uncle Spencer listened in the darkness to the Dravidian’s -incomprehensible chattering; and all at once, with a shudder, with -a sense of terror he felt--in the presence of this man of another -race, speaking in an unknown tongue words uttered out of obscure -depths for no man’s hearing and which even his own soul did not -hear or understand--he felt unutterably alone. He was imprisoned -within himself. He was an island surrounded on every side by wide -and bottomless solitudes. And while the Indian chattered away, now -softly, persuasively, cajolingly, now with bursts of anger, now loudly -laughing, he thought of all the millions and millions of men and women -in the world--all alone, all solitary and confined. He thought of -friends, incomprehensible to one another and opaque after a lifetime -of companionship; he thought of lovers remote in one another’s arms. -And the hopelessness of his passion revealed itself to him--the -hopelessness of every passion, since every passion aims at attaining -to what, in the nature of things, is unattainable: the fusion and -interpenetration of two lives, two separate histories, two solitary and -for ever sundered individualities. - -The Indian roared with laughter. - -But the unattainableness of a thing was never a reason for ceasing to -desire it. On the contrary, it tends to increase and even to create -desire. Thus our love for those we know, and our longing to be with -them, are often increased by their death. And the impossibility of ever -communicating with him again will actually create out of indifference -an affection, a respect and esteem for some one whose company in -life seemed rather tedious than desirable. So, for the lover, the -realisation that what he desires is unattainable, and that every -possession will reveal yet vaster tracts of what is unpossessed and -unpossessable, is not a deterrent, is not an antidote to his passion; -but serves rather to exacerbate his desire, sharpening it to a kind of -desperation, and at the same time making the object of his desire seem -more than ever precious. - -The Indian chattered on, a ghost among the ghosts of his imagination, -remote as though he were speaking from another world. And Emmy--was -she not as far away, as unattainable? And being remote, she was the -more desirable; being mysterious, she was the more lovely. A more -brutal and experienced man than my Uncle Spencer would have devoted -all his energies to seducing the young woman, knowing that after a -time the satisfaction of his physical desire would probably make him -cease to take any interest in her soul or her history. But physical -possession was the last thing my Uncle Spencer thought of, and his love -had taken the form of an immense desire for the impossible union, not -of bodies, but of minds and lives. True, what he had so far learned -about her mind and history was not particularly encouraging. But for -my Uncle Spencer her silliness, love of pleasure, and frivolity were -strange and mysterious qualities--for he had known few women in his -life and none, before, like Emmy Wendle--rather lovely still in their -unfamiliarity, and if recognised as at all bad, excused as being the -symptoms of a charming childishness and an unfortunate upbringing. Her -solicitude, that first day, about poor Alphonse convinced him that she -was fundamentally good-hearted; and if she had proved herself cruel -since then towards himself, that was more by mistake and because of -surrounding bad influences than from natural malignity. And, then, -there was the way in which she sang the “Brabançonne.” It was noble, -it was moving. To be able to sing like that one must have a fine and -beautiful character. In thinking like this, my Uncle Spencer was -forgetting that no characteristic is incompatible with any other, that -any deadly sin may be found in company with any cardinal virtue, even -the apparently contradictory virtue. But unfortunately that is the -kind of wisdom which one invariably forgets precisely at the moment -when it might be of use to one. One learns it almost in the cradle; at -any rate, I remember at my preparatory school reading, in Professor -Oman’s _Shorter History of England_, of “the heroic though profligate -Duke of Ormond,” and of a great English king who was none the less, “a -stuttering, lolling pedant with a tongue too big for his mouth.” But -though one knows well enough in theory that a duke can be licentious -as well as brave, that majestic wisdom may be combined with pedantry -and defective speech, yet in practice one continues to believe that -an attractive woman is kind because she is charming, and virtuous -because she rejects your first advances; without reflecting that the -grace of her manner may thinly conceal an unyielding ruthlessness and -selfishness, while the coyness in face of insistence may be a mere -device for still more completely ensnaring the victim. It is only in -the presence of unsympathetic persons that we remember that the most -odious actions are compatible with the most genuinely noble sentiments, -and that a man or woman who does one thing, while professing another, -is not necessarily a conscious liar or hypocrite. If only we could -steadfastly bear this knowledge in mind when we are with persons whom -we find sympathetic! - -Desiring Emmy as passionately as he did, my Uncle Spencer would not -have had much difficulty in persuading himself--even in spite of her -recent cruelty towards him--that the spirit with which he longed to -unite his own was on the whole a beautiful and interesting spirit; -would indeed have had no difficulty at all, had it not been for that -unfortunate confession of hers. This, though it flattered him as -a token of her confidence in his discretion and wisdom, had sadly -disturbed him and was continuing to disturb him more and more. For out -of all her history--the history in which it was his longing to make -himself entirely at home as though he had actually lived through it -with her--this episode was almost the only chapter he knew. Like a -thin ray of light her confession had picked it out for him, from the -surrounding obscurity. And what an episode! The more my Uncle Spencer -reflected on it, the more he found it distressing. - -The brutal practical man my Uncle Spencer was not would have taken -this incident from the past as being of good augury for his own future -prospects. But since he did not desire, consciously at any rate, the -sort of success it augured, the knowledge of this incident brought him -an unadulterated distress. For however much my Uncle Spencer might -insist in his own mind on the guiltiness of external circumstance and -of the other party, he could not entirely exonerate Emmy. Nor could -he pretend that she had not in some sort, if only physically, taken -part in her own lapse. And perhaps she had participated willingly. And -even if she had not, the thought that she had been defiled, however -reluctantly, by the obscene contact was unspeakably painful to him. -And while the Indian raved, and through the long, dark silences -during which there was no sound but the unnaturally quick and shallow -breathing, and sometimes a moan, and sometimes a dry cough, my Uncle -Spencer painfully thought and thought; and his mind oscillated between -a conviction of her purity and the fear that perhaps she was utterly -corrupt. He saw in his imagination, now her childish face and the rapt -expression upon it while she sang the “Brabançonne,” now the sweet, -solicitous look while she commiserated on poor Alphonse’s unhappiness, -and then, a moment later, endless embracements, kisses brutal and -innumerable. And always he loved her. - -Next day the Dravidian’s fever was still high. The doctor, when he -came, announced that red hepatisation of both lungs was already setting -in. It was a grave case which ought to be at the hospital; but he had -no authority to have the man sent there. He ordered tepid spongings to -reduce the fever. - -In the face of the very defective sanitary arrangements of the prison, -my Uncle Spencer did his best. He had a crowd of willing assistants; -everybody was anxious to do something helpful. Nobody was more anxious -than Emmy Wendle. The forced inaction of prison life, even when it was -relieved by the jokes of the cheerful ones, by theatrical discussions -and the facetious gallantry of the bank clerk and the journalist, was -disagreeable to her. And the prospect of being able to do something, -and particularly (since it was war-time, after all) of doing something -useful and charitable, was welcomed by her with a real satisfaction. -She sat by the Dravidian’s mattress, talked to him, gave him what -he asked for, did the disagreeable jobs that have to be done in the -sick-room, ordered my Uncle Spencer and the others about, and seemed -completely happy. - -For his part, my Uncle Spencer was delighted by what he regarded as a -reversion to her true self. There could be no doubt about it now: Emmy -was good, was kind, a ministering angel, and therefore (in spite of the -professor’s heroic though profligate duke), therefore pure, therefore -interesting, therefore worthy of all the love he could give her. He -forgot the confession, or at least he ceased to attach importance to -it; he was no longer haunted by the odious images which too much -brooding over it evoked in his mind. What convinced him, perhaps, -better than everything of her essential goodness, was the fact that -she was once more kind to him. Her young energy, fully occupied in -practical work (which was not, however, sufficiently trying to overtax -the strength or set the nerves on edge), did not have to vent itself -in laughter and mockery, as it had done when she recovered from the -mood of melancholy which had depressed it during the first days of her -imprisonment. They were fellow-workers now. - -The Dravidian, meanwhile, grew worse and worse, weaker and weaker every -day. The doctor was positively irritated. - -“The man has no business to be so ill as he is,” he grumbled. “He’s not -old, he isn’t an alcoholic or a syphilitic, his constitution is sound -enough. He’s just letting himself die. At this rate he’ll never get -past the crisis.” - -At this piece of news Emmy became grave. She had never seen death at -close quarters--a defect in her education which my Uncle Spencer, if -he had had the bringing up of her, would have remedied. For death was -one of those Realities of Life with which, he thought, every one ought -to make the earliest possible acquaintance. Love, on the other hand, -was not one of the desirable Realities. It never occurred to him to ask -himself the reason for this invidious distinction. Indeed, there was no -reason; it just was so. - -“Tell me, Uncle Spenny,” she whispered, when the doctor had gone, “what -_does_ really happen to people when they die?” - -Charmed by this sign of Emmy’s renewed interest in serious themes, my -Uncle Spencer explained to her what Alphonse at any rate thought would -happen to him. - -At midday, over the repeated cabbage soup and the horrible boiled meat, -the bank clerk, with characteristically tasteless facetiousness, asked, -“How’s our one little nigger boy?” - -Emmy looked at him with disgust and anger. “I think you’re perfectly -horrible,” she said. And, lowering her voice reverently, she went on, -“The doctor says he’s going to die.” - -The bank clerk was unabashed. “Oh, he’s going to kick the bucket, is -he? Poor old blacky!” - -Emmy made no answer; there was a general silence. It was as though -somebody had started to make an unseemly noise in a church. - -Afterwards, in the privacy of the little room, where, among the filing -cabinets and the dusty papers, the Dravidian lay contentedly dying, -Emmy turned to my Uncle Spencer and said, “You know, Uncle Spenny, I -think you’re a wonderfully decent sort. I do, really.” - -My Uncle Spencer was too much overcome to say anything but “Emmy, -Emmy,” two or three times. He took her hand and, very gently, kissed it. - -That afternoon they went on talking about all the things that might -conceivably happen after one were dead. Emmy told my Uncle Spencer all -that she had thought when she got the telegram--two years ago it was, -and she was working in a hall at Glasgow, one of her first engagements, -too--saying that her father had suddenly died. He drank too much, her -father did; and he wasn’t kind to mother when he wasn’t himself. But -she had been very fond of him, all the same; and when that telegram -came she wondered and wondered.... - -My Uncle Spencer listened attentively, happy in having this new glimpse -of her past; he forgot the other incident, which the beam of her -confession had illumined for him. - -Late that evening, after having lain for a long time quite still, as -though he were asleep, Alphonse suddenly stirred, opened his large -black eyes, and began to talk, at first in the incomprehensible -language which came from him in delirium, then, when he realised that -his listeners did not understand him, more slowly and in his strange -pidgin-French. - -“I have seen everything just now,” he said--“everything.” - -“But what?” they asked. - -“All that is going to happen. I have seen that this war will last a -long time--a long time. More than fifty months.” And he prophesied -enormous calamities. - -My Uncle Spencer, who knew for certain that the war couldn’t possibly -last more than three months, was incredulous. But Emmy, who had no -preconceived ideas on war and a strong faith in oracles, stopped him -impatiently when he wanted to bring the Dravidian to silence. - -“Tell me,” she said, “what’s going to happen to us.” She had very -little interest in the fate of civilisation. - -“I am going to die,” Alphonse began. - -My Uncle Spencer made certain deprecating little noises. “No, no,” he -protested. - -The Indian paid no attention to him. “I am going to die,” he repeated. -“And you,” he said to my Uncle Spencer, “you will be let go and then -again be put into prison. But not here. Somewhere else. A long way -off. For a long time--a very long time. You will be very unhappy.” He -shook his head. “I cannot help it; even though you have been so good -to me. That is what I see. But the man who deceived me”--he meant the -journalist--“he will very soon be set free and he will live in freedom, -all the time. In such freedom as there will be here. And he who sits -in the chair will at last go back to his own country. And he who sings -will go free like the man who deceived me. And the small grey man will -be sent to another prison in another country. And the fat woman with -a red mouth will be sent to another country; but she will not be in -prison. I think she will be married there--again.” The portraits were -recognisably those of the Russian countess and the professor of Latin. -“And the man with carbuncles on his face” (this was the bank clerk, no -doubt) “will be sent to another prison in another country; and there he -will die. And the woman in black who is so sad....” - -But Emmy could bear to wait no longer. “What about me?” she asked. -“Tell me what you see about me.” - -The Dravidian closed his eyes and was silent for a moment. “You will be -set free,” he said. “Soon. And some day,” he went on, “you will be the -wife of this good man.” He indicated my Uncle Spencer. “But not yet; -not for a long time; till all this strife is at an end. You will have -children ... good fortune....” His words grew fainter; once more he -closed his eyes. He sighed as though utterly exhausted. “Beware of fair -strangers,” he murmured, reverting to the old familiar formula. He said -no more. - -Emmy and my Uncle Spencer were left looking at one another in silence. - -“What do you think, Uncle Spenny?” she whispered at last. “Is it true?” - -Two hours later the Indian was dead. - -My Uncle Spencer slept that night, or rather did not sleep, in the -living-room. The corpse lay alone among the archives. The words of the -Indian continued to echo and re-echo in his mind: “Some day you will -be the wife of this kind man.” Perhaps, he thought, on the verge of -death, the spirit already begins to try its wings in the new world. -Perhaps already it has begun to know the fringes, as it were, of -secrets that are to be revealed to it. To my Uncle Spencer there was -nothing repugnant in the idea. There was room in his universe for what -are commonly and perhaps wrongly known as miracles. Perhaps the words -were a promise, a statement of future fact. Lying on his back, his eyes -fixed on the dark blue starry sky beyond the open window, he meditated -on that problem of fixed fate and free will, with which the devils in -Milton’s hell wasted their infernal leisure. And like a refrain the -words repeated themselves: “Some day you will be the wife of this good -man.” The stars moved slowly across the opening of the window. He did -not sleep. - -In the morning an order came for the release of the journalist and the -opera singer. Joyfully they said good-bye to their fellow-prisoners; -the door closed behind them. Emmy turned to my Uncle Spencer with a -look almost of terror in her eyes; the Indian’s prophesies were already -beginning to come true. But they said nothing to one another. Two days -later the bank clerk left for an internment camp in Germany. - -And then, one morning, my Uncle Spencer himself was sent for. The -order came quite suddenly; they left him no time to take leave. He was -examined by the competent authority, found harmless, and permitted to -return to Longres, where, however, he was to live under supervision. -They did not even allow him to go back to the prison and say good-bye; -a soldier brought his effects from the Ministry; he was put on to the -train, with orders to report to the commandant at Longres as soon as he -arrived. - -Antonieke received her master with tears of joy. But my Uncle Spencer -took no pleasure in his recovered freedom. Emmy Wendle was still a -prisoner. True, she would soon be set free; but then, he now realised -to his horror, she did not know his address. He had been released at -such startlingly short notice that he had had no time to arrange with -her about the possibilities of future meetings; he had not even seen -her on the morning of his liberation. - -Two days after his return to Longres, he asked permission from the -commandant, to whom he had to report himself every day, whether he -might go to Brussels. He was asked why; my Uncle Spencer answered -truthfully that it was to visit a friend in the prison from which he -himself had just been released. Permission was at once refused. - -My Uncle Spencer went to Brussels all the same. The sentry at the door -of the prison arrested him as a suspicious person. He was sent back -to Longres; the commandant talked to him menacingly. The next week, -my Uncle Spencer tried again. It was sheer insanity, he knew; but -doing something idiotic was preferable to doing nothing. He was again -arrested. - -This time they condemned him to internment in a camp in Germany. The -Indian’s prophecies were being fulfilled with a remarkable accuracy. -And the war did last for more than fifty months. And the carbuncular -bank clerk, whom he found again in the internment camp, did, in fact, -die.... - -What made him confide in me--me, whom he had known as a child and -almost fathered--I do not know. Or perhaps I do know. Perhaps it was -because he felt that I should be more competent to advise him on this -sort of subject than his brother--my father--or old Mr. Bullinger, the -Dante scholar, or any other of his friends. He would have felt ashamed, -perhaps, to talk to them about this sort of thing. And he would have -felt, too, that perhaps it wouldn’t be much good talking to them, and -that I, in spite of my youth, or even because of it, might actually be -more experienced in these matters than they. Neither my father nor Mr. -Bullinger, I imagine, knew very much about male impersonators. - -At any rate, whatever the cause, it was to me that he talked about -the whole affair, that spring of 1919, when he was staying with us in -Sussex, recuperating after those dreary months of confinement. We used -to go for long walks together, across the open downs, or between the -grey pillars of the beechwoods; and painfully overcoming reluctance -after reluctance, proceeding from confidence to more intimate -confidence, my Uncle Spencer told me the whole story. - -The story involved interminable discussions by the way. For we had -to decide, first of all, whether there was any possible scientific -explanation of prophecy; whether there was such a thing as an absolute -future waiting to be lived through. And at much greater length, even, -we had to argue about women--whether they were really “like that” -(and into what depths of cynicism my poor Uncle Spencer had learned, -during the long, embittered meditations of his prison days and nights, -to plunge and wallow!), or whether they were like the angels he had -desired them to be. - -But more important than to speculate on Emmy’s possible character -was to discover where she now was. More urgent than to wonder if -prophecy could conceivably be reliable, was to take steps to fulfil -this particular prophecy. For weeks my Uncle Spencer and I played at -detectives. - -I have often fancied that we must have looked, when we made our -inquiries together, uncommonly like the traditional pair in the -stories--my Uncle Spencer, the bright-eyed, cadaverous, sharp-featured -genius, the Holmes of the combination; and I, moon-faced and chubby, -a very youthful Watson. But, as a matter of fact, it was I, if I may -say so without fatuity, who was the real Holmes of the two. My Uncle -Spencer was too innocent of the world to know how to set about looking -for a vanished mistress; just as he was too innocent of science to -know how or where to find out what there was to be discovered on any -abstracter subject. - -It was I who took him to the British Museum and made him look up all -the back numbers of the theatrical papers to see when Emmy had last -advertised her desire to be engaged. It was I, the apparent Watson, -who thought of the theatrical agencies and the stage doors of all the -suburban music-halls. Sleuth-like in aspect, innocent at heart, my -Uncle Spencer followed, marvelling at my familiarity with the ways of -the strange world. - -But I must temper my boasting by the confession that we were always -entirely unsuccessful. No agency had heard of Emmy Wendle since -1914. Her card had appeared in no paper. The porters of music-halls -remembered her, but only as something antediluvian. “Emmy Wendle? -Oh yes, Emmy Wendle....” And scratching their heads, they strove -by a mental effort to pass from the mere name to the person, like -palæontologists reconstructing the whole diplodocus from the single -fossil bone. - -Two or three times we were even given addresses. But the landladies of -the lodging-houses where she had stayed did not even remember her; and -the old aunt at Ealing, from whom we joyfully hoped so much, had washed -her hands of Emmy two or three months before the war began. And the -conviction she then had that Emmy was a bad girl was only intensified -and confirmed by our impertinent inquiries. No, she knew nothing -about Emmy Wendle, now, and didn’t want to know. And she’d trouble us -to leave respectable people like herself in peace. And, defeated, we -climbed back into our taxi, while the inhabitants of the squalid little -street peered out at us and our vehicle, as though we had been visitors -from another planet, and the metropolitan hackney carriage a fairy -chariot. - -“Perhaps she’s dead,” said my Uncle Spencer softly, after a long -silence. - -“Perhaps,” I said brutally, “she’s found a husband and retired into -private life.” - -My Uncle Spencer shut his eyes, sighed, and drew his hand across his -forehead. What dreadful images filled his mind? He would almost have -preferred that she should be dead. - -“And yet the Indian,” he murmured, “he was always right....” - -And perhaps he may still be right in this. Who knows? - - - - -LITTLE MEXICAN - - -The shopkeeper called it, affectionately, a little Mexican; and -little, for a Mexican, it may have been. But in this Europe of ours, -where space is limited and the scale smaller, the little Mexican was -portentous, a giant among hats. It hung there, in the centre of the -hatter’s window, a huge black aureole, fit for a king among devils. -But no devil walked that morning through the streets of Ravenna; only -the mildest of literary tourists. Those were the days when very large -hats seemed in my eyes very desirable, and it was on my head, all -unworthy, that the aureole of darkness was destined to descend. On my -head; for at the first sight of the hat, I had run into the shop, tried -it on, found the size correct, and bought it, without bargaining, at a -foreigner’s price. I left the shop with the little Mexican on my head, -and my shadow on the pavements of Ravenna was like the shadow of an -umbrella pine. - -The little Mexican is very old now, and moth-eaten and green. But I -still preserve it. Occasionally, for old associations’ sake, I even -wear it. Dear Mexican! it represents for me a whole epoch of my life. -It stands for emancipation and the first year at the university. -It symbolises the discovery of how many new things, new ideas, new -sensations!--of French literature, of alcohol, of modern painting, -of Nietzsche, of love, of metaphysics, of Mallarmé, of syndicalism, -and of goodness knows what else. But, above all, I prize it because -it reminds me of my first discovery of Italy. It re-evokes for me, my -little Mexican, all the thrills and astonishments and virgin raptures -of that first Italian tour in the early autumn of 1912. Urbino, Rimini, -Ravenna, Ferrara, Modena, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice--my -first impressions of all these fabulous names lie, like a hatful of -jewels, in the crown of the little Mexican. Shall I ever have the heart -to throw it away? - -And then, of course, there is Tirabassi. Without the little Mexican -I should never have made Tirabassi’s acquaintance. He would never -have taken me, in my small unemphatic English hat, for a painter. And -I should never, in consequence, have seen the frescoes, never have -talked with the old Count, never heard of the Colombella. Never.... -When I think of that, the little Mexican seems to me more than ever -precious. - -It was, of course, very typical of Tirabassi to suppose, from the size -of my hat, that I must be a painter. He had a neat military mind that -refused to accept the vague disorder of the world. He was for ever -labelling and pigeon-holing and limiting his universe; and when the -classified objects broke out of their pigeon-holes and tore the labels -from off their necks, Tirabassi was puzzled and annoyed. In any case, -it was obvious to him from the first moment he saw me in the restaurant -at Padua, that I must be a painter. All painters wear large black -hats. I was wearing the little Mexican. Ergo, I was a painter. It was -syllogistic, unescapable. - -He sent the waiter to ask me whether I would do him the honour of -taking coffee with him at his table. For the first moment, I must -confess, I was a little alarmed. This dashing young lieutenant of -cavalry--what on earth could he want with me? The most absurd fancies -filled my mind: I had committed, all unconsciously, some frightful -solecism; I had trodden on the toes of the lieutenant’s honour, and he -was about to challenge me to a duel. The choice of weapons, I rapidly -reflected, would be mine. But what--oh, what on earth should I choose? -Swords? I had never learnt to fence. Pistols? I had once fired six -shots at a bottle, and missed it with every shot. Would there be time -to write one or two letters, make some sort of a testament about my -personal belongings? From this anguish of mind the waiter, returning a -moment later with my fried octopus, delivered me. The Lieutenant Count, -he explained in a whisper of confidence, had a villa on the Brenta, -not far from Strà. A villa--he spread out his hands in a generous -gesture--full of paintings. Full, full, full. And he was anxious that -I should see them, because he felt sure that I was interested in -paintings. Oh, of course--I smiled rather foolishly, for the waiter -seemed to expect some sort of confirmatory interpolation from me--I -_was_ interested in paintings; very much. In that case, said the -waiter, the Count would be delighted to take me to see them. He left -me, still puzzled, but vastly relieved. At any rate, I was not being -called upon to make the very embarrassing choice between swords and -pistols. - -Surreptitiously, whenever he was not looking in my direction, I -examined the Lieutenant Count. His appearance was not typically Italian -(but then what is a typical Italian?). He was not, that is to say, -blue-jowled, beady-eyed, swarthy, and aquiline. On the contrary, he had -pale ginger hair, grey eyes, a snub nose, and a freckled complexion. I -knew plenty of young Englishmen who might have been Count Tirabassi’s -less vivacious brothers. - -He received me, when the time came, with the most exquisite courtesy, -apologising for the unceremonious way in which he had made my -acquaintance. “But as I felt sure,” he said, “that you were interested -in art, I thought you would forgive me for the sake of what I have to -show you.” I couldn’t help wondering why the Count felt so certain -about my interest in art. It was only later, when we left the -restaurant together, that I understood; for, as I put on my hat to go, -he pointed with a smile at the little Mexican. “One can see,” he said, -“that you are a real artist.” I was left at a loss, not knowing what to -answer. - -After we had exchanged the preliminary courtesies, the Lieutenant -plunged at once, entirely for my benefit I could see, into a -conversation about art. “Nowadays,” he said, “we Italians don’t take -enough interest in art. In a modern country, you see....” He shrugged -his shoulders, leaving the sentence unfinished. “But I don’t think -that’s right. I adore art. Simply adore it. When I see foreigners -going round with their guide-books, standing for half an hour in front -of one picture, looking first at the book, then at the picture”--and -here he gave the most brilliantly finished imitation of an Anglican -clergyman conscientiously “doing” the Mantegna chapel: first a glance -at the imaginary guide-book held open in his two hands, then, with -the movement of a chicken that drinks, a lifting of the face towards -an imaginary fresco, a long stare between puckered eyelids, a falling -open of the mouth, and finally a turning back of the eyes towards the -inspired pages of Baedeker--“when I see them, I feel ashamed for us -Italians.” The Count spoke very earnestly, feeling, no doubt, that his -talent for mimicry had carried him a little too far. “And if they stand -for half an hour looking at the thing, I go and stand there for an -hour. That’s the way to understand great art. The only way.” He leaned -back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “Unfortunately,” he added, -after a moment, “one hasn’t got much time.” - -I agreed with him. “When one can only get to Italy for a month at a -stretch, like myself....” - -“Ah, but if only I could travel about the world like you!” The Count -sighed. “But here I am, cooped up in this wretched town. And when I -think of the enormous capital that’s hanging there on the walls of my -house....” He checked himself, shaking his head. Then, changing his -tone, he began to tell me about his house on the Brenta. It sounded -altogether too good to be true. Carpioni, yes--I could believe in -frescoes by Carpioni; almost any one might have those. But a hall by -Veronese, but rooms by Tiepolo, all in the same house--that sounded -incredible. I could not help believing that the Count’s enthusiasm for -art had carried him away. But, in any case, to-morrow I should be able -to judge for myself; the Count had invited me to lunch with him. - -We left the restaurant. Still embarrassed by the Count’s references -to my little Mexican, I walked by his side in silence up the arcaded -street. - -“I am going to introduce you to my father,” said the Count. “He, too, -adores the arts.” - -More than ever I felt myself a swindler. I had wriggled into the -Count’s confidence on false pretences; my hat was a lie. I felt that -I ought to do something to clear up the misunderstanding. But the -Count was so busy complaining to me about his father that I had no -opportunity to put in my little explanation. I didn’t listen very -attentively, I confess, to what he was saying. In the course of a year -at Oxford, I had heard so many young men complain of their fathers. Not -enough money, too much interference--the story was a stale one. And -at that time, moreover, I was taking a very high philosophical line -about this sort of thing. I was pretending that people didn’t interest -me--only books, only ideas. What a fool one can make of oneself at that -age! - -“_Eccoci_,” said the Count. We halted in front of the Café Pedrochi. -“He always comes here for his coffee.” - -And where else, indeed, should he come for his coffee? Who, in Padua, -would go anywhere else? - -We found him sitting out on the terrace at the farther end of the -building. I had never, I thought, seen a jollier-looking old gentleman. -The old Count had a red weather-beaten face, with white moustaches -bristling gallantly upwards and a white imperial in the grand -Risorgimento manner of Victor Emmanuel the Second. Under the white -tufty eyebrows, and set in the midst of a webwork of fine wrinkles, -the eyes were brown and bright like a robin’s. His long nose looked, -somehow, more practically useful than the ordinary human nose, as -though made for fine judicial sniffing, for delicate burrowing and -probing. Thick set and strong, he sat there solidly in his chair, his -knees apart, his hands clasped over the knob of his cane, carrying -his paunch with dignity, nobly I had almost said, before him. He was -dressed all in white linen--for the weather was still very hot--and his -wide grey hat was tilted rakishly forward over his left eye. It gave -one a real satisfaction to look at him; he was so complete, so perfect -in his kind. - -The young Count introduced me. “This is an English gentleman. -Signor....” He turned to me for the name. - -“Oosselay,” I said, having learnt by experience that that was as near -as any Italian could be expected to get to it. - -“Signor Oosselay,” the young Count continued, “is an artist.” - -“Well, not exactly an artist,” I was beginning; but he would not let me -make an end. - -“He is also very much interested in ancient art,” he continued. -“To-morrow I am taking him to Dolo to see the frescoes. I know he will -like them.” - -We sat down at the old Count’s table; critically he looked at me and -nodded. “_Benissimo_,” he said, and then added, “Let’s hope you’ll be -able to do something to help us sell the things.” - -This was startling. I looked in some perplexity towards the young -Count. He was frowning angrily at his father. The old gentleman had -evidently said the wrong thing; he had spoken, I guessed, too soon. At -any rate, he took his son’s hint and glided off serenely on another -tack. - -“The fervid phantasy of Tiepolo,” he began rotundly, “the cool, -unimpassioned splendour of Veronese--at Dolo you will see them -contrasted.” I listened attentively, while the old gentleman thundered -on in what was evidently a set speech. When it was over, the young -Count got up; he had to be back at the barracks by half-past two. I -too made as though to go; but the old man laid his hand on my arm. -“Stay with me,” he said. “I enjoy your conversation infinitely.” And -as he himself had hardly ceased speaking for one moment since first I -set eyes on him, I could well believe it. With the gesture of a lady -lifting her skirts out of the mud (and those were the days when skirts -still had to be lifted) the young Count picked up his trailing sabre -and swaggered off, very military, very brilliant and glittering, like -a soldier on the stage, into the sunlight, out of sight. - -The old man’s bird-bright eyes followed him as he went. “A good -boy, Fabio,” he said, turning back to me at last, “a good son.” He -spoke affectionately; but there was a hint, I thought, in his smile, -in the tone of his voice, a hint of amusement, of irony. It was as -though he were adding, by implication, “But good boys, after all, -are fools to be so good.” I found myself, in spite of my affectation -of detachment, extremely curious about this old gentleman. And he, -for his part, was not the man to allow any one in his company to -remain for long in splendid isolation. He insisted on my taking an -interest in his affairs. He told me all about them--or at any rate all -about some of them--pouring out his confidences with an astonishing -absence of reserve. Next to the intimate and trusted friend, the -perfect stranger is the best of all possible confidants. There is -no commercial traveller, of moderately sympathetic appearance, who -has not, in the course of his days in the train, his evenings in the -parlours of commercial hotels, been made the repository of a thousand -intimate secrets--even in England. And in Italy--goodness knows -what commercial travellers get told in Italy. Even I, a foreigner, -speaking the language badly, and not very skilful anyhow in conducting -a conversation with strangers, have heard queer things in the -second-class carriages of Italian trains.... Here, too, on Pedrochi’s -terrace I was to hear queer things. A door was to be left ajar, and -through the crack I was to have a peep at unfamiliar lives. - -“What I should do without him,” the old gentleman continued, “I really -don’t know. The way he manages the estate is simply wonderful.” And -he went rambling off into long digressions about the stupidity of -peasants, the incompetence and dishonesty of bailiffs, the badness -of the weather, the spread of phylloxera, the high price of manure. -The upshot of it all was that, since Fabio had taken over the estate, -everything had gone well; even the weather had improved. “It’s such a -relief,” the Count concluded, “to feel that I have some one in charge -on whom I can rely, some one I can trust, absolutely. It leaves me -free to devote my mind to more important things.” - -I could not help wondering what the important things were; but it would -have been impertinent, I felt, to ask. Instead, I put a more practical -question. “But what will happen,” I asked, “when your son’s military -duties take him away from Padua?” - -The old Count gave me a wink and laid his forefinger, very -deliberately, to the side of his long nose. The gesture was rich with -significance. “They never will,” he said. “It’s all arranged. A little -_combinazione_, you know. I have a friend in the Ministry. His military -duties will always keep him in Padua.” He winked again and smiled. - -I could not help laughing, and the old Count joined in with a joyous -ha-ha that was the expression of a profound satisfaction, that was, as -it were, a burst of self-applause. He was evidently proud of his little -_combinazione_. But he was prouder still of the other combination, -about which he now confidentially leaned across the table to tell me. -It was decidedly the subtler of the two. - -“And it’s not merely his military duties,” he said, wagging at me the -thick, yellow-nailed forefinger which he had laid against his nose, -“it’s not merely his military duties that’ll keep the boy in Padua. -It’s his domestic duties. He’s married. I married him.” He leaned back -in his chair, and surveyed me, smiling. The little wrinkles round his -eyes seemed to be alive. “That boy, I said to myself, must settle down. -He must have a nest, or else he’ll fly away. He must have roots, or -else he’ll run. And his poor old father will be left in the lurch. -He’s young, I thought, but he must marry. He _must_ marry. At once.” -And the old gentleman made great play with his forefinger. It was -a long story. His old friend, the Avvocato Monaldeschi, had twelve -children--three boys and nine girls. (And here there were digressions -about the Avvocato and the size of good Catholic families.) The -eldest girl was just the right age for Fabio. No money, of course; -but a good girl and pretty, and very well brought up and religious. -Religious--that was very important, for it was essential that Fabio -should have a large family--to keep him more effectually rooted, the -old Count explained--and with these modern young women brought up -outside the Church one could never be certain of children. Yes, her -religion was most important; he had looked into that very carefully -before selecting her. Well, the next thing, of course, was that Fabio -should be induced to select her. It had been a matter of bringing -the horse to water _and_ making him drink. Oh, a most difficult and -delicate business! For Fabio prided himself on his independence; and he -was obstinate, like a mule. Nobody should interfere with his affairs, -nobody should make him do what he didn’t want to. And he was so touchy, -he was so pig-headed that often he wouldn’t do what he really wanted, -merely because somebody else had suggested that he ought to do it. So -I could imagine--the old Count spread out his hands before me--just -how difficult and delicate a business it had been. Only a consummate -diplomat could have succeeded. He did it by throwing them together -a great deal and talking, meanwhile, about the rashness of early -marriages, the uselessness of poor wives, the undesirability of wives -not of noble birth. It worked like a charm; within four months, Fabio -was engaged; two months later he was married, and ten months after that -he had a son and heir. And now he was fixed, rooted. The old gentleman -chuckled, and I could fancy that I was listening to the chuckling -of some old white-haired tyrant of the quattrocento, congratulating -himself on the success of some peculiarly ingenious stroke of policy--a -rich city induced to surrender itself by fraud, a dangerous rival lured -by fair words into a cage and trapped. Poor Fabio, I thought; and also, -what a waste of talent! - -Yes, the old Count went on, now he would never go. He was not like his -younger brother, Lucio. Lucio was a rogue, _furbo_, sly; he had no -conscience. But Fabio had ideas about duty, and lived up to them. Once -he had engaged himself, he would stick to his engagements, obstinately, -with all the mulishness of his character. Well, now he lived on the -estate, in the big painted house at Dolo. Three days a week he came -into Padua for his military duties, and the rest of his time he devoted -to the estate. It brought in, now, more than it had ever done before. -But goodness knew, the old man complained, that was little enough. -Bread and oil, and wine and milk, and chickens and beef--there was -plenty of those and to spare. Fabio could have a family of fifty and -they would never starve. But ready money--there wasn’t much of that. -“In England,” the Count concluded, “you are rich. But we Italians....” -He shook his head. - -I spent the next quarter of an hour trying to persuade him that we were -not all millionaires. But in vain. My statistics, based on somewhat -imperfect memories of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, carried no conviction. -In the end I gave it up. - -The next morning Fabio appeared at the door of my hotel in a large, -very old and very noisy Fiat. It was the family machine-of-all-work, -bruised, scratched, and dirtied by years of service. Fabio drove it -with a brilliant and easy recklessness. We rushed through the town, -swerving from one side of the narrow street to the other, with a -disregard for the rules of the road which, in a pedantic country like -England, would have meant at the least a five-pound fine and an -endorsed licence. But here the Carabiniers, walking gravely in couples -under the arcades, let us pass without comment. Right or left--after -all, what did it matter? - -“Why do you keep the silencer out?” I shouted through the frightful -clamour of the engine. - -Fabio slightly shrugged his shoulders. “_È piu allegro così_,” he -answered. - -I said no more. From a member of this hardy race which likes noise, -which enjoys discomfort, a nerve-ridden Englishman could hardly hope to -get much sympathy. - -We were soon out of the town. Trailing behind us a seething white -wake of dust and with the engine rattling off its explosions like a -battery of machine-guns, we raced along the Fusina road. On either hand -extended the cultivated plain. The road was bordered by ditches, and -on the banks beyond, instead of hedges, stood rows of little pollards, -with grape-laden vines festooned from tree to tree. White with the -dust, tendrils, fruit, and leaves hung there like so much goldsmith’s -work sculptured in frosted metal, hung like the swags of fruit and -foliage looped round the flanks of a great silver bowl. We hurried -on. Soon, on our right hand, we had the Brenta, sunk deep between the -banks of its canal. And now we were at Strà. Through gateways rich -with fantastic stucco, down tunnels of undeciduous shade, we looked -in a series of momentary glimpses into the heart of the park. And now -for an instant the statues on the roof of the villa beckoned against -the sky and were passed. On we went. To right and left, on either bank -of the river, I got every now and then a glimpse of some enchanting -mansion, gay and brilliant even in decay. Little baroque garden houses -peeped at me over walls; and through great gates, at the end of powdery -cypress avenues, half humorously, it seemed, the magniloquent and -frivolous façades soared up in defiance of all the rules. I should have -liked to do the journey slowly, to stop here and there, to look, to -savour at leisure; but Fabio disdained to travel at anything less than -fifty kilometres to the hour, and I had to be content with momentary -and precarious glimpses. It was in these villas, I reflected, as -we bumped along at the head of our desolation of white dust, that -Casanova used to come and spend the summer; seducing the chamber-maids, -taking advantage of terrified marchionesses in _calèches_ during -thunderstorms, bamboozling soft-witted old senators of Venice with -his fortune-telling and black magic. Gorgeous and happy scoundrel! In -spite of my professed detachment, I envied him. And, indeed, what was -that famous detachment but a disguised expression of the envy which -the successes and audacities of a Casanova must necessarily arouse in -every timid and diffident mind? If I lived in splendid isolation, it -was because I lacked the audacity to make war--even to make entangling -alliances. I was absorbed in these pleasing self-condemnatory thoughts, -when the car slowed down and came to a standstill in front of a huge -imposing gate. Fabio hooted impatiently on his horn; there was a scurry -of footsteps, the sound of bolts being drawn, and the gate swung -open. At the end of a short drive, very large and grave, very chaste -and austere, stood the house. It was considerably older than most of -the other villas I had seen in glimpses on our way. There was no -frivolousness in its façade, no irregular grandiloquence. A great block -of stuccoed brick; a central portico approached by steps and topped -with a massive pediment; a row of rigid statues on the balustrade above -the cornice. It was correctly, coldly even, Palladian. Fabio brought -the car to a halt in front of the porch. We got out. At the top of the -steps stood a young woman with a red-headed child in her arms. It was -the Countess with the son and heir. - -The Countess impressed me very agreeably. She was slim and tall--two -or three inches taller than her husband; with dark hair, drawn back -from the forehead and twisted into a knot on the nape of her neck; -dark eyes, vague, lustrous, and melancholy, like the eyes of a gentle -animal; a skin brown and transparent like darkened amber. Her manner -was gentle and unemphatic. She rarely gesticulated; I never heard her -raise her voice. She spoke, indeed, very little. The old Count had told -me that his daughter-in-law was religious, and from her appearance -I could easily believe it. She looked at you with the calm, remote -regard of one whose life mostly goes on behind the eyes. - -Fabio kissed his wife and then, bending his face towards the child, he -made a frightful grimace and roared like a lion. It was all done in -affection; but the poor little creature shrank away, terrified. Fabio -laughed and pinched its ear. - -“Don’t tease him,” said the Countess gently. “You’ll make him cry.” - -Fabio turned to me. “That’s what comes of leaving a boy to be looked -after by women. He cries at everything. Let’s come in,” he added. -“At present we only use two or three rooms on the ground floor, and -the kitchen in the basement. All the rest is deserted. I don’t know -how these old fellows managed to keep up their palaces. I can’t.” He -shrugged his shoulders. Through a door on the right of the portico -we passed into the house. “This is our drawing-room and dining-room -combined.” - -It was a fine big room, nobly proportioned--a double cube, I -guessed--with doorways of sculptured marble and a magnificent fireplace -flanked by a pair of nymphs on whose bowed shoulders rested a sloping -overmantel carved with coats of arms and festoons of foliage. -Round the walls ran a frieze, painted in grisaille; in a graceful -litter of cornucopias and panoplies, goddesses sumptuously reclined, -cherubs wriggled and flew. The furniture was strangely mixed. Round -a sixteenth-century dining-table that was a piece of Palladian -architecture in wood, were ranged eight chairs in the Viennese -secession style of 1905. A large chalet-shaped cuckoo clock from -Bern hung on the wall between two cabinets of walnut, pilastered and -pedimented to look like little temples, and with heroic statuettes in -yellow boxwood, standing in niches between the pillars. And then the -pictures on the walls, the cretonnes with which the arm-chairs were -covered! Tactfully, however, I admired everything, new as well as old. - -“And now,” said the Count, “for the frescoes.” - -I followed him through one of the marble-framed doorways and found -myself at once in the great central hall of the villa. The Count turned -round to me. “There!” he said, smiling triumphantly with the air of one -who has really succeeded in producing a rabbit out of an empty hat. -And, indeed, the spectacle was sufficiently astonishing. - -The walls of the enormous room were completely covered with frescoes -which it did not need much critical judgment or knowledge to perceive -were genuine Veroneses. The authorship was obvious, palpable. Who else -could have painted those harmoniously undulating groups of figures set -in their splendid architectural frame? Who else but Veronese could -have combined such splendour with such coolness, so much extravagant -opulence with such exquisite suavity? - -“_È grandioso!_” I said to the Count. - -And indeed it was. Grandiose; there was no other word. A rich triumphal -arcade ran all round the room, four or five arches appearing on -each wall. Through the arches one looked into a garden; and there, -against a background of cypresses and statues and far-away blue -mountains, companies of Venetian ladies and gentlemen gravely disported -themselves. Under one arch they were making music; through another, -one saw them sitting round a table, drinking one another’s health in -glasses of red wine, while a little blackamoor in a livery of green -and yellow carried round the silver jug. In the next panel they were -watching a fight between a monkey and a cat. On the opposite wall a -poet was reading his verses to the assembled company, and next to him -Veronese himself--the self-portrait was recognisable--stood at his -easel, painting the picture of an opulent blonde in rose-coloured -satin. At the feet of the artist lay his dog; two parrots and a monkey -were sitting on the marble balustrade in the middle distance. - -I gazed with delight. “What a marvellous thing to possess!” I -exclaimed, fairly carried away by my enthusiasm. “I envy you.” - -The Count made a little grimace and laughed. “Shall we come and look at -the Tiepolos?” he asked. - -We passed through a couple of cheerful rooms by Carpioni--satyrs -chasing nymphs through a romantic forest and, on the fringes of a -seascape, a very eccentric rape of mermaids by centaurs--to step -across a threshold into that brilliant universe, at once delicate and -violently extravagant, wild and subtly orderly, which Tiepolo, in the -last days of Italian painting, so masterfully and magically created. -It was the story of Eros and Psyche, and the tale ran through three -large rooms, spreading itself even on to the ceilings, where, in a -pale sky dappled with white and golden clouds, the appropriate deities -balanced themselves, diving or ascending through the empyrean with that -air of being perfectly at home in their element which seems to belong, -in nature, only to fishes and perhaps a few winged insects and birds. - -Fabio had boasted to me that, in front of a picture, he could outstare -any foreigner. But I was such a mortally long time admiring these -dazzling phantasies that in the end he quite lost patience. - -“I wanted to show you the farm before lunch,” he said, looking at his -watch. “There’s only just time.” I followed him reluctantly. - -We looked at the cows, the horses, the prize bull, the turkeys. We -looked at the tall, thin haystacks, shaped like giant cigars set on -end. We looked at the sacks of wheat in the barn. For lack of any -better comment I told the Count that they reminded me of the sacks of -wheat in English barns; he seemed delighted. - -The farm buildings were set round an immense courtyard. We had explored -three sides of this piazza; now we came to the fourth, which was -occupied by a long, low building pierced with round archways and, I was -surprised to see, completely empty. - -“What’s this?” I asked, as we entered. - -“It _is_ nothing,” the Count replied. “But it might, some day, become -... _chi sa_?” He stood there for a moment in silence, frowning -pensively, with the expression of Napoleon on St. Helena--dreaming of -the future, regretting past opportunities for ever lost. His freckled -face, ordinarily a lamp for brightness, became incongruously sombre. -Then all at once he burst out--damning life, cursing fate, wishing to -God he could get away and do something instead of wasting himself here. -I listened, making every now and then a vague noise of sympathy. What -could I do about it? And then, to my dismay, I found that I could do -something about it, that I was expected to do something. I was being -asked to help the Count to sell his frescoes. As an artist, it was -obvious, I must be acquainted with rich patrons, museums, millionaires. -I had seen the frescoes; I could honestly recommend them. And now there -was this perfected process for transferring frescoes on to canvas. The -walls could easily be peeled of their painting, the canvases rolled up -and taken to Venice. And from there it would be the easiest thing in -the world to smuggle them on board a ship and get away with them. As -for prices--if he could get a million and a half of lire, so much the -better; but he’d take a million, he’d even take three-quarters. And -he’d give me ten per cent, commission.... - -And afterwards, when he’d sold his frescoes, what would he do? To -begin with--the Count smiled at me triumphantly--he’d turn this -empty building in which we were now standing into an up-to-date -cheese-factory. He could start the business handsomely on half a -million, and then, using cheap female labour from the country round, -he could be almost sure of making big profits at once. In a couple of -years, he calculated, he’d be netting eighty or a hundred thousand a -year from his cheeses. And then, ah then, he’d be independent, he’d -be able to get away, he’d see the world. He’d go to Brazil and the -Argentine. An enterprising man with capital could always do well out -there. He’d go to New York, to London, to Berlin, to Paris. There was -nothing he could not do. - -But meanwhile the frescoes were still on the walls--beautiful, no doubt -(for, the Count reminded me, he adored art), but futile; a huge capital -frozen into the plaster, eating its head off, utterly useless. Whereas, -with his cheese-factory.... - -Slowly we walked back towards the house. - -I was in Venice again in the September of the following year, 1913. -There were, I imagine, that autumn, more German honeymoon-couples, more -parties of rucksacked Wander-Birds than there had ever been in Venice -before. There were too many, in any case, for me; I packed my bag and -took the train for Padua. - -I had not originally intended to see young Tirabassi again. I didn’t -know, indeed, how pleased he would be to see me. For the frescoes, -so far as I knew, at any rate, were still safely on the walls, the -cheese-factory still remote in the future, in the imagination. I had -written to him more than once, telling him that I was doing my best, -but that at the moment, etcetera, etcetera. Not that I had ever held -out much hope. I had made it clear from the first that my acquaintance -among millionaires was limited, that I knew no directors of American -museums, that I had nothing to do with any of the international picture -dealers. But the Count’s faith in me had remained, none the less, -unshaken. It was the little Mexican, I believe, that inspired so much -confidence. But now, after my letters, after all this lapse of time -and nothing done, he might feel that I had let him down, deceived him -somehow. That was why I took no steps to seek him out. But chance -overruled my decision. On the third day of my stay in Padua, I ran into -him in the street. Or rather he ran into me. - -It was nearly six o’clock, and I had strolled down to the Piazza del -Santo. At that hour, when the slanting light is full of colour and the -shadows are long and profound, the great church, with its cupolas and -turrets and campaniles, takes on an aspect more than ever fantastic -and oriental. I had walked round the church, and now I was standing at -the foot of Donatello’s statue, looking up at the grim bronze man, the -ponderously stepping beast, when I suddenly became aware that some one -was standing very close behind me. I took a step to one side and turned -round. It was Fabio. Wearing his famous expression of the sightseeing -parson, he was gazing up at the statue, his mouth open in a vacant and -fish-like gape. I burst out laughing. - -“Did I look like that?” I asked. - -“Precisely.” He laughed too. “I’ve been watching you for the last ten -minutes, mooning round the church. You English! Really....” He shook -his head. - -Together we strolled up the Via del Santo, talking as we went. - -“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do anything about the frescoes,” I said. -“But really....” I entered into explanations. - -“Some day, perhaps.” Fabio was still optimistic. - -“And how’s the Countess?” - -“Oh, she’s very well,” said Fabio, “considering. You know she had -another son three or four months after you came to see us.” - -“No?” - -“She’s expecting another now.” Fabio spoke rather gloomily, I thought. -More than ever I admired the old Count’s sagacity. But I was sorry, for -his son’s sake, that he had not a wider field in which to exercise his -talents. - -“And your father?” I asked. “Shall we find him sitting at Pedrochi’s, -as usual?” - -Fabio laughed. “We shall not,” he said significantly. “He’s flown.” - -“Flown?” - -“Gone, vanished, disappeared.” - -“But where?” - -“Who knows?” said Fabio. “My father is like the swallows; he comes and -he goes. Every year.... But the migration isn’t regular. Sometimes he -goes away in the spring; sometimes it’s the autumn, sometimes it’s the -summer.... One fine morning his man goes into his room to call him -as usual, and he isn’t there. Vanished. He might be dead. Oh, but he -isn’t.” Fabio laughed. “Two or three months later, in he walks again, -as though he were just coming back from a stroll in the Botanical -Gardens. ‘Good evening. Good evening.’” Fabio imitated the old Count’s -voice and manner, snuffing the air like a war-horse, twisting the ends -of an imaginary white moustache. “‘How’s your mother? How are the -girls? How have the grapes done this year?’ Snuff, snuff. ‘How’s Lucio? -And who the devil has left all this rubbish lying about in my study?’” -Fabio burst into an indignant roar that made the loiterers in the Via -Roma turn, astonished, in our direction. - -“And where does he go?” I asked. - -“Nobody knows. My mother used to ask, once. But she soon gave it up. It -was no good. ‘Where have you been, Ascanio?’ ‘My dear, I’m afraid the -olive crop is going to be very poor this year.’ Snuff, snuff. And when -she pressed him, he would fly into a temper and slam the doors.... What -do you say to an aperitif?” Pedrochi’s open doors invited. We entered, -chose a retired table, and sat down. - -“But what do you suppose the old gentleman does when he’s away?” - -“Ah!” And making the richly significant gesture I had so much admired -in his father, the young Count laid his finger against his nose and -slowly, solemnly winked his left eye. - -“You mean...?” - -Fabio nodded. “There’s a little widow here in Padua.” With his extended -finger the young Count described in the air an undulating line. “Nice -and plump. Black eyes. I’ve noticed that she generally seems to be -out of town just at the time the old man does his migrations. But it -may, of course, be a mere coincidence.” The waiter brought us our -vermouth. Pensively the young Count sipped. The gaiety went out of -his open, lamp-like face. “And meanwhile,” he went on slowly and in -an altered voice, “I stay here, looking after the estate, so that the -old man can go running round the world with his little pigeon--_la sua -colombella_.” (The expression struck me as particularly choice.) “Oh, -it’s funny, no doubt,” the young Count went on. “But it isn’t right. -If I wasn’t married, I’d go clean away and try my luck somewhere else. -I’d leave him to look after everything himself. But with a wife and two -children--three children soon--how can I take the risk? At any rate, -there’s plenty to eat as long as I stay here. My only hope,” he added, -after a little pause, “is in the frescoes.” - -Which implied, I reflected, that his only hope was in me; I felt sorry -for him. - -In the spring of 1914 I sent two rich Americans to look at Fabio’s -villa. Neither of them made any offer to buy the frescoes; it would -have astonished me if they had. But Fabio was greatly encouraged by -their arrival. “I feel,” he wrote to me, “that a beginning has now been -made. These Americans will go back to their country and tell their -friends. Soon there will be a procession of millionaires coming to see -the frescoes. Meanwhile, life is the same as ever. Rather worse, if -anything. Our little daughter, whom we have christened Emilia, was born -last month. My wife had a very bad time and is still far from well, -which is very troublesome.” (It seemed a curious adjective to use, in -the circumstances. But coming from Fabio, I understood it; he was one -of those exceedingly healthy people to whom any sort of illness is -mysterious, unaccountable, and above all extraordinarily tiresome and -irritating.) “The day before yesterday my father disappeared again. I -have not yet had time to find out if the Colombella has also vanished. -My brother, Lucio, has succeeded in getting a motor-bicycle out of him, -which is more than I ever managed to do. But then I was never one for -creeping diplomatically round and round a thing, as he can do.... I -have been going very carefully into the cheese-factory business lately, -and I am not sure that it might not be more profitable to set up a -silk-weaving establishment instead. When you next come, I will go into -details with you.” - -But it was a very long time before I saw Padua and the Count again.... -The War put an end to my yearly visits to Italy, and for various -reasons, even when it was over, I could not go south again as soon as -I should have liked. Not till the autumn of 1921 did I embark again on -the Venice express. - -It was in an Italy not altogether familiar that I now found myself--an -Italy full of violence and bloodshed. The Fascists and the Communists -were still busily fighting. Roaring at the head of their dust-storms, -the motor-lorries, loaded with cargoes of singing boys, careered -across the country in search of adventure and lurking Bolshevism. -One stood respectfully in the gutter while they passed; and through -the flying dust, through the noise of the engine, a snatch of that -singing would be blown back: “_Giovinezza, giovinezza, primavera di -bellezza...._” (Youth, youth, springtime of beauty). Where but in -Italy would they have put such words to a political song? And then the -proclamations, the manifestos, the denunciations, the appeals! Every -hoarding and blank wall was plastered with them. Between the station -and Pedrochi’s I walked through a whole library of these things. -“Citizens!” they would begin. “A heroic wind is to-day reviving the -almost asphyxiated soul of our unhappy Italy, overcome by the poisonous -fumes of Bolshevism and wallowing in ignoble abasement at the feet of -the Nations.” And they finished, for the most part, with references to -Dante. I read them all with infinite pleasure. - -I reached Pedrochi’s at last. On the terrace, sitting in the very -corner where I had seen him first, years before, was the old Count. -He stared at me blankly when I saluted him, not recognising me at -all. I began to explain who I was; after a moment he cut me short, -almost impatiently, protesting that he remembered now, perfectly well. -I doubted very much whether he really did; but he was too proud to -confess that he had forgotten. Meanwhile, he invited me to sit at his -table. - -At a first glance, from a distance, I fancied that the old Count had -not aged a day since last I saw him. But I was wrong. From the street, -I had only seen the rakish tilt of his hat, the bristling of his white -moustache and imperial, the parted knees, the noble protrusion of the -paunch. But now that I could look at him closely and at leisure, I saw -that he was in fact a very different man. Under the tilted hat his face -was unhealthily purple; the flesh sagged into pouches. In the whites -of his eyes, discoloured and as though tarnished with age, the little -broken veins showed red. And, lustreless, the eyes themselves seemed -to look without interest at what they saw. His shoulders were bent as -though under a weight, and when he lifted his cup to his lips his hand -trembled so much that a drop of coffee splashed on to the table. He -was an old man now, old and tired. - -“How’s Fabio?” I asked; since 1916 I had had no news of him. - -“Oh, Fabio’s well,” the old Count answered, “Fabio’s very well. He has -six children now, you know.” And the old gentleman nodded and smiled -at me without a trace of malice. He seemed quite to have forgotten -the reasons for which he had been at so much pains to select a good -Catholic for a daughter-in-law. “Six,” he repeated. “And then, you -know, he did very well in the war. We Tirabassi have always been -warriors.” Full of pride, he went on to tell me of Fabio’s exploits and -sufferings. Twice wounded, special promotion on the field of battle, -splendid decorations. He was a major now. - -“And do his military duties still keep him in Padua?” - -The old gentleman nodded, and suddenly there appeared on his face -something like the old smile. “A little _combinazione_ of mine,” he -said, and chuckled. - -“And the estate?” I asked. - -Oh, that was doing all right, everything considered. It had got rather -out of hand during the war, while Fabio was at the front. And then, -afterwards, there had been a lot of trouble with the peasants; but -Fabio and his Fascists were putting all that to rights. “With Fabio on -the spot,” said the old gentleman, “I have no anxieties.” And then he -began to tell me, all over again, about Fabio’s exploits in the war. - -The next day I took the tram to Strà, and after an hour agreeably spent -in the villa and the park, I walked on at my leisure towards Dolo. It -took me a long time to get there, for on this occasion I was able to -stop and look for as long as I liked at all the charming things on -the way. Casanova seemed, now, a good deal less enviable, I noticed, -looking inwards on myself, than he had when last I passed this way. I -was nine years older. - -The gates were open; I walked in. There stood the house, as grave and -ponderous as ever, but shabbier than when I saw it last. The shutters -needed painting, and here and there the stucco was peeling off in -scabs. I approached. From within the house came a cheerful noise of -children’s laughter and shouting. The family, I supposed, was playing -hide-and-seek, or trains, or perhaps some topical game of Fascists -and Communists. As I climbed the steps of the porch, I could hear the -sound of small feet racing over the tiled floors; in the empty rooms -footsteps and shouting strangely echoed. And then suddenly, from the -sitting-room on the right, came the sound of Fabio’s voice, furiously -shouting, “Oh, for God’s sake,” it yelled, “keep those wretched -children quiet.” And then, petulantly, it complained, “How do you -expect me to do accounts with this sort of thing going on?” There was -at once a profound and as it were unnatural silence; then the sound of -small feet tiptoeing away, some whispering, a little nervous laugh. I -rang the bell. - -It was the Countess who opened the door. She stood for a moment -hesitatingly, wondering who I was; then remembered, smiled, held out -her hand. She had grown, I noticed, very thin, and with the wasting of -her face, her eyes seemed to have become larger. Their expression was -as gentle and serene as ever; she seemed to be looking at me from a -distance. - -“Fabio will be delighted to see you,” she said, and she took -me through the door on the right of the porch straight into the -sitting-room. Fabio was sitting at the Palladian table in front of a -heap of papers, biting the end of his pencil. - -Even in his grey-green service uniform the young Count looked -wonderfully brilliant, like a soldier on the stage. His face was still -boyishly freckled, but the skin was deeply lined; he looked very much -older than when I had seen him last--older than he really was. The -open cheerfulness, the shining, lamp-like brightness were gone. On -his snubby-featured face he wore a ludicrously incongruous expression -of chronic melancholy. He brightened, it is true, for a moment when I -appeared; I think he was genuinely glad to see me. - -“_Caspita!_” he kept repeating. “_Caspita!_” (It was his favourite -expression of astonishment, an odd, old-fashioned word.) “Who would -have thought it? After all this time!” - -“And all the eternity of the war as well,” I said. - -But when the first ebullition of surprise and pleasure subsided, the -look of melancholy came back. - -“It gives me the spleen,” he said, “to see you again; still travelling -about; free to go where you like. If you knew what life was like -here....” - -“Well, in any case,” I said, feeling that I ought, for the Countess’s -sake, to make some sort of protest, “in any case the war’s over, and -you have escaped a real revolution. That’s something.” - -“Oh, you’re as bad as Laura,” said the Count impatiently. He looked -towards his wife, as though hoping that she would say something. But -the Countess went on with her sewing without even looking up. The -Count took my arm. “Come along,” he said, and his tone was almost -one of anger. “Let’s take a turn outside.” His wife’s religious -resignation, her patience, her serenity angered him, I could see, like -a reprimand--tacit, indeed, and unintentionally given, but none the -less galling. - -Along the weed-grown paths of what had once, in the ancient days of -splendour, been the garden, slowly we walked towards the farm. A few -ragged box-trees grew along the fringes of the paths; once there had -been neat hedges. Poised over a dry basin a Triton blew his waterless -conch. At the end of the vista a pair of rapes--Pluto and Proserpine, -Apollo and Daphne--writhed desperately against the sky. - -“I saw your father yesterday,” I said. “He looks aged.” - -“And so he ought,” said Fabio murderously. “He’s sixty-nine.” - -I felt uncomfortably that the subject had become too serious for -light conversation. I had wanted to ask after the Colombella; in the -circumstances, I decided that it would be wiser to say nothing about -her. I repressed my curiosity. We were walking now under the lea of the -farm buildings. - -“The cows look very healthy,” I said politely, looking through an -open doorway. In the twilight within, six grey rumps plastered with -dry dung presented themselves in file; six long leather tails swished -impatiently from side to side. Fabio made no comment; he only grunted. - -“In any case,” he went on slowly, after another silence, “he can’t live -much longer. I shall sell my share and clear off to South America, -family or no family.” It was a threat against his own destiny, a -threat of which he must have known the vanity. He was deceiving himself -to keep up his spirits. - -“But I say,” I exclaimed, taking another and better opportunity to -change the conversation, “I see you have started a factory here after -all.” We had walked round to the farther side of the square. Through -the windows of the long low building which, at my last visit, had stood -untenanted, I saw the complicated shapes of machines, rows of them -in a double line down the whole length of the building. “Looms? Then -you decided against cheese? And the frescoes?” I turned questioningly -towards the Count. I had a horrible fear that, when we got back to the -house, I should find the great hall peeled of its Veroneses and a blank -of plaster where once had been the history of Eros and Psyche. - -“Oh, the frescoes are still there, what’s left of them.” And in spite -of Fabio’s long face, I was delighted at the news. “I persuaded my -father to sell some of his house property in Padua, and we started this -weaving business here two years ago. Just in time,” Fabio added, “for -the Communist revolution.” - -Poor Fabio, he had no luck. The peasants had seized his factory and had -tried to possess themselves of his land. For three weeks he had lived -at the villa in a state of siege, defending the place, with twenty -Fascists to help him, against all the peasants of the countryside. The -danger was over now; but the machines were broken, and in any case it -was out of the question to start them again; feeling was still too -high. And what, for Fabio, made it worse was the fact that his brother -Lucio, who had also got a little capital out of the old man, had gone -off to Bulgaria and invested it in a bootlace factory. It was the only -bootlace factory in the country, and Lucio was making money hand over -fist. Free as air he was, well off, with a lovely Turkish girl for a -mistress. For Fabio, the Turkish girl was evidently the last straw. -“_Una Turca, una vera Turca_,” he repeated, shaking his head. The -female infidel symbolised in his eyes all that was exotic, irregular, -undomestic; all that was not the family; all that was remote from Padua -and the estate. - -“And they were such beautiful machines,” said Fabio, pausing for a -moment to look in at the last of the long line of windows. “Whether -to sell them, whether to wait till all this has blown over and have -them put right and try to start again--I don’t know.” He shrugged his -shoulders hopelessly. “Or just let things slide till the old man dies.” -We turned the corner of the square and began to walk back towards the -house. “Sometimes,” he added, after a silence, “I don’t believe he ever -will die.” - -The children were playing in the great hall of the Veroneses. The -majestic double doors which gave on to the portico were ajar; through -the opening we watched them for a moment without being seen. The -family was formed up in order of battle. A red-headed boy of ten or -eleven led the van, a brown boy followed. Then came three little -girls, diminishing regularly in size like graded pearls; and finally -a little toddling creature in blue linen crawlers. All six of them -carried shouldered bamboos, and they were singing in ragged unison to -a kind of trumpet call of three notes: “_All’ armi i Fascisti; a morte -i Comunisti; a basso i Socialisti_”--over and over again. And as they -sang they marched, round and round, earnestly, indefatigably. The huge -empty room echoed like a swimming-bath. Remote under their triumphal -arches, in their serene world of fantastic beauty, the silken ladies -and gentlemen played their music, drank their wine; the poet declaimed, -the painter poised his brush before the canvas; the monkeys clambered -among the Roman ruins, the parrots dozed on the balustrades. “_All’ -armi i Fascisti, a morte i Comunisti...._” I should have liked to stand -there in silence, merely to see how long the children would continue -their patriotic march. But Fabio had none of my scientific curiosity; -or if he ever had, it had certainly been exhausted long before the last -of his children was born. After indulging me for a moment with the -spectacle, he pushed open the door and walked in. The children looked -round and were immediately silent. What with his bad temper and his -theory of education by teasing, they seemed to be thoroughly frightened -of their father. - -“Go on,” he said, “go on.” But they wouldn’t; they obviously couldn’t, -in his terrifying presence. Unobtrusively they slipped away. - -Fabio led me round the painted room. “Look here,” he said, “and look -here.” In one of the walls of the great hall there were half a dozen -bullet holes. A chip had been taken off one of the painted cornices; -one lady was horribly wounded in the face; there were two or three -holes in the landscape, and a monkey’s tail was severed. “That’s our -friends, the peasants,” Fabio explained. - -In the Carpioni rooms all was still well; the satyrs still pursued -their nymphs, and in the room of the centaurs and the mermaids, the men -who were half horses still galloped as tumultuously as ever into the -sea, to ravish the women who were half fish. But the tale of Eros and -Psyche had suffered dreadfully. The exquisite panel in which Tiepolo -had painted Psyche holding up the lamp to look at her mysterious lover -was no more than a faint, mildewy smudge. And where once the indignant -young god had flown upwards to rejoin his Olympian relatives (who -still, fortunately, swam about intact among the clouds on the ceiling) -there was nothing but the palest ghost of an ascending Cupid, while -Psyche weeping on the earth below was now quite invisible. - -“That’s our friends the French,” said Fabio. “They were quartered here -in 1918, and they didn’t trouble to shut the windows when it rained.” - -Poor Fabio! Everything was against him. I had no consolation to offer. -That autumn I sent him an art critic and three more Americans. But -nothing came of their visits. The fact was that he had too much to -offer. A picture--that might easily have been disposed of. But what -could one do with a whole houseful of paintings like this? - -The months passed. About Easter time of the next year I had another -letter from Fabio. The olive crop had been poor. The Countess was -expecting another baby and was far from well. The two eldest children -were down with measles, and the last but one had what the Italians call -an “asinine cough.” He expected all the children to catch both diseases -in due course. He was very doubtful now if it would ever be worth while -to restart his looms; the position of the silk trade was not so sound -as it had been at the end of 1919. If only he had stuck to cheese, -as he first intended! Lucio had just made fifty thousand lire by a -lucky stroke of speculation. But the female infidel had run off with a -Rumanian. The old Count was ageing rapidly; when Fabio saw him last, -he had told the same anecdote three times in the space of ten minutes. -With these two pieces of good news--they were for him, I imagine, the -only bright spots in the surrounding gloom--Fabio closed his letter. -I was left wondering why he troubled to write to me at all. It may be -that he got a certain lacerating satisfaction by thus enumerating his -troubles. - -That August there was a musical festival in Salzburg. I had never -been in Austria; the occasion seemed to me a good one. I went, and -I enjoyed myself prodigiously. Salzburg at the moment is all in -the movement. There are baroque churches in abundance; there are -Italianate fountains; there are gardens and palaces that mimic in their -extravagantly ponderous Teutonic way the gardens and palaces of Rome. -And, choicest treasure of all, there is a tunnel, forty feet high, -bored through a precipitous crag--a tunnel such as only a Prince Bishop -of the seventeenth century could have dreamed of, having at either -end an arch of triumph, with pilasters, broken pediments, statues, -scutcheons, all carved out of the living rock--a masterpiece among -tunnels, and in a town where everything, without being really good, is -exquisitely “amusing,” the most amusing feature of all. Ah, decidedly, -Salzburg is in the movement. - -One afternoon I took the funicular up to the castle. There is a -beer-terrace under the walls of the fortress from which you get a view -that is starred in Baedeker. Below you on one side lies the town, -spread out in the curving valley, with a river running through it, -like a small and German version of Florence. From the other side of -the terrace you look out over a panorama that makes no pretence to -Italianism; it is as sweetly and romantically German as an air out of -Weber’s _Freischütz_. There are mountains on the horizon, spiky and -blue like mountains in a picture book; and in the foreground, extending -to the very foot of the extremely improbable crag on which the castle -and the beer-garden are perched, stretches a flat green plain--miles -upon miles of juicy meadows dotted with minusculous cows, with here and -there a neat toy farm, or, more rarely, a cluster of dolls’ houses, -with a spire going up glittering from the midst of them. - -I was sitting with my blond beer in front of this delicious and -slightly comical landscape, thinking comfortably of nothing in -particular, when I heard behind me a rapturous voice exclaiming, -“Bello, bello!” I looked round curiously--for it seemed to me somehow -rather surprising to hear Italian spoken here--and saw one of those -fine sumptuous women they admire so much in the South. She was a _bella -grassa_, plump to the verge of overripeness and perilously near middle -age; but still in her way exceedingly handsome. Her face had the -proportions of an iceberg--one-fifth above water, four-fifths below. -Ample and florid from the eyes downwards, it was almost foreheadless; -the hair began immediately above the brows. The eyes themselves were -dark, large, and, for my taste, at least, somewhat excessively tender -in expression. I took her in in a moment and was about to look away -again when her companion, who had been looking at the view on the other -side, turned round. It was the old Count. - -I was far more embarrassed, I believe, than he. I felt myself blushing, -as our eyes met, as though it were I who had been travelling about the -world with a Colombella and he who had caught me in the act. I did -not know what to do--whether to smile and speak to him, or to turn -away as though I had not recognised him, or to nod from a distance and -then, discreetly, to disappear. But the old Count put an end to my -irresolution by calling out my name in astonishment, by running up to -me and seizing my hand. What a delight to see an old friend! Here of -all places! In this God-forsaken country--though it was cheap enough, -didn’t I find? He would introduce me to a charming compatriot of his -own, an Italian lady he had met yesterday in the train from Vienna. - -I was made known to the Colombella, and we all sat down at my table. -Speaking resolutely in Italian, the Count ordered two more beers. -We talked. Or rather the Count talked; for the conversation was a -monologue. He told us anecdotes of the Italy of fifty years ago; he -gave us imitations of the queer characters he had known; he even, at -one moment, imitated the braying of an ass--I forget in what context; -but the braying remains vividly in my memory. Snuffing the air between -every sentence, he gave us his views on women. The Colombella screamed -indignant protests, dissolved herself in laughter. The old Count -twisted his moustaches, twinkling at her through the network of his -wrinkles. Every now and then he turned in my direction and gave me a -little wink. - -I listened in astonishment. Was this the man who had told the same -anecdote three times in ten minutes? I looked at the old Count. He -was leaning towards the Colombella whispering something in her ear -which made her laugh so much that she had to wipe the tears from her -eyes. Turning away from her, he caught my eye; smiling, he shrugged -his shoulders as though to say, “These women! What imbeciles, but how -delicious, how indispensable!” Was this the tired old man I had seen a -year ago sitting on Pedrochi’s terrace? It seemed incredible. - -“Well, good-bye, _a rivederci_.” They had to get down into the town -again. The funicular was waiting. - -“I’m delighted to have seen you,” said the old Count, shaking me -affectionately by the hand. - -“And so am I,” I protested. “Particularly delighted to see you so well.” - -“Yes, I’m wonderfully well now,” he said, blowing out his chest. - -“And young,” I went on. “Younger than I am! How have you done it?” - -“Aha!” The old Count cocked his head on one side mysteriously. - -More in joke than in earnest, “I believe you’ve been seeing Steinach in -Vienna,” I said. “Having a rejuvenating operation.” - -For all reply, the old Count raised the forefinger of his right hand, -laying it first to his lips, then along the side of his nose, and as he -did so he winked. Then clenching his fist, and with his thumb sticking -rigidly up, he made a complicated gesture which would, I am sure, for -an Italian, have been full of a profound and vital significance. To me, -however, unfamiliar with the language of signs, the exact meaning was -not entirely clear. But the Count offered no verbal explanation. Still -without uttering a word, he raised his hat; then laying his finger once -more to his lips, he turned and ran with an astonishing agility down -the steep path towards the little carriage of the funicular, in which -the Colombella had already taken her seat. - - - - -HUBERT AND MINNIE - - -For Hubert Lapell this first love-affair was extremely important. -“Important” was the word he had used himself when he was writing about -it in his diary. It was an event in his life, a real event for a -change. It marked, he felt, a genuine turning-point in his spiritual -development. - -“Voltaire,” he wrote in his diary--and he wrote it a second time in -one of his letters to Minnie--“Voltaire said that one died twice: once -with the death of the whole body and once before, with the death of -one’s capacity to love. And in the same way one is born twice, the -second time being on the occasion when one first falls in love. One is -born, then, into a new world--a world of intenser feelings, heightened -values, more penetrating insights.” And so on. - -In point of actual fact Hubert found this new world a little -disappointing. The intenser feelings proved to be rather mild; not by -any means up to literary standards. - - “I tell thee I am mad - In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st: she is fair; - Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart - Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice....” - -No, it certainly wasn’t quite that. In his diary, in his letters to -Minnie, he painted, it is true, a series of brilliant and romantic -landscapes of the new world. But they were composite imaginary -landscapes in the manner of Salvator Rosa--richer, wilder, more -picturesquely clear-obscure than the real thing. Hubert would seize -with avidity on the least velleity of an unhappiness, a physical -desire, a spiritual yearning, to work it up in his letters and journals -into something substantially romantic. There were times, generally -very late at night, when he succeeded in persuading himself that he -was indeed the wildest, unhappiest, most passionate of lovers. But in -the daytime he went about his business nourishing something like a -grievance against love. The thing was a bit of a fraud; yes, really, he -decided, rather a fraud. All the same, he supposed it was important. - -For Minnie, however, love was no fraud at all. Almost from the first -moment she had adored him. A common friend had brought him to one of -her Wednesday evenings. “This is Mr. Lapell; but he’s too young to be -called anything but Hubert.” That was how he had been introduced. And, -laughing, she had taken his hand and called him Hubert at once. He too -had laughed, rather nervously. “My name’s Minnie,” she said. But he had -been too shy to call her anything at all that evening. His brown hair -was tufty and untidy, like a little boy’s, and he had shy grey eyes -that never looked at you for more than a glimpse at a time, but turned -away almost at once, as though they were afraid. Quickly he glanced at -you, eagerly--then away again; and his musical voice, with its sudden -emphases, its quick modulations from high to low, seemed always to -address itself to a ghost floating low down and a little to one side -of the person to whom he was talking. Above the brows was a forehead -beautifully domed, with a pensive wrinkle running up from between the -eyes. In repose his full-lipped mouth pouted a little, as though he -were expressing some chronic discontent with the world. And, of course, -thought Minnie, the world wasn’t beautiful enough for his idealism. - -“But after all,” he had said earnestly that first evening, “one has the -world of thought to live in. That, at any rate, is simple and clear and -beautiful. One can always live apart from the brutal scramble.” - -And from the depths of the arm-chair in which, fragile, tired, and in -these rather “artistic” surroundings almost incongruously elegant, she -was sitting, Helen Glamber laughed her clear little laugh. “I think, -on the contrary,” she said (Minnie remembered every incident of that -first evening), “I think one ought to rush about and know thousands -of people, and eat and drink enormously, and make love incessantly, -and shout and laugh and knock people over the head.” And having vented -these Rabelaisian sentiments, Mrs. Glamber dropped back with a sigh -of fatigue, covering her eyes with a thin white hand; for she had a -splitting headache, and the light hurt her. - -“Really!” Minnie protested, laughing. She would have felt rather -shocked if any one else had said that; but Helen Glamber was allowed to -say anything. - -Hubert reaffirmed his quietism. Elegant, weary, infinitely fragile, -Mrs. Glamber lay back in her arm-chair, listening. Or perhaps, under -her covering hand, she was trying to go to sleep. - -She had adored him at first sight. Now that she looked back she -could see that it had been at first sight. Adored him protectively, -maternally--for he was only twenty and very young, in spite of the -wrinkle between his brows, and the long words, and the undergraduate’s -newly discovered knowledge; only twenty, and she was nearly -twenty-nine. And she had fallen in love with his beauty, too. Ah, -passionately. - -Hubert, perceiving it later, was surprised and exceedingly flattered. -This had never happened to him before. He enjoyed being worshipped, -and since Minnie had fallen so violently in love with him, it seemed -the most natural thing in the world for him to be in love with Minnie. -True, if she had not started by adoring him, it would never have -occurred to Hubert to fall in love with her. At their first meeting -he had found her certainly very nice, but not particularly exciting. -Afterwards, the manifest expression of her adoration had made him find -her more interesting, and in the end he had fallen in love himself. But -perhaps it was not to be wondered at if he found the process a little -disappointing. - -But still, he reflected on those secret occasions when he had to admit -to himself that something was wrong with this passion, love without -possession could never, surely, in the nature of things, be quite the -genuine article. In his diary he recorded aptly those two quatrains of -John Donne: - - “So must pure lovers’ souls descend - To affections and to faculties, - Which sense may reach and apprehend, - Else a great prince in prison lies. - - To our bodies turn we then, that so - Weak men on love revealed may look; - Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, - But yet the body is his book.” - -At their next meeting he recited them to Minnie. The conversation which -followed, compounded as it was of philosophy and personal confidences, -was exquisite. It really, Hubert felt, came up to literary standards. - -The next morning Minnie rang up her friend Helen Glamber and asked if -she might come to tea that afternoon. She had several things to talk to -her about. Mrs. Glamber sighed as she hung up the receiver. “Minnie’s -coming to tea,” she called, turning towards the open door. - -From across the passage her husband’s voice came back to her. “Good -Lord!” it said in a tone of far-away horror, of absent-minded -resignation; for John Glamber was deep in his work and there was only a -little of him left, so to speak, above the surface to react to the bad -news. - -Helen Glamber sighed again, and propping herself more comfortably -against her pillows she reached for her book. She knew that far-away -voice and what it meant. It meant that he wouldn’t answer if she -went on with the conversation; only say “h’m” or “m’yes.” And if -she persisted after that, it meant that he’d say, plaintively, -heart-breakingly, “Darling, you _must_ let me get on with my work.” And -at that moment she would so much have liked to talk a little. Instead, -she went on reading at the point where she had broken off to answer -Minnie’s telephone call. - -“By this time the flames had enveloped the gynecæum. Nineteen times -did the heroic Patriarch of Alexandria venture into the blazing -fabric, from which he succeeded in rescuing all but two of its lovely -occupants, twenty-seven in number, all of whom he caused to be -transported at once to his own private apartments....” - -It was one of those instructive books John liked her to read. History, -mystery, lesson, and law. But at the moment she didn’t feel much like -history. She felt like talking. And that was out of the question; -absolutely out of it. - -She put down her book and began to file her nails and think of poor -Minnie. Yes, poor Minnie. Why was it that one couldn’t help saying -Good Lord! heartfeltly, when one heard she was coming to tea? And why -did one never have the heart to refuse to let her come to tea? She was -pathetic, but pathetic in such a boring way. There are some people you -like being kind to, people you want to help and befriend. People that -look at you with the eyes of sick monkeys. Your heart breaks when you -see them. But poor Minnie had none of the charms of a sick monkey. She -was just a great big healthy young woman of twenty-eight who ought to -have been married and the mother of children, and who wasn’t. She would -have made such a good wife, such an admirably solicitous and careful -mother. But it just happened that none of the men she knew had ever -wanted to marry her. And why should they want to? When she came into a -room, the light seemed to grow perceptibly dimmer, the electric tension -slackened off. She brought no life with her; she absorbed what there -was, she was like so much blotting-paper. No wonder nobody wanted to -marry her. And yet, of course, it was the only thing. Particularly as -she was always falling in love herself. The only thing. - -“John!” Mrs. Glamber suddenly called. “Is it really true about ferrets?” - -“Ferrets?” the voice from across the passage repeated with a remote -irritation. “Is what true about ferrets?” - -“That the females die if they’re not mated.” - -“How on earth should I know?” - -“But you generally know everything.” - -“But, my darling, really....” The voice was plaintive, full of reproach. - -Mrs. Glamber clapped her hand over her mouth and only took it off again -to blow a kiss. “All right,” she said very quickly. “All right. Really. -I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Really.” She blew another kiss towards -the door. - -“But ferrets....” repeated the voice. - -“Sh--sh, sh--sh.” - -“Why ferrets?” - -“Darling,” said Mrs. Glamber almost sternly, “you really must go on -with your work.” - -Minnie came to tea. She put the case--hypothetically at first, as -though it were the case of a third person; then, gaining courage, -she put it personally. It was her own case. Out of the depths of her -untroubled, pagan innocence, Helen Glamber brutally advised her. “If -you want to go to bed with the young man,” she said, “go to bed with -him. The thing has no importance in itself. At least not much. It’s -only important because it makes possible more secret confidences, -because it strengthens affection, makes the man in a way dependent on -you. And then, of course, it’s the natural thing. I’m all for nature -except when it comes to painting one’s face. They say that ferrets....” -But Minnie noticed that she never finished the sentence. Appalled and -fascinated, shocked and yet convinced, she listened. - -“My darling,” said Mrs. Glamber that evening when her husband came -home--for he hadn’t been able to face Minnie; he had gone to the Club -for tea--“who was it that invented religion, and sin, and all that? And -why?” - -John laughed. “It was invented by Adam,” he said, “for various little -transcendental reasons which you would probably find it difficult to -appreciate. But also for the very practical purpose of keeping Eve in -order.” - -“Well, if you call complicating people’s lives keeping them in order, -then I dare say you’re right.” Mrs. Glamber shook her head. “I find it -all too obscure. At sixteen, yes. But one really ought to have grown -out of that sort of thing by twenty. And at thirty--the woman’s nearly -thirty, you know--well, really....” - -In the end, Minnie wrote to Hubert telling him that she had made -up her mind. Hubert was staying in Hertfordshire with his friend -Watchett. It was a big house, the food was good, one was very -comfortable; and old Mr. Watchett, moreover, had a very sound library. -In the impenetrable shade of the Wellingtonias Hubert and Ted Watchett -played croquet and discussed the best methods of cultivating the Me. -You could do a good deal, they decided, with art--books, you know, -and pictures and music. “Listen to Stravinsky’s _Sacre_,” said Ted -Watchett, “and you’re for ever excused from going to Tibet or the -Gold Coast or any of those awful places. And then there’s Dostoievsky -instead of murder, and D. H. Lawrence as a substitute for sex.” - -“All the same,” said Hubert, “one must have a _certain_ amount of -actual non-imaginative experience.” He spoke earnestly, abstractedly; -but Minnie’s letter was in his pocket. “_Gnosce teipsum._ You can’t -really know yourself without coming into collision with events, can -you?” - -Next day, Ted’s cousin, Phœbe, arrived. She had red hair and a milky -skin, and was more or less on the musical comedy stage. “One foot on -and one foot off,” she explained. “The splits.” And there and then she -did them, the splits, on the drawing-room carpet. “It’s quite easy,” -she said, laughing, and jumped up again with an easy grace that fairly -took one’s breath away. Ted didn’t like her. “Tiresome girl,” he said. -“So silly, too. Consciously silly, silly on purpose, which makes it -worse.” And, it was true, she did like boasting about the amount of -champagne she could put away without getting buffy, and the number of -times she had exceeded the generous allowance and been “blind to the -world.” She liked talking about her admirers in terms which might make -you suppose that they were all her accepted lovers. But then she had -the justification of her vitality and her shining red hair. - -“Vitality,” Hubert wrote in his diary (he contemplated a distant date, -after, or preferably before, his death, when these confessions and -aphorisms would be published), “vitality can make claims on the world -almost as imperiously as can beauty. Sometimes beauty and vitality meet -in one person.” - - * * * * * - -It was Hubert who arranged that they should stay at the mill. One of -his friends had once been there with a reading party, and found the -place comfortable, secluded, and admirably quiet. Quiet, that is to -say, with the special quietness peculiar to mills. For the silence -there was not the silence of night on a mountain; it was a silence made -of continuous thunder. At nine o’clock every morning the mill-wheel -began to turn, and its roaring never stopped all day. For the first -moments the noise was terrifying, was almost unbearable. Then, after a -little, one grew accustomed to it. The thunder became, by reason of its -very unintermittence, a perfect silence, wonderfully rich and profound. - -At the back of the mill was a little garden hemmed in on three sides by -the house, the outhouses, and a high brick wall, and open on the fourth -towards the water. Looking over the parapet, Minnie watched it sliding -past. It was like a brown snake with arrowy markings on its back; and -it crawled, it glided, it slid along for ever. She sat there, waiting: -her train, from London, had brought her here soon after lunch; -Hubert, coming across country from the Watchetts, would hardly arrive -before six. The water flowed beneath her eyes like time, like destiny, -smoothly towards some new and violent event. - -The immense noise that in this garden was silence enveloped her. -Inured, her mind moved in it as though in its native element. From -beyond the parapet came the coolness and the weedy smell of water. -But if she turned back towards the garden, she breathed at once the -hot perfume of sunlight beating on flowers and ripening fruit. In the -afternoon sunlight all the world was ripe. The old red house lay there, -ripe, like a dropped plum; the walls were riper than the fruits of the -nectarine trees so tenderly and neatly crucified on their warm bricks. -And that richer silence of unremitting thunder seemed, as it were, the -powdery bloom on a day that had come to exquisite maturity and was -hanging, round as a peach and juicy with life and happiness, waiting in -the sunshine for the bite of eager teeth. - -At the heart of this fruit-ripe world Minnie waited. The water flowed -towards the wheel; smoothly, smoothly--then it fell, it broke itself -to pieces on the turning wheel. And time was sliding onwards, quietly -towards an event that would shatter all the smoothness of her life. - -“If you really want to go to bed with the young man, go to bed with -him.” She could hear Helen’s clear, shrill voice saying impossible, -brutal things. If any one else had said them, she would have run out -of the room. But in Helen’s mouth they seemed, somehow, so simple, -so innocuous, and so true. And yet all that other people had said -or implied--at home, at school, among the people she was used to -meeting--seemed equally true. - -But then, of course, there was love. Hubert had written a Shakespearean -sonnet which began: - - “Love hallows all whereon ’tis truly placed, - Turns dross to gold with one touch of his dart, - Makes matter mind, extremest passion chaste, - And builds a temple in the lustful heart.” - -She thought that very beautiful. And very true. It seemed to throw a -bridge between Helen and the other people. Love, true love, made all -the difference. It justified. Love--how much, how much she loved! - -Time passed and the light grew richer as the sun declined out of -the height of the sky. The day grew more and more deliciously ripe, -swelling with unheard-of sweetness. Over its sun-flushed cheeks the -thundery silence of the mill-wheel spread the softest, peachiest of -blooms. Minnie sat on the parapet, waiting. Sometimes she looked -down at the sliding water, sometimes she turned her eyes towards the -garden. Time flowed, but she was now no more afraid of that shattering -event that thundered there, in the future. The ripe sweetness of -the afternoon seemed to enter into her spirit, filling it to the -brim. There was no more room for doubts, or fearful anticipations, -or regrets. She was happy. Tenderly, with a tenderness she could not -have expressed in words, only with the gentlest of light kisses, with -fingers caressingly drawn through the ruffled hair, she thought of -Hubert, her Hubert. - -Hubert, Hubert.... And suddenly, startlingly, he was standing there at -her side. - -“Oh,” she said, and for a moment she stared at him with round brown -eyes, in which there was nothing but astonishment. Then the expression -changed. “Hubert,” she said softly. - -Hubert took her hand and dropped it again; looked at her for an -instant, then turned away. Leaning on the parapet, he stared down into -the sliding water; his face was unsmiling. For a long time both were -silent. Minnie remained where she was, sitting quite still, her eyes -fixed on the young man’s averted face. She was happy, happy, happy. The -long day ripened and ripened, perfection after perfection. - -“Minnie,” said the young man suddenly, and with a loud abruptness, as -though he had been a long time deciding himself to speak and had at -last succeeded in bringing out the prepared and pent-up words, “I feel -I’ve behaved very badly towards you. I never ought to have asked you to -come here. It was wrong. I’m sorry.” - -“But I came because I wanted to,” Minnie exclaimed. - -Hubert glanced at her, then turned away his eyes and went on addressing -a ghost that floated, it seemed, just above the face of the sliding -water. “It was too much to ask. I shouldn’t have done it. For a man -it’s different. But for a woman....” - -“But, I tell you, I wanted to.” - -“It’s too much.” - -“It’s nothing,” said Minnie, “because I love you.” And leaning forward, -she ran her fingers through his hair. Ah, tenderness that no words -could express! “You silly boy,” she whispered. “Did you think I didn’t -love you enough for that?” - -Hubert did not look up. The water slid and slid away before his eyes; -Minnie’s fingers played in his hair, ran caressingly over the nape of -his neck. He felt suddenly a positive hatred for this woman. Idiot! Why -couldn’t she take a hint? He didn’t want her. And why on earth had he -ever imagined that he did? All the way in the train he had been asking -himself that question. Why? Why? And the question had asked itself -still more urgently just now as, standing at the garden door, he had -looked out between the apple tree and watched her, unobserved, through -a long minute--watched her sitting there on the parapet, turning her -vague brown eyes now at the water, now towards the garden, and smiling -to herself with an expression that had seemed to him so dim and vacuous -that he could almost have fancied her an imbecile. - -And with Phœbe yesterday he had stood on the crest of the bare chalk -down. Like a sea at their feet stretched the plain, and above the dim -horizon towered heroic clouds. Fingers of the wind lifted the red -locks of her hair. She stood as though poised, ready to leap off into -the boisterous air. “How I should like to fly!” she said. “There’s -something particularly attractive about airmen, I always think.” And -she had gone running down the hill. - -But Minnie, with her dull hair, her apple-red cheeks, and big, slow -body, was like a peasant girl. How had he ever persuaded himself that -he wanted her? And what made it much worse, of course, was that she -adored him, embarrassingly, tiresomely, like a too affectionate spaniel -that insists on tumbling about at your feet and licking your hand just -when you want to sit quietly and concentrate on serious things. - -Hubert moved away, out of reach of her caressing hand. He lifted -towards her for a moment a pair of eyes that had become, as it were, -opaque with a cold anger; then dropped them again. - -“The sacrifice is too great,” he said in a voice that sounded to him -like somebody else’s voice. He found it very difficult to say this sort -of thing convincingly. “I can’t ask it of you,” the actor pursued. “I -won’t.” - -“But it isn’t a sacrifice,” Minnie protested. “It’s a joy, it’s -happiness. Oh, can’t you understand?” - -Hubert did not answer. Motionless, his elbows on the parapet, he -stared down into the water. Minnie looked at him, perplexed only, at -first; but all at once she was seized with a nameless agonising doubt -that grew and grew within her, as the silence prolonged itself, like -some dreadful cancer of the spirit, until it had eaten away all her -happiness, until there was nothing left in her mind but doubt and -apprehension. - -“What is it?” she said at last. “Why are you so strange? What is it, -Hubert? What is it?” - -Leaning anxiously forward, she laid her two hands on either side of his -averted face and turned it towards her. Blank and opaque with anger -were the eyes. “What is it?” she repeated. “Hubert, what is it?” - -Hubert disengaged himself. “It’s no good,” he said in a smothered -voice. “No good at all. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I think I’d better -go away. The trap’s still at the door.” - -And without waiting for her to say anything, without explaining himself -any further, he turned and walked quickly away, almost ran, towards the -house. Well, thank goodness, he said to himself, he was out of that. He -hadn’t done it very well, or handsomely, or courageously; but, at any -rate, he was out of it. Poor Minnie! He felt sorry for her; but after -all, what could he do about it? Poor Minnie! Still, it rather flattered -his vanity to think that she would be mourning over him. And in any -case, he reassured his conscience, she couldn’t really mind very much. -But on the other hand, his vanity reminded him, she did adore him. Oh, -she absolutely worshipped.... - -The door closed behind him. Minnie was alone again in the garden. -Ripe, ripe it lay there in the late sunshine. Half of it was in -shadow now; but the rest of it, in the coloured evening light, seemed -to have come to the final and absolute perfection of maturity. Bloomy -with thundery silence, the choicest fruit of all time hung there, -deliciously sweet, sweet to the core; hung flushed and beautiful on the -brink of darkness. - -Minnie sat there quite still, wondering what had happened. Had he -gone, had he really gone? The door closed behind him with a bang, and -almost as though the sound were a signal prearranged, a man walked -out from the mill on to the dam and closed the sluice. And all at -once the wheel was still. Apocalyptically there was silence; the -silence of soundlessness took the place of that other silence that was -uninterrupted sound. Gulfs opened endlessly out around her; she was -alone. Across the void of soundlessness a belated bee trailed its thin -buzzing; the sparrows chirped, and from across the water came the sound -of voices and far-away laughter. And as though woken from a sleep, -Minnie looked up and listened, fearfully, turning her head from side to -side. - - - - -FARD - - -They had been quarrelling now for nearly three-quarters of an hour. -Muted and inarticulate, the voices floated down the corridor, from -the other end of the flat. Stooping over her sewing, Sophie wondered, -without much curiosity, what it was all about this time. It was -Madame’s voice that she heard most often. Shrill with anger and -indignant with tears, it burst out in gusts, in gushes. Monsieur was -more self-controlled, and his deeper voice was too softly pitched to -penetrate easily the closed doors and to carry along the passage. To -Sophie, in her cold little room, the quarrel sounded, most of the -time, like a series of monologues by Madame, interrupted by strange -and ominous silences. But every now and then Monsieur seemed to lose -his temper outright, and then there was no silence between the gusts, -but a harsh, deep, angry shout. Madame kept up her loud shrillness -continuously and without flagging; her voice had, even in anger, a -curious, level monotony. But Monsieur spoke now loudly, now softly, -with emphases and modulations and sudden outbursts, so that his -contributions to the squabble, when they were audible, sounded like -a series of separate explosions. Bow, wow, wow-wow-wow, wow--a dog -barking rather slowly. - -After a time Sophie paid no more heed to the noise of quarrelling. She -was mending one of Madame’s camisoles, and the work required all her -attention. She felt very tired; her body ached all over. It had been a -hard day; so had yesterday, so had the day before. Every day was a hard -day, and she wasn’t so young as she had been. Two years more and she’d -be fifty. Every day had been a hard day ever since she could remember. -She thought of the sacks of potatoes she used to carry when she was a -little girl in the country. Slowly, slowly she was walking along the -dusty road with the sack over her shoulder. Ten steps more; she could -manage that. Only it never was the end; one always had to begin again. - -She looked up from her sewing, moved her head from side to side, -blinked. She had begun to see lights and spots of colour dancing before -her eyes; it often happened to her now. A sort of yellowish bright -worm was wriggling up towards the right-hand corner of her field of -vision; and though it was always moving upwards, upwards, it was always -there in the same place. And there were stars of red and green that -snapped and brightened and faded all round the worm. They moved between -her and her sewing; they were there when she shut her eyes. After a -moment she went on with her work; Madame wanted her camisole most -particularly to-morrow morning. But it was difficult to see round the -worm. - -There was suddenly a great increase of noise from the other end of the -corridor. A door had opened; words articulated themselves. - -“... bien tort, mon ami, si tu crois que je suis ton esclave. Je ferai -ce que je voudrai.” - -“Moi aussi.” Monsieur uttered a harsh, dangerous laugh. There was the -sound of heavy footsteps in the passage, a rattling in the umbrella -stand; then the front door banged. - -Sophie looked down again at her work. Oh, the worm, the coloured stars, -the aching fatigue in all her limbs! If one could only spend a whole -day in bed--in a huge bed, feathery, warm and soft, all the day long.... - -The ringing of the bell startled her. It always made her jump, that -furious wasp-like buzzer. She got up, put her work down on the table, -smoothed her apron, set straight her cap, and stepped out into the -corridor. Once more the bell buzzed furiously. Madame was impatient. - -“At last, Sophie. I thought you were never coming.” - -Sophie said nothing; there was nothing to say. Madame was standing in -front of the open wardrobe. A bundle of dresses hung over her arm, and -there were more of them lying in a heap on the bed. - -“Une beauté à la Rubens,” her husband used to call her when he was in -an amorous mood. He liked these massive, splendid, great women. None of -your flexible drain-pipes for him. “Hélène Fourmont” was his pet name -for her. - -“Some day,” Madame used to tell her friends, “some day I really must -go to the Louvre and see my portrait. By Rubens, you know. It’s -extraordinary that one should have lived all one’s life in Paris and -never have seen the Louvre. Don’t you think so?” - -She was superb to-night. Her cheeks were flushed; her blue eyes shone -with an unusual brilliance between their long lashes; her short, -red-brown hair had broken wildly loose. - -“To-morrow, Sophie,” she said dramatically, “we start for Rome. -To-morrow morning.” She unhooked another dress from the wardrobe as she -spoke, and threw it on to the bed. With the movement her dressing-gown -flew open, and there was a vision of ornate underclothing and white -exuberant flesh. “We must pack at once.” - -“For how long, Madame?” - -“A fortnight, three months--how should I know?” - -“It makes a difference, Madame.” - -“The important thing is to get away. I shall not return to this house, -after what has been said to me to-night, till I am humbly asked to.” - -“We had better take the large trunk, then, Madame; I will go and fetch -it.” - -The air in the box-room was sickly with the smell of dust and leather. -The big trunk was jammed in a far corner. She had to bend and strain at -it in order to pull it out. The worm and the coloured stars flickered -before her eyes; she felt dizzy when she straightened herself up. “I’ll -help you to pack, Sophie,” said Madame, when the servant returned, -dragging the heavy trunk after her. What a death’s-head the old woman -looked nowadays! She hated having old, ugly people near her. But Sophie -was so efficient; it would be madness to get rid of her. - -“Madame need not trouble.” There would be no end to it, Sophie knew, if -Madame started opening drawers and throwing things about. “Madame had -much better go to bed. It’s late.” - -No, no. She wouldn’t be able to sleep. She was to such a degree -enervated. These men.... What an embeastment! One was not their slave. -One would not be treated in this way. - -Sophie was packing. A whole day in bed, in a huge, soft bed, like -Madame’s. One would doze, one would wake up for a moment, one would -doze again. - -“His latest game,” Madame was saying indignantly, “is to tell me -he hasn’t got any money. I’m not to buy any clothes, he says. Too -grotesque. I can’t go about naked, can I?” She threw out her hands. -“And as for saying he can’t afford, that’s simply nonsense. He can, -perfectly well. Only he’s mean, mean, horribly mean. And if he’d only -do a little honest work, for a change, instead of writing silly verses -and publishing them at his own expense, he’d have plenty and to spare.” -She walked up and down the room. “Besides,” she went on, “there’s his -old father. What’s he for, I should like to know? ‘You must be proud -of having a poet for a husband,’ he says.” She made her voice quaver -like an old man’s. “It’s all I can do not to laugh in his face. ‘And -what beautiful verses Hégésippe writes about you! What passion, what -fire!’” Thinking of the old man, she grimaced, wobbled her head, shook -her finger, doddered on her legs. “And when one reflects that poor -Hégésippe is bald, and dyes the few hairs he has left.” She laughed. -“As for the passion he talks so much about in his beastly verses,” she -laughed--“that’s all pure invention. But, my good Sophie, what are you -thinking of? Why are you packing that hideous old green dress?” - -Sophie pulled out the dress without saying anything. Why did the woman -choose this night to look so terribly ill? She had a yellow face and -blue teeth. Madame shuddered; it was too horrible. She ought to send -her to bed. But, after all, the work had to be done. What could one do -about it? She felt more than ever aggrieved. - -“Life is terrible.” Sighing, she sat down heavily on the edge of the -bed. The buoyant springs rocked her gently once or twice before they -settled to rest. “To be married to a man like this. I shall soon be -getting old and fat. And never once unfaithful. But look how he treats -me.” She got up again and began to wander aimlessly about the room. -“I won’t stand it, though,” she burst out. She had halted in front of -the long mirror, and was admiring her own splendid tragic figure. No -one would believe, to look at her, that she was over thirty. Behind -the beautiful tragedian she could see in the glass a thin, miserable, -old creature, with a yellow face and blue teeth, crouching over the -trunk. Really, it was too disagreeable. Sophie looked like one of -those beggar women one sees on a cold morning, standing in the gutter. -Does one hurry past, trying not to look at them? Or does one stop, -open one’s purse, and give them one’s copper and nickel--even as much -as a two-franc note, if one has no change? But whatever one did, one -always felt uncomfortable, one always felt apologetic for one’s furs. -That was what came of walking. If one had a car--but that was another -of Hégésippe’s meannesses--one wouldn’t, rolling along behind closed -windows, have to be conscious of them at all. She turned away from the -glass. - -“I won’t stand it,” she said, trying not to think of the beggar women, -of blue teeth in a yellow face; “I won’t stand it.” She dropped into a -chair. - -But think of a lover with a yellow face and blue, uneven teeth! She -closed her eyes, shuddered at the thought. It would be enough to make -one sick. She felt impelled to take another look: Sophie’s eyes were -the colour of greenish lead, quite without life. What was one to do -about it? The woman’s face was a reproach, an accusation. And besides, -the sight of it was making her feel positively ill. She had never been -so profoundly enervated. - -Sophie rose slowly and with difficulty from her knees; an expression -of pain crossed her face. Slowly she walked to the chest of drawers, -slowly counted out six pairs of silk stockings. She turned back towards -the trunk. The woman was a walking corpse! - -“Life is terrible,” Madame repeated with conviction, “terrible, -terrible, terrible.” - -She ought to send the woman to bed. But she would never be able to -get her packing done by herself. And it was so important to get off -to-morrow morning. She had told Hégésippe she would go, and he had -simply laughed; he hadn’t believed it. She must give him a lesson -this time. In Rome she would see Luigino. Such a charming boy, and a -marquis, too. Perhaps.... But she could think of nothing but Sophie’s -face; the leaden eyes, the bluish teeth, the yellow, wrinkled skin. - -“Sophie,” she said suddenly; it was with difficulty that she prevented -herself screaming, “look on my dressing-table. You’ll see a box of -rouge, the Dorin number twenty-four. Put a little on your cheeks. And -there’s a stick of lip salve in the right-hand drawer.” - -She kept her eyes resolutely shut while Sophie got up--with what a -horrible creaking of the joints!--walked over to the dressing-table, -and stood there, rustling faintly, through what seemed an eternity. -What a life, my God, what a life! Slow footsteps trailed back again. -She opened her eyes. Oh, that was far better, far better. - -“Thank you, Sophie. You look much less tired now.” She got up briskly. -“And now we must hurry.” Full of energy, she ran to the wardrobe. -“Goodness me,” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands, “you’ve forgotten -to put in my blue evening dress. How could you be so stupid, Sophie?” - - - - -THE PORTRAIT - - -“Pictures,” said Mr. Bigger; “you want to see some pictures? Well, -we have a very interesting mixed exhibition of modern stuff in our -galleries at the moment. French and English, you know.” - -The customer held up his hand, shook his head. “No, no. Nothing modern -for me,” he declared, in his pleasant northern English. “I want real -pictures, old pictures. Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds and that sort -of thing.” - -“Perfectly.” Mr. Bigger nodded. “Old Masters. Oh, of course we deal in -the old as well as the modern.” - -“The fact is,” said the other, “that I’ve just bought a rather large -house--a Manor House,” he added, in impressive tones. - -Mr. Bigger smiled; there was an ingenuousness about this simple-minded -fellow which was most engaging. He wondered how the man had made his -money. “A Manor House.” The way he had said it was really charming. -Here was a man who had worked his way up from serfdom to the -lordship of a manor, from the broad base of the feudal pyramid to the -narrow summit. His own history and all the history of classes had -been implicit in that awed proud emphasis on the “Manor.” But the -stranger was running on; Mr. Bigger could not allow his thoughts to -wander farther. “In a house of this style,” he was saying, “and with -a position like mine to keep up, one must have a few pictures. Old -Masters, you know; Rembrandts and What’s-his-names.” - -“Of course,” said Mr. Bigger, “an Old Master is a symbol of social -superiority.” - -“That’s just it,” cried the other, beaming; “you’ve said just what I -wanted to say.” - -Mr. Bigger bowed and smiled. It was delightful to find some one who -took one’s little ironies as sober seriousness. - -“Of course, we should only need Old Masters downstairs, in the -reception-room. It would be too much of a good thing to have them in -the bedrooms too.” - -“Altogether too much of a good thing,” Mr. Bigger assented. - -“As a matter of fact,” the Lord of the Manor went on, “my daughter--she -does a bit of sketching. And very pretty it is. I’m having some of her -things framed to hang in the bedrooms. It’s useful having an artist in -the family. Saves you buying pictures. But, of course, we must have -something old downstairs.” - -“I think I have exactly what you want.” Mr. Bigger got up and rang -the bell. “My daughter does a little sketching”--he pictured a large, -blonde, barmaidish personage, thirty-one and not yet married, running a -bit to seed. His secretary appeared at the door. “Bring me the Venetian -portrait, Miss Pratt, the one in the back room. You know which I mean.” - -“You’re very snug in here,” said the Lord of the Manor. “Business good, -I hope.” - -Mr. Bigger sighed. “The slump,” he said. “We art dealers feel it worse -than any one.” - -“Ah, the slump.” The Lord of the Manor chuckled. “I foresaw it all the -time. Some people seemed to think the good times were going to last for -ever. What fools! I sold out of everything at the crest of the wave. -That’s why I can buy pictures now.” - -Mr. Bigger laughed too. This was the right sort of customer. “Wish I’d -had anything to sell out during the boom,” he said. - -The Lord of the Manor laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. He -was still laughing when Miss Pratt re-entered the room. She carried a -picture, shieldwise, in her two hands, before her. - -“Put it on the easel, Miss Pratt,” said Mr. Bigger. “Now,” he turned to -the Lord of the Manor, “what do you think of that?” - -The picture that stood on the easel before them was a half-length -portrait. Plump-faced, white-skinned, high-bosomed in her deeply -scalloped dress of blue silk, the subject of the picture seemed a -typical Italian lady of the middle eighteenth century. A little -complacent smile curved the pouting lips, and in one hand she held a -black mask, as though she had just taken it off after a day of carnival. - -“Very nice,” said the Lord of the Manor; but he added doubtfully, -“It isn’t very like Rembrandt, is it? It’s all so clear and bright. -Generally in Old Masters you can never see anything at all, they’re so -dark and foggy.” - -“Very true,” said Mr. Bigger. “But not all Old Masters are like -Rembrandt.” - -“I suppose not.” The Lord of the Manor seemed hardly to be convinced. - -“This is eighteenth-century Venetian. Their colour was always luminous. -Giangolini was the painter. He died young, you know. Not more than half -a dozen of his pictures are known. And this is one.” - -The Lord of the Manor nodded. He could appreciate the value of rarity. - -“One notices at a first glance the influence of Longhi,” Mr. Bigger -went on airily. “And there is something of the morbidezza of Rosalba in -the painting of the face.” - -The Lord of the Manor was looking uncomfortably from Mr. Bigger to -the picture and from the picture to Mr. Bigger. There is nothing so -embarrassing as to be talked at by some one possessing more knowledge -than you do. Mr. Bigger pressed his advantage. - -“Curious,” he went on, “that one sees nothing of Tiepolo’s manner in -this. Don’t you think so?” - -The Lord of the Manor nodded. His face wore a gloomy expression. The -corners of his baby’s mouth drooped. One almost expected him to burst -into tears. - -“It’s pleasant,” said Mr. Bigger, relenting at last, “to talk to -somebody who really knows about painting. So few people do.” - -“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever gone into the subject very deeply,” said -the Lord of the Manor modestly. “But I know what I like when I see it.” -His face brightened again, as he felt himself on safer ground. - -“A natural instinct,” said Mr. Bigger. “That’s a very precious gift. I -could see by your face that you had it; I could see that the moment you -came into the gallery.” - -The Lord of the Manor was delighted. “Really, now,” he said. He felt -himself growing larger, more important. “Really.” He cocked his head -critically on one side. “Yes. I must say I think that’s a very fine bit -of painting. Very fine. But the fact is, I should rather have liked -a more historical piece, if you know what I mean. Something more -ancestor-like, you know. A portrait of somebody with a story--like Anne -Boleyn, or Nell Gwynn, or the Duke of Wellington, or some one like -that.” - -“But, my dear sir, I was just going to tell you. This picture has a -story.” Mr. Bigger leaned forward and tapped the Lord of the Manor on -the knee. His eyes twinkled with benevolent and amused brightness under -his bushy eyebrows. There was a knowing kindliness in his smile. “A -most remarkable story is connected with the painting of that picture.” - -“You don’t say so?” The Lord of the Manor raised his eyebrows. - -Mr. Bigger leaned back in his chair. “The lady you see there,” he -said, indicating the portrait with a wave of the hand, “was the wife -of the fourth Earl Hurtmore. The family is now extinct. The ninth -Earl died only last year. I got this picture when the house was sold -up. It’s sad to see the passing of these old ancestral homes.” Mr. -Bigger sighed. The Lord of the Manor looked solemn, as though he were -in church. There was a moment’s silence; then Mr. Bigger went on in a -changed tone. “From his portraits, which I have seen, the fourth Earl -seems to have been a long-faced, gloomy, grey-looking fellow. One can -never imagine him young; he was the sort of man who looks permanently -fifty. His chief interests in life were music and Roman antiquities. -There’s one portrait of him holding an ivory flute in one hand and -resting the other on a fragment of Roman carving. He spent at least -half his life travelling in Italy, looking for antiques and listening -to music. When he was about fifty-five, he suddenly decided that it -was about time to get married. This was the lady of his choice.” Mr. -Bigger pointed to the picture. “His money and his title must have made -up for many deficiencies. One can’t imagine, from her appearance, that -Lady Hurtmore took a great deal of interest in Roman antiquities. -Nor, I should think, did she care much for the science and history -of music. She liked clothes, she liked society, she liked gambling, -she liked flirting, she liked enjoying herself. It doesn’t seem that -the newly wedded couple got on too well. But still, they avoided an -open breach. A year after the marriage Lord Hurtmore decided to pay -another visit to Italy. They reached Venice in the early autumn. For -Lord Hurtmore, Venice meant unlimited music. It meant Galuppi’s daily -concerts at the orphanage of the Misericordia. It meant Piccini at -Santa Maria. It meant new operas at the San Moise; it meant delicious -cantatas at a hundred churches. It meant private concerts of amateurs; -it meant Porpora and the finest singers in Europe; it meant Tartini -and the greatest violinists. For Lady Hurtmore, Venice meant something -rather different. It meant gambling at the Ridotto, masked balls, gay -supper-parties--all the delights of the most amusing city in the world. -Living their separate lives, both might have been happy here in Venice -almost indefinitely. But one day Lord Hurtmore had the disastrous idea -of having his wife’s portrait painted. Young Giangolini was recommended -to him as the promising, the coming painter. Lady Hurtmore began her -sittings. Giangolini was handsome and dashing, Giangolini was young. -He had an amorous technique as perfect as his artistic technique. Lady -Hurtmore would have been more than human if she had been able to -resist him. She was not more than human.” - -“None of us are, eh?” The Lord of the Manor dug his finger into Mr. -Bigger’s ribs and laughed. - -Politely, Mr. Bigger joined in his mirth; when it had subsided, he went -on. “In the end they decided to run away together across the border. -They would live at Vienna--live on the Hurtmore family jewels, which -the lady would be careful to pack in her suit-case. They were worth -upwards of twenty thousand, the Hurtmore jewels; and in Vienna, under -Maria-Theresa, one could live handsomely on the interest of twenty -thousand. - -“The arrangements were easily made. Giangolini had a friend who did -everything for them--got them passports under an assumed name, hired -horses to be in waiting on the mainland, placed his gondola at their -disposal. They decided to flee on the day of the last sitting. The day -came. Lord Hurtmore, according to his usual custom, brought his wife -to Giangolini’s studio in a gondola, left her there, perched on the -high-backed model’s throne, and went off again to listen to Galuppi’s -concert at the Misericordia. It was the time of full carnival. Even -in broad daylight people went about in masks. Lady Hurtmore wore -one of black silk--you see her holding it, there, in the portrait. -Her husband, though he was no reveller and disapproved of carnival -junketings, preferred to conform to the grotesque fashion of his -neighbours rather than attract attention to himself by not conforming. - -“The long black cloak, the huge three-cornered black hat, the -long-nosed mask of white paper were the ordinary attire of every -Venetian gentleman in these carnival weeks. Lord Hurtmore did not care -to be conspicuous; he wore the same. There must have been something -richly absurd and incongruous in the spectacle of this grave and -solemn-faced English milord dressed in the clown’s uniform of a gay -Venetian masker. ‘Pantaloon in the clothes of Pulcinella,’ was how the -lovers described him to one another; the old dotard of the eternal -comedy dressed up as the clown. Well, this morning, as I have said, -Lord Hurtmore came as usual in his hired gondola, bringing his lady -with him. And she in her turn was bringing, under the folds of her -capacious cloak, a little leather box wherein, snug on their silken -bed, reposed the Hurtmore jewels. Seated in the dark little cabin of -the gondola they watched the churches, the richly fretted palazzi, the -high mean houses gliding past them. From under his Punch’s mask Lord -Hurtmore’s voice spoke gravely, slowly, imperturbably. - -“‘The learned Father Martini,’ he said, ‘has promised to do me the -honour of coming to dine with us to-morrow. I doubt if any man knows -more of musical history than he. I will ask you to be at pains to do -him special honour.’ - -“‘You may be sure I will, my lord.’ She could hardly contain the -laughing excitement that bubbled up within her. To-morrow at -dinner-time she would be far away--over the frontier, beyond Gorizia, -galloping along the Vienna road. Poor old Pantaloon! But no, she -wasn’t in the least sorry for him. After all, he had his music, he had -his odds and ends of broken marble. Under her cloak she clutched the -jewel-case more tightly. How intoxicatingly amusing her secret was!” - -Mr. Bigger clasped his hands and pressed them dramatically over his -heart. He was enjoying himself. He turned his long, foxy nose towards -the Lord of the Manor, and smiled benevolently. The Lord of the Manor -for his part was all attention. - -“Well?” he inquired. - -Mr. Bigger unclasped his hands, and let them fall on to his knees. - -“Well,” he said, “the gondola draws up at Giangolini’s door, Lord -Hurtmore helps his wife out, leads her up to the painter’s great room -on the first floor, commits her into his charge with his usual polite -formula, and then goes off to hear Galuppi’s morning concert at the -Misericordia. The lovers have a good two hours to make their final -preparations. - -“Old Pantaloon safely out of sight, up pops the painter’s useful -friend, masked and cloaked like every one else in the streets and -on the canals of this carnival Venice. There follow embracements -and handshakings and laughter all round; everything has been so -marvellously successful, not a suspicion roused. From under Lady -Hurtmore’s cloak comes the jewel-case. She opens it, and there are loud -Italian exclamations of astonishment and admiration. The brilliants, -the pearls, the great Hurtmore emeralds, the ruby clasps, the diamond -ear-rings--all these bright, glittering things are lovingly examined, -knowingly handled. Fifty thousand sequins at the least is the estimate -of the useful friend. The two lovers throw themselves ecstatically into -one another’s arms. - -“The useful friend interrupts them; there are still a few last things -to be done. They must go and sign for their passports at the Ministry -of Police. Oh, a mere formality; but still it has to be done. He will -go out at the same time and sell one of the lady’s diamonds to provide -the necessary funds for the journey.” - -Mr. Bigger paused to light a cigarette. He blew a cloud of smoke, and -went on. - -“So they set out, all in their masks and capes, the useful friend in -one direction, the painter and his mistress in another. Ah, love in -Venice!” Mr. Bigger turned up his eyes in ecstasy. “Have you ever been -in Venice and in love, sir?” he inquired of the Lord of the Manor. - -“Never farther than Dieppe,” said the Lord of the Manor, shaking his -head. - -“Ah, then you’ve missed one of life’s great experiences. You can never -fully and completely understand what must have been the sensations -of little Lady Hurtmore and the artist as they glided down the long -canals, gazing at one another through the eyeholes of their masks. -Sometimes, perhaps, they kissed--though it would have been difficult -to do that without unmasking, and there was always the danger that -some one might have recognised their naked faces through the windows -of their little cabin. No, on the whole,” Mr. Bigger concluded -reflectively, “I expect they confined themselves to looking at one -another. But in Venice, drowsing along the canals, one can almost be -satisfied with looking--just looking.” - -He caressed the air with his hand and let his voice droop away into -silence. He took two or three puffs at his cigarette without saying -anything. When he went on, his voice was very quiet and even. - -“About half an hour after they had gone, a gondola drew up at -Giangolini’s door and a man in a paper mask, wrapped in a black cloak -and wearing on his head the inevitable three-cornered hat, got out and -went upstairs to the painter’s room. It was empty. The portrait smiled -sweetly and a little fatuously from the easel. But no painter stood -before it and the model’s throne was untenanted. The long-nosed mask -looked about the room with an expressionless curiosity. The wandering -glance came to rest at last on the jewel-case that stood where the -lovers had carelessly left it, open on the table. Deep-set and darkly -shadowed behind the grotesque mask, the eyes dwelt long and fixedly on -this object. Long-nosed Pulcinella seemed to be wrapped in meditation. - -“A few minutes later there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, of -two voices laughing together. The masker turned away to look out of the -window. Behind him the door opened noisily; drunk with excitement, with -gay, laughable irresponsibility, the lovers burst in. - -“‘Aha, _caro amico_! Back already. What luck with the diamond?’ - -“The cloaked figure at the window did not stir; Giangolini rattled -gaily on. There had been no trouble whatever about the signatures, no -questions asked; he had the passports in his pocket. They could start -at once. - -“Lady Hurtmore suddenly began to laugh uncontrollably; she couldn’t -stop. - -“‘What’s the matter?’ asked Giangolini, laughing too. - -“‘I was thinking,’ she gasped between the paroxysms of her mirth, ‘I -was thinking of old Pantalone sitting at the Misericordia, solemn as -an owl, listening’--she almost choked, and the words came out shrill -and forced as though she were speaking through tears--‘listening to old -Galuppi’s boring old cantatas.’ - -“The man at the window turned round. ‘Unfortunately, madam,’ he -said, ‘the learned maestro was indisposed this morning. There was no -concert.’ He took off his mask. ‘And so I took the liberty of returning -earlier than usual.’ The long, grey, unsmiling face of Lord Hurtmore -confronted them. - -“The lovers stared at him for a moment speechlessly. Lady Hurtmore -put her hand to her heart; it had given a fearful jump, and she felt -a horrible sensation in the pit of her stomach. Poor Giangolini had -gone as white as his paper mask. Even in these days of _cicisbei_, of -official gentlemen friends, there were cases on record of outraged -and jealous husbands resorting to homicide. He was unarmed, but -goodness only knew what weapons of destruction were concealed under -that enigmatic black cloak. But Lord Hurtmore did nothing brutal or -undignified. Gravely and calmly, as he did everything, he walked over -to the table, picked up the jewel-case, closed it with the greatest -care, and saying, ‘My box, I think,’ put it in his pocket and walked -out of the room. The lovers were left looking questioningly at one -another.” - -There was a silence. - -“What happened then?” asked the Lord of the Manor. - -“The anti-climax,” Mr. Bigger replied, shaking his head mournfully. -“Giangolini had bargained to elope with fifty thousand sequins. Lady -Hurtmore didn’t, on reflection, much relish the idea of love in a -cottage. Woman’s place, she decided at last, is in the home--with the -family jewels. But would Lord Hurtmore see the matter in precisely the -same light? That was the question, the alarming, disquieting question. -She decided to go and see for herself. - -“She got back just in time for dinner. ‘His Illustrissimous Excellency -is waiting in the dining-room,’ said the majordomo. The tall doors were -flung open before her; she swam in majestically, chin held high--but -with what a terror in her soul! Her husband was standing by the -fireplace. He advanced to meet her. - -“‘I was expecting you, madam,’ he said, and led her to her place. - -“That was the only reference he ever made to the incident. In the -afternoon he sent a servant to fetch the portrait from the painter’s -studio. It formed part of their baggage when, a month later, they set -out for England. The story has been passed down with the picture from -one generation to the next. I had it from an old friend of the family -when I bought the portrait last year.” - -Mr. Bigger threw his cigarette end into the grate. He flattered himself -that he had told that tale very well. - -“Very interesting,” said the Lord of the Manor, “very interesting -indeed. Quite historical, isn’t it? One could hardly do better with -Nell Gwynn or Anne Boleyn, could one?” - -Mr. Bigger smiled vaguely, distantly. He was thinking of Venice--the -Russian countess staying in his pension, the tufted tree in the -courtyard outside his bedroom, that strong, hot scent she used (it -made you catch your breath when you first smelt it), and there was -the bathing on the Lido, and the gondola, and the dome of the Salute -against the hazy sky, looking just as it looked when Guardi painted it. -How enormously long ago and far away it all seemed now! He was hardly -more than a boy then; it had been his first great adventure. He woke up -with a start from his reverie. - -The Lord of the Manor was speaking. “How much, now, would you want for -that picture?” he asked. His tone was detached, off-hand; he was a rare -one for bargaining. - -“Well,” said Mr. Bigger, quitting with reluctance the Russian countess, -the paradisaical Venice of five-and-twenty years ago, “I’ve asked as -much as a thousand for less important works than this. But I don’t mind -letting this go to you for seven-fifty.” - -The Lord of the Manor whistled. “Seven-fifty?” he repeated. “It’s too -much.” - -“But, my dear sir,” Mr. Bigger protested, “think what you’d have to pay -for a Rembrandt of this size and quality--twenty thousand at least. -Seven hundred and fifty isn’t at all too much. On the contrary, it’s -very little considering the importance of the picture you’re getting. -You have a good enough judgment to see that this is a very fine work of -art.” - -“Oh, I’m not denying that,” said the Lord of the Manor. “All I say is -that seven-fifty’s a lot of money. Whe-ew! I’m glad my daughter does -sketching. Think if I’d had to furnish the bedrooms with pictures at -seven-fifty a time!” He laughed. - -Mr. Bigger smiled. “You must also remember,” he said, “that you’re -making a very good investment. Late Venetians are going up. If I had -any capital to spare----” The door opened and Miss Pratt’s blonde and -frizzy head popped in. - -“Mr. Crowley wants to know if he can see you, Mr. Bigger.” - -Mr. Bigger frowned. “Tell him to wait,” he said irritably. He coughed -and turned back to the Lord of the Manor. “If I had any capital to -spare, I’d put it all into late Venetians. Every penny.” - -He wondered, as he said the words, how often he had told people that -he’d put all his capital, if he had any, into primitives, cubism, -nigger sculpture, Japanese prints.... - -In the end the Lord of the Manor wrote him a cheque for six hundred and -eighty. - -“You might let me have a typewritten copy of the story,” he said, as -he put on his hat. “It would be a good tale to tell one’s guests at -dinner, don’t you think? I’d like to have the details quite correct.” - -“Oh, of course, of course,” said Mr. Bigger, “the details are most -important.” - -He ushered the little round man to the door. “Good morning. Good -morning.” He was gone. - -A tall, pale youth with side whiskers appeared in the doorway. His eyes -were dark and melancholy; his expression, his general appearance, were -romantic and at the same time a little pitiable. It was young Crowley, -the painter. - -“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” said Mr. Bigger. “What did you want -to see me for?” - -Mr. Crowley looked embarrassed, he hesitated. How he hated having to -do this sort of thing! “The fact is,” he said at last, “I’m horribly -short of money. I wondered if perhaps you wouldn’t mind--if it would -be convenient to you--to pay me for that thing I did for you the other -day. I’m awfully sorry to bother you like this.” - -“Not at all, my dear fellow.” Mr. Bigger felt sorry for this wretched -creature who didn’t know how to look after himself. Poor young Crowley -was as helpless as a baby. “How much did we settle it was to be?” - -“Twenty pounds, I think it was,” said Mr. Crowley timidly. - -Mr. Bigger took out his pocket-book. “We’ll make it twenty-five,” he -said. - -“Oh no, really, I couldn’t. Thanks very much.” Mr. Crowley blushed -like a girl. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to have a show of some of my -landscapes, would you?” he asked, emboldened by Mr. Bigger’s air of -benevolence. - -“No, no. Nothing of your own.” Mr. Bigger shook his head inexorably. - -“There’s no money in modern stuff. But I’ll take any number of those -sham Old Masters of yours.” He drummed with his fingers on Lady -Hurtmore’s sleekly painted shoulder. “Try another Venetian,” he added. -“This one was a great success.” - - - - -YOUNG ARCHIMEDES - - -It was the view which finally made us take the place. True, the -house had its disadvantages. It was a long way out of town and had -no telephone. The rent was unduly high, the drainage system poor. On -windy nights, when the ill-fitting panes were rattling so furiously in -the window-frames that you could fancy yourself in an hotel omnibus, -the electric light, for some mysterious reason, used invariably to go -out and leave you in the noisy dark. There was a splendid bathroom; -but the electric pump, which was supposed to send up water from the -rain-water tanks in the terrace, did not work. Punctually every autumn -the drinking well ran dry. And our landlady was a liar and a cheat. - -But these are the little disadvantages of every hired house, all -over the world. For Italy they were not really at all serious. I -have seen plenty of houses which had them all and a hundred others, -without possessing the compensating advantages of ours--the southward -facing garden and terrace for the winter and spring, the large cool -rooms against the midsummer heat, the hilltop air and freedom from -mosquitoes, and finally the view. - -And what a view it was! Or rather, what a succession of views. For -it was different every day; and without stirring from the house one -had the impression of an incessant change of scene: all the delights -of travel without its fatigues. There were autumn days when all the -valleys were filled with mist and the crests of the Apennines rose -darkly out of a flat white lake. There were days when the mist invaded -even our hilltop and we were enveloped in a soft vapour in which the -mist-coloured olive trees, that sloped away below our windows towards -the valley, disappeared as though into their own spiritual essence; and -the only firm and definite things in the small, dim world within which -we found ourselves confined were the two tall black cypresses growing -on a little projecting terrace a hundred feet down the hill. Black, -sharp, and solid, they stood there, twin pillars of Hercules at the -extremity of the known universe; and beyond them there was only pale -cloud and round them only the cloudy olive trees. - -These were the wintry days; but there were days of spring and autumn, -days unchangingly cloudless, or--more lovely still--made various by -the huge floating shapes of vapour that, snowy above the far-away -snow-capped mountains, gradually unfolded, against the pale bright -blue, enormous heroic gestures. And in the height of the sky the -bellying draperies, the swans, the aerial marbles, hewed and left -unfinished by gods grown tired of creation almost before they had -begun, drifted sleeping along the wind, changing form as they moved. -And the sun would come and go behind them; and now the town in the -valley would fade and almost vanish in the shadow, and now, like an -immense fretted jewel between the hills, it would glow as though by its -own light. And looking across the nearer tributary valley that wound -from below our crest down towards the Arno, looking over the low dark -shoulder of hill on whose extreme promontory stood the towered church -of San Miniato, one saw the huge dome airily hanging on its ribs of -masonry, the square campanile, the sharp spire of Santa Croce, and -the canopied tower of the Signoria, rising above the intricate maze -of houses, distinct and brilliant, like small treasures carved out of -precious stones. For a moment only, and then their light would fade -away once more, and the travelling beam would pick out, among the -indigo hills beyond, a single golden crest. - -There were days when the air was wet with passed or with approaching -rain, and all the distances seemed miraculously near and clear. The -olive trees detached themselves one from another on the distant slopes; -the far-away villages were lovely and pathetic like the most exquisite -small toys. There were days in summer-time, days of impending thunder -when, bright and sunlit against huge bellying masses of black and -purple, the hills and the white houses shone as it were precariously, -in a dying splendour, on the brink of some fearful calamity. - -How the hills changed and varied! Every day and every hour of the -day, almost, they were different. There would be moments when, -looking across the plain of Florence, one would see only a dark blue -silhouette against the sky. The scene had no depth; there was only -a hanging curtain painted flatly with the symbols of mountains. And -then, suddenly almost, with the passing of a cloud, or when the sun -had declined to a certain level in the sky, the flat scene transformed -itself; and where there had been only a painted curtain, now there were -ranges behind ranges of hills, graduated tone after tone from brown, or -grey, or a green gold to far-away blue. Shapes that a moment before had -been fused together indiscriminately into a single mass, now came apart -into their constituents. Fiesole, which had seemed only a spur of Monte -Morello, now revealed itself as the jutting headland of another system -of hills, divided from the nearest bastions of its greater neighbour by -a deep and shadowy valley. - -At noon, during the heats of summer, the landscape became dim, -powdery, vague, and almost colourless under the midday sun; the hills -disappeared into the trembling fringes of the sky. But as the afternoon -wore on the landscape emerged again, it dropped its anonymity, it -climbed back out of nothingness into form and life. And its life, -as the sun sank and slowly sank through the long afternoon, grew -richer, grew more intense with every moment. The level light, with its -attendant long, dark shadows, laid bare, so to speak, the anatomy of -the land; the hills--each western escarpment shining, and each slope -averted from the sunlight profoundly shadowed--became massive, jutty, -and solid. Little folds and dimples in the seemingly even ground -revealed themselves. Eastward from our hilltop, across the plain of the -Ema, a great bluff cast its ever-increasing shadow; in the surrounding -brightness of the valley a whole town lay eclipsed within it. And as -the sun expired on the horizon, the further hills flushed in its warm -light, till their illumined flanks were the colour of tawny roses; but -the valleys were already filled with the blue mist of evening. And -it mounted, mounted; the fire went out of the western windows of the -populous slopes; only the crests were still alight, and at last they -too were all extinct. The mountains faded and fused together again into -a flat painting of mountains against the pale evening sky. In a little -while it was night; and if the moon were full, a ghost of the dead -scene still haunted the horizons. - -Changeful in its beauty, this wide landscape always preserved a -quality of humanness and domestication which made it, to my mind at -any rate, the best of all landscapes to live with. Day by day one -travelled through its different beauties; but the journey, like our -ancestors’ Grand Tour, was always a journey through civilisation. -For all its mountains, its steep slopes and deep valleys, the Tuscan -scene is dominated by its inhabitants. They have cultivated every rood -of ground that can be cultivated; their houses are thickly scattered -even over the hills, and the valleys are populous. Solitary on the -hilltop, one is not alone in a wilderness. Man’s traces are across the -country, and already--one feels it with satisfaction as one looks out -across it--for centuries, for thousands of years, it has been his, -submissive, tamed, and humanised. The wide, blank moorlands, the sands, -the forests of innumerable trees--these are places for occasional -visitation, healthful to the spirit which submits itself to them for -not too long. But fiendish influences as well as divine haunt these -total solitudes. The vegetative life of plants and things is alien and -hostile to the human. Men cannot live at ease except where they have -mastered their surroundings and where their accumulated lives outnumber -and outweigh the vegetative lives about them. Stripped of its dark -woods, planted, terraced, and tilled almost to the mountains’ tops, -the Tuscan landscape is humanised and safe. Sometimes upon those who -live in the midst of it there comes a longing for some place that is -solitary, inhuman, lifeless, or peopled only with alien life. But the -longing is soon satisfied, and one is glad to return to the civilised -and submissive scene. - -I found that house on the hilltop the ideal dwelling-place. For there, -safe in the midst of a humanised landscape, one was yet alone; one -could be as solitary as one liked. Neighbours whom one never sees at -close quarters are the ideal and perfect neighbours. - -Our nearest neighbours, in terms of physical proximity, lived very -near. We had two sets of them, as a matter of fact, almost in the same -house with us. One was the peasant family, who lived in a long, low -building, part dwelling-house, part stables, storerooms and cowsheds, -adjoining the villa. Our other neighbours--intermittent neighbours, -however, for they only ventured out of town every now and then, during -the most flawless weather--were the owners of the villa, who had -reserved for themselves the smaller wing of the huge L-shaped house--a -mere dozen rooms or so--leaving the remaining eighteen or twenty to us. - -They were a curious couple, our proprietors. An old husband, grey, -listless, tottering, seventy at least; and a signora of about forty, -short, very plump, with tiny fat hands and feet and a pair of very -large, very dark black eyes, which she used with all the skill of a -born comedian. Her vitality, if you could have harnessed it and made -it do some useful work, would have supplied a whole town with electric -light. The physicists talk of deriving energy from the atom; they -would be more profitably employed nearer home--in discovering some -way of tapping those enormous stores of vital energy which accumulate -in unemployed women of sanguine temperament and which, in the present -imperfect state of social and scientific organisation, vent themselves -in ways that are generally so deplorable: in interfering with other -people’s affairs, in working up emotional scenes, in thinking about -love and making it, and in bothering men till they cannot get on with -their work. - -Signora Bondi got rid of her superfluous energy, among other ways, by -“doing in” her tenants. The old gentleman, who was a retired merchant -with a reputation for the most perfect rectitude, was allowed to have -no dealings with us. When we came to see the house, it was the wife -who showed us round. It was she who, with a lavish display of charm, -with irresistible rollings of the eyes, expatiated on the merits -of the place, sang the praises of the electric pump, glorified the -bathroom (considering which, she insisted, the rent was remarkably -moderate), and when we suggested calling in a surveyor to look over -the house, earnestly begged us, as though our well-being were her only -consideration, not to waste our money unnecessarily in doing anything -so superfluous. “After all,” she said, “we are honest people. I -wouldn’t dream of letting you the house except in perfect condition. -Have confidence.” And she looked at me with an appealing, pained -expression in her magnificent eyes, as though begging me not to insult -her by my coarse suspiciousness. And leaving us no time to pursue the -subject of surveyors any further, she began assuring us that our little -boy was the most beautiful angel she had ever seen. By the time our -interview with Signora Bondi was at an end, we had definitely decided -to take the house. - -“Charming woman,” I said, as we left the house. But I think that -Elizabeth was not quite so certain of it as I. - -Then the pump episode began. - -On the evening of our arrival in the house we switched on the -electricity. The pump made a very professional whirring noise; but no -water came out of the taps in the bathroom. We looked at one another -doubtfully. - -“Charming woman?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. - -We asked for interviews; but somehow the old gentleman could never see -us, and the Signora was invariably out or indisposed. We left notes; -they were never answered. In the end, we found that the only method -of communicating with our landlords, who were living in the same house -with us, was to go down into Florence and send a registered express -letter to them. For this they had to sign two separate receipts and -even, if we chose to pay forty centimes more, a third incriminating -document, which was then returned to us. There could be no pretending, -as there always was with ordinary letters or notes, that the -communication had never been received. We began at last to get answers -to our complaints. The Signora, who wrote all the letters, started by -telling us that, naturally, the pump didn’t work, as the cisterns were -empty, owing to the long drought. I had to walk three miles to the post -office in order to register my letter reminding her that there had been -a violent thunderstorm only last Wednesday, and that the tanks were -consequently more than half full. The answer came back: bath water had -not been guaranteed in the contract; and if I wanted it, why hadn’t I -had the pump looked at before I took the house? Another walk into town -to ask the Signora next door whether she remembered her adjurations -to us to have confidence in her, and to inform her that the existence -in a house of a bathroom was in itself an implicit guarantee of bath -water. The reply to that was that the Signora couldn’t continue to have -communications with people who wrote so rudely to her. After that I put -the matter into the hands of a lawyer. Two months later the pump was -actually replaced. But we had to serve a writ on the lady before she -gave in. And the costs were considerable. - -One day, towards the end of the episode, I met the old gentleman in the -road, taking his big maremman dog for a walk--or being taken, rather, -for a walk by the dog. For where the dog pulled the old gentleman -had perforce to follow. And when it stopped to smell, or scratch the -ground, or leave against a gatepost its visiting-card or an offensive -challenge, patiently, at his end of the leash, the old man had to wait. -I passed him standing at the side of the road, a few hundred yards -below our house. The dog was sniffing at the roots of one of the twin -cypresses which grew one on either side of the entry to a farm; I heard -the beast growling indignantly to itself, as though it scented an -intolerable insult. Old Signor Bondi, leashed to his dog, was waiting. -The knees inside the tubular grey trousers were slightly bent. Leaning -on his cane, he stood gazing mournfully and vacantly at the view. The -whites of his old eyes were discoloured, like ancient billiard balls. -In the grey, deeply wrinkled face, his nose was dyspeptically red. -His white moustache, ragged and yellowing at the fringes, drooped in -a melancholy curve. In his black tie he wore a very large diamond; -perhaps that was what Signora Bondi had found so attractive about him. - -I took off my hat as I approached. The old man stared at me absently, -and it was only when I was already almost past him that he recollected -who I was. - -“Wait,” he called after me, “wait!” And he hastened down the road in -pursuit. Taken utterly by surprise and at a disadvantage--for it was -engaged in retorting to the affront imprinted on the cypress roots--the -dog permitted itself to be jerked after him. Too much astonished to be -anything but obedient, it followed its master. “Wait!” - -I waited. - -“My dear sir,” said the old gentleman, catching me by the lapel of my -coat and blowing most disagreeably in my face, “I want to apologise.” -He looked around him, as though afraid that even here he might be -overheard. “I want to apologise,” he went on, “about that wretched -pump business. I assure you that, if it had been only my affair, I’d -have put the thing right as soon as you asked. You were quite right: a -bathroom is an implicit guarantee of bath water. I saw from the first -that we should have no chance if it came to court. And besides, I think -one ought to treat one’s tenants as handsomely as one can afford to. -But my wife”--he lowered his voice--“the fact is that she likes this -sort of thing, even when she knows that she’s in the wrong and must -lose. And besides, she hoped, I dare say, that you’d get tired of -asking and have the job done yourself. I told her from the first that -we ought to give in; but she wouldn’t listen. You see, she enjoys it. -Still, now she sees that it must be done. In the course of the next -two or three days you’ll be having your bath water. But I thought I’d -just like to tell you how....” But the Maremmano, which had recovered -by this time from its surprise of a moment since, suddenly bounded, -growling, up the road. The old gentleman tried to hold the beast, -strained at the leash, tottered unsteadily, then gave way and allowed -himself to be dragged off. “... how sorry I am,” he went on, as he -receded from me, “that this little misunderstanding....” But it was no -use. “Good-bye.” He smiled politely, made a little deprecating gesture, -as though he had suddenly remembered a pressing engagement, and had -no time to explain what it was. “Good-bye.” He took off his hat and -abandoned himself completely to the dog. - -A week later the water really did begin to flow, and the day after our -first bath Signora Bondi, dressed in dove-grey satin and wearing all -her pearls, came to call. - -“Is it peace now?” she asked, with a charming frankness, as she shook -hands. - -We assured her that, so far as we were concerned, it certainly was. - -“But why _did_ you write me such dreadfully rude letters?” she said, -turning on me a reproachful glance that ought to have moved the most -ruthless malefactor to contrition. “And then that writ. How _could_ -you? To a lady....” - -I mumbled something about the pump and our wanting baths. - -“But how could you expect me to listen to you while you were in that -mood? Why didn’t you set about it differently--politely, charmingly?” -She smiled at me and dropped her fluttering eyelids. - -I thought it best to change the conversation. It is disagreeable, when -one is in the right, to be made to appear in the wrong. - -A few weeks later we had a letter--duly registered and by express -messenger--in which the Signora asked us whether we proposed to renew -our lease (which was only for six months), and notifying us that, if -we did, the rent would be raised 25 per cent., in consideration of the -improvements which had been carried out. We thought ourselves lucky, at -the end of much bargaining, to get the lease renewed for a whole year -with an increase in the rent of only 15 per cent. - -It was chiefly for the sake of the view that we put up with these -intolerable extortions. But we had found other reasons, after a few -days’ residence, for liking the house. Of these the most cogent was -that, in the peasant’s youngest child, we had discovered what seemed -the perfect playfellow for our own small boy. Between little Guido--for -that was his name--and the youngest of his brothers and sisters there -was a gap of six or seven years. His two elder brothers worked with -their father in the fields; since the time of the mother’s death, two -or three years before we knew them, the eldest sister had ruled the -house, and the younger, who had just left school, helped her and in -between-whiles kept an eye on Guido, who by this time, however, needed -very little looking after; for he was between six and seven years old -and as precocious, self-assured, and responsible as the children of -the poor, left as they are to themselves almost from the time they can -walk, generally are. - -Though fully two and a half years older than little Robin--and at that -age thirty months are crammed with half a lifetime’s experience--Guido -took no undue advantage of his superior intelligence and strength. -I have never seen a child more patient, tolerant, and untyrannical. -He never laughed at Robin for his clumsy efforts to imitate his own -prodigious feats; he did not tease or bully, but helped his small -companion when he was in difficulties and explained when he could not -understand. In return, Robin adored him, regarded him as the model and -perfect Big Boy, and slavishly imitated him in every way he could. - -These attempts of Robin’s to imitate his companion were often -exceedingly ludicrous. For by an obscure psychological law, words and -actions in themselves quite serious become comic as soon as they are -copied; and the more accurately, if the imitation is a deliberate -parody, the funnier--for an overloaded imitation of some one we know -does not make us laugh so much as one that is almost indistinguishably -like the original. The bad imitation is only ludicrous when it is -a piece of sincere and earnest flattery which does not quite come -off. Robin’s imitations were mostly of this kind. His heroic and -unsuccessful attempts to perform the feats of strength and skill, which -Guido could do with ease, were exquisitely comic. And his careful, -long-drawn imitations of Guido’s habits and mannerisms were no less -amusing. Most ludicrous of all, because most earnestly undertaken and -most incongruous in the imitator, were Robin’s impersonations of Guido -in the pensive mood. Guido was a thoughtful child, given to brooding -and sudden abstractions. One would find him sitting in a corner by -himself, chin in hand, elbow on knee, plunged, to all appearances, in -the profoundest meditation. And sometimes, even in the midst of his -play, he would suddenly break off, to stand, his hands behind his back, -frowning and staring at the ground. When this happened, Robin became -overawed and a little disquieted. In a puzzled silence he looked at -his companion. “Guido,” he would say softly, “Guido.” But Guido was -generally too much preoccupied to answer; and Robin, not venturing -to insist, would creep near him, and throwing himself as nearly as -possible into Guido’s attitude--standing Napoleonically, his hands -clasped behind him, or sitting in the posture of Michelangelo’s Lorenzo -the Magnificent--would try to meditate too. Every few seconds he would -turn his bright blue eyes towards the elder child to see whether he -was doing it quite right. But at the end of a minute he began to grow -impatient; meditation wasn’t his strong point. “Guido,” he called again -and, louder, “Guido!” And he would take him by the hand and try to pull -him away. Sometimes Guido roused himself from his reverie and went back -to the interrupted game. Sometimes he paid no attention. Melancholy, -perplexed, Robin had to take himself off to play by himself. And Guido -would go on sitting or standing there, quite still; and his eyes, if -one looked into them, were beautiful in their grave and pensive calm. - -They were large eyes, set far apart and, what was strange in a -dark-haired Italian child, of a luminous pale blue-grey colour. They -were not always grave and calm, as in these pensive moments. When he -was playing, when he talked or laughed, they lit up; and the surface -of those clear, pale lakes of thought seemed, as it were, to be shaken -into brilliant sun-flashing ripples. Above those eyes was a beautiful -forehead, high and steep and domed in a curve that was like the subtle -curve of a rose petal. The nose was straight, the chin small and rather -pointed, the mouth drooped a little sadly at the corners. - -I have a snapshot of the two children sitting together on the parapet -of the terrace. Guido sits almost facing the camera, but looking a -little to one side and downwards; his hands are crossed in his lap and -his expression, his attitude are thoughtful, grave, and meditative. It -is Guido in one of those moods of abstraction into which he would pass -even at the height of laughter and play--quite suddenly and completely, -as though he had all at once taken it into his head to go away and had -left the silent and beautiful body behind, like an empty house, to wait -for his return. And by his side sits little Robin, turning to look up -at him, his face half averted from the camera, but the curve of his -cheek showing that he is laughing; one little raised hand is caught at -the top of a gesture, the other clutches at Guido’s sleeve, as though -he were urging him to come away and play. And the legs dangling from -the parapet have been seen by the blinking instrument in the midst -of an impatient wriggle; he is on the point of slipping down and -running off to play hide-and-seek in the garden. All the essential -characteristics of both the children are in that little snapshot. - -“If Robin were not Robin,” Elizabeth used to say, “I could almost wish -he were Guido.” - -And even at that time, when I took no particular interest in the child, -I agreed with her. Guido seemed to me one of the most charming little -boys I had ever seen. - -We were not alone in admiring him. Signora Bondi when, in those cordial -intervals between our quarrels, she came to call, was constantly -speaking of him. “Such a beautiful, beautiful child!” she would exclaim -with enthusiasm. “It’s really a waste that he should belong to peasants -who can’t afford to dress him properly. If he were mine, I should put -him into black velvet; or little white knickers and a white knitted -silk jersey with a red line at the collar and cuffs; or perhaps a white -sailor suit would be pretty. And in winter a little fur coat, with a -squirrel skin cap, and possibly Russian boots....” Her imagination -was running away with her. “And I’d let his hair grow, like a page’s, -and have it just curled up a little at the tips. And a straight fringe -across his forehead. Every one would turn round and stare after us if I -took him out with me in Via Tornabuoni.” - -What you want, I should have liked to tell her, is not a child; it’s a -clock-work doll or a performing monkey. But I did not say so--partly -because I could not think of the Italian for a clock-work doll and -partly because I did not want to risk having the rent raised another 15 -per cent. - -“Ah, if only I had a little boy like that!” She sighed and modestly -dropped her eyelids. “I adore children. I sometimes think of adopting -one--that is, if my husband would allow it.” - -I thought of the poor old gentleman being dragged along at the heels of -his big white dog and inwardly smiled. - -“But I don’t know if he would,” the Signora was continuing, “I don’t -know if he would.” She was silent for a moment, as though considering a -new idea. - -A few days later, when we were sitting in the garden after luncheon, -drinking our coffee, Guido’s father, instead of passing with a nod and -the usual cheerful good-day, halted in front of us and began to talk. -He was a fine handsome man, not very tall, but well proportioned, -quick and elastic in his movements, and full of life. He had a thin -brown face, featured like a Roman’s and lit by a pair of the most -intelligent-looking grey eyes I ever saw. They exhibited almost too -much intelligence when, as not infrequently happened, he was trying, -with an assumption of perfect frankness and a childlike innocence, to -take one in or get something out of one. Delighting in itself, the -intelligence shone there mischievously. The face might be ingenuous, -impassive, almost imbecile in its expression; but the eyes on these -occasions gave him completely away. One knew, when they glittered like -that, that one would have to be careful. - -To-day, however, there was no dangerous light in them. He wanted -nothing out of us, nothing of any value--only advice, which is a -commodity, he knew, that most people are only too happy to part with. -But he wanted advice on what was, for us, rather a delicate subject: -on Signora Bondi. Carlo had often complained to us about her. The old -man is good, he told us, very good and kind indeed. Which meant, I -dare say, among other things, that he could easily be swindled. But -his wife.... Well, the woman was a beast. And he would tell us stories -of her insatiable rapacity: she was always claiming more than the half -of the produce which, by the laws of the metayage system, was the -proprietor’s due. He complained of her suspiciousness: she was for ever -accusing him of sharp practices, of downright stealing--him, he struck -his breast, the soul of honesty. He complained of her short-sighted -avarice: she wouldn’t spend enough on manure, wouldn’t buy him another -cow, wouldn’t have electric light installed in the stables. And we had -sympathised, but cautiously, without expressing too strong an opinion -on the subject. The Italians are wonderfully non-committal in their -speech; they will give nothing away to an interested person until they -are quite certain that it is right and necessary and, above all, -safe to do so. We had lived long enough among them to imitate their -caution. What we said to Carlo would be sure, sooner or later, to get -back to Signora Bondi. There was nothing to be gained by unnecessarily -embittering our relations with the lady--only another 15 per cent., -very likely, to be lost. - -To-day he wasn’t so much complaining as feeling perplexed. The Signora -had sent for him, it seemed, and asked him how he would like it if she -were to make an offer--it was all very hypothetical in the cautious -Italian style--to adopt little Guido. Carlo’s first instinct had been -to say that he wouldn’t like it at all. But an answer like that would -have been too coarsely committal. He had preferred to say that he would -think about it. And now he was asking for our advice. - -Do what you think best, was what in effect we replied. But we gave it -distantly but distinctly to be understood that we didn’t think that -Signora Bondi would make a very good foster-mother for the child. And -Carlo was inclined to agree. Besides, he was very fond of the boy. - -“But the thing is,” he concluded rather gloomily, “that if she has -really set her heart on getting hold of the child, there’s nothing she -won’t do to get him--nothing.” - -He too, I could see, would have liked the physicists to start on -unemployed childless women of sanguine temperament before they tried -to tackle the atom. Still, I reflected, as I watched him striding away -along the terrace, singing powerfully from a brazen gullet as he went, -there was force there, there was life enough in those elastic limbs, -behind those bright grey eyes, to put up a good fight even against the -accumulated vital energies of Signora Bondi. - -It was a few days after this that my gramophone and two or three -boxes of records arrived from England. They were a great comfort to -us on the hilltop, providing as they did the only thing in which -that spiritually fertile solitude--otherwise a perfect Swiss Family -Robinson’s island--was lacking: music. There is not much music to -be heard nowadays in Florence. The times when Dr. Burney could tour -through Italy, listening to an unending succession of new operas, -symphonies, quartets, cantatas, are gone. Gone are the days when a -learned musician, inferior only to the Reverend Father Martini of -Bologna, could admire what the peasants sang and the strolling players -thrummed and scraped on their instruments. I have travelled for weeks -through the peninsula and hardly heard a note that was not “Salome” or -the Fascists’ song. Rich in nothing else that makes life agreeable or -even supportable, the northern metropolises are rich in music. That is -perhaps the only inducement that a reasonable man can find for living -there. The other attractions--organised gaiety, people, miscellaneous -conversation, the social pleasures--what are those, after all, but -an expense of spirit that buys nothing in return? And then the cold, -the darkness, the mouldering dirt, the damp and squalor.... No, where -there is no necessity that retains, music can be the only inducement. -And that, thanks to the ingenious Edison, can now be taken about in a -box and unpacked in whatever solitude one chooses to visit. One can -live at Benin, or Nuneaton, or Tozeur in the Sahara, and still hear -Mozart quartets, and selections from the Well-Tempered Clavichord, and -the Fifth Symphony, and the Brahms clarinet quintet, and motets by -Palestrina. - -Carlo, who had gone down to the station with his mule and cart to fetch -the packing-case, was vastly interested in the machine. - -“One will hear some music again,” he said, as he watched me unpacking -the gramophone and the disks. “It is difficult to do much oneself.” - -Still, I reflected, he managed to do a good deal. On warm nights we -used to hear him, where he sat at the door of his house, playing his -guitar and softly singing; the eldest boy shrilled out the melody -on the mandoline, and sometimes the whole family would join in, and -the darkness would be filled with their passionate, throaty singing. -Piedigrotta songs they mostly sang; and the voices drooped slurringly -from note to note, lazily climbed or jerked themselves with sudden -sobbing emphases from one tone to another. At a distance and under the -stars the effect was not unpleasing. - -“Before the war,” he went on, “in normal times” (and Carlo had a hope, -even a belief, that the normal times were coming back and that life -would soon be as cheap and easy as it had been in the days before the -flood), “I used to go and listen to the operas at the Politeama. Ah, -they were magnificent. But it costs five lire now to get in.” - -“Too much,” I agreed. - -“Have you got _Trovatore_?” he asked. - -I shook my head. - -“_Rigoletto?_” - -“I’m afraid not.” - -“_Bohème? Fanciulla del West? Pagliacci?_” - -I had to go on disappointing him. - -“Not even _Norma_? Or the _Barbiere_?” - -I put on Battistini in “La ci darem” out of _Don Giovanni_. He agreed -that the singing was good; but I could see that he didn’t much like the -music. Why not? He found it difficult to explain. - -“It’s not like _Pagliacci_,” he said at last. - -“Not palpitating?” I suggested, using a word with which I was sure he -would be familiar; for it occurs in every Italian political speech and -patriotic leading article. - -“Not palpitating,” he agreed. - -And I reflected that it is precisely by the difference between -_Pagliacci_ and _Don Giovanni_, between the palpitating and the -non-palpitating, that modern musical taste is separated from the old. -The corruption of the best, I thought, is the worst. Beethoven taught -music to palpitate with his intellectual and spiritual passion. It -has gone on palpitating ever since, but with the passion of inferior -men. Indirectly, I thought, Beethoven is responsible for _Parsifal_, -_Pagliacci_, and the _Poem of Fire_; still more indirectly for -_Samson and Delilah_ and “Ivy, cling to me.” Mozart’s melodies may be -brilliant, memorable, infectious; but they don’t palpitate, don’t catch -you between wind and water, don’t send the listener off into erotic -ecstasies. - -Carlo and his elder children found my gramophone, I am afraid, rather a -disappointment. They were too polite, however, to say so openly; they -merely ceased, after the first day or two, to take any interest in the -machine and the music it played. They preferred the guitar and their -own singing. - -Guido, on the other hand, was immensely interested. And he liked, not -the cheerful dance tunes, to whose sharp rhythms our little Robin -loved to go stamping round and round the room, pretending that he was -a whole regiment of soldiers, but the genuine stuff. The first record -he heard, I remember, was that of the slow movement of Bach’s Concerto -in D Minor for two violins. That was the disk I put on the turntable -as soon as Carlo had left me. It seemed to me, so to speak, the most -musical piece of music with which I could refresh my long-parched -mind--the coolest and clearest of all draughts. The movement had just -got under way and was beginning to unfold its pure and melancholy -beauties in accordance with the laws of the most exacting intellectual -logic, when the two children, Guido in front and little Robin -breathlessly following, came clattering into the room from the loggia. - -Guido came to a halt in front of the gramophone and stood there, -motionless, listening. His pale blue-grey eyes opened themselves -wide; making a little nervous gesture that I had often noticed in him -before, he plucked at his lower lip with his thumb and forefinger. He -must have taken a deep breath; for I noticed that, after listening -for a few seconds, he sharply expired and drew in a fresh gulp of air. -For an instant he looked at me--a questioning, astonished, rapturous -look--gave a little laugh that ended in a kind of nervous shudder, and -turned back towards the source of the incredible sounds. Slavishly -imitating his elder comrade, Robin had also taken up his stand in front -of the gramophone, and in exactly the same position, glancing at Guido -from time to time to make sure that he was doing everything, down to -plucking at his lip, in the correct way. But after a minute or so he -became bored. - -“Soldiers,” he said, turning to me; “I want soldiers. Like in London.” -He remembered the rag-time and the jolly marches round and round the -room. - -I put my fingers to my lips. “Afterwards,” I whispered. - -Robin managed to remain silent and still for perhaps another twenty -seconds. Then he seized Guido by the arm, shouting, “Vieni, Guido! -Soldiers. Soldati. Vieni giuocare soldati.” - -It was then, for the first time, that I saw Guido impatient. “Vai!” -he whispered angrily, slapped at Robin’s clutching hand and pushed -him roughly away. And he leaned a little closer to the instrument, as -though to make up by yet intenser listening for what the interruption -had caused him to miss. - -Robin looked at him, astonished. Such a thing had never happened -before. Then he burst out crying and came to me for consolation. - -When the quarrel was made up--and Guido was sincerely repentant, was as -nice as he knew how to be when the music had stopped and his mind was -free to think of Robin once more--I asked him how he liked the music. -He said he thought it was beautiful. But _bello_ in Italian is too -vague a word, too easily and frequently uttered, to mean very much. - -“What did you like best?” I insisted. For he had seemed to enjoy it so -much that I was curious to find out what had really impressed him. - -He was silent for a moment, pensively frowning. “Well,” he said at -last, “I liked the bit that went like this.” And he hummed a long -phrase. “And then there’s the other thing singing at the same -time--but what are those things,” he interrupted himself, “that sing -like that?” - -“They’re called violins,” I said. - -“Violins.” He nodded. “Well, the other violin goes like this.” He -hummed again. “Why can’t one sing both at once? And what is in that -box? What makes it make that noise?” The child poured out his questions. - -I answered him as best I could, showing him the little spirals on the -disk, the needle, the diaphragm. I told him to remember how the string -of the guitar trembled when one plucked it; sound is a shaking in the -air, I told him, and I tried to explain how those shakings get printed -on the black disk. Guido listened to me very gravely, nodding from -time to time. I had the impression that he understood perfectly well -everything I was saying. - -By this time, however, poor Robin was so dreadfully bored that in pity -for him I had to send the two children out into the garden to play. -Guido went obediently; but I could see that he would have preferred -to stay indoors and listen to more music. A little while later, when -I looked out, he was hiding in the dark recesses of the big bay tree, -roaring like a lion, and Robin, laughing, but a little nervously, as -though he were afraid that the horrible noise might possibly turn out, -after all, to be the roaring of a real lion, was beating the bush with -a stick, and shouting, “Come out, come out! I want to shoot you.” - -After lunch, when Robin had gone upstairs for his afternoon sleep, he -re-appeared. “May I listen to the music now?” he asked. And for an hour -he sat there in front of the instrument, his head cocked slightly on -one side, listening while I put on one disk after another. - -Thenceforward he came every afternoon. Very soon he knew all my library -of records, had his preferences and dislikes, and could ask for what he -wanted by humming the principal theme. - -“I don’t like that one,” he said of Strauss’s “Till Eulen Spiegel.” -“It’s like what we sing in our house. Not really like, you know. But -somehow rather like, all the same. You understand?” He looked at us -perplexedly and appealingly, as though begging us to understand what he -meant and so save him from going on explaining. We nodded. Guido went -on. “And then,” he said, “the end doesn’t seem to come properly out of -the beginning. It’s not like the one you played the first time.” He -hummed a bar or two from the slow movement of Bach’s D Minor Concerto. - -“It isn’t,” I suggested, “like saying: All little boys like playing. -Guido is a little boy. Therefore Guido likes playing.” - -He frowned. “Yes, perhaps that’s it,” he said at last. “The one you -played first is more like that. But, you know,” he added, with an -excessive regard for truth, “I don’t like playing as much as Robin -does.” - -Wagner was among his dislikes; so was Debussy. When I played the record -of one of Debussy’s Arabesques, he said, “Why does he say the same -thing over and over again? He ought to say something new, or go on, or -make the thing grow. Can’t he think of anything different?” But he was -less censorious about the “Après-Midi d’un Faune.” “The things have -beautiful voices,” he said. - -Mozart overwhelmed him with delight. The duet from _Don Giovanni_, -which his father had found insufficiently palpitating, enchanted Guido. -But he preferred the quartets and the orchestral pieces. - -“I like music,” he said, “better than singing.” - -Most people, I reflected, like singing better than music; are more -interested in the executant than in what he executes, and find the -impersonal orchestra less moving than the soloist. The touch of the -pianist is the human touch, and the soprano’s high C is the personal -note. It is for the sake of this touch, that note, that audiences fill -the concert halls. - -Guido, however, preferred music. True, he liked “La ci darem”; he liked -“Deh vieni alla finestra”; he thought “Che soave zefiretto” so lovely -that almost all our concerts had to begin with it. But he preferred the -other things. The _Figaro_ overture was one of his favourites. There -is a passage not far from the beginning of the piece, where the first -violins suddenly go rocketing up into the heights of loveliness; as the -music approached that point, I used always to see a smile developing -and gradually brightening on Guido’s face, and when, punctually, the -thing happened, he clapped his hands and laughed aloud with pleasure. - -On the other side of the same disk, it happened, was recorded -Beethoven’s _Egmont_ overture. He liked that almost better than -_Figaro_. - -“It has more voices,” he explained. And I was delighted by the -acuteness of the criticism; for it is precisely in the richness of its -orchestration that _Egmont_ goes beyond _Figaro_. - -But what stirred him almost more than anything was the _Coriolan_ -overture. The third movement of the Fifth Symphony, the second movement -of the Seventh, the slow movement of the Emperor Concerto--all these -things ran it pretty close. But none excited him so much as _Coriolan_. -One day he made me play it three or four times in succession; then he -put it away. - -“I don’t think I want to hear that any more,” he said. - -“Why not?” - -“It’s too ... too ...” he hesitated, “too big,” he said at last. “I -don’t really understand it. Play me the one that goes like this.” He -hummed the phrase from the D Minor Concerto. - -“Do you like that one better?” I asked. - -He shook his head. “No, it’s not that exactly. But it’s easier.” - -“Easier?” It seemed to me rather a queer word to apply to Bach. - -“I understand it better.” - -One afternoon, while we were in the middle of our concert, Signora -Bondi was ushered in. She began at once to be overwhelmingly -affectionate towards the child; kissed him, patted his head, paid him -the most outrageous compliments on his appearance. Guido edged away -from her. - -“And do you like music?” she asked. - -The child nodded. - -“I think he has a gift,” I said. “At any rate, he has a wonderful ear -and a power of listening and criticising such as I’ve never met with in -a child of that age. We’re thinking of hiring a piano for him to learn -on.” - -A moment later I was cursing myself for my undue frankness in praising -the boy. For Signora Bondi began immediately to protest that, if -she could have the upbringing of the child, she would give him the -best masters, bring out his talent, make an accomplished maestro of -him--and, on the way, an infant prodigy. And at that moment, I am sure, -she saw herself sitting maternally, in pearls and black satin, in the -lea of the huge Steinway, while an angelic Guido, dressed like little -Lord Fauntleroy, rattled out Liszt and Chopin, to the loud delight of a -thronged auditorium. She saw the bouquets and all the elaborate floral -tributes, heard the clapping and the few well-chosen words with which -the veteran maestri, touched almost to tears, would hail the coming -of the little genius. It became more than ever important for her to -acquire the child. - -“You’ve sent her away fairly ravening,” said Elizabeth, when Signora -Bondi had gone. “Better tell her next time that you made a mistake, and -that the boy’s got no musical talent whatever.” - -In due course, the piano arrived. After giving him the minimum of -preliminary instruction, I let Guido loose on it. He began by picking -out for himself the melodies he had heard, reconstructing the harmonies -in which they were embedded. After a few lessons, he understood the -rudiments of musical notation and could read a simple passage at -sight, albeit very slowly. The whole process of reading was still -strange to him; he had picked up his letters somehow, but nobody had -yet taught him to read whole words and sentences. - -I took occasion, next time I saw Signora Bondi, to assure her that -Guido had disappointed me. There was nothing in his musical talent, -really. She professed to be very sorry to hear it; but I could see -that she didn’t for a moment believe me. Probably she thought that we -were after the child too, and wanted to bag the infant prodigy for -ourselves, before she could get in her claim, thus depriving her of -what she regarded almost as her feudal right. For, after all, weren’t -they her peasants? If any one was to profit by adopting the child it -ought to be herself. - -Tactfully, diplomatically, she renewed her negotiations with Carlo. -The boy, she put it to him, had genius. It was the foreign gentleman -who had told her so, and he was the sort of man, clearly, who knew -about such things. If Carlo would let her adopt the child, she’d -have him trained. He’d become a great maestro and get engagements -in the Argentine and the United States, in Paris and London. He’d -earn millions and millions. Think of Caruso, for example. Part of the -millions, she explained, would of course come to Carlo. But before they -began to roll in, those millions, the boy would have to be trained. -But training was very expensive. In his own interest, as well as in -that of his son, he ought to let her take charge of the child. Carlo -said he would think it over, and again applied to us for advice. We -suggested that it would be best in any case to wait a little and see -what progress the boy made. - -He made, in spite of my assertions to Signora Bondi, excellent -progress. Every afternoon, while Robin was asleep, he came for his -concert and his lesson. He was getting along famously with his reading; -his small fingers were acquiring strength and agility. But what to me -was more interesting was that he had begun to make up little pieces -on his own account. A few of them I took down as he played them and I -have them still. Most of them, strangely enough, as I thought then, -are canons. He had a passion for canons. When I explained to him the -principles of the form he was enchanted. - -“It is beautiful,” he said, with admiration. “Beautiful, beautiful. And -so easy!” - -Again the word surprised me. The canon is not, after all, so -conspicuously simple. Thenceforward he spent most of his time at the -piano in working out little canons for his own amusement. They were -often remarkably ingenious. But in the invention of other kinds of -music he did not show himself so fertile as I had hoped. He composed -and harmonised one or two solemn little airs like hymn tunes, with a -few sprightlier pieces in the spirit of the military march. They were -extraordinary, of course, as being the inventions of a child. But a -great many children can do extraordinary things; we are all geniuses -up to the age of ten. But I had hoped that Guido was a child who was -going to be a genius at forty; in which case what was extraordinary for -an ordinary child was not extraordinary enough for him. “He’s hardly a -Mozart,” we agreed, as we played his little pieces over. I felt, it -must be confessed, almost aggrieved. Anything less than a Mozart, it -seemed to me, was hardly worth thinking about. - -He was not a Mozart. No. But he was somebody, as I was to find out, -quite as extraordinary. It was one morning in the early summer -that I made the discovery. I was sitting in the warm shade of our -westward-facing balcony, working. Guido and Robin were playing in the -little enclosed garden below. Absorbed in my work, it was only, I -suppose, after the silence had prolonged itself a considerable time -that I became aware that the children were making remarkably little -noise. There was no shouting, no running about; only a quiet talking. -Knowing by experience that when children are quiet it generally means -that they are absorbed in some delicious mischief, I got up from my -chair and looked over the balustrade to see what they were doing. I -expected to catch them dabbling in water, making a bonfire, covering -themselves with tar. But what I actually saw was Guido, with a burnt -stick in his hand, demonstrating on the smooth paving-stones of the -path, that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is -equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. - -Kneeling on the floor, he was drawing with the point of his blackened -stick on the flagstones. And Robin, kneeling imitatively beside him, -was growing, I could see, rather impatient with this very slow game. - -“Guido,” he said. But Guido paid no attention. Pensively frowning, he -went on with his diagram. “Guido!” The younger child bent down and then -craned round his neck so as to look up into Guido’s face. “Why don’t -you draw a train?” - -“Afterwards,” said Guido. “But I just want to show you this first. It’s -so beautiful,” he added cajolingly. - -“But I want a train,” Robin persisted. - -“In a moment. Do just wait a moment.” The tone was almost imploring. -Robin armed himself with renewed patience. A minute later Guido had -finished both his diagrams. - -“There!” he said triumphantly, and straightened himself up to look at -them. “Now I’ll explain.” - -And he proceeded to prove the theorem of Pythagoras--not in Euclid’s -way, but by the simpler and more satisfying method which was, in all -probability, employed by Pythagoras himself. He had drawn a square and -dissected it, by a pair of crossed perpendiculars, into two squares -and two equal rectangles. The equal rectangles he divided up by their -diagonals into four equal right-angled triangles. The two squares -are then seen to be the squares on the two sides of any one of these -triangles other than the hypotenuse. So much for the first diagram. -In the next he took the four right-angled triangles into which the -rectangles had been divided and re-arranged them round the original -square so that their right angles filled the corners of the square, -the hypotenuses looked inwards, and the greater and less sides of the -triangles were in continuation along the sides of the square (which are -each equal to the sum of these sides). In this way the original square -is redissected into four right-angled triangles and the square on the -hypotenuse. The four triangles are equal to the two rectangles of the -original dissection. Therefore the square on the hypotenuse is equal to -the sum of the two squares--the squares on the other two sides--into -which, with the rectangles, the original square was first dissected. - -In very untechnical language, but clearly and with a relentless logic, -Guido expounded his proof. Robin listened, with an expression on his -bright, freckled face of perfect incomprehension. - -“Treno,” he repeated from time to time. “Treno. Make a train.” - -“In a moment,” Guido implored. “Wait a moment. But do just look at -this. _Do._” He coaxed and cajoled. “It’s so beautiful. It’s so easy.” - -So easy.... The theorem of Pythagoras seemed to explain for me Guido’s -musical predilections. It was not an infant Mozart we had been -cherishing; it was a little Archimedes with, like most of his kind, an -incidental musical twist. - -“Treno, treno!” shouted Robin, growing more and more restless as the -exposition went on. And when Guido insisted on going on with his proof, -he lost his temper. “Cattivo Guido,” he shouted, and began to hit out -at him with his fists. - -“All right,” said Guido resignedly. “I’ll make a train.” And with his -stick of charcoal he began to scribble on the stones. - -I looked on for a moment in silence. It was not a very good train. -Guido might be able to invent for himself and prove the theorem of -Pythagoras; but he was not much of a draughtsman. - -“Guido!” I called. The two children turned and looked up. “Who taught -you to draw those squares?” It was conceivable, of course, that -somebody might have taught him. - -“Nobody.” He shook his head. Then, rather anxiously, as though he were -afraid there might be something wrong about drawing squares, he went -on to apologise and explain. “You see,” he said, “it seemed to me so -beautiful. Because those squares”--he pointed at the two small squares -in the first figure--“are just as big as this one.” And, indicating the -square on the hypotenuse in the second diagram, he looked up at me with -a deprecating smile. - -I nodded. “Yes, it’s very beautiful,” I said--“it’s very beautiful -indeed.” - -An expression of delighted relief appeared on his face; he laughed -with pleasure. “You see, it’s like this,” he went on, eager to initiate -me into the glorious secret he had discovered. “You cut these two long -squares”--he meant the rectangles--“into two slices. And then there -are four slices, all just the same, because, because--oh, I ought to -have said that before--because these long squares are the same, because -those lines, you see....” - -“But I want a train,” protested Robin. - -Leaning on the rail of the balcony, I watched the children below. I -thought of the extraordinary thing I had just seen and of what it meant. - -I thought of the vast differences between human beings. We classify men -by the colour of their eyes and hair, the shape of their skulls. Would -it not be more sensible to divide them up into intellectual species? -There would be even wider gulfs between the extreme mental types than -between a Bushman and a Scandinavian. This child, I thought, when he -grows up, will be to me, intellectually, what a man is to a dog. And -there are other men and women who are, perhaps, almost as dogs to me. - -Perhaps the men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of -the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of -us--what are we? Teachable animals. Without the help of the real men, -we should have found out almost nothing at all. Almost all the ideas -with which we are familiar could never have occurred to minds like -ours. Plant the seeds there and they will grow; but our minds could -never spontaneously have generated them. - -There have been whole nations of dogs, I thought; whole epochs in -which no Man was born. From the dull Egyptians the Greeks took crude -experience and rules of thumb and made sciences. More than a thousand -years passed before Archimedes had a comparable successor. There has -been only one Buddha, one Jesus, only one Bach that we know of, one -Michelangelo. - -Is it by a mere chance, I wondered, that a Man is born from -time to time? What causes a whole constellation of them to come -contemporaneously into being and from out of a single people? Taine -thought that Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were born when they -were because the time was ripe for great painters and the Italian scene -congenial. In the mouth of a rationalising nineteenth-century Frenchman -the doctrine is strangely mystical; it may be none the less true for -that. But what of those born out of time? Blake, for example. What of -those? - -This child, I thought, has had the fortune to be born at a time when he -will be able to make good use of his capacities. He will find the most -elaborate analytical methods lying ready to his hand; he will have a -prodigious experience behind him. Suppose him born while Stone Henge -was building; he might have spent a lifetime discovering the rudiments, -guessing darkly where now he might have had a chance of proving. Born -at the time of the Norman Conquest, he would have had to wrestle with -all the preliminary difficulties created by an inadequate symbolism; -it would have taken him long years, for example, to learn the art of -dividing MMMCCCCLXXXVIII by MCMXIX. In five years, nowadays, he will -learn what it took generations of Men to discover. - -And I thought of the fate of all the Men born so hopelessly out of -time that they could achieve little or nothing of value. Beethoven -born in Greece, I thought, would have had to be content to play thin -melodies on the flute or lyre; in those intellectual surroundings -it would hardly have been possible for him to imagine the nature of -harmony. - -From drawing trains, the children in the garden below had gone on to -playing trains. They were trotting round and round; with blown round -cheeks and pouting mouth, like the cherubic symbol of a wind, Robin -puff-puffed, and Guido, holding the skirt of his smock, shuffled -behind him, tooting. They ran forward, backed, stopped at imaginary -stations, shunted, roared over bridges, crashed through tunnels, met -with occasional collisions and derailments. The young Archimedes -seemed to be just as happy as the little tow-headed barbarian. A few -minutes ago he had been busy with the theorem of Pythagoras. Now, -tooting indefatigably along imaginary rails, he was perfectly content -to shuffle backwards and forwards among the flower-beds, between the -pillars of the loggia, in and out of the dark tunnels of the laurel -tree. The fact that one is going to be Archimedes does not prevent -one from being an ordinary cheerful child meanwhile. I thought of -this strange talent distinct and separate from the rest of the mind, -independent, almost, of experience. The typical child-prodigies are -musical and mathematical; the other talents ripen slowly under the -influence of emotional experience and growth. Till he was thirty Balzac -gave proof of nothing but ineptitude; but at four the young Mozart was -already a musician, and some of Pascal’s most brilliant work was done -before he was out of his teens. - -In the weeks that followed, I alternated the daily piano lessons -with lessons in mathematics. Hints rather than lessons they were; -for I only made suggestions, indicated methods, and left the child, -himself to work out the ideas in detail. Thus I introduced him to -algebra by showing him another proof of the theorem of Pythagoras. -In this proof one drops a perpendicular from the right angle on to -the hypotenuse, and arguing from the fact that the two triangles thus -created are similar to one another and to the original triangle, and -that the proportions which their corresponding sides bear to one -another are therefore equal, one can show in algebraical form that -_c² + d²_ (the squares on the other two sides) are equal to _a² + b²_ -(the squares on the two segments of the hypotenuse) + 2_ab_; -which last, it is easy to show geometrically, is equal to (_a + b_)², -or the square on the hypotenuse. Guido was as much enchanted -by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him -an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the -boiler; more enchanted, perhaps--for the engine would have got broken, -and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, -while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his -mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of -something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful; the new toy was -inexhaustible in its potentialities. - -In the intervals of applying algebra to the second book of Euclid, we -experimented with circles; we stuck bamboos into the parched earth, -measured their shadows at different hours of the day, and drew exciting -conclusions from our observations. Sometimes, for fun, we cut and -folded sheets of paper so as to make cubes and pyramids. One afternoon -Guido arrived carrying carefully between his small and rather grubby -hands a flimsy dodecahedron. - -“È tanto bello!” he said, as he showed us his paper crystal; and when I -asked him how he had managed to make it, he merely smiled and said it -had been so easy. I looked at Elizabeth and laughed. But it would have -been more symbolically to the point, I felt, if I had gone down on all -fours, wagged the spiritual outgrowth of my os coccyx, and barked my -astonished admiration. - -It was an uncommonly hot summer. By the beginning of July our little -Robin, unaccustomed to these high temperatures, began to look pale and -tired; he was listless, had lost his appetite and energy. The doctor -advised mountain air. We decided to spend the next ten or twelve weeks -in Switzerland. My parting gift to Guido was the first six books of -Euclid in Italian. He turned over the pages, looking ecstatically at -the figures. - -“If only I knew how to read properly,” he said. “I’m so stupid. But now -I shall really try to learn.” - -From our hotel near Grindelwald we sent the child, in Robin’s name, -various post cards of cows, Alp-horns, Swiss chalets, edelweiss, and -the like. We received no answers to these cards; but then we did -not expect answers. Guido could not write, and there was no reason -why his father or his sisters should take the trouble to write for -him. No news, we took it, was good news. And then one day, early in -September, there arrived at the hotel a strange letter. The manager -had it stuck up on the glass-fronted notice-board in the hall, so that -all the guests might see it, and whoever conscientiously thought that -it belonged to him might claim it. Passing the board on the way into -lunch, Elizabeth stopped to look at it. - -“But it must be from Guido,” she said. - -I came and looked at the envelope over her shoulder. It was unstamped -and black with postmarks. Traced out in pencil, the big uncertain -capital letters sprawled across its face. In the first line was -written: AL BABBO DI ROBIN, and there followed a travestied version -of the name of the hotel and the place. Round the address bewildered -postal officials had scrawled suggested emendations. The letter had -wandered for a fortnight at least, back and forth across the face of -Europe. - -“Al Babbo di Robin. To Robin’s father.” I laughed. “Pretty smart of the -postmen to have got it here at all.” I went to the manager’s office, -set forth the justice of my claim to the letter and, having paid the -fifty-centime surcharge for the missing stamp, had the case unlocked -and the letter given me. We went in to lunch. - -“The writing’s magnificent,” we agreed, laughing, as we examined the -address at close quarters. “Thanks to Euclid,” I added. “That’s what -comes of pandering to the ruling passion.” - -But when I opened the envelope and looked at its contents I no longer -laughed. The letter was brief and almost telegraphical in style. “SONO -DALLA PADRONA,” it ran, “NON MI PIACE HA RUBATO IL MIO LIBRO NON VOGLIO -SUONARE PIU VOGLIO TORNARE A CASA VENGA SUBITO GUIDO.” - -“What is it?” - -I handed Elizabeth the letter. “That blasted woman’s got hold of him,” -I said. - - * * * * * - -Busts of men in Homburg hats, angels bathed in marble tears -extinguishing torches, statues of little girls, cherubs, veiled -figures, allegories and ruthless realisms--the strangest and most -diverse idols beckoned and gesticulated as we passed. Printed indelibly -on tin and embedded in the living rock, the brown photographs looked -out, under glass, from the humbler crosses, headstones, and broken -pillars. Dead ladies in the cubistic geometrical fashions of thirty -years ago--two cones of black satin meeting point to point at the -waist, and the arms: a sphere to the elbow, a polished cylinder -below--smiled mournfully out of their marble frames; the smiling faces, -the white hands, were the only recognisably human things that emerged -from the solid geometry of their clothes. Men with black moustaches, -men with white beards, young clean-shaven men, stared or averted their -gaze to show a Roman profile. Children in their stiff best opened -wide their eyes, smiled hopefully in anticipation of the little bird -that was to issue from the camera’s muzzle, smiled sceptically in the -knowledge that it wouldn’t, smiled laboriously and obediently because -they had been told to. In spiky Gothic cottages of marble the richer -dead privately reposed; through grilled doors one caught a glimpse of -pale Inconsolables weeping, of distraught Geniuses guarding the secret -of the tomb. The less prosperous sections of the majority slept in -communities, close-crowded but elegantly housed under smooth continuous -marble floors, whose every flagstone was the mouth of a separate grave. - -These continental cemeteries, I thought, as Carlo and I made our way -among the dead, are more frightful than ours, because these people -pay more attention to their dead than we do. That primordial cult -of corpses, that tender solicitude for their material well-being, -which led the ancients to house their dead in stone, while they -themselves lived between wattles and under thatch, still lingers here; -persists, I thought, more vigorously than with us. There are a hundred -gesticulating statues here for every one in an English graveyard. There -are more family vaults, more “luxuriously appointed” (as they say of -liners and hotels) than one would find at home. And embedded in every -tombstone there are photographs to remind the powdered bones within -what form they will have to resume on the Day of Judgment; beside each -are little hanging lamps to burn optimistically on All Souls’ Day. To -the Man who built the Pyramids they are nearer, I thought, than we. - -“If I had known,” Carlo kept repeating, “if only I had known.” His -voice came to me through my reflections as though from a distance. “At -the time he didn’t mind at all. How should I have known that he would -take it so much to heart afterwards? And she deceived me, she lied to -me.” - -I assured him yet once more that it wasn’t his fault. Though, of -course, it was, in part. It was mine too, in part; I ought to have -thought of the possibility and somehow guarded against it. And he -shouldn’t have let the child go, even temporarily and on trial, even -though the woman was bringing pressure to bear on him. And the pressure -had been considerable. They had worked on the same holding for more -than a hundred years, the men of Carlo’s family; and now she had made -the old man threaten to turn him out. It would be a dreadful thing to -leave the place; and besides, another place wasn’t so easy to find. It -was made quite plain, however, that he could stay if he let her have -the child. Only for a little to begin with; just to see how he got on. -There would be no compulsion whatever on him to stay if he didn’t like -it. And it would be all to Guido’s advantage; and to his father’s, too, -in the end. All that the Englishman had said about his not being such -a good musician as he had thought at first was obviously untrue--mere -jealousy and little-mindedness: the man wanted to take credit for Guido -himself, that was all. And the boy, it was obvious, would learn nothing -from him. What he needed was a real good professional master. - -All the energy that, if the physicists had known their business, -would have been driving dynamos, went into this campaign. It began -the moment we were out of the house, intensively. She would have more -chance of success, the Signora doubtless thought, if we weren’t there. -And besides, it was essential to take the opportunity when it offered -itself and get hold of the child before we could make our bid--for it -was obvious to her that we wanted Guido just as much as she did. - -Day after day she renewed the assault. At the end of a week she sent -her husband to complain about the state of the vines: they were in a -shocking condition; he had decided, or very nearly decided, to give -Carlo notice. Meekly, shamefacedly, in obedience to higher orders, the -old gentleman uttered his threats. Next day Signora Bondi returned to -the attack. The padrone, she declared, had been in a towering passion; -but she’d do her best, her very best, to mollify him. And after a -significant pause she went on to talk about Guido. - -In the end Carlo gave in. The woman was too persistent and she held -too many trump cards. The child could go and stay with her for a month -or two on trial. After that, if he really expressed a desire to remain -with her, she could formally adopt him. - -At the idea of going for a holiday to the seaside--and it was to the -seaside, Signora Bondi told him, that they were going--Guido was -pleased and excited. He had heard a lot about the sea from Robin. -“Tanta acqua!” It had sounded almost too good to be true. And now he -was actually to go and see this marvel. It was very cheerfully that he -parted from his family. - -But after the holiday by the sea was over, and Signora Bondi had -brought him back to her town house in Florence, he began to be -homesick. The Signora, it was true, treated him exceedingly kindly, -bought him new clothes, took him out to tea in the Via Tornabuoni and -filled him up with cakes, iced strawberry-ade, whipped cream, and -chocolates. But she made him practise the piano more than he liked, and -what was worse, she took away his Euclid, on the score that he wasted -too much time with it. And when he said that he wanted to go home, she -put him off with promises and excuses and downright lies. She told him -that she couldn’t take him at once, but that next week, if he were good -and worked hard at his piano meanwhile, next week.... And when the -time came she told him that his father didn’t want him back. And she -redoubled her petting, gave him expensive presents, and stuffed him -with yet unhealthier foods. To no purpose. Guido didn’t like his new -life, didn’t want to practise scales, pined for his book, and longed -to be back with his brothers and sisters. Signora Bondi, meanwhile, -continued to hope that time and chocolates would eventually make the -child hers; and to keep his family at a distance, she wrote to Carlo -every few days letters which still purported to come from the seaside -(she took the trouble to send them to a friend, who posted them back -again to Florence), and in which she painted the most charming picture -of Guido’s happiness. - -It was then that Guido wrote his letter to me. Abandoned, as he -supposed, by his family--for that they shouldn’t take the trouble to -come to see him when they were so near was only to be explained on the -hypothesis that they really had given him up--he must have looked to me -as his last and only hope. And the letter, with its fantastic address, -had been nearly a fortnight on its way. A fortnight--it must have -seemed hundreds of years; and as the centuries succeeded one another, -gradually, no doubt, the poor child became convinced that I too had -abandoned him. There was no hope left. - -“Here we are,” said Carlo. - -I looked up and found myself confronted by an enormous monument. In a -kind of grotto hollowed in the flanks of a monolith of grey sandstone, -Sacred Love, in bronze, was embracing a funerary urn. And in bronze -letters riveted into the stone was a long legend to the effect that -the inconsolable Ernesto Bondi had raised this monument to the memory -of his beloved wife, Annunziata, as a token of his undying love for -one whom, snatched from him by a premature death, he hoped very soon -to join beneath this stone. The first Signora Bondi had died in 1912. -I thought of the old man leashed to his white dog; he must always, I -reflected, have been a most uxorious husband. - -“They buried him here.” - -We stood there for a long time in silence. I felt the tears coming -into my eyes as I thought of the poor child lying there underground. I -thought of those luminous grave eyes, and the curve of that beautiful -forehead, the droop of the melancholy mouth, of the expression of -delight which illumined his face when he learned of some new idea that -pleased him, when he heard a piece of music that he liked. And this -beautiful small being was dead; and the spirit that inhabited this -form, the amazing spirit, that too had been destroyed almost before it -had begun to exist. - -And the unhappiness that must have preceded the final act, the child’s -despair, the conviction of his utter abandonment--those were terrible -to think of, terrible. - -“I think we had better come away now,” I said at last, and touched -Carlo on the arm. He was standing there like a blind man, his eyes -shut, his face slightly lifted towards the light; from between his -closed eyelids the tears welled out, hung for a moment, and trickled -down his cheeks. His lips trembled and I could see that he was making -an effort to keep them still. “Come away,” I repeated. - -The face which had been still in its sorrow, was suddenly convulsed; he -opened his eyes, and through the tears they were bright with a violent -anger. “I shall kill her,” he said, “I shall kill her. When I think of -him throwing himself out, falling through the air....” With his two -hands he made a violent gesture, bringing them down from over his head -and arresting them with a sudden jerk when they were on a level with -his breast. “And then crash.” He shuddered. “She’s as much responsible -as though she had pushed him down herself. I shall kill her.” He -clenched his teeth. - -To be angry is easier than to be sad, less painful. It is comforting to -think of revenge. “Don’t talk like that,” I said. “It’s no good. It’s -stupid. And what would be the point?” He had had those fits before, -when grief became too painful and he had tried to escape from it. Anger -had been the easiest way of escape. I had had, before this, to persuade -him back into the harder path of grief. “It’s stupid to talk like -that,” I repeated, and I led him away through the ghastly labyrinth of -tombs, where death seemed more terrible even than it is. - -By the time we had left the cemetery, and were walking down from San -Miniato towards the Piazzale Michelangelo below, he had become calmer. -His anger had subsided again into the sorrow from which it had derived -all its strength and its bitterness. In the Piazzale we halted for -a moment to look down at the city in the valley below us. It was a -day of floating clouds--great shapes, white, golden, and grey; and -between them patches of a thin, transparent blue. Its lantern level, -almost, with our eyes, the dome of the cathedral revealed itself in -all its grandiose lightness, its vastness and aerial strength. On the -innumerable brown and rosy roofs of the city the afternoon sunlight -lay softly, sumptuously, and the towers were as though varnished and -enamelled with an old gold. I thought of all the Men who had lived here -and left the visible traces of their spirit and conceived extraordinary -things. 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