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diff --git a/77646-h/77646-h.htm b/77646-h/77646-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7d5731 --- /dev/null +++ b/77646-h/77646-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8316 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="UTF-8"> +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> +<title>Oberland: Pilgrimage, Volume 9 | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <!-- TITLE="Oberland: Pilgrimage, Volume 9" --> + <!-- AUTHOR="Dorothy M. Richardson" --> + <!-- LANGUAGE="en" --> + <!-- PUBLISHER="Duckworth & Co., London" --> + <!-- DATE="1927" --> + <!-- COVER="images/cover.jpg" --> + +<style> + +body { margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%; } + +div.frontmatter { } +.halftitle { text-indent:0; text-align:center; padding-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; } +h1.title { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:0; padding-top:1em; + margin-bottom:1em; } +.aut { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-bottom:4em; + font-weight:bold; } +.aut .line1{ font-size:0.8em; } +.aut .line3{ font-size:0.7em; } +.pub { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; line-height:2em; } +.pub .line2{ font-size:0.8em; } +.cop { text-indent:0; text-align:center; padding-top:4em; font-size:0.8em; + font-style:italic; } +.printer { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; + font-size:0.8em; } +.ded { text-indent:0; text-align:center; padding-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; } +.ded .line1{ font-size:0.8em; } +.tit { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size:1.5em; + padding-top:2em; } + +div.chapter{ page-break-before:always; } +h2 { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:3em; } +div.chapter h2 { margin-top:0; padding-top:3em; page-break-before:auto; } +div.chapter h2.chapter1 { padding-top:1em; } + +p { margin:0; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em; } +p.noindent { text-indent:0; } +p.first { text-indent:0; } +span.firstchar { clear:left; float:left; font-size:3em; line-height:0.85em; } +span.prefirstchar { } +.tb { margin:1em; } + +/* spans */ +span.lang { font-style:italic; } +.underline { text-decoration:underline; } +.hidden { display:none; } + +/* volumes */ +div.volumes { margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; text-align:center; } +div.volumes .hdr { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-style:italic; margin-bottom:1em; } +div.volumes .list { text-indent:0; display:inline-block; } + +a:link { text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10%,30%,60%); } +a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10%,30%,60%); } +a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } +a:active { text-decoration: underline; } + +/* Transcriber's note */ +.trnote { font-size:0.8em; line-height:1.2em; background-color: #ccc; + color: #000; border: black 1px dotted; margin: 2em; padding: 1em; + margin-top:3em; } +.trnote p { text-indent:0; margin-bottom:1em; } +.trnote ul { margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0; } +.trnote li { text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; } +.trnote ul li { list-style-type: square; } +.trnote .transnote { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; } + +/* page numbers */ +a[title].pagenum { position: absolute; right: 1%; } +a[title].pagenum:after { content: attr(title); color: gray; background-color: inherit; + letter-spacing: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: right; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: x-small; + border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; + display: inline; } + +body.x-ebookmaker { margin-left:0; margin-right:0; } +.x-ebookmaker div.volumes .list { display:block; margin-left:2em; } +.x-ebookmaker span.firstchar { float:left; } +.x-ebookmaker a.pagenum { display:none; } +.x-ebookmaker a.pagenum:after { display:none; } +.x-ebookmaker .trnote { margin:0; } + +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77646 ***</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="halftitle"> +OBERLAND +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> + <div class="volumes"> +<p class="hdr"> +VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES +</p> + +<p class="list"> +POINTED ROOFS<br> +BACKWATER<br> +HONEYCOMB<br> +THE TUNNEL<br> +INTERIM<br> +DEADLOCK<br> +REVOLVING LIGHTS<br> +THE TRAP<br> +OBERLAND<br> +(The next volume is in preparation) +</p> + + </div> +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<h1 class="title"> +OBERLAND +</h1> + +<p class="aut"> +<span class="line1">BY</span><br> +<span class="line2">DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON</span><br> +<span class="line3">AUTHOR OF “POINTED ROOFS,” ETC.</span> +</p> + +<p class="pub"> +<span class="line1">DUCKWORTH</span><br> +<span class="line2">3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON</span> +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="cop"> +First published 1927<br> +(All rights reserved) +</p> + +<p class="printer"> +Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis & Son, Ltd., The Trinity Press, +Worcester. +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="ded"> +<span class="line1">TO</span><br> +<span class="line2">J. H. B.</span> +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a> +<p class="tit"> +OBERLAND +</p> + +<h2 class="chapter1" id="chapter-0-1"> +CHAPTER I +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> sight of a third porter, this time a +gentle-looking man carrying a pile of +pillows and coming slowly, filled her with +hope. But he passed on his way as heedless +as the others. It seemed incredible that +not one of these men should answer. She +wasted a precious moment seeing again the +three brutishly preoccupied forms as figures +moving in an evil dream. If only she +were without the miserable handbags she +might run alongside one of these villains, +with a tip in an outstretched hand and buy +the simple yes or no that was all she needed. +But she could not bring herself to abandon her +belongings to the mercy of this ill-mannered +wilderness where not a soul would care if she +wandered helpless until the undiscovered +<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a> +train had moved off into the night. She +knew this would not be and that what she +was resenting was not the human selfishness +about her of which she had her own full +share, but this turning of her weariness into +exhaustion ruining the rest of the journey that +already had held suffering enough. +</p> + +<p> +There must be several minutes left of the ten +the big clock had marked as she neared the platforms. +Recalling its friendly face she saw also +that of the little waiter at the buffet who had +tried to persuade her to take wine and murmured +too late that there was no extra charge for it, +very gently. Rallying the remainder of her +strength she dropped her things on the platform +with a decisiveness she tried just in vain +to scorn, and stood still and looked about +amongst the hurrying passengers and saw +passing by and going ahead to the movement +of an English stride the familiar, blessed outlines +of a Burberry. Ignoring the near train +the man was crossing a pool of lamplight and +making for the dark unlikely platform over +the way. She caught up her bags and followed +and in a moment was at peace within +<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a> +the semi-darkness of the further platform +amongst people she had seen this morning +at Victoria, and the clangorous station was +reduced to an enchanting background for +confident behaviour. +</p> + +<p> +All these people were serene; had come in +groups, unscathed, knowing their way, knowing +how to quell the bloused fiends into helpfulness. +But then, also, the journey to them +was uniform grey, a tiresome business to be +got through; not black and sudden gold. +Yet even they were relieved to find themselves +safely through the tangle. They strode unnecessarily +about, shouted needlessly to each +other; expressing travellers’ joy in the English +way. +</p> + +<p> +There seemed to be plenty of time and for +awhile she strolled delighting in them, until +the sight of an excited weary child, in a +weatherproof that trailed at its heels, marching +sturdily about adream with pride and joy +perfectly caricaturing the rest of the assembly, +made her turn away content to see no more, to +hoist up her baggage and clamber after it +into cover, into the company of her own joy. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a> +Into a compartment whose blinds were +snugly drawn upon soft diffused light falling +on the elegance of dove-grey repp and white +lace that had been the surprise and refreshment +of this morning’s crowded train, but that +now, evening-lit and enclosed, gave the empty +carriage the air of a little salon. +</p> + +<p> +Installed here, with fatigue suddenly banished +and the large P.L.M. weaving within the +mesh of the lace its thrilling assurance of +being launched on long continental distances, +it was easy to forgive the coercion that had +imposed the longer sea-route for its cheapness +and the first-class ticket for the chance of +securing solitude on the night journey. +</p> + +<p> +And indeed this steaming off into the night, +that just now had seemed to be the inaccessible +goal and end of the journey, was only the +beginning of its longest stretch; but demanding +only endurance. With hurry and uncertainty +at an end there could be nothing +to compare with what lay behind; nothing +that could compare with the state of being a +helpless projectile that had spoiled Dieppe +and made Paris a nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a> +Yet Dieppe and Paris and the landscape in +between, now that they were set, by this +sudden haven, far away in the past, were +already coming before her eyes transformed, +lit by the joy that, hovering all the time in the +background, had seen and felt. France, for +whose sake at once she had longed to cease +being a hurrying traveller robbed right and +left of things passing too swiftly, had been +seen. Within her now, an irrevocable extension +of being, was France. +</p> + +<p> +France that had spoken from its coast the +moment she came up from the prison of the +battened-down saloon; the moment before +the shouting fiends charged up the gangway; +spoken from the quay, from the lounging blue-bloused +figures, the buildings, the way the +frontage of the town met the sky and blended +with the air, softly, yet clear in its softness, +and with serenity that was vivacious, unlike +the stolid English peace. +</p> + +<p> +And later those slender trees along the high +bank of a river, the way they had of sailing-by, +mannered, <em>coquettish</em>; awakening affection +for the being of France. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a> +And Paris barely glimpsed and shrouded +with the glare of night ... the emanation +even of Paris was peace. An emanation as +powerful as that of London, more lively and +yet more serene. Serene where gracious buildings +presided over the large flaring thoroughfares, +serene even in the dreadful by-streets. +</p> + +<p> +And that woman at the station. Black-robed +figure, coming diagonally across the +clear space yellow in gaslight against the +background of barriered platforms, seeming +with her swift assured gait, bust first, head +reared and a little tilted back on the neck, so +insolently feminine, and then, as she swept by, +suddenly beautiful; from head to foot all +gracefully moving rhythm. <em>Style</em>, of course, +redeeming ugliness and cruelty. She was the +secret of France. France concentrated. +</p> + +<p> +Michael, staying in Paris, said that the +French are indescribably evil and their children +like monkeys. He had fled eagerly to England. +But Michael’s perceptions are moral. France, +within his framework, falls back into shadow. +</p> + +<p> +The train carrying her through beloved +France and away from it to a bourne that had +<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a> +now ceased to be an imagined place, and become +an idea, useless, to be lost on arrival as +her idea of France had been lost, was so quiet +amidst its loud rattling that the whole of it +might be asleep. No sound came from the +corridor. No one passed. There was nothing +but the continuous rattling and the clatter of +gear. The world deserting her just when she +would have welcomed, for wordless communication +of the joy of achievement, the sight +and sound of human kind. +</p> + +<p> +Twelve hours away, and now only a promise +of daylight and of food, lay Berne. Beyond +Berne, somewhere in the far future of to-morrow +afternoon, the terminus, the business +of finding and bargaining for a sleigh—the last +effort. +</p> + +<p> +A muffled figure filled the doorway, entered +the carriage, deposited bags. A middle-aged +Frenchman, dark, with sallow cheeks bulging +above a little pointed beard. Thinking her +asleep he moved quietly, arranging his belongings +with deft, maturely sociable hands. +From one of them a ring gleamed in the gaslight. +He showed no sign of relief in escaping +<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a> +into silence, no sign of being alone. Conversation +radiated from him. Where, on the +train, could he have been so recently talking +that at this moment he was almost making +remarks into his bag? +</p> + +<p> +She closed her eyes, listening to his sounds +that sent to a distance the sounds of the train. +He had driven away also the outer spaces. +The grey and white interior spoke no longer +of the strange wide distances of France. He +was France at home in a railway carriage, +preparing to sleep until, at the end of a definite +short space of hours, the Swiss dawn +appeared at the windows. Before he came +the night had stretched ahead, timeless. +</p> + +<p> +A moment’s stillness, and then a sound like +the pumping of nitrous-oxide into a bag. She +opened her eyes upon him seated opposite +with cheeks distended and eyes strained wide +above indeed a bag, held to his lips and limply +flopping. Bracing herself to the presence +either of a lunatic or a pitiful invalid believing +himself unobserved, she watched while slowly +the bag swelled up and took, obedient to an +effort that seemed about to make his eyeballs +<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a> +start from his head, the shape of a cushion, +circular about a flattened centre. Setting it +down in the corner corresponding to that where +lay her own head, he took off his boots, +pulled on slippers and pattered out into the +corridor where he became audible struggling +with a near ventilator that presently gave and +clattered home. Tiptoeing back into the +carriage where already it seemed that the air +grew close, he stood under the light, peering +upwards with raised arm. A gentle click, and +two little veils slid down over the globe and +met, leaving the light quenched to a soft +glimmer: beautiful, shrouding hard outlines, +keeping watch through the night, speaking of +night and travel, yet promising day and the +end of travel. +</p> + +<p> +But he had not done. He was battling +now with the sliding door. It was closing, +closed, and the carriage converted into a box +almost in darkness and suddenly improper. +With a groaning sigh he flung himself down and +drew his rug to the margin of the pale disc that +was his face and that turned sharply as she +rose and passed it to reach the door, and still +<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a> +showed, when the corridor light flowed in +through the opened door, a perfect astonishment. +His inactivity, while she struggled out +with her baggage into the inhospitable corridor +checked the words with which she would have +explained her inability to remain sealed for +the night in a small box. As she pushed the +door to she thought she heard a small sound, a +sniggering expletive, mirth at the spectacle +of British prudery. +</p> + +<p> +She was alone in the corridor of the sleeping +train, in a cold air that reeked of rusting metal +and resounded with the clangour of machinery. +Exploring in both directions she found no sign +of an attendant, nothing but closely shrouded +carriages telling of travellers outstretched and +slumbering. Into either of these she felt it +impossible to break. There was nothing for +it but to abandon the hope of a night’s rest +and drop to a class whose passengers would be +numerous and seated. The train had gathered +a speed that flung her from side to side as she +went. In two journeys she got her belongings +across the metal bridge that swayed above the +couplings, and arrived with bruised arms +<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a> +and shoulders in another length of corridor, a +duplicate in noise and cold emptiness of the +one she had left. Everywhere shrouded carriages. +But something had changed, there was +something even in the pitiless clangour that +seemed to announce a change of class. +</p> + +<p> +The door she pushed open revealed huddled +shapes whose dim faces, propped this way and +that, were all relaxed in slumber. There was +no visible vacant place, but as she hesitated +within the emerging reek a form stirred and +sat forward as if to enquire; and when she +struggled in with her bags and her apology the +carriage came to life in heavily draped movement. +</p> + +<p> +She was seated, shivering in a fog of smells, +but at rest, escaped from nightmare voyaging +amongst swaying shadows. The familiar +world was about her again and she sat blessing +the human kindliness of these sleeping forms, +blessing the man who had first moved, even +though his rousing had proved to be anxiety +about the open door which, the moment she was +inside, he had closed with the gusty blowings +of one who takes refuge from a blizzard. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a> +But the sense of home-coming began presently +to fade under the pressure of suffering +that promised only to increase. She had long +ceased to wonder what made it possible for +these people to add wraps and rugs to the thick +layers of the stifling atmosphere and remain +serene. The effort was no longer possible +that had carried her through appearances into +a sense of the reality beneath. She saw them +now as repellent mysteries, pitiless aliens +dowered with an unfathomable faculty for +dispensing with air. With each breath the +smells that had greeted her, no longer separately +apparent, advanced in waves whose +predominant flavour was the odour of burnt +rubber rising from the grating that ran along +the middle of the floor and seemed to sear the +soles of her feet. Getting beneath them her +rolled rug she abandoned all but the sense of +survival and sank into herself, into a coma in +which everything but the green-veiled oscillating +light was motionless forever. Forever +the night would go on and her head turn +now this way now that against the harsh +upholstery. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The train was slowing, stopping. Its rumbling +clatter subsided to a prolonged squeak +that ended on a stillness within which sounded +one against the other the rapid ticking of a +watch and a steady rhythmic snore. No one +stirred, and for a moment there was nothing +but these sounds to witness that life went on. +Then faintly and as if from very far away she +heard the metallic clangours of a large high +station and amidst them a thin clarion voice +singing out an indistinguishable name. Some +large sleeping provincial town signalling its +importance; a milestone, marking off hours +passed through that need not be braved again. +Yet when the train moved on it seemed impossible +even to imagine the ending of the +night. She had no idea of how long she had +sat hemmed and suffering, with nothing in her +mind but snatches of song that would not be +dismissed, with aching brow and burning +eyeballs and a ceaselessly on-coming stupor +that would not turn to sleep. And at the +next stop with its echoing clangour and faintness +<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a> +of clarion voices she no longer desired +somehow to get across the encumbered carriage +and taste from a corridor window the +sweet fresh air of the railway station so freely +breathed by those who were crying in the +night. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A numbness had crept into the movement +of the train, as though, wearying it had ceased +to clatter and were dropping into a doze. It +was moving so quietly that the ticking of the +watch again became audible. The wheels +under the carriage seemed to be muffled and to +labour, pushing heavily forward ... <em>Snow</em>. +The journey across France ending on the +heights along its eastern edge. Her drugged +senses awoke bewailing Paris, gleaming now +out of reach far away in the north, challenging +with the memory of its glimpsed beauty whatever +loveliness might be approaching through +the night. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a> +Again outside the stopping train a far-off +voice but this time a jocund sound, ringing +echoless in open air. In a moment through +a lifted window it became a rousing summons. +Blinds went up, and on the huddled forms +emerging serene and bright-eyed from their +hibernation a blueish light came in. The +opened door admitted crisp sounds close at +hand and air, advancing up the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the platform the air was motionless +and yet, walked through, an intensity of movement—movement +upon her face of millions of +infinitesimal needles attacking. Mountain air +“like wine,” but this effervescence was solid, +holding one up, feeding every nerve. +</p> + +<p> +A little way down the platform she came +upon the luggage, a few trunks set side by side +on a counter, and saw at once that her portmanteau +was not there. Anxiety dogging her +steps. But this air, that reached, it seemed, to +her very spirit, would not let her feel anxious. +</p> + +<p> +The movements of the people leaving the +train were leisurely, promising a long wait. +Most of the passengers were the English set +free, strolling happily about in fur-coats and +<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a> +creased Burberrys. English voices took possession +of the air. Filled it with the sense of +the incorrigible English confidence. And upon +a table beyond the counter stood rows and +rows of steaming cups. Coffee. Café, mon +dieu! Offered casually, the normal beverage +of these happy continentals. +</p> + +<p> +The only visible official stood at ease beyond +the table answering questions, making no +move towards the ranged luggage. He looked +very mild, had a little blue-black beard. She +thought of long-forgotten Emmerich, the heavy +responsible pimpled face of the German +official who plunged great hands in amongst +her belongings. Perhaps the customs’ officers +were yet to appear. +</p> + +<p> +Fortified by coffee she strolled up and made +her enquiry in French, but carefully in the +slipshod English manner. For a moment her +demand seemed to embarrass him. Then, +very politely: +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vous arrivez, madame?</span>” +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">De Londres.</span>” +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et vous allez?</span>” +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">À Oberland.</span>” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vous n’avez qu’a monter dans le train</span>,” +and hospitably he indicated the train that +stood now emptied, and breathing through +its open doors. Walking on down the platform +she caught through a door ajar in the +background a glimpse of a truckle bed with +coverings thrown back. Here as they laboured +forward through the darkness the douanier +had been sleeping, his station ready-staged +for their coming, a farcical half-dozen trunks +laid out to represent the belongings of the +trainful of passengers. Appearances thus kept +up, he was enjoying his rôle of pleasant host. +Tant mieux, tant very much mieux. One +could enjoy the fun of being let out into the +night. +</p> + +<p> +The solid air began to be intensely cold. +But in its cold there was no bitterness and it +attained only her face, whose shape it seemed +to change. And all about the station were +steep walls of starless darkness and overhead +in a blue-black sky, stars oddly small and +numerous; very sharp and near. +</p> + +<p> +When the train moved on night settled +down once more. Once more there was dim +<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a> +gaslight and jolting shadows. But the air +was clearer and only two passengers remained, +two women, each in her corner and each in a +heavy black cloak. Strangers to each other, +with the length of the carriage between them, +yet alike, indistinguishable; above each cloak +a plump middle-aged face not long emerged +from sleep: sheened with the sleep that had +left the oily, glinting brown eyes. Presently +they began to speak, with the freemasonry of +women unobserved, socially off duty. Their +voices frugal, dull and flat; the voices of those +who have forgotten even the desire to find +sympathy, to find anything turned their way +with an offering. +</p> + +<p> +They reached details. One of them was on +her way home to a place with a tripping +gentle name, a fairy keep agleam on a lakeside +amidst mountains. To her it was dailiness, +life as now she knew it, a hemmed-in loneliness. +Visitors came from afar. Found it full of +poetry. Saw her perhaps as a part of it, a +figure of romance. +</p> + +<p> +When their patient voices ceased they were +ghosts. Not even ghosts, for they seemed +<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a> +uncreated, seemed never to have lived and +yet to preside over life, fixed in their places, +an inexorable commentary. Each sat staring +before her into space, patient and isolated, +undisguised isolation. To imagine them alert +and busied with their families about them +made them no less sad. Immovable at the +centre of their lives was loneliness, its plaints +silenced, its source forgotten or unknown. +</p> + +<p> +Of what use traveller’s joy? Frivolous, +unfounded, dependent altogether on oblivions. +</p> + +<p> +One of them was rummaging in a heavy +sack made of black twill and corded at the +neck. Toys, she said, were there—“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour mes +p’tits enfants</span>.” +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ça porte beaucoup de soins, les enfants</span>,” +said the other, and compressed dry lips. The +first agreed and they sat back, each in her +corner, fallen into silence. Children to them +seemed to be not persons but a material, an +unvarying substance wearily known to them +both and to be handled in that deft adjusting +way of the French. Satisfied with this mutual +judgment on life, made in camera, they relapsed +into contemplation, leaving the air +<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a> +weighted with their shared, secretly scornful, +secretly impatient resignation. +</p> + +<p> +Yet they were fortunate. Laden with +wealth they did not count. It spoke in their +complacency. Aspiration asleep. They looked +for joy in the wrong place. In this they were +humanity, blindly pursuing its way. Their +pallid plump faces, so salient, could smile impersonally. +Their heads were well-poised above +shapely subdued bodies. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Now that it was empty and the blinds drawn +up, the carriage seemed all window, letting in +the Swiss morning that was mist opening here +and there upon snow still greyed by dawn. +Through the one she had just pushed up came +life, smoothing away the traces of the night. +She lay back in her corner and heard with +closed eyes the steady voice of the train. The +rattle and clatter of its night-long rush through +France seemed to be checked by a sense of +achievement, as if now it took its ease, delighting +<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a> +in the coming of day, in the presence +of this Switzerland for whose features it was +watching through the mist. +</p> + +<p> +Incredible that in this same carriage where +now she was at peace in morning light she +had sat through a flaming darkness, penned +and enduring. Lifting weary eyes she boldly +surveyed it, saw the soilure and shabbiness +the gaslight had screened, saw a friend, grimed +with beneficent toil, and turned once more +blissfully towards the window and its view of +thin mist and dawn-greyed snowfields. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The leap of recognition, unknowing between +the mountains and herself which was which, +made the first sight of them—smoothed snow +and crinkled rock in unheard-of unimagined +tawny light—seem, even at the moment of +seeing, already long ago. +</p> + +<p> +They knew, they smiled joyfully at the +glad shock they were, sideways gigantically +advancing while she passed as over a bridge +<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a> +across which presently there would be no +return, seeing and unseeing, seeing again with +the first keen vision. +</p> + +<p> +They closed in upon the train, summitless, +their bases gliding by, a ceaseless tawny cliff +throwing its light into the carriage, almost +within touch; receding, making space at its +side for sudden blue water, a river accompanying, +giving them gentleness who were its +mighty edge; broadening, broadening, becoming +a wide lake, a stretch of smooth peerless +blue with mountains reduced and distant +upon its hither side. With the sideways climbing +of the train the lake dropped away, down +and down until presently she stood up to see it +below in the distance, a blue pool amidst its +encirclement of mountain and of sky: a +picture sliding away, soundlessly, hopelessly +demanding its perfect word. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je suis anglaise</span>,” she murmured as the +window came down into place. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je le crois, madame. Mais comment-voulez-vous-mon-dieu-vous-autres-anglais-qu’on-chauffe-les-coupés?</span>” +</p> + +<p> +She was left to pictures framed and glazed. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Berne was a snowstorm blotting out everything +but small white green-shuttered houses +standing at angles about the open space between +the station and the little restaurant +across the way, their strangeness veiled by +falling flakes, flakes falling fast on freshly +fallen snow that was pitted with large deep-sunken +foot-prints. The electric air of dawn +had softened, and as she plunged, following the +strides of a row of foot-prints, across to her +refuge, it wrapped her about, a pleasant enlivening +density, warmed by the snow. Monstrous +snowstorm, adventure, and an excuse for +shirking the walk to the Bridge and its view +of the Bernese heights. She was not ready +for heights. This little secret tour, restricted +to getting from train to breakfast and back +<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a> +again to the train, gave her, with its charm +of familiar activity in a strange place, a sharp +first sense of Switzerland that in obediently +following the dictated programme she would +have missed. But coming forth, strengthened, +once more into the snow she regretted the low +walking-shoes that prevented the following +up of her glad meeting with the forgotten +details of the continental breakfast, its tender-crusted +rolls, the small oblongs of unglistening +sugar that sweetened the life-giving coffee, +by an exploration of the nearer streets. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Presently their talk fell away and the +journeying cast again its full spell. Almost +soundlessly the train was labouring along +beside a ridge that seemed to be the silent top +of the world gliding by, its narrow strip of +grey snow-thick sky pierced by the tops of the +crooked stakes that were a fence submerged. +From time to time the faint clear sound of a +bell, ting-ting, and a neat toy station slid by +half buried in snow. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“I don’t dislike those kind of breakfasts +myself,” she said and turned her face to the +window. Her well-cut lips had closed unpressing, +flowerlike. Both the girls had the +slender delicate fragility of flowers. And +strength. Refined and gentle, above a strength +of which they were unaware. They were immensely +strong or they would not appear undisturbed +by their long journeying, would not +look so exactly as if they were returning home +in an omnibus from an afternoon’s shopping +in their own Croydon. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +They had come so far together that it would +seem churlish, with the little terminus welcoming +the whole party, to turn away from +them. And she liked them, was attached to +them as fellow adventurers, fellow survivors +of the journey. The falling into the trap of +<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a> +travellers’ freemasonry was inevitable: a +fatal desire to know the whence and the +whither, and, before you are aware of it +you have pooled your enterprise and the new +reality is at a distance. But so far it had not +come to that. There were no adieux. They +had melted away, they and their things, lost +in the open while she, forgetful of everything +but the blessed cessation, had got herself out +of the train. +</p> + +<p> +The station was in a wilderness. High +surrounding mountains making it seem that +their half-day’s going up and still up had +brought them out upon a modest lowland. +There was no sign from where she stood of +any upward track. Sheds, dumped upon a +waste of snow beyond which mountains filled +the sky and barred the way. +</p> + +<p> +Fierce-looking men in blue gaberdines and +slouch hats, lounging about. One of these +must be attacked and bargained with for a +sleigh. But there were no sleighs to be seen, +nothing at all resembling a vehicle, unless +indeed one braved the heights in one of those +rough shallow frameworks on runners, some +<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a> +piled with hay and some with peeled yellow +timbers, neatly lashed. Perhaps a sleigh +should be ordered in advance? Perhaps here +she met disaster.... +</p> + +<p> +The man knew her requirements before she +spoke and was all hot-eyed eagerness, yet +off-hand. Brutish, yet making her phrases, +that a London cabby would have received with +deference, sound discourteous. In his queer +German he agreed to the smaller sum and +turned away to expectorate. +</p> + +<p> +The large barn-like restaurant was empty +save for a group of people at the far end, forgotten +again and again as she sat too happy +to swoop the immense distance between herself +and anything but the warm brownness of +the interior and its strange quality, its intensity +of welcoming shelter—sharp contrast +with the bleak surrounding snow. Switzerland +was here, already surrounding and protecting +with an easy practised hand. And +there was a generous savouriness.... She +could not recall any lunching on an English +journey affording this careless completeness of +comfort. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a> +Incompletely sharing these appreciations her +tired and fevered body cowered within the +folds of the beneficent fur-coat seeking a somnolence +that refused to possess it. Fever kept +her mind alert, but circling at a great pace +round and round amidst reiterated assertions. +Turn and turn about they presented themselves, +were flung aside in favour of what waited +beyond, and again thrust themselves forward, +as if determined, so emphatic they were, not +only to share but to steer her adventure. And +away behind them, standing still and now +forever accessible, were the worlds she had +passed through since the sleet drove in her +face at Newhaven. And ahead unknown +Oberland, summoning her up amongst its +peaks. +</p> + +<p> +And hovering vehement above them all hung +the cloud of her pity for those who had never +bathed in strangeness—and its dark lining, the +selfish congratulation that reminded her how +at the beginning of her life, in the face of obstructions, +she had so bathed and now under +kindly compulsion was again bathing. And +again alone. Loneliness, that had long gone +<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a> +from her life, had come back for this sudden +voyaging to be her best companion, to shelter +strangeness that can be known only in +solitude. +</p> + +<p> +In a swift glimpse, caught through the mesh +woven by the obstinate circlings of her consciousness, +she saw her time in Germany, how +perfect in pain and joy, how left complete and +bright had been that piece of her life. And +in Belgium—in spite of the large party. Yet +even the party, though they had taken the +edge from many things had now become a rich +part of the whole. But the things that came +back most sharply had been seen in solitude: +in those times of going out alone on small +commissions, the way the long vista of boulevard +seemed to sing for joy, the sharp turn, +the clean pavé and neat bright little shops; +the charcuterie just round the corner, the +old pharmacien who had understood and +quickly and gravely chloroformed the kitten +quite dead; the long walk through the +grilling lively Brussels streets to get the +circular tickets—little shadow over it of pain +at the thought of the frightened man who +<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a> +believed it sinful to go to mass and saw the +dull little English Church as light in a pagan +darkness; the afternoon alone in the polished +old salon while the others were packing for +the Ardennes tour just before the great +thunderstorm, bright darkness making everything +gleam, the candles melting in the heavy +heat, drooping from their sconces, white, and +gracious in their oddity, against the dark +panelling: rich ancient gloom and gleam and +the certainty of the good of mass, of the way so +welcome and so right as an interval in living +it stayed the talkative brain and made the +soul sure of itself. That moment in Bruges—after +the wrangling at the station, after not +wanting to go deliberately to see the Belfry, +after feeling forever blank in just this place that +was fulfilling all the so different other places, +showing itself to be their centre and secret, +while aunt Bella bought the prawns and we all +stood fuming in the sweltering heat—of being +suddenly struck alive, drawn running away +from them all down the little brown street—the +Belfry and its shadow, all its might and +sweetness and surroundedness, safe, before +<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a> +they all came up with their voices and their +books. +</p> + +<p> +And oh! that first glimpse that had begun it +all, of Brussels in the twilight from the landing +window; old peaked houses, grouped irregularly +and rising out of greenery, gothic, +bringing happy nostalgia. Gothic effects +bring nostalgia, have a deep recognisable +quality of life. A gothic house is a person, a +square house is a thing.... +</p> + +<p> +In silence and alone; yet most people +prefer to see everything in groups, collectively. +They never lose themselves in strangeness and +wake changed. +</p> + +<p> +That man is cheerfully bearing burdens. +Usually in a party there is one who <em>is</em> alone. +Harassed, yet quietly seeing. +</p> + +<p> +He was smiling, the smile of an old friend. +With a sharp effort she pushed her way through, +wondering how long she had sat staring at +them, to recognition of the Croydon party. +Who else indeed could it be? She gathered +herself together and instantly saw in the +hidden future not the sunlit mountains of her +desire but for the first time the people already +<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a> +ensconced at the Alpenstock, demanding +awareness and at least the semblance of interest. +Sports-people, not only to the manner +born—that, though they would not know it, +was a tie, a home-tie pulling at her heart—but +to the manner dressed, making one feel +not merely inadequate but improperly hard-up. +But since she was to live on a balcony? +And there was the borrowed fur-coat ... +and the blue gown. +</p> + +<p> +The words sung out by the Croydon father +were lost amongst their echoes in the rafters. +She heard only the English voice, come, as +she had come, so far and so laboriously. Her +gladly answering words were drowned by the +sudden jingling of sleighbells at the door +near by. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Behind the sturdy horse, whose head-tossings +caused the silvery clash of bells was +the sleigh of <em>The Polish Jew</em>, brought out of +the darkness at the back of the stage and +<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a> +brightly coloured: upon a background of +pillar-box red, flourishing gilt scrolls surrounded +little landscape scenes painted upon +its sides in brilliant deep tones that seemed +to spread a warmth and call attention to the +warmth within the little carriage sitting compact +and low on its runners and billowing with +a large fur rug. +</p> + +<p> +As unexpected as the luxurious vehicle was +the changed aspect of the driver. Still wearing +smock and slouch hat he had now an air of +gravity, the air of a young student of theology. +And on his face as he put her into the sleigh +was a look of patient responsibility. He +packed and arranged with the manner of one +handling valuables, silently; the Swiss manner +perhaps of treating the English, acquired and +handed down through long experience of the +lavish generosity of these travellers from whom +it was useless to expect an intelligible word. +But there was contempt too; deep-rooted, +patient contempt. +</p> + +<p> +This was luxury. There was warmth under +her feet, fur lining upon the back of the seat +reinforced by the thickness of the fur-coat +<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a> +and all about her the immense fur rug. There +was nothing to fear from the air that presently +would be in movement, driving by and growing +colder as the sleigh went up into the unknown +heights. Away ahead the Croydon +party made a compact black mass between the +two horses of their larger sleigh and the +luggage standing out behind in unwieldy cubes +just above the snow. Their driver was preparing +to start. On all the upward way they +would be visible ahead, stealing its mystery, +heralding the hotel at the end. +</p> + +<p> +They were off, gliding swiftly over the snow, +gay voices mingling with the sound of bells, +silvery crashings going to the rhythm of a +soundless trit-trot. Every moment her own +horse threw up a spray of tinkles promising +the fairy crashing that would ring upon the +air against the one now rapidly receding. The +mountains frowning under the grey sky and +the snowfields beyond the flattened expanse +round the station came to life, listening to the +confidently receding bells. +</p> + +<p> +The Croydon party disappeared round a +bend and again there was silence and a mighty +<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a> +inattention. But her man, come round from +lashing on her luggage, was getting into his +seat just as he was, coatless and gathering +up the reins with bare hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Euh!” +</p> + +<p> +The small sound, like a word spoken <span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto +voce</span> to a neighbour, barely broke the stillness, +but the sleigh leapt to the pull of the horse, +and glided smoothly off. Its movement was +pure enchantment. No driving on earth +could compare to this skimming along on +hard snow to the note of the bells that was +higher than that of those gone on ahead and +seemed to challenge them with an overtaking +eagerness. Gay and silvery sweet, it seemed +to make a sunlight within the sunless air and +to call up to the crinkled tops of the mountains +that were now so magnificently in movement. +</p> + +<p> +“Euh-euh!” +</p> + +<p> +On they swept through the solidly impinging +air. Again the million needles attacking. +In a moment they were round the bend and +in sight of the large sleigh, a moving patch +upon the rising road. +</p> + +<p> +“Euh-euh-euh,” urged the driver laconically, +<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a> +and the little sleigh flew rocking up +the slight incline. They were overtaking. +The heavier note of the bells ahead joined its +slower rhythm to their swift light jinglings. +The dark mass of the Croydon party showed +four white faces turned to watch. +</p> + +<p> +“You are well off with your fur-coat,” cried +the father as her sleigh skimmed by. They +had looked a little crouched and enduring. +Not knowing the cold she had endured in the +past, cold that lay ahead to be endured again, +in winters set in a row. +</p> + +<p> +Ringing in her head as she sped upwards +along the road narrowing and flanked by +massive slopes whose summits had drawn too +near to be seen, were the shouted remarks +exchanged by the drivers. They had fallen +resonantly upon the air and opened within it +a vision of the sunlit heights known to these +men with the rich deep voices. But there +was the hotel.... +</p> + +<p> +After all no one was to witness her apprenticeship. +And to get up within sight of the +summits was worth much suffering. Suffering +that would be forgotten. And if these +<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a> +were Oberland men, then there was to be +<em>ski-running</em> to-morrow. Si-renna, what else +could that mean? Patois, rich and soft. +Doomed to die. Other words gathered unawares +on the way came and placed themselves +beside those ringing in her ears. Terminations, +turns of sound, upon a new quality of voice. +Strong and deep and ringing with a wisdom +that brought her a sense of helpless ignorance. +The helpless ignorance of town culture. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The thin penetrating mist promised increasing +cold. The driver flung on a cloak, +secured at the neck but falling open across his +chest and leaving exposed his thinly clad arms +and bare hands. +</p> + +<p> +She pulled high the collar of her fur-coat, +rimy now at its edges, and her chin ceased +to ache and only her eyes and cheekbones felt +the thin icy attacking mist that had appeared +so suddenly. The cold of a few moments ago +numbing her face had brought a hint of how +<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a> +one might freeze quietly to death, numbed +and as if warmed by an intensity of cold; and +that out amongst the mountains it would not +be terrible. But this raw mist bringing pain +in every bone it touched would send one +aching to one’s death, crushed to death by a +biting increasing pain. +</p> + +<p> +She felt elaborately warm, not caring even +now how long might go on this swift progress +along a track that still wound through corridors +of mountains and still found mountains +rising ahead. But night would come and the +great shapes all about her would be wrapped +away until they were a darkness in the sky. +</p> + +<p> +If this greying light were the fall of day then +certainly the cold would increase. She tried +to reckon how far she had travelled eastwards, +by how much earlier the sun would set. But +south, too, she had come.... +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The mist was breaking, being broken from +above. It dawned upon her that they had +been passing impossibly through clouds and +were now reaching their fringe. Colour was +<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a> +coming from above, was already here in dark +brilliance, thundery. Turning to look down +the track she saw distance, cloud masses, +light-soaked and gleaming. +</p> + +<p> +And now from just ahead high in the mist, +a sunlit peak looked down. +</p> + +<p> +Long after she had sat erect from her warm +ensconcement, the sunlit mountain corridors +still seemed to be saying watch, see, if you +can believe it, what we can do. And all the +time it seemed that they must open out and +leave her upon the hither side of enchantment, +and still they turned and brought fresh vistas. +Sungilt masses beetling variously up into pinnacles +that truly cut the sky high up beyond +their high-clambering pinewoods, where their +snow was broken by patches of tawny crag. +She still longed to glide forever onwards +through this gladness of light. +</p> + +<p> +But the bright gold was withdrawing. +Presently it stood only upon the higher ridges. +The colour was going and the angular shadows, +leaving a bleakness of white, leaving the mountains +higher in their whiteness. The highest +sloped more swiftly than the others from its +<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a> +lower mass and ended in a long cone of purest +white with a flattened top sharply aslant +against the deepening blue; as if walking up +it. It held her eyes, its solid thickness of +snow, the way from its blunted tower it +came broadening down unbroken by crag, +radiant white until far down its pinewoods +made a gentleness about its base. Up there +on the quiet of its topmost angle it seemed +there must be someone, minutely rejoicing +in its line along the sky. +</p> + +<p> +A turn brought peaks whose gold had +turned to rose. She had not eyes enough for +seeing. Seeing was not enough. There was +sound, if only one could hear it, in this still, +signalling light. +</p> + +<p> +The last of it was ruby gathered departing +upon the topmost crags, seeming, the moment +before it left them, to be deeply wrought into +the crinkled rock. +</p> + +<p> +At a sharp bend the face of the sideways-lounging +driver came into sight, expressionless. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Schön, die letzte <a id="corr-0"></a>Glüh</span>,” he said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +When she had pronounced her “<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Wunderschön</span>,” +she sat back released from intentness +<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a> +seeing the scene as one who saw it daily; and +noticed then that the colour ebbed from the +mountains had melted into the sky. It was +this marvel of colour, turning the sky to molten +rainbow, that the driver had meant as well +as the rubied ridges that had kept the sky +forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +Just above a collar of snow, that dipped +steeply between the peaks it linked, the sky +was a soft greenish purple paling upwards +from mauve-green to green whose edges melted +imperceptibly into the deepening blue. In a +moment they were turned towards the opposite +sky, bold in smoky russet rising to +amber and to saffron-rose expanding upwards; +a high radiant background for its mountain, +spread like a banner, not pressed dense and +close with deeps strangely moving, like the +little sky above the collar. +</p> + +<p> +The mountain lights were happiness possessed, +sure of recurrence. But these skies, +never to return, begged for remembrance. +</p> + +<p> +The dry cold deepened, bringing sleep. +Drunk, she felt now, with sleep; dizzy with +gazing, and still there was no sign of the end. +<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a> +They were climbing a narrow track between +a smooth high drift, a greying wall of snow, +and a precipice sharply falling. +</p> + +<p> +An opening; the floor of a wide valley. +Mountains hemming it, exposed from base to +summit, moving by as the sleigh sped along +the level to where a fenced road led upwards. +Up this steep road they went in a slow zig-zag +that brought the mountains across the +way now right now left, and a glimpse ahead +against the sky of a village, angles and peaks +of low buildings sharply etched, quenched by +snow, crushed between snow and snow, and +in their midst the high snow-shrouded cone +of a little church; Swiss village, lost in wastes +of snow. +</p> + +<p> +At a tremendous pace they jingled along a +narrow street of shops and châlets. The +street presently opened to a circle about the +little church and narrowed again and ended, +showing beyond, as the sleigh pulled up at the +steps of a portico, rising ground and the +beginning of pinewoods. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-2"> +<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a> +CHAPTER II +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">S</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> followed the little servant, who had +darted forth to seize her baggage, into +a small lounge whose baking warmth recalled +the worst of the train journey; seeming—though, +since still one breathed, air was +there—like an over-heated vacuum. +</p> + +<p> +The brisk little maid, untroubled, was already +at the top of a short flight of wide +red-carpeted stairs, and making impatient +rallying sounds—like one recalling a straying +dog. Miriam went gladly to the promise of +the upper air. But in going upwards there +was no relief. +</p> + +<p> +Glancing, as she passed at the turn of the +stairs a figure standing in a darkness made by +the twilight in the angle of the wall, she found +the proprietress receiving her; a thick rigid +figure in a clumsy black dress, silent, and with +deep-set glinting eyes hostile and suspicious +<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a> +stirring a memory of other eyes gazing out +like this upon the world, of peasant women at +cottage doors in German villages, peering out +with evil eyes, but from worn and kindly faces. +There was nothing kindly about this woman, +and her commonness was almost startling, +dreary and meagre and seeming to be of the +spirit. +</p> + +<p> +She blamed for the unmitigated impression +the fatigue she was silently pleading whilst +she searched for the mislaid German phrases +in which to explain that she had chosen the +cheaper room. She found only the woman’s +name: Knigge. This was Frau Knigge, at +once seeming more human, and obviously +waiting for her to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, and still unbending from her rigid +pose, she made statements in slow rasping +English and a flat voice, that came unwillingly +and told of vanished interest in life. Life, as +she spoke, looked terrible that could make a +being so crafty and so cold, that could show +to anyone on earth as it showed to this woman. +</p> + +<p> +Admitting her identity, seeing herself as +she was being seen, Miriam begged for her +<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a> +room, hurrying through her words to hide the +thoughts that still they seemed to reveal, and +that were changing, as she heard the sound of +her own voice, dreadfully, not to consideration +for one whose lot had perhaps been too hard to +bear, but to a sudden resentment of parleying, +in her character as Roman citizen, with this +peasant whose remoteness of being was so +embarrassing her. +</p> + +<p> +The woman’s face lit up with an answering +resentment and a mocking contempt for her +fluent German. Too late she realised that +Roman citizens do not speak German. But +the details were settled, the interview was +at an end, and the woman’s annoyance due +perhaps only to the choice of the cheaper room. +When she turned to shout instructions to the +maid she became humanity, in movement, +moving in twilight that for her too was going +on its way towards the light of to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +When the door was at last blessedly closed +upon the narrow room whose first statements +miscarried, lost in the discovery that even up +here there was no change in the baked dry +air, she made for the cool light of the end +<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a> +window but found in its neighbourhood not +only no lessening but an increase of the oppressive +warmth. +</p> + +<p> +The window was a door giving on to a little +balcony whose wooden paling hid the floor of +the valley and the bases of the great mountains +across the way. The mountains were +now bleak white, patched and streaked with +black, and as she stood still gazing at them +set there arrested and motionless and holding +before her eyes an unthinkable grey bitterness +of cold, she found a new quality in her fast +closed windows and the exaggerated warmth. +Though still oppressive they were triumphant +also, speaking a knowledge and a defiance of +the uttermost possibilities of cold. +</p> + +<p> +Cold was banished, by day and by night. +For a fortnight taken from the rawest depths +of the London winter there would be no waste +of life in mere endurance. +</p> + +<p> +She discovered the source of the stable +warmth in an unsightly row of pipes at the +side of the large window, bent over like hairpins +and scorching to the touch. The concentrated +heat revived her weary nerves. At +<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a> +the end of the coil there was a regulator. +Turning it she found the heat of the pipes +diminish and hurriedly reversed the movement +and glanced out at the frozen world and loved +the staunch metallic warmth and the flavour +of timber added to it in this room whose walls +and furniture were all of naked wood. +</p> + +<p> +Turning to it in greeting she found it seem +less small. It was small but made spacious +by light. Light came from a second window +that was now calling—a small square beside +the bed with the high astonishing smooth +billow of covering oddly encased in thin +sprigged cotton—offering mountains not yet +seen. +</p> + +<p> +The way to it was endless across the short +room from whose four quarters there streamed, +as she moved, a joy so deep that she brought +up opposite the window as if on another day +of life and glanced out carelessly at a distant +group of pinnacles darkening in a twilight +that was not grey but lit wanly in its fading, +by snow. +</p> + +<p> +The little servant came in with the promised +tea and made, as she set it upon the little table +<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a> +with the red and white check cover of remembered +German cafés, bent over it in her short-skirted +check dress and squab of sleek flaxen +hair, a picture altogether German. She answered +questions gravely, responsibility speaking +even in the smile that shone from her +plump toil-sheened young face, telling the +story of how she and her like, permanently +toiling, were the price of happiness for visitors. +But this she did not know. She was happy. +Liked being busy and smiling and being +smiled at and shutting the door very carefully. +</p> + +<p> +Some movement of hers had set swinging an +electric bulb hanging by a cord above the little +table. Over the head of the bed there was +another. Light and warmth in profusion—in +a cheap room in a modest hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Switching on the light that concentrated +on the table and its loaded little tray and +transformed the room to a sitting-room, “I’m +in Switzerland,” she said aloud to the flowered +earthenware and bright nickel, and sat down +to revel in freedom and renewal and at once +got up again realising that hurry had gone +<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a> +from her days and flung off her blouse and +found hot water set waiting on the washstand +and was presently at the table in négligé and +again ecstatically telling it her news. +</p> + +<p> +The familiar sound of tea pouring into a +cup heightened the surrounding strangeness. +In the stillness of the room it was like a +voice announcing her installation, and immediately +from downstairs there came as if +in answer the sound of a piano, crisply and +gently touched, seeming not so much to +break the stillness as to reveal what lay within +it. +</p> + +<p> +She set down her teapot and listened and +for a moment could have believed that the +theme was playing itself only in her mind, +that it had come back to her because once again +she was within the strange happiness of being +abroad. Through all the years she had tried +in vain to recall it, and now it came, to welcome +her, piling joy on joy, setting its seal upon the +days ahead and taking her back to her Germany +where life had been lived to music that +had flowed over its miseries and made its +happinesses hardly to be borne. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a> +For an instant she was back in it, passing +swiftly from scene to scene of the months in +Waldstrasse and coming to rest in a summer’s +evening: warm light upon the garden, twilight +in the saal. Leaving it she turned to +the other scenes, freshly revived, faithfully +fulfilling their remembered promise to endure +in her forever, but each one as she paused in +it changed to the summer’s evening she had +watched from the darkening saal, the light +upon the little high-walled garden, making +space and distance with the different ways it +fell on trees and grass and clustering shrubs, +falling full on the hushed group of girls turned +towards it with Fräulein Pfaff in their midst +disarmed to equality by the surrounding +beauty, making a little darkness in the summer-house +where Solomon shone in her white dress. +And going back to it now it seemed as though +some part of her must have lived continuously +there so that she was everywhere at once, in +saal and garden and summer-house and out, +beyond the enclosing walls, in the light along +the spacious forbidden streets. +</p> + +<p> +She relived the first moment of knowing +<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a> +gladly and without feeling of disloyalty how +far a Sommerabend outdoes a summer’s +evening, how the evening beauty was intensified +by the deeps of poetry in the Germans +all about her, and remembered her fear lest +one of the English should sound an English +voice and break the spell. And how presently +Clara Bergmann, unasked, had retreated +into the shadowy saal and played this ballade +and in just this way, the way of slipping it +into the stillness. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Man soll sich des Leben<a id="corr-1"></a>s freuen, im Berg +und Thal. In so <a id="corr-2"></a>was kann sich ein’ Engländerin +nie hineinleben.</span>” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps not, but in that small group of +English there had been two who would in +spite of homesickness have given anything +just to go on, on any terms, existing in Germany. +</p> + +<p> +It is their joy; the joyful rich depth of life +in them. +</p> + +<p> +And this ballade was joy. Eternal Sommerabend; +and now to-morrow’s Swiss sunlight. +Someone there was downstairs to +whom it was a known and cherished thing, +<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a> +who was perhaps wise about it, wise in music +and able to place it in relation to other compositions. +</p> + +<p> +Its charm she now saw, coming to it afresh +and with a deepened recognition, lay partly +in the way it opened: not beginning, but continuing +something gone before. It was a +shape of tones caught from a pattern woven +continuously and drawn, with its rhythm +ready set, gleaming into sight. The way of +the best nocturnes. But with nothing of +their pensiveness. It danced in the sky and +tiptoed back to earth down the group of little +chords that filled the pause, again sprang +forth and up and came wreathing down to +touch deep lower tones who flung it to and +fro. Up again until once more upon down-stepping +chords it came into the rhythm of +its dance. +</p> + +<p> +It was being played from memory, imperfectly, +by someone who had the whole clear +within him and in slowing up for the complicated +passages never stumbled or lost the +rhythm or ceased to listen. Someone choosing +just this fragment of all the music in the world +<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a> +to express his state: joy in being up here in +snow and sunlight. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When the gown was on, the creasing was +more evident; all but the enlivening strange +harmony of embroidered blues and greens and +mauves was a criss-cross of sharp lines and +shadows. +</p> + +<p> +For the second time the long loud buzzing +of the downstairs bell vibrated its summons +through the house. +</p> + +<p> +Standing once more before the little mirror +that reflected only her head and shoulders she +recreated the gown in its perfection of cut, +the soft depths of its material that hung and +took the light so beautifully. +</p> + +<p> +“Your first Switzerland must be good. I +want your first Switzerland to be good.” And +then, in place of illuminating hints, that little +diagram on the table: of life as a zig-zag. +Saddening. Perhaps he was right. Then, +since the beginning had been so good, all a +sharp zig, what now waited downstairs, heralded +<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a> +by the creased dress, was a zag, equally +sharp. +</p> + +<p> +The dining-room, low ceiled and oblong, +was large and seemed almost empty. Small +tables set away towards a window on the +right and only one of them occupied, left clear +the large space of floor between the door at +which she had come in and a table, filling the +length of the far side of the room where +beside a gap in the row of diners a servant +stood turned towards her with outstretched +indicating hand. +</p> + +<p> +No one but the servant had noticed her +entry. Voices were sounding, smooth easy +tones leaving the air composed, as she slipped +into her place in a light that beside the unscreened +glare upstairs was mellow, subdued +by shades. The voices were a man’s across +the way—light and kindly, ’Varsity, the +smiling tone of one who is amiable even in +disagreement—and that of the woman on her +left, a subdued deep bass. Other voices +dropped in, as suave and easy, and clipping and +slurring their words in the same way; but +rather less poised. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a> +The tone of these people was balm. Sitting +with eyes cast down aware only of the subdued +golden light, she recalled her fleeting +glimpse of them as she had crossed the room, +English in daily evening dress, and was +carried back to the little world of Newlands +where first she had daily shared the evening +festival of diners dressed and suave about a +table free of dishes, set with flowers and +elegancies beneath a clear and softly shaded +light: the world she had sworn never to leave. +She remembered a summer morning, the +brightness of the light over her breakfast +tray and its unopened letters and her vow to +remain always surrounded by beauty, always +with flowers and fine fabrics, and space and +a fresh clean air always close about her, +playing their part that was so powerful. +</p> + +<p> +And this little wooden Swiss hotel with its +baked air and philistine fittings was to provide +thrown in with Switzerland, more than a +continuation of Newlands—Newlands seen +afresh with experienced eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The clipped, slurred words had no longer +the charm of a foreign tongue. Though still +<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a> +they rang upon the air the preoccupations of +the man at the wheel: the sound of “The +Services” adapted. But clustered in this +small space they seemed to be bringing with +them another account of their origin, to be +showing how they might come about of themselves +and vary from group to group, from +person to person—with one aim: to avoid +disturbing the repose of the features. Expression +might be animated or inanimate, but +features must remain undisturbed. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is no place for clearly enunciated +speech apart from oratory; platform and +pulpit. Anywhere else it is bad form. Bad +fawm. +</p> + +<p> +She felt she knew now why perfect speech, +delightful in itself, always seemed insincere. +Why women with clear musical voices undulating, +and clean enunciation, are always +cats; and the corresponding men, ingratiating +and charming at first, turn out sooner or later +to be charlatans. +</p> + +<p> +The nicest people have bad handwriting and +bad delivery. +</p> + +<p> +But all this applied only to English, to +<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a> +Germanics; that was a queer exciting thing, +that only these languages had the quality of +aggressive disturbance of the speaking face: +chin-jerking vowels and aspirates, throat-swelling +gutturals ... force and strength and +richness, qualities innumerable and more +various than in any other language. +</p> + +<p> +Quelling an impulse to gaze at the speakers +lit by discovery, she gazed instead at imagined +faces, representative Englishmen, with eyes +and brows serene above rapid slipshod speech. +</p> + +<p> +Here too of course was the explanation of +the other spontaneous forms of garbling, the +extraordinary pulpit speech of self-conscious +and incompletely believing parsons, and the +mincing speech of the genteel. It explained +“nace.” Nice, correctly spoken, is a convulsion +of the lower face—like a dog snapping +at a gnat. +</p> + +<p> +She had a sudden vision of the English aspirate, +all over the world, puff-puff-puffing +like a steam-engine, and was wondering +whether it were a waste or a source of energy, +when she became acutely aware of being for +those about her a fresh item in their grouping. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a> +It was a burden too heavy to be borne. The +good Swiss soup had turned her bright fever +of fatigue to a drowsiness that made every +effort to sit decently upright end in a renewed +abject drooping that if only she were alone +could be the happy drooping of convalescence +from the journey. +</p> + +<p> +Their talk had gone on. It was certain +that always they would talk. Archipelagoes +of talk, avoiding anything that could endanger +continuous urbanity. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of a stifled yawn the call to +a fortnight’s continuous urbanity fell upon her +like a whip. Dodging the blow she lolled +resistant to the sound of bland voices. An +onlooker, appreciative but resistant; that, +socially, would be the story of her stay. A +docile excursion, even if they should offer it, +into this select little world, would come between +her and her Switzerland. Refusal +clamoured within her and it was only as an +after-thought that she realised the impossibility +of remaining for a fortnight without +opinions. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment, hearing again the interwoven +<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a> +voices as a far-off unison of people +sailing secure on smooth accustomed waters, +she was bleakly lonely; suppliant. Nothing +showed ahead but a return with her fatigue +to sustain the silence and emptiness of a +strange room. She was turning to glance at +the woman on her left when the deep bass +voice asked her casually if she had had a +good journey. Casual cameraderie, as if +already they had been talking and were now +hiding an established relationship under conventionalities. +</p> + +<p> +The moment she had answered she heard +the university voice across the way remark, +in the tone of one exchanging notes with a +friend after a day’s absence, that it was a vile +journey, but all right from Berne onwards, +and looked up. There he was, almost opposite, +Cambridge, and either history or +classics, the pleasant radiance of <em>lit. hum.</em> all +about him, and turned her way bent a little, +as if bowing, and as if waiting for her acknowledgment—with +his smile, apology introduction +and greeting beaming together from +sea-blue eyes set only ever so little too closely +<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a> +together in a neatly tanned narrowly oval +face—before regaining the upright. +</p> + +<p> +Her soft reply, lost in other sounds, made +a long moment during which, undisturbed by +not hearing, he held his attitude of listening +that told her he was glad of her presence. +</p> + +<p> +The close-set eyes meant neither weakness +nor deceit. Sectarian eyes, emancipated. But +his strength was borrowed. His mental +strength was not original. An uninteresting +mind; also he was a little selfish, with the +selfishness of the bachelor of thirty—but +charming. +</p> + +<p> +The party was smaller than she had thought. +The odd way they were all drawn up at one +end of the table made them look numerous. +Spread out in the English way they would +have made a solemn dinner-party, with large +cold gaps. +</p> + +<p> +Someone asked whether she had come right +through and in a moment they were all amiably +wrangling over the pros and cons of breaking +the journey. +</p> + +<p> +Staring from across the table was a man +alone, big oblong foreigner dwarfing his neighbours, +<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a> +and piteous, not to be looked at as the +others could who fitted the scene; not so +much sitting at table with the rest as set there +filling a space. His eyes had turned towards +a nasal voice suddenly prevailing; sombre +brown, wistfully sulking below eyebrows lifted +in a wide forehead that stopped unexpectedly +soon at a straight fence of hair. Oblong +beard reaching the top of stiff brown coat. +Russian, probably the Chopin player. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone’s a fool who passes Parrus without +stopping off at least a few hours.” +</p> + +<p> +A small man at the end of the row, opaque +blue eyes in a peaky face, little peaked beard, +neat close-fitting dress clothes. Incongruous +far-travelled guest of little Switzerland. +</p> + +<p> +He was next the window, with the nice +man on his right. Then came the big Russian +exactly opposite and again naïvely staring +across, and beyond him a tall lady in a home-made +silk blouse united by a fichu to the +beginning of a dark skirt; coronet of soft, +coiled white hair above a firmly padded face +with polished skin, pink-flushed, glimmering +into the talk, that was now a debate about to-morrow’s +<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a> +chances, into which sounded women’s +voices from the table behind, smooth and clear, +but clipped, free-masonish like the others. +To the right of the coronetted lady an iron-grey +man, her husband, gaunt and worn, +with peevishly suffering eyes set towards the +door on the far side of the room. Fastidious +eyes, full of knowledge, turned away. He +was the last in the row and beyond him the +table stretched away to the end wall through +whose door the servants came and went. +His opponents were out of sight beyond the +bass-voiced woman on the left, whose effect +was so strangely large and small: a face +horse-like and delicate, and below her length +of face increased by the pyramid of hair +above her pointed fringe, a meeting of old +lace and good jewellery. +</p> + +<p> +To her own right the firm insensitive hand, +that wore a signet ring and made pellets of +its bread, belonged to just the man she had +imagined, dark and liverish, but with an unexpectedly +flattened profile whose moustache, +dropping to sharp points, gave it an expression +faintly Chinese; a man domestic but +<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a> +accustomed to expand in unrestricted statement, +impatiently in leash to the surrounding +equality of exchange. Beyond him his wife, +sitting rather eagerly forward, fair and plump, +with features grown expressionless in their +long service of holding back her thoughts, but, +betraying their secret in a brow, creased faintly +by straining upwards as if in perpetual incredulity +of an ever-present spectacle, and +become now the open page of the story the +mouth and eyes were not allowed to tell. +</p> + +<p> +At her side a further figure and beyond it +the head of the table unoccupied, leaving the +party to be its own host. +</p> + +<p> +The atmosphere incommoding the husband, +who at a second glance seemed to call even +pathetically for articulate opposition, was that +of a successful house-party, its tone set by the +only two in sight who were through and +through of the authentic brand: the deep-voiced +woman and the nice man. The invalid +and his wife belonged to that inner +circle. But they were a little shadowed by +his malady. +</p> + +<p> +It was an atmosphere in which the American +<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a> +and the Russian were ill at ease, one an +impatient watchfulness for simpler, more +lively behaviour and the other a bored detachment, +heavily anchored, not so much by +thoughts as by hard clear images left by things +seen according to the current formula of whatever +group of the European intelligentsia he +belonged to. +</p> + +<p> +He was speaking softly through the general +conversation to the nice man, with slight deprecating +gestures of eyebrows and shoulders, +in his eyes a qualified gratitude. The nice +man spoke carefully with head turned and +bent, seeking his words. French, with English +intonation. All these people, however fluently, +would talk like that. All of them came +from a world that counted mastery of a +foreign tongue both wonderful and admirable—but +ever so little <span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">infra dig</span>. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Won’t you come in heah for a bit?” +</p> + +<p> +Drugged as she felt with weariness she +turned joyfully into a room opening in the +<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a> +background of the hall whence the deep bass +voice had sounded as she passed. A tiny +salon, ugly; maroon and buff in a thick light. +Plush sofa, plush cover on the round table in +the centre, stiff buff-seated “drawing-room” +chairs; a piano. It was from this dismal +little room the Chopin had sounded out into +the twilight. +</p> + +<p> +There she was, alone, standing very thin and +tall in a good, rather drearily elderly black +dress beside a cheerless radiator, one elbow +resting on its rim and a slender foot held +towards it from beneath the hem of a slightly +hitched skirt: an Englishwoman at a fireside. +</p> + +<p> +“My name’s Harcourt, M’zz Harcourt,” +she said at once. +</p> + +<p> +Books were set star-wise in small graded +piles about the centre of the table, the uppermost +carrying upon their covers scrolls and +garlands of untarnished gilt. The one she +opened revealed short-lined poems set within +yet more garlands, appealing; leaves and +buds and birds lively and sweet about the +jingling verse. Swiss joy in deep quiet valleys +<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a> +guarded by sunlit mountains. Joy of people +living in beauty all their lives; enclosed. Yet +making rooms like this. +</p> + +<p> +But it held the woman at the radiator, +knowing England and her sea, and whose +smile looking up she met, watching, indulgent +of her détour and, as too eagerly she moved +forward, indulgent also of that. Here, if she +would, was a friend, and, although middle-aged, +a contemporary self-confessed by a note +in her voice of impatience over waste of time +in preliminaries. +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Harcourt did not know how nimbly +she could move, might think it strange when +presently her voice must betray that she was +already rejoicing—defying the note of warning +that sounded far away within her—in a well-known +presence, singing recklessly to it the +song of new joy and life begun anew that all +the way from England had been gathering +within her. +</p> + +<p> +The announcement of her own name made +the woman again a stranger, so much was she +a stranger to the life belonging to the name, and +brought into sudden prominence the state of +<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a> +her gown, exposed now in its full length. She +recounted the tragedy and saw Mrs. Harcourt’s +smile change to real concern. +</p> + +<p> +Here they were, alone together, seeming to +have leapt rather than passed through the +early stages. +</p> + +<p> +Like love, but unobstructed. A balance of +side-by-side, not of opposition. More open +than love, yet as hidden and wonderful; +rising from the same depth. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold it in front of the waydiator. Vat’ll +take ’em out a bit. Such a poo’hy gown.” +She moved a little back from the row of pipes. +</p> + +<p> +Going close to the radiator Miriam moved +into a fathomless gentleness. +</p> + +<p> +But it was also a demand, so powerful that +it was drawing all her being to a point. All +that she had brought with her into the room +would be absorbed and scattered, leaving her +robbed of things not yet fully her own. +</p> + +<p> +The warning voice within was crying aloud +now, urging her not only to escape before the +treasures of arrival and of strangeness were +lost beyond recovery, but to save also the past, +disappeared round the corner yet not out of +<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a> +sight but drawn closely together in the distance, +a swiftly moving adventure, lit from +point to point by the light in which to-day she +had bathed forgetful. +</p> + +<p> +Even a little talk, a little answering of +questions, would falsify the past. Set in her +own and in this woman’s mind in a mould of +verbal summarisings it would hamper and +stain the brightness of to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +She found herself hardening, seeking generalisations +that would cool and alienate, and +was besieged by memories of women whom she +had thus escaped. And of their swift revenge. +But this woman was not of those who avenge +themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Hesitating before the sound of her own voice, +or the other which would sound if this second’s +silence were prolonged, she was seized by +revolt: the determination at all costs to avoid +hearing in advance, in idle words above the +ceaseless intercourse of their spirits, about +Oberland; even from one whose seeing might +leave her own untouched. +</p> + +<p> +To open the way for flight she remarked that +it must be late. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a> +“About nine. You’re dead beat, I can see. +Ought to go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for worlds,” said Miriam involuntarily. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Harcourt’s face, immediately alight for +speech, expressed as she once more took +possession of the radiator and looked down at +it as into a fire, willingness to stand indefinitely +by. +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone’s gone to bed. Bein’ out all +day in vis air makes you sleepy at night.” +</p> + +<p> +Remembering that of course she would +speak without gaps, Miriam glanced at the +possibility of pulling herself together for conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“I been pottering. My ski are at Zurbuchen’s +bein’ repaired.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what a <em>perfect</em> Swiss name. Like +oak, like well-baked bread.” +</p> + +<p> +To get away now. Sufficient impression of +the Alpenstock people perpetually strenuous, +living for sport, and, redeeming its angularity, +the rich Swiss background: Zurbuchen. But +Mrs. Harcourt’s glance of surprised delight—there +was amusement too, she didn’t think +<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a> +Swiss names worth considering—meant that +she was entertained, anticipating further entertainment; +to which she would not contribute. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I’m supposed to sit about and rest. +Overwork.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t. Lots of people come out like +vat. You’ll soon find resting a baw out +heah.” +</p> + +<p> +“Should like a little sleep. I’ve had none +for two nights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop in bed to-morrow. Have your meals +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mm....” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment Mrs. Harcourt waited, silent, +not making the movement of departure that +would presently bring down the shadow of +returning loneliness her words had drawn so +near; keeping her leaning pose, her air of being +indefinitely available. +</p> + +<p> +The deep bell of her voice dropped from its +soft single note to a murmur rising and falling, +a low narrative tone, hurrying. +</p> + +<p> +Through the sound still coming and going +in her mind of the name Mrs. Harcourt had +<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a> +so casually spoken, bringing with it the sunlit +mountains and the outer air waiting in to-morrow, +Miriam heard that the people at the +Alpenstock were all right—with the exception +of the two sitting at dinner on Mrs. Harcourt’s +left, “outsiders” of a kind now appearing in +Oberland for the first time. Saddened by +their exclusion, embarrassed by unconscious +flattery, Miriam impulsively asked their name +and glowed with a sudden vision of Mrs. +Corrie, of how she would have embraced this +opportunity for wicked mondaine wit. Mrs. +Harcourt, for a moment obediently reflecting, +said she had forgotten it but that it was somefing +raver fwightful. Everyone else, introduced +by name, received a few words of commendation—excepting +the Russian and the +American. The Russian would be just a +foreigner, an unfortunate, but the American +surely must be an outsider? Insincerely, as +if in agreement with this division of humanity +by exclusion, she put in a question, and while +Mrs. Harcourt pulled up her discourse to say, +as if sufficiently, that he was staying only a +couple of days and passed on to summon other +<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a> +hotels to the tribunal, she was glad that the +Russian had been left untouched. Harry +Vereker, fine, a first-class sportsman and +altogether nice chap, was already lessened, +domesticated, general property in his niceness; +but the Russian remained, wistfully +alone: attractive. +</p> + +<p> +“.... hidjus big hotel only just built; all +glass and glare. It’ll be the ruin of Oberland. +No one’ll come here next year.” +</p> + +<p> +Though still immersed in her theme Mrs. +Harcourt was aware, when next she glanced to +punctuate a statement, if not exactly that +instead of the object she offered it was herself +and her glance that was being seen—the +curious steeliness of its indignation—at least +of divided attention, a sudden breach in their +collaboration; and immediately she came to +the surface, passing without pause to her full +bell note, with an enquiry. Hoping to please. +But why hoping to please? +</p> + +<p> +This abrupt stowing away of her chosen +material might be a simple following of the +rules of her world; it suggested also the +humouring of a patient by a watchful nurse, +<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a> +and since she had the advantage of not being +in the depths of fatigue this perhaps was its +explanation; but much more clearly it spoke +her years of marriage, of dealing with masculine +selfishness. And she was so swift, so repentant +of her long, enjoyable excursion, that it was +clear she had suffered masculine selfishness +gladly. Neither understanding nor condemning. +It had not damaged her love and she +had suffered bitterly when it was removed. +</p> + +<p> +Suffering was pleading now in her eyes off +their guard in this to-and-fro of remarks that +was a little shocking: the reverberation of a +disaster. +</p> + +<p> +Now that it was clear that her charming +behaviour from the first might be explained +by the attraction there was for her in a mannish +mental hardness, that she sought in its +callousness both something it could never give, +as well as entertainment, and rest from perpetual +feeling, she ceased to be interesting. +She herself made it so clear that she had +nothing to give. Offering her best help, what +in the way of her world would be most useful +to one newly arrived, she was yet suppliant; +<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a> +and afraid of failure, haunted by the fear of a +failure she did not understand and that was +perhaps uniform in her experience. +</p> + +<p> +Miriam found her own voice growing heavy +with the embarrassment of her discoveries and +her longing to break this so eagerly woven +entanglement. Trying again for cooling generalities +she had the sense of pouring words +into a void. The gentle presence hovered +there, played its part, followed, answered, but +without sharing the effort to swim into the +refreshing tide of impersonality; without seeing +the independent light on the scraps of +reality she was being offered. No wonder +perhaps: they were a little breathless. She +was scenting apology and retreat. And did +not know that it was retreat not at all from +herself, but from her terrible alacrity and +transparence: the way the whole of her was +at once visible. All her thoughts, her way +of thinking in words, in set phrases gathered +from too enclosed an experience. Enclosed. +To be with her was enclosure. The earlier +feeling of being encompassed that was so +welcome because it was so womanly, so +<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a> +exactly what a man needs in its character of +kindly confessor and giver of absolution in +advance, had lost value before the discovery +of this absence of vistas, this frightful sense of +being shut in with assumptions about life +that admit of no question and no modification. +</p> + +<p> +Again the dead husband intruded; his years +of life at this woman’s side, his first adoration +of her, and then his weariness, fury of weariness +whose beginnings she felt herself already +tasting, so that for sheer pity she was kept in +her place, effusive, unable to go. +</p> + +<p> +But at the moment of parting Mrs. Harcourt +became again that one who had waited, +impatient of wasting time in formalities. Her +smile glanced out from the past, revealing +the light upon her earlier days. It was a +greeting for to-morrow rather than a good-night. +</p> + +<p> +Going up to the little bedroom that was now +merely a refuge off-stage, she found it brightly +lit in readiness for her coming, summery bright +all over, the light curtains drawn and joining +with the unvarnished wood to make an enclosure +<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a> +that seemed to emulate the brightness +of the Swiss daylight. The extravagant illumination, +the absence of glooms and shadows, +recalled the outdoor scene and something of +this afternoon’s bliss of arrival and the joy +that had followed it, when music sounded up +through the house, of home-coming from long +exile. Switzerland waited outside—enriched +by her successful début—with its promise that +could not fail. Meanwhile there was the unfamiliar +enchantment of moving comfortably +in a warm bedroom, not having the wealth +one brought upstairs instantly dispersed by +the attack of cold and gloom. The temperature +was lower than before, pleasant, no +longer oppressive; and more hospitable than +a fire whose glow was saddened by the certainty +that in the morning it would be an +ashy desolation. +</p> + +<p> +The moment the basket chair received her +the downstairs world was about her again; +circling, clamorous with the incidents of her +passage from lonely exposure to the shelter +of Mrs. Harcourt’s so swiftly offered wing, +from beneath which, with its owner assured +<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a> +of the hardness of what it sheltered, she could +move freely forth in any direction. +</p> + +<p> +The two Le Mesras—that was her pronunciation +of Le Mesurier?—Three Chators. +Mrs. Sneyde and Maud Something at the little +table behind ... Hollebone. Maud Hollebone. +The American, leaving. Interest hesitated +between Harry Vereker already a little +diminished, and the Russian: the reincarnated, +attractive, ultimately unsatisfactory +Tansley Street foreigner? +</p> + +<p> +Someone was tapping at the door. She +opened it upon Mrs. Harcourt offering a small +tray, transformed to motherliness by a voluminous +dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone she vanished utterly. +There she was, actually in the next room, yet +utterly forgettable. And yet she threw across +the days ahead a strange deep light. +</p> + +<p> +The steaming chocolate and the little English +biscuits disappeared too quickly, leaving +hunger. +</p> + +<p> +The French window was made fast by a +right-angle hand-piece, very stiff, that gave +suddenly with a dreadfully audible clang. +<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a> +The door creaked open. Racing the advancing +air she was beneath the downy billow +before it reached her. It took her fevered +face with its batallions of needles, stole up her +nostrils to her brain, bore her down into the +uttermost depths of sleep. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3"> +<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a> +CHAPTER III +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">F</span><span class="postfirstchar">rom</span> which she awoke in light that +seemed for a moment to be beyond +the confines of earth. It was as if all her life +she had travelled towards this radiance, and +was now within it, clear of the past, at an +ultimate destination. +</p> + +<p> +How long had it been there, quizzically +patient, waiting for her to be aware of it? +</p> + +<p> +It was sound, that had wakened her and +ceased now that she was looking and listening; +become the inaudible edge of a sound infinitely +far away. Brilliant light, urgently describing +the outdoor scene. But she was unwilling +to stir and break the radiant stillness. +</p> + +<p> +Close at hand a bell buzzed sharply. Another, +and then a third far away down the +corridor. People ringing their day into existence, +free to ring their day into existence +when they pleased. She was one of them; +<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a> +and for to-day she would wait awhile, give the +bell-ringers time to be up and gone down to +breakfast while she kept intact within this +miracle of light the days ahead that with the +sounding of her own bell would be already in +process of spending. +</p> + +<p> +But perhaps there was a time-limit for breakfasts? +</p> + +<p> +Screwing round to locate the bell with the +minimum of movement she paused in sheer +surprise of well-being. Of the shattering journey +there was not a trace. Nor of the morning +weariness following social excitements. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting up to search more effectually she +saw the source of her wakening, bright gold +upon the mountain tops: a smiling challenge, +as if, having put on their morning gold, the +mountains watched its effect upon the onlookers. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +She was glad to be alone on the scene of +last night’s dinner-party; to be in the company +of the other breakfasters represented +<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a> +only by depleted butter-dishes and gaps in +the piles of rolls, and free from the risk of +hearing the opening day fretted by voices set +going like incantations to exorcise the present +as if it had no value, as if the speakers were +not living in it but only in yesterday or to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +And when there came a warning swift +clumping of hob-nailed boots across the hall, +across the room, she demanded Vereker, oddly +certain that even at this late hour still somehow +it would contrive to be he. +</p> + +<p> +And there he was, lightly clumping round +the table-end to his place, into which he +slipped smiling his greeting, boyishly. Not at +all in the self-conscious Englishman’s manner +of getting himself seated when others are +already in their places: bent, just before +sitting down, forward from the waist and in +that pose—hitching his trousers the while—distributing +his greetings, and so letting himself +down into his chair either with immediate +speech or a simulated air of preoccupation. +Vereker flopped and beamed at the same +moment, unfeignedly pleased to arrive. +<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a> +Knickerbockers; but that was not the whole +difference. He was always unfeignedly pleased +to arrive? +</p> + +<p> +He began at once collecting food and spoke +with gentle suddenness into a butter-dish: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you had a good night?” +</p> + +<p> +His talk made a little symphony with his +movements which also were conversational, +and he looked across each time he spoke, but +only on the last word; a swift blue beam. In +the morning light he seemed younger—perhaps +a champion ski-er at the end of his day +is as tired as a hard-worked navvy?—and a +certain air of happy gravity and the very fair +curly hair shining round its edges from recent +splashings, gave him, in his very white, very +woolly sweater, something of the look of a +newly bathed babe in its matinée jacket—in +spite of the stern presence, above the rolled +top of his sweater, of an inch of stiff linen +collar highly glazed. +</p> + +<p> +He was of a type and of a class, and also, in +a way not quite clear, a tempered, thoroughly +live human being; something more in him +than fine sportsman and nice fellow, giving +<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a> +him weight. Presently she found its marks: +a pleat between the brows and, far away +within his eyes even when they smiled, a sadness; +that sounded too in his cheerful voice, a +puzzled, perpetual compassion. +</p> + +<p> +For the world? For himself? +</p> + +<p> +But these back premises were touched with +sunlight. Some sense of things he had within +him that made him utterly <em>kind</em>. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it extraordinary,” she said, hoping +to hide the fact that she had missed his last +remark, “the way these people leave the +lights switched on all the time, everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cheap electricity,” he said as if in parenthesis, +and as if apologetically reminding her of +what she already knew—“Water power. They +pay a rate and use as much as they like.” +</p> + +<p> +In all his answers there was this manner +of apologising for giving information. And his +talk, even the perfect little story of the local +barber and the newspapers, which he told at +top pace as if grudging the moment it wasted, +was like a shorthand annotation to essential +unspoken things, shared interests and opinions +taken for granted. Talking with him she no +<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a> +longer felt as she had done last night either +that she was at a private view of an exclusive +exhibition, or gathering fresh light on social +problems. There was in him something unbounded, +that enhanced the light reflected +into the room from the sunlit snow. His +affectionate allusion to his Cambridge brought +to her mind complete in all its parts—together +with gratitude for the peace he gave in which +things could expand unhindered—her own so +sparse possession: her week-ends there with +the cousins, their blinkered, comfort-loving +academic friends, the strange sense of at once +creeping back into security and realising how +far she had come away from it; their kindnesses, +their secret hope of settling her for +life in their enclosed world, and their vain +efforts to mould her to its ways; and then the +end, the growing engrossments in London +breaking the link that held her to them and to +the past they embodied—and Cambridge left +lit by their sweet hospitality, by the light +streaming on Sunday afternoons through +King’s Chapel windows; the Backs in sunlight, +and a memory of the halting little chime. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a> +When she told him of the things that +Cambridge had left with her, she paused just +in time to escape adding to them the gait of +the undergraduates: the slovenly stride whose +each footfall sent the chin forward with a hen-like +jerk. +</p> + +<p> +He agreed at once with her choice, but +hesitated over the little chime. +</p> + +<p> +“It might have been a new church. I never +saw it. But if you had once heard it you +<em>couldn’t</em> forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +It was absurd to be holding to her solitary +chime in face of his four years’ residence. But +it seemed now desperately important to state +exactly the quality she had felt and never put +into words. She sat listening—aware of him +waiting in a sympathetic stillness—to each +note as it sounded out into the sky above the +town, making it no longer Cambridge but a +dream-city, subduing the graceless modern +bricks and mortar to harmony with the +ancient beauty of the colleges—until the whole +was a loveliness beneath the evening sky—and +presently found herself speaking with +reckless enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a> +“<em>Don’t</em> you remember the four little gentle +tuneless phrases, of six and seven notes alternately, +one for each quarter, and at the hour +sounding one after the other with a little +pause between each, seeming to ask you to +look at what it saw, at the various life of the +town made suddenly wonderful and strange; +and the last phrase, beginning with a small +high note that tapped the sky, and wandering +down to the level and stopping without +emphasis, leaving everything at peace and +very beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I <em>can’t</em> have heard it,” he said +wistfully and sat contemplative in a little +pause during which it occurred to her, becoming +aware of the two of them talking on +and on into the morning that it rested with +her to wind up the sitting; that he might +perhaps, if not quite immediately, yet in +intention be waiting for her to rise and spare +him the apparent discourtesy of pleading an +engagement. Even failing the engagement +they could not sit here forever, and the convention +of his world demanded that she should +be the first to go. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a> +She had just time to note coming from far +away within herself a defiance that would +sooner inflict upon him the discomfort of +breaking the rule than upon herself the annoyance +of moving at its bidding, when he +looked across and said with the bowing attitude +he had held last night as he spoke and +waited for her to become aware of him: “May +I put you up for the ski-club?” +</p> + +<p> +It was, of course, his business to cultivate +new people, and, if they seemed suitable, to +collect them.... +</p> + +<p> +She smiled acknowledgment and insincerely +pleaded the shortness of her stay. All she +could do, short of blurting out her poverty +which he seemed not to have seen. +</p> + +<p> +But a fortnight was, he declared, the ideal +time: time to learn and to get on well enough +to want to come out again next year; and +hurried on to promise a fellow sufferer, a friend +coming up, for only a few days, from the +South, who would be set immediately to work +and on whose account he was committed to-day +to trek down to the station. +</p> + +<p> +“We were,” he said, for the first time +<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a> +looking across almost before he spoke, and +with the manner now of making a direct +important communication, “at Cambridge +together.” +</p> + +<p> +A valued friend, being introduced, recommended, +put before himself. Warmth crept +into his voice, and lively emphasis—compressed +into a small note of distress. That +note was his social utmost, for gravity and for +joy; recalling Selina Holland—when she was +deeply moved: a wailing tone, deprecating, +but in his tone was more wistfulness, a suggestion +too of anxiety. It had begun when he +spoke of Pater’s Renaissance Studies, but had +then merely sounded into the golden light, +intensifying it. Now it seemed to flout the +light, flout everything but his desire to express +the absent friend. +</p> + +<p> +“That was some years ago. Since then he +has been a very busy man, saying to this one +go and he goeth ...” He smiled across as +if asking her to share the strangeness of his +friend’s metamorphosis. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve not seen him since?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not since he bought his land.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a> +“He’s a landowner,” she said, and fell into +sadness. +</p> + +<p> +“He is indeed, on quite a big scale, and a +very hardworking one.” +</p> + +<p> +“A farmer,” murmured Miriam, “that’s not +so bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very arduous. He is always at his post. +Never takes a holiday. For three winters I’ve +tried to get him up here for a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolute property in land,” she said to +the sunlit snow, “is a crime.” +</p> + +<p> +Before her, side by side with a vision of +Rent as a clutching monster astride upon +civilisation, was a picture of herself, suddenly +hitting out at these pleasant people, all, no +doubt, landowners. It was only because the +friend had been presented to her in the distance +and with as it were all his land on his +back that this one article of the Lycurgan +faith of which she had no doubt, had at all +reared itself in her mind. And as it came, +dictating her words while she stood by counting +the probable cost and wondering too over +the great gulf between one’s most cherished +opinions about life and one’s sense of life as it +<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a> +presents itself piecemeal embodied in people, +she heard with relief his unchanged voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please tell me why?” +</p> + +<p> +And turned to see him flushed, smiling, +pardoning her lapse, apologising for pardoning +it, and altogether interested. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a whole immense subject and I’m not +a specialist. But the theory of Rent has been +worked out by those who are, by people sincerely +trying to discover where it is that temporarily +useful parts of the machinery of civilisation +have got out of gear and become +harmful. <em>No</em> one ought to have to pay for +the right to sit down on the earth. <em>No</em> one +ought to be so helplessly expropriated that +another can <em>buy</em> him and use him up as he +would never dream of using up more costly +material—horses for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a socialist?” +</p> + +<p> +Into her answer came the sound of a child’s +voice in plaintive recitative approaching from +the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Daphne in trouble,” he said, “you’ll tell +me more, I <em>hope</em>,”—and turned his pleading +smile to meet people coming in at the door. +<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a> +They clumped to the small table nearer the +further window and she caught a sideways +glimpse before they sat down: a slender +woman with red-gold hair carrying a bunchy +little girl whose long legs dangled against her +skirt—Mrs. Sneyde, the grass-widow, and, +making for the far side of the table a big +buoyant girlish young woman—uninteresting—the +sister-in-law, Maud Hollebone. +</p> + +<p> +The child’s “so bitter, <em>bitter</em> cold,” sounded +clear through the morning greetings in which +she took no part. Her voice was strange, low +and clear, and full of a meditative sincerity. +Amidst the interchange of talk between Vereker +and the two women it prevailed again: a +plaintive monologue addressed to the universe. +</p> + +<p> +The grating of a chair and there she was +confronting the talking Vereker, who was on +his feet and just about to go. She stood +gazing up, with her hands behind her back. +A rounded face and head, cleanly revealed by +the way the fine silky brown hair was strained +back across the skull; bunchy serge dress and +stiff white pinafore. Pausing, Vereker looked +down at her. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a> +“You going out, Vereker?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend coming? Not telegraphed or +anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s coming all right, Daphne. He’ll be +here to-night. You’ll see him in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be writing your letters till you +start?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll come and sit in your room till +my beecely walk.” +</p> + +<p> +She rapped out her statements—immediately +upon his replies, making him sound +gentle and slow—from the childish, rounded +face that was serenely thinking, full of quick, +calm thought. Regardless talk was going +forward at the other table to which, her +business settled, she briskly returned. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The little wooden hall was like a summer-house +that was also a sports-pavilion. Against +the wall that backed the dining-room stood +bamboo chairs uncertain, as if, belonging elsewhere +<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a> +and having been told not to block the +gangway by moving into the open, they did +not know what they were for. The table to +which they belonged stood boldly in the centre +and held an ash-tray. Between it and the +front door from above which the antlered head +of a chamois gazed down upon the small +scene, the way was clear, but the rest of the +floor space was invaded on all sides by toboggans +propped against the wall or standing clear +with boots lying upon them, slender boots +gleaming with polish and fitted with skates that +appeared to be nothing but a single brilliant +blade. Against one wall was a pair of things +like oars. Ski? But thought of as attached +to a human foot they were impossibly long. +</p> + +<p> +From a hidden region away beyond the angle +of the staircase came servants’ voices in +staccato, and abrupt sounds: the sounds of +their morning campaign, giving an air of +callous oblivion to the waiting implements of +sport, and quenching, with the way they had +of seeming to urge the residents forth upon +their proper business outdoors, the hesitant +invitation of the chairs. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a> +Beyond the dining-room and this little hall, +whose stillness murmured incessantly of activities, +there was no refuge but the dejected +little salon. +</p> + +<p> +Filled with morning light it seemed larger, +a little important and quite self-sufficient, +giving out its secret strangeness of a Swiss +room, old; pre-existing English visitors, proof, +with its way of being, set long ago and unaltered, +against their travelled hilarity. The +little parlour piano, precious in chosen wood +highly polished, with faded yellow keys and +faded silk behind its trellis, was full of old +music, seemed to brood over the carollings of +an ancient simplicity unknown to the modern +piano whose brilliant black and white makes +it sound in a room all the time, a ringing +accompaniment to the life of to-day. +</p> + +<p> +But into this averted solitude there came to +her again the sense of time pouring from an +inexhaustible source: gentle, marvellous, unutterably +<em>kind</em>. It came in through the +window whose screened light, filling the small +room and halting meditatively there, seemed +to wait for song. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a> +Drawing back the flimsy curtain from the +window, she found it a door giving on a +covered balcony through whose panes she +saw wan sunless snowfields and beyond them +slopes, patched with black pinewoods and +rising in the distance to a high ridge, a smooth +bulging thickness of snow against deep blue +sky. The dense pinewoods thinned and as +they climbed into small straggling groups with +here and there a single file of trees, small and +sharp-pointed, marching towards the top of +the ridge. +</p> + +<p> +Beautiful this sharp etching far-off of keen +black pines upon the sunless snow and strange +the clear deep blue of the sky. But mournful; +remote and self-sufficient. Switzerland +averted and a little discouraging. +</p> + +<p> +The balcony extended right and left and a +glimpse away to the left of mats hanging out +into the open and a maid pouncing forth +upon them with a beater sent her to the right, +where the distance was obscured by a building +standing at right angles to the house, a battered +barn-like place, unbalconied, but pierced +symmetrically by little windows; châlet, +<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a> +warm rich brown, darkened above by its +sheltering, steeply jutting roof ... beautiful. +Its kindliness extended all about it, lending a +warmth even to the far-off desolate slopes. +</p> + +<p> +A door at her side revealed the dining-room +lengthwise and deserted, and then she was +round the angle of the house and free of its +secret: its face towards the valley that was +now a vast splendour of sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +Every day, through these windows that +framed the view in strips this light would be +visible in all its changings. Standing at the +one that glazed the great mountain whose gold +had wakened her she discovered that the +balcony was a verandah, had in front of it a +railed-in space set with chairs and tables. +In a moment she was out in the open light, +upon a shelf, within the landscape that seemed +now to be the whole delight of Switzerland +outspread before her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Far away below, cleft along its centre by +the irregular black line of its frozen river was +the wide white floor of the valley, measuring +the mountains that rose upon its hither side. +</p> + +<p> +Those high, high summits, beetling variously +<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a> +up into the top of the sky, with bright patches +of tawny rock breaking through their smooth +whiteness against its darkest blue, knew +nothing of the world below where their mountains +went downward in a great whiteness of +broadening irregular slopes that presently bore +pines in single file upwards advancing from +the dense clumps upon the lower ridges, and +met in an extended mass along the edge of the +valley floor. +</p> + +<p> +Here and there, clear of the pinewoods, and +looking perilously high and desolate, a single +châlet made a triangular warm brown blot +upon the dazzling snow. +</p> + +<p> +In this crystal stillness the smallest sound +went easily up to the high peaks; to the high +pure blue. +</p> + +<p> +Turning to bless the well-placed little hotel +she met a frontage of blank windows, each +with its sharply jutting balcony, jaws, dropped +beneath the blind stare of the windows set +forever upon a single scene. Hotel; queer +uncherished thing. No one to share its life +and make it live. +</p> + +<p> +On a near table was a folded newspaper, +<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a> +thin, heavily printed, continental. Switzerland +radiant all about her and the Swiss world +within her hands—a reprieve from further +seeing and a tour, into the daily life of this +country whose living went on within a setting +that made even the advertisements look lyrical. +</p> + +<p> +The simple text was enthralling. For years +she had not so delighted in any reading. In +the mere fact of the written word, in the building +of the sentences, the movement of phrases +linking part with part. It was all quite undistinguished, +a little crude and hard; demanding, +seeming to assume a sunny hardness +in mankind. And there was something missing +whose absence was a relief, like the absence of +heaviness in the air. Everything she had +read stood clear in her mind that yet, insufficiently +occupied with the narrative and +its strange emanations, caught up single words +and phrases and went off independently touring, +climbing to fresh arrangements and interpretations +of familiar thought. +</p> + +<p> +And this miracle of renewal was the work of a +single night. +</p> + +<p> +The need for expression grew burdensome in +<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a> +the presence of the empty sun-blistered tables. +Perhaps these lively clarities would survive +a return journey through the hotel? +</p> + +<p> +Voices sounded up from below, from the +invisible roadway. English laughter, of people +actively diverting themselves in the winter +landscape. Far away within each one was the +uncommunicating English spirit, heedless, but +not always unaware, filling its day with +habitual, lively-seeming activities. The laughter +sounded insincere; as if defying a gloom it +refused to face. +</p> + +<p> +They passed out of hearing and the vast +stillness, restored, made her look forth: at +a scene grown familiar, driving her off to fresh +seeking while it went its way towards the day +when she would see it for the last time, giving +her even now as she surveyed its irrevocably +known beauty, a foretaste of the nostalgia +that must rend her when once more she was +down upon the plains. +</p> + +<p> +But that time was infinitely far away beyond +the days during which she was to live perpetually +with this scene that clamoured now +to be communicated in its first freshness. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></a> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The writing at top-speed of half-a-dozen +letters left arrival and beginning in the past, +the great doorway of the enchantments she +had tried to describe safely closed behind her, +and herself going forward within them. With +letters to post she must now go forth, secretly, +as it were behind her own back, into Oberland; +into the scene that had seemed full experience +and was but its overture. +</p> + +<p> +The letters were disappointing. Only in +one of them had she escaped expressing yesterday’s +excited achievements and set down +instead the living joy of to-day. And this +for the one to whom such joy was incredible. +But all were warm with affection newly felt. +The long distance not only made people very +dear—in a surprising way it re-arranged them. +Foremost amongst the men was Densley of +the warm heart and wooden head wildly hailed. +His letter, the last and shortest, wrote itself +in one sentence, descriptive, laughing, affectionate. +How it would surprise him.... +</p> + +<p> +Life, she told herself as she crossed the hall +<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a> +trying to drown the kitchen sounds by recalling +what had flashed across her mind as she +wrote to Densley, is eternal because joy is. +“Future life” is a contradiction in terms. The +deadly trap of the adjective. <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pourquoi dater?</span> +Even science insists on indestructibility—yet +marks for destruction the very thing that +enables it to recognise indestructibility. But +it had come nearer and clearer than that. +</p> + +<p> +Fawn-coloured woolly puppies, romping +in the thick snow at the side of the steps as +though it were grass, huge, as big as lion cubs, +with large snub faces, and dense short bushy +coats trying to curl, evenly all over their tubby +tumbling bodies ... St. Bernards, at home +in their snow. They flung themselves at her +hands, mumbling her gloves, rolling over with +the smallest shove, weak and big and beautiful +and with absurd miniature barkings. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The hotel was at the higher end of the village +and from its steps she could see down the narrow +street to where the little church and its +<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a> +white cloaked sugar-loaf spire obscured the +view and away to the right set clear of the +village and each on the crest of a gentle slope, +the hotels, four, five, big buildings, not unbeautiful +with their peaked roofs and balconies +and the brilliance of green shutters on +their white faces. And even the largest, Mrs. +Harcourt’s ‘hidjus big place’ recognisable by +its difference, a huge square plaster box, +patterned with rows and rows of uniform +windows above which on its flat roof a high +pole flaunted a flag limp in the motionless air, +looked small and harmless, a dolls’ house +dumped casually, lost in the waste of snow. +</p> + +<p> +If these hotels were full, there were in the +village more visitors than natives. But where +were they? The vast landscape was empty. +From its thickly mantled fields came the smell +of snow. +</p> + +<p> +Lost when she went down the street in a +maze of fugitive scents within one pervading, +and that seemed to compose the very air: the +sweet deep smell of burning pinewood. Moving +within it as the crowded little shop windows +went by on either hand were the smells +<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a> +of dried apples and straw and a curious +blending of faint odours that revealed themselves—when +presently summoning an excuse +for the excitement of shopping, at the cost +of but a few of the multitude of small coins +representing an English sovereign, she gained +the inside of the third general store between +the hotel and the church—as the familiar smell +of mixed groceries; with a difference: clean +smells, baked dry. No prevailing odour of +moist bacon and mouldering cheese; of spilt +paraffin and musty sacking, and things left +undisturbed in corners. No dinginess. And +though shelves and counter were crowded, +every single thing gleamed and displayed itself +with an air. +</p> + +<p> +But there were no Swiss biscuits. Only a +double row of the familiar square tins from +Reading, triumphantly displayed by the gaunt +sallow-faced woman whose ringing voice was +as disconcertingly at variance with her appearance +as was her charmed manner with the +eager cunning that sat in her eyes. She asked +for soap and the woman set wide the door of +an upright glass case in which were invitingly +<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a> +set forth little packets bearing names that in +England were household words. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced back at the biscuits. Petit-Beurre +were after all foreign and brought with +them always the sight of Dinant and its rock +coming into view, ending the squabble about +the pronunciation of <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grenouille</span>, as the Meuse +steamer rounded the last bend. But catching +sight above the biscuits of a box of English +nightlights she chose a piece of soap at random +and fought while she responded to the voluble +chantings accompanying the packing of her +parcel, with the nightmare vision of bedrooms +<em>never</em> bathed in darkness, of people <em>never</em> getting +away into the night, people insisting, even +in rooms where brilliance can be switched on at +will, on the perpetual presence of the teasing +little glimmer; people who travel in groups +and bring with them so much of their home +surroundings that they destroy daily, piecemeal, +the sense of being abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Regaining the street in possession of a +replica of the tablet she had unpacked last +night, she found that the busy midst of the +village lay just ahead where the way widened +<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a> +to encircle the little church. Many shops, +some of them new-built, with roomy windows, +and the lifeless impersonal appearance of +successful provincial stores. There were more +people here, more women in those heavy black +dresses and head-shawls, more bloused and +bearded men, crossing the snowy road with +swift slouching stride. A post-office, offering +universal hospitality. +</p> + +<p> +As if from the bright intense sunlight all +about her, a ray of thought had fallen upon the +mystery of her passion for soap, making it so +clear in her mind that the little ray and the lit +images waiting for words could be put aside +in favour of the strange dingy building breaking +the line of shops, looking like a warehouse, +its small battered door, high up, approached +by a flight of steps leading from either side +whose meeting made a little platform before +the door. Rough sleds were drawn up round +about the entrance, making it central in the +little open space about the church, the perpetual +head-tossings of the horses filling the +bright air with showers of tinkles. It could +hardly be a café; yet two men had just clattered +<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a> +down the steps flushed and garrulous. +Strange dark-looking hostelry within which +shone the midday sun of these rough men +living in far-away châlets among the snow. +</p> + +<p> +It was not only the appeal of varying shape +and colour or even of the many perfumes each +with its power of evoking images: the heavy +voluptuous scents suggesting brunette adventuresses, +Turkish cigarettes and luxurious +idleness; the elusive, delicate, that could +bring spring-time into a winter bedroom darkened +by snow-clouds. The secret of its power +was in the way it pervaded one’s best realisations +of everyday life. No wonder Beethoven +worked at his themes washing and re-washing +his hands. And even in merely washing with +an empty mind there is a <em>charm</em>; though it +is an empty charm, the illusion of beginning, +as soon as you have finished, all over again as +a different person. But all great days had +soap, impressing its qualities upon you, during +your most intense moments of anticipation, as +a prelude. And the realisation of a good day +past, coming with the early morning hour, is +accompanied by soap. Soap is with you +<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a> +when you are in that state of feeling life at +first hand that makes even the best things +that can happen important not so much in +themselves as in the way they make you conscious +of life, and of yourself living. Every +day, even those that are called ordinary days, +with its miracle of return from sleep, is heralded +by soap, summoning its retinue of companion +days. +</p> + +<p> +To buy a new cake of soap is to buy a fresh +stretch of days. Its little weight, treasure, +minutely heavy in the hand, is life, past +present and future compactly welded. +</p> + +<p> +Post-office offering universal hospitality +more vitally than the little church. A beggar +could perhaps find help in a church more +easily than in a post-office. Yet the mere +atmosphere of a post-office offered something +a church could never give. Even to enter it +and come away without transactions was to +have been in the midst of life. And to handle +stamps, and especially foreign stamps, was to +be aware of just those very distances the post +had abolished. +</p> + +<p> +The priced goods in the windows were discouragingly +<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a> +high. One window behind whose +thick plate glass were set forth just a few things +very tastefully arranged, showed no prices at +all and had the ominous note of a west-end shop. +Next door was a windowful that might have +been transplanted from Holborn so much +steel was there, such an array of rectangular +labels and announcements. Skates and skates +and skates. Then a chemist’s and an inspiration, +though the window showed nothing but +a perforated screen and the usual coloured +bottles bulging on a shelf above. +</p> + +<p> +The counter was stacked with wares from +Wigmore Street. Even the tooth-brushes +were those of the new shape devised in Cavendish +Square. The chemist was a bald preoccupied +man speaking English abruptly. +She came away with a jar of Smith’s cream, +her shopping done and the face of the clock +sticking out above the watchmaker’s telling +her it was nearly noon. The little clock on +the church said a quarter past eleven and +glancing back at the watchmaker’s, now in +the rear, she saw the reverse dial of the outstanding +clock marking half past eleven. And +<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a> +Switzerland was the land of watchmakers.... +Her own watch said one o’clock, English time. +Then it was noon. But this far world was not +three minutes distance from the Alpenstock. +There was still half-an-hour. +</p> + +<p> +The post-office was a sumptuous hall. +Little tables stood about invitingly set with +pens and ink. No railed counter; a wooden +partition extending to the ceiling; a row of +arched pigeon-holes, all closed. Like a railway +booking-office on Sunday, between trains—blankly +indifferent to the announcement of +the presence of a customer made by the clumping +of her boots upon the wooden floor. And +when presently—having gone the round of the +posters, brilliant against the white-washed +walls, all so much brighter and so much less +bright than reality, all resounding with a single +deep charm, bringing assurance of possessing, +in one journey and one locality, the being of +the whole—she tapped at a little shutter, it +flew up impatiently, revealing an affronted +young man in a blue cotton overall, glaring +reproachfully through spectacles. The stamps +handed over, the little door shot back into +<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a> +place with a bang, as if cursing an intruder. +</p> + +<p> +The open spaces called for a first view before +the sense of its being no longer morning should +have robbed them of intensity. But where +the street joined the roadway there was a little +shop, full sunlight falling on its window, +whose contents were a clustered delight and +each separate thing more charming than its +neighbour. +</p> + +<p> +Two women approaching along the road preceded +by English voices distracted her, for a +moment, with the strangeness of their headdress—a +sort of cowl. In a moment they +passed with dangling clinking skates, and her +intention of getting a good view from behind +was diverted back to the shop window, by +“tourist-trap” interpolated in a tone meant to +be inaudible, in the dissertation of the one holding +forth in a voice not unlike Mrs. Harcourt’s, +about a hotel “packed like a bee-hive and +swarming with influenza.” +</p> + +<p> +It was true. The shop was full of Swiss +brummagem. She fastened on it the more +eagerly. Little expensive cheap things whose +<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a> +charm was beyond price. Small clumsy +earthenware, appealingly dumpy, flower patterned +upon a warm creamy background; +painted wooden spoons. Little brooches and +trinkets innumerable. Cow-bells. Some +small thing for everybody and a problem +solved at the cost of a few marks. +</p> + +<p> +Turning away she caught sight of an old +woman amazingly wrapped up, peering at her +from inside a little booth set down in the snow +on the other side of the way. A shelf laden +with small things in carved wood protruded in +front. She crossed to look at them. Silently +with slow fumbling movements the old woman +displayed her wares. Bears. Bears on ski, +on toboggans, bears in every kind of unbearlike +attitude. Intricate model châlets, useless +and suggesting, imagined in England, nothing +but the accumulation of dust. But there was +an owl, with owlish dignity, very simply and +beautifully carved. Her eyes returned to it +and the old woman put forth an aged freckled +hand and grasped its head, which went easily +back upon a hinge and left revealed a clean +white china inkwell. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></a> +“Kipsake,” said the old woman huskily. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Danke schön. Ich komme wieder</span>,” smiled +Miriam escaping, followed by hoarse cacklings +of praise. +</p> + +<p> +Out upon the roadway fenced between +dazzling snowfields, the end of the valley came +into sight, new, but faintly reproachful, having +waited too long, and complaining now about +the lateness of the hour. Certainly it was +worthy of a whole self, undistracted. But +there was to-morrow, many to-morrows. She +had done with the street and the shops save +as a corridor, growing each day more dear, to +daily fulfilment of the promise of this prospect +whose beauty she was clearly recognising. +And more than its beauty. Its great, great +power of assertion, veiled for the moment by +distractions, but there. Wonderfully beautiful +was the speech and movement of the far-off +smooth pure ridge of snow, rising high against +the deepest blue of the sky, linking twin peaks. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the near slopes were dotted with +people, tiny figurines mitigating the snowfields +and the towering mountains: the sounds +of English voices ringing out infinitesimal in the +<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a> +wide space, yet filling it. Shutting out the +scene, yet intensifying it; bringing gratitude +for their presence. +</p> + +<p> +That remained even after the quaint peaked +hoods of brilliant white or mauve, the effective +skirts and jerseys of a group of women passing +in the roadway had rebuked with their +colours, clean and sharp against the snow, her +tweed that in London had seemed a good +choice, and her London felt hat. +</p> + +<p> +But though the clever clothes of these +people brought a sense of exile they were +powerless to rouse envy or any desire. Envy +was impossible in this air that seemed, so +sharp was every outline, to be no longer +earth’s atmosphere but open space, electric. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps even this morning there was time +to get clear, to be if only for a few moments, +along some side track alone with the landscape, +walking lightly clad in midsummer sun +through this intensity of winter. +</p> + +<p> +The road was dropping and growing harder. +No longer crunching under her feet, the snow +beaten flat showed here and there dark streaks +of ice, and her puttee-bandaged legs, flexible +<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a> +only at the knees, felt like sticks above her +feet lost and helpless in the thick boots that +seemed to walk of themselves. +</p> + +<p> +The dropping road took a sharp turn towards +the valley, showing ahead a short empty +stretch and another sharp turn, revealing it as +the winding trail up which she had come last +night. On the right it was joined by a long +track running steeply down into a wilderness +of snow in the midst of whose far distances +appeared high up a little bridge half hidden +amongst pines. The track was dotted with +pigmy forms. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Ash</em>-tongue!” A fierce hoarse voice just +behind, and joining it another, clear and +ringing: “<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Ach</span>-tooooong.” +</p> + +<p> +Plunging into the roadside drift she turned +in time to see a toboggan bearing upon it a +boy prone, face foremost eagerly out-thrust, +shoot down the slanting road, take the bend +at an angle that just cleared the fence and dart +at a terrific pace down the slope towards the +wilderness; followed by the girl with the +ringing voice, lightly seated, her toboggan +throwing her up as it bumped skimming from +<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a> +ridge to ridge down the uneven road. She +took the bend smoothly with space to spare and +flew on down the slope with lifted chin and +streaming hair. Both mad. Children of the +reckless English who had discovered the Swiss +winter. +</p> + +<p> +This terrific scooting was not the tobogganing +of which she had heard in London. Two +more figures were coming, giving her excuse +to wait lest they were coming her way and +watch their passing from the drift that was +like warm wool, knee-deep. They were women, +coming slowly, paddling themselves along with +little sticks. They took the bend with ironic +caution and went on down the slope, still +furiously stabbing the snow with their little +sticks, their high, peaked cowls making them +look like seated gnomes. +</p> + +<p> +Aware of intense cold invading her feet, she +plunged out into the road and was beating +her snow-caked puttees when an intermittent +grinding sound approaching brought her upright: +an aged couple side by side, white-haired +and immensely muffled, sitting very +grave and stern behind the legs protruding +<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a> +stiffly on either side the heads of their toboggans +and set from moment to moment heels +downwards upon the road to check a possible +increase of their slow triumphant pace. +Triumph. Behind the sternness that defied +the onlooker to find their pose lacking in +dignity was triumph. Young joy; for these +who might well be patrolling in bath-chairs +the streets of a cathedral town. +</p> + +<p> +And they left the joyous message: that this +sport, since pace could so easily be controlled, +might be tested at once, alone, without +instruction, this very afternoon. A subtle +change came over the landscape, making it +less and more; retiring a little as who should +say: then I am to be henceforth a background, +already a mere accessory, it yet challenged her +vow, an intimidating witness. +</p> + +<p> +Along the empty stretch towards the valley +the blazing sun blotted out the distance so +that it was pleasant to turn the next corner +and be going again towards the expanse that +ended at the white high-hung collar. The +fresh stretch of gently sloping road was +longer than the one above it and walking freely +<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a> +here she found that her gait had changed, +that she was planking along in a lounging +stride which brought ease to her bandaged legs +and made more manageable her inflexible feet. +With a little practice, walking could be a joy. +Walking in this scene, through this air, was an +occupation in itself. And she was being +assailed by the pangs of a piercing hunger. +Obtrusive; insistent as the hunger of childhood. +</p> + +<p> +It would take a little longer to go back. +It would be wise to turn now. At the corner +ending this stretch. Suddenly it seemed +immensely important to discover what there +was round the corner. From the angle of the +turning she could see the little bridge far away +to the right, in profile, with pines stretching +along the bank of what it spanned, that showed +a little further on as a thin straight line +steeply descending to join the serpentine that +cut the white floor of the valley. Away to +the right of the bridge straggling leafless trees +stood in a curve. Behind them something +moved; coming and going across the gaps +between their trunks. Skaters. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></a> +Then for the girl and boy that reckless rush +was just a transit; a means of getting to the +rink, as one might take a bus to a tennis-court. +</p> + +<p> +A voice greeted her from behind, surprising +in its level familiarity until the finished +phrase revealed the American, to whom, +turning to find him standing before her, his +toboggan drawn to heel by its rope, she gave +the smile, not for him, the lover’s smile reviewing, +as they passed her in inverse rotation +while she made the long unwelcome journey +into his world of an American in Europe, her +morning’s gatherings. +</p> + +<p> +But he had received it, was telling her that +already she looked splendid, adding that when +folks first came up they looked, seen beside +those already there, just gass’ly. And for a +moment the miscarriage was painful: to +have appeared to drop even below his own +level of undiscriminating hail-fellow-well-met. +And for a fraction of a second as he stood +before her in his correct garb she transformed +him into an Englishman condemning her +foolish grin—but there was his queer little +<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a> +American smile, that came to her from a +whole continent and seemed to demand a +larger face and form, a little smile dryly sweet, +as misdirected as her own and during which +they seemed to pour out in unison their independent +appreciations and to recognise and +greet in each other, in relation to the English +world out here, fellow voyagers in a strange +element. +</p> + +<p> +It healed her self-given stripes that were, +she reflected as they went on together up the +hill, needless, since to him, as an American, +her greeting would seem neither naïve nor +bourgeois. For all Americans are either undisturbedly +naïve and bourgeois or in a state +of merely having learned, via Europe, to be +neither. And this man, now launched in +speech revealed himself by the way he had of +handling his statements, as so far very much +what he had always been. +</p> + +<p> +Strange that it was always queer people, +floating mysterious and intangible in an alien +element who gathered up, not wanting them, +testimonies that came from her of themselves. +</p> + +<p> +All the way back to the Alpenstock he pursued +<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a> +his monologue, information, and in an +unbroken flow that by reason of its temperature, +its innocence of either personal interest +or benevolent intention, left her free to +wander. There was in his narrow, unresonant +voice only one shape of tone: a discouraged, +argumentative rise and fall, very +slight, almost on two adjacent notes, colourless; +as of one speaking almost unawares at +the bidding of an endless uniform perception. +She heard it now as statement, now merely +as sound and for a moment as the voice of a +friend while after informing her that he had +done the valley run and climb each morning +and taken to-day a last turn to add yet one +more layer to his week’s sunburn, he remarked +that the long zig-zag was commonly deserted +in the forenoon, folks mostly taking the other +track, either to the rink, or further to the made +run, or way beyond that to the ski-ing slopes. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When she was clear of the shop and crossing +the road with the toboggan slithering meekly +<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a> +behind, the invisible distant slopes seemed +lonely and her plan for getting immediately +away to them postponed itself in favour of +enjoying for a while the thrilled equilibrium +with everything about her that was the gift +of the slight pull on the cord she was trying to +hold with an air of preoccupied negligence. +Turning leisurely back from the short length +of street ahead that too soon would show the +open country, she came once more into the +heart of the village and paid an unnecessary +visit to the post-office, heard the toboggan pull +up against the kerb and knew as she turned to +abandon the cord that she had tasted the utmost +of this new joy, and that when once more +the cord was in her hands she must go forth +and venture. +</p> + +<p> +Out on the road beyond the village the +pleasant even slithering alternated with little +silent weightless runs, that at first made her +glance back to see if the toboggan were still +there. These little runs, increasing as the +road began to slope came like reminders of +its character, assertions of its small willingness +for its task, enhancing its charm, calling +<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a> +her to turn and survey as she went its entrancing +behaviour of a little toboggan. +</p> + +<p> +But presently, and as if grown weary of +gentle hints and feeling the necessity of +stating more forcibly the meaning of its presence +out here in the glittering stillness, it took +a sudden run at her heels. Moving sideways +ahead she reduced it to its proper place in the +procession until the distance between them set +it once more in motion. Overtaking her it +made a half turn, slid a little way broadside +and pulled up, facing her, in a small hollow, +indignant. In the mercifully empty yet not +altogether unobservant landscape it assumed +the proportions of a living thing and seemed +to say as she approached: “You <em>can’t</em> bring +me out here and make a fool of me.” And +indeed, even with no one in sight, she could +not allow herself to walk down the slope with +the toboggan ahead and pulling like a dog. +</p> + +<p> +She might go back, make a détour on the +level round about the village, turn the afternoon +into a walk and postpone until to-morrow +the adventure for which now she had neither +courage nor desire. In choosing the time +<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a> +when there would be fewest people abroad she +had forgotten that it was also the lowest +point of the day. Even this first day had a +lowest point. And belated prudence, reminding +her that she had come away to rest, +cast a chill over the empty landscape, changing +it from reality to a picture of a reality seen long +ago. At the sight of it she turned and went +a few paces up the gradient and perched and +gathered up the length of cord, and life came +back into the wastes of snow, the mountains +were real again, quiet in the motionless afternoon +light, and the absurd little toboggan a +foe about to be vanquished. +</p> + +<p> +It slid off at once, took a small hummock +askew, righted itself, to a movement made too +instinctively to be instructive, and slid onwards +gathering pace. +</p> + +<p> +But ecstasy passed too swiftly into awareness +of the bend in the road now rushing up to +meet her ignorance. Ramming her heels into +the snow she recovered too late with a jolting +pang in both ankles and a headlong dive into +this morning’s drift, a memory of what she +should have done and stood up tingling with +<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a> +joy in the midst of the joyous landscape stilled +again that had flown with her and swooped +up as she plunged, and was now receiving her +exciting news. +</p> + +<p> +The backward slope invited her to return +and go solemnly, braking all the way and +testing the half-found secret of steering. But +the bend tempted her forward. A single dig +on the left when she reached it and she would +be round in face of the long run down to the +level. +</p> + +<p> +But the dig was too heavy and too soon +and landed her with her feet in the drift and +the toboggan swung broadside and all but +careering with her backwards along the steepness +that lay, when once more she faced it, a +headlong peril before the levels leading on +and up to the little bridge could come to bring +rescue and peace. +</p> + +<p> +Pushing carefully off, sliding with bated +breath and uncomfortably rasping heels, down +and down, making no experiments and thankful +only to feel the track slowly ascending +behind her she remained clenched until only +a few yards were left down which with feet +<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a> +up she slithered deliriously and came to +rest. +</p> + +<p> +It was done. She had tobogganed herself +away from Oberland into the wilderness, the +unknown valley waiting now to be explored, +with the conquered steed trailing once more +meek and unprotesting in the background. +The afternoon was hers for happiness until +hunger, already beginning its apparently almost +continuous onslaught, should make welcome +the triumphant climb back to Oberland +and tea upon the promontory. +</p> + +<p> +The high bridge that in the distance looked +so small and seemed to span smallness was +still small, a single sturdy arch; but beneath +it dropped a gorge whose pines led down to a +torrent, frozen; strange shapes of leaping +water arrested, strangely coloured: grey in +shadow, black in deep shadow, and here and +there, caught by the light, a half-transparent +green. +</p> + +<p> +There was a great fellowship of pines clustered +on either bank and spreading beyond the +bridge to a wood that sent out a rising arm +blocking the view of the valley and the pass. +<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a> +They made a solitude down here above the +silenced waters. The backward view was +closed by the perilous slope whose top was now +the sky-line, leaving Oberland far away out of +sight in another world. +</p> + +<p> +The track through the wood, wide and level +for a while with pointed pines marching +symmetrically by, narrowed to a winding path +that took her in amongst them, into their +strange close fellowship that left each one a +perfect thing apart. Not lonely, nor, for all +the high-bulging smoothness of snow in which +it stood, cold. It was their secret, pine-breath, +that brought a sense of warm life, and their +close-clustered needles. Out on the mountain-sides +they looked black and bleak, striving +towards the sun until they were stayed by the +upper cold. Seen close they were a happy +company bearing light upon the green burnish +of their needles and the dull live tints of their +rough stems. And very secret; here thought +was sheltered as in a quiet room. +</p> + +<p> +Out in the immense landscape, in the down-pouring +brilliance of pure light, thought was +visible. Transparent to the mountains who +<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a> +took its measure and judged, yet without +wounding, and even while they made it seem +of no account, a small intricate buzzing in +the presence of mighty, simple statement +sounding just out of reach within the air, +and invited thoughtless submission to their +influence as to a final infinite good that would +remain when they were no more seen, there +was pathos in their magnificence; as if they +were glad even of one small observing speck, +and displayed gently the death they could +deal, and smiled in their terrifying power as +if over an open secret. +</p> + +<p> +And to walk and walk on and on amongst +them, along their sunlit corridors with thought +shut off and being changed, coming back +refreshed and changed and indifferent, was +what most deeply she now wanted of them. +</p> + +<p> +The track climbed a ridge and there below +were the American’s wide snowfields. +</p> + +<p> +Before she was assured by the doffed cap +outheld while he made his salutation—the +sweeping foreign <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup de chapeau</span> that was so +decisive a politesse compared to the Englishman’s +meagre small lift; and yet also insolent—she +<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a> +was rejoicing in the certainty that the +bearded figure in spite of the English Norfolk +suit and tweed cap, was the big Russian. He +alone, at this moment, of all the people in the +hotel would be welcome. Remote, near and +friendly as the deepest of her thoughts, and +so far away from social conventions and the +assumptions behind conventions, as to leave +all the loveliness about her unchanged—and +yet trailing an absurd little toboggan, smaller, +and, in contrast with his height, more ridiculous +an appendage than her own. He +plunged down the ridge in the English style, +by weight and rather clumsily, and in a moment +was by her side at the head of the run +that went, pure white and evenly flattened, +switch-backing away across the field out of +sight. +</p> + +<p> +In a slow mournful voice that gave his +excellent French a melancholy music he asked +her if she had already tested the run and +became when he had heard the short tale of +her adventure impatiently active. Her toboggan, +he said, and raised its fore-part and +bent scanning, was too large, too heavy and +<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a> +with runners not quite true. It would be +better for the moment to exchange. Try, +Try, he chanted with the true Russian nonchalance +and, abandoning his own went off +down the gentle slope on the discredited mount +that she might now blame for her mysterious +swerve at the bend. +</p> + +<p> +After the gentle drop, carrying him over the +first small rise as if it were not there, he flew +ahead gathering swiftness with each drop, +away and away until at last he appeared a +small upright figure far away on the waste of +snow. +</p> + +<p> +The run compared with what she had already +attempted seemed nothing at all. The +drops so slight that once or twice she was +stranded on a ridge and obliged to push off +afresh. And the light little toboggan, responding +to the slightest heel-tap upon the hard +pressed snow, taught her at once the secret of +steering. And when at last full of the joy of +fresh conquest she was pulled up by the loose +snow at the end of the run, she was eager only +to tramp back and begin again. But tramping +at her side he tore her triumph to shreds. +<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a> +Silently she tried to imagine the toboggan +having its own way uncontrolled for the whole +of that sweeping trek, for the two quite steep +drops towards the end. +</p> + +<p> +The second time he started her in advance +and remained behind shouting, his voice rising +to a crescendo at the first steepness: “<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il n’y +a pas de danger!</span>” With an immense effort +she restrained her feet and entered paradise. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ça ira, ça ira</span>,” he admitted smiling +when once more they were side by side. +They tramped back in silence, under the eyes +as they approached the ridge of a group newly +appeared upon its crest and from which +when they drew near a voice came down in +greeting. She looked up to see the Croydon +family, all very trim in sporting garb and +carrying skates, gathered in a bunch, at once +collectively domestic and singly restive. They +smiled eagerly down at her and she read in the +father’s twinkling gaze that she was providing +material for Croydon humour, so distinctly +and approvingly, was it saying in the Croydon +way: “You’ve not lost much time,” and so +swiftly, having told her in response to her own +<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a> +greeting that the rink was within five minutes +easy walking, did he turn and disappear with +his family in tow down the far side of the ridge. +</p> + +<p> +The third run left her weary and satisfied. +Again they were tramping back side by side, +and although her experience of Russians had +taught her that gratitude was out of place and +enthusiasm over simple joys a matter for half-envious +contempt, her thankfulness and felicity, +involuntarily eloquent, treated him, +marching tall and sombre at her side upon feet +that in spite of the enormous boots showed +themselves slender and shapely terminations +of a well-hung frame, as if he had been of her +own English stock; let him see the value, to +herself, of his kindly gift. All she lived for +now, she told him, was to rush, safe-guarded +by a properly-mastered technique, at the utmost +possible speed through this indescribable +air, down slopes from which the landscape flew +back and up. He smiled down, of course, the half +incredulous smile. Of course bored, giving only +part of a dreamy attention to all this raving. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est bon pour la santé</span>,” he murmured as +she paused. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a> +What did he know of santé, unless perhaps +he had been in prison? He might be a +refugee; an anarchist living in Switzerland. +</p> + +<p> +When he, too, turned out to be now returning +in search of tea and they were climbing the +slope towards Oberland, their toboggans colliding +and bumping along as best they might +at the ends of cords twisted together round the +wrist of his gloveless hand, she remarked by +way of relieving a silence he did not seem to +think it necessary to break, that the Swiss +winter must be less surprisingly beautiful to +Russians than to the people of the misty north. +He agreed that doubtless this was so and +gloomily asked her if she had been in Russia. +He agreed with everything she said about his +country as seen from a distance, but without +interest and presently, as if to change the +subject, declared that he knew nothing of +Russia and Russians. +</p> + +<p> +His voice sounded again too soon to give +her time to select a nationality that should +soften the disappointment of losing him as a +Russian, and in a moment he was talking of +Italy, and the Italy she knew by so many +<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a> +proxies dead and living was stricken out of +her mind, to give place to the unknown Italy +who had produced this man, simple and sincere, +gloomy and harsh-minded, playing Chopin +with all his heart. But when presently she +learned that he was a business man on holiday +from Milan, her Italy returned to her. He +was from a world that everywhere was the +same, a world that existed even within Italy. +</p> + +<p> +And at dinner again he sat apart wrapped +in his gloom until again Vereker was rescuing +him with speech and he was responding in +the withheld, disclaiming Russian way. +</p> + +<p> +A Latin consciousness was, in this group, +something far more remote than a Russian +would have been, and she wondered what it +was that behind Vereker’s unchanging manner +was making his half of the bridge upon which +they met. Music perhaps, if Vereker, with +eyes candid and not profound and not deep-set, +were musical. She caught a few words. It +was the weather. Do Italians discuss the +weather? Was Guerini, behind his gratitude +in being rescued from isolation, wondering at +the Englishman’s naïveté? Vereker was not +<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></a> +showing off his French. He was being courteous, +being himself. No one, except when he +could seize a chance the American, made any +sort of parade. Nor was it that they made a +parade of not making a parade. Talk with +them was easy because it was quite naturally +serene. No emphasis. No controversy. The +emergence of even a small difference of opinion +produced at once, on both sides, a smiling +retreat. Deep in his soul the American must +certainly be smiling at this baffling urbanity. +English correctness and hypocrisy. Here was +the original stuff from which the world-wide +caricatures were made. +</p> + +<p> +And talk with these people always ended in +a light and lively farewell, a manner of dropping +things that handed a note of credit for +future meetings. A retreat, as from royalty, +backwards. A retreat from the royal game +of continuous courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +And together with the surprise of discovering—when +having departed upstairs she was +drawn down to the little salon by the sound +of the Chopin ballade—not the Italian but +Vereker at the piano in the empty room, was +<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a> +the boon of his composure. Of his being and +continuing to be after she had slipped into the +room and reached a chair from which she could +just see him in profile, so quietly engrossed. A +little strung, as though still the phrases that +yesterday he had so carefully recaptured might +again elude him; but listening. Led on, and +listening and in the hands of Chopin altogether. +</p> + +<p> +Seated thus exposed he was slender, delicate, +musicianly; only the line of his jaw gave him +an appearance of strength; and perhaps the +close cropping of his hair so that of what would +have been a flamboyant mass only crisp ridges +were left, close against a small skull, like +Cæsar’s. His spruceness and neatness made +stranger than ever the strange variance between +the stiff, magpie black and white of +dress clothes, and the depth and colour of +music. +</p> + +<p> +He played the whole ballade; sketchily +where the technical difficulties came thick and +fast, but keeping the shape, never losing the +swinging rhythm. +</p> + +<p> +Its concluding phrases were dimmed by the +need of finding something to say that should +<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a> +convey her right to say anything at all; but +when the last chord stood upon the air, the +performance seemed to have been a collaboration +before which they now sat equally committed. +And when his face came round, its +smile was an acknowledgment of this. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant she felt that nothing could +fit but a gratefully affectionate salute and +then a “How’s old So-and-So in these days?” +after the manner of men of his type drifting +happily about upon the surfaces of life. And +when she said: “You got the whole of it this +time,” it was as if the unexpressed remainder +had indeed passed across to him, as if she were +the newly-arrived friend whose presence somewhere +upstairs had made him so radiant +during dinner and afterwards sent him to +pour out his happiness in the deserted little +salon. +</p> + +<p> +“After a fashion,” he said with the little +flicker of the eyelids that was his way, from +sixth-form or from undergraduate days, of +sustaining for further speech the pose of his +turned head and smiling face: “There’s no +one like him, is there?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a> +“You were playing last evening just after +I came. For a moment I couldn’t believe +that ballade was actually here. I heard it +long ago, and never since, and I’ve never been +able to recall the theme.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m <em>so</em> glad,” he said with his little note of +distress. “I’ve been trying for <em>days</em> to get +it all back.” +</p> + +<p> +For him, too, it came out of a past, and +brought that past into this little Swiss room, +spread it across whatever was current in his +life, showed him himself unchanged. And in +that past they had lived in the same world, +seen and felt in the same terms the things that +are there forever before life has moved. So +far they were kindred. But since then she +had been flung out into another world; belonged +to the one in which he had gone forward +only through an appreciative understanding +of its code, of what it was that +created its self-operating exclusiveness. He +did not yet know that she stood outside the +charmed circle, had been only an occasional +visitor, and that now, visiting again after years +of absence, she was hovering between the +<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a> +desire to mask and remain within it and +her proper business as a Lycurgan: to make +him aware of the worlds outside his own, let +him see that his innocent happiness was kept +going by his innocent mental oblivion. +</p> + +<p> +And whilst they called up cherished names +and collided in agreement she wondered what +these people who lived in exile from reality +could find in their music beyond escape into +the self for whom in their state of continuous +urbane association there was so little space; +and presently became aware of lively peace +filling the intervals between their to and fro +of words, distracting attention from them, +abolishing everything but itself and its sure +meaning: so that into this Swiss stillness of +frost without and electricity within nothing +had been present of the Switzerland that had +brought them both here, and now suddenly +came back, enhanced, a single unbounded +impression that came and was gone, that was +the face of its life now begun in her as memory. +</p> + +<p> +She read her blissful truancy in his eyes, his +recognition of their having fallen apart, but +not of its cause, which he thought was perhaps +<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a> +the monotony of their continuous agreement, +and was now swiftly seeking a fresh bridge +that in an instant, since clearly he intended to +prolong the sitting, he would, deferentially +flickering his eyelids, take courage to fling. +</p> + +<p> +But into the little pause came the sound +of footsteps approaching through the hall, +and an intensity of listening that was their +common confession of well-being and was +filling them with a wealth of eager communication +that must now be postponed until to-morrow. +But to-morrow the college friend +would be in possession; there was only this +evening, a solitary incident. Perhaps the +door would open upon someone who would +straightway withdraw, leaving the way open +for the waiting conversation. And the college +friend had come only for a few days ... +</p> + +<p> +But this falling from grace was rebuked by +the reminder of Vereker’s all-round niceness. +He would, of course, retain the intruder. If +it were a man there would be three-cornered +talk enlivened by what was being sacrificed to +it. But with the opening of the door, as she +raised her eyes towards it and caught in +<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a> +passing a glimpse of him upon his music stool, +out of action and alone, she saw that dear and +nice as he was, had always been, he could not +fully engage her, was real to her on a level just +short of reaching down to the forces of her +nature; was pathetically, or culpably, a +stranded man; subsisting. +</p> + +<p> +Guerini: huge, filling the doorway, hesitating +for a moment and retreating, quietly +closing the door, but not before Vereker wheeling +round on his music-stool, had seen his +departing form. +</p> + +<p> +It was his unexpectedness, the having forgotten +him so that he came like an apparition, +that had sent him away. Even so, a woman +of the world would have promptly become a +smiling blank and suitably vocal; or withdrawn +and expressionless in the manner of a +hotel guest only partly in possession of a room +now to be partly taken over by another. But +she had left her thoughts standing in her +face, leaving Vereker, who had turned just +too late, to be hostess. +</p> + +<p> +Wheeling back to face her, he was again the +gentle companion from the past. In his elegant +<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a> +sunny voice he was recalling their morning’s +talk, begging at once with his despairing +little frown, for more light on the subject of +property in land. It was clear that these +things had never come his way. It was after +all not his fault that his education had held +his eyes closed, that they had since been kept +closed by wealth and ease taken for granted. +And in his way he had kept fine. His adoration +for his gods of art and literature was +alive and genuine—and he was a sportsman. +It was difficult face to face with his gentle +elegance to remember that he was distinguishing +himself in an exacting sport. Repentant +of her condemnation she set forth the +steps of the reasoning and the groups of facts, +saw him eagerly intent—not upon herself but +upon this new picture of life, wrestling step +by step with what he saw far off—and presently +had the joy of seeing him see how +economic problems stood rooted in the holding +of land at rent. But he was only one; there +were thousands of men, nice men, needing +only hints, as blinkered as he. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4"> +<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a> +CHAPTER IV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">H</span><span class="postfirstchar">urrying</span> through her dressing to keep +the appointment that had not been +made and whose certainty in her own mind was +challenged in vain by all the probabilities, she +opened her door upon the silent corridor; +stillness and silence as if everyone else in the +hotel had been spirited away leaving clear, +within the strange surroundings in which for +a while she was set down, the familiar pathway +of her life. And when she reached the dining-room +the sight of them there, side by side at +breakfast in the brilliant morning light with +no one else in the room save herself approaching, +had for a moment the hard unreality of +things deliberately arranged. She saw them +very clearly and it was as if neither of them +were there; as if they were elsewhere each on +his own path from which <a id="corr-6"></a>this tacit meeting +was a digression. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a> +But before she was half-way to the table they +were rising. Their breakfast over, they were +going off into their day. She was too late; +her haste was justified of its wisdom. Reaching +her place, she murmuring a casual greeting, +turned away towards the spaces of her own +day opening, beyond this already vanishing +small disappointment, as brightly as the light +shining in from the sunlit snow. +</p> + +<p> +They halted a moment while Vereker introduced +his friend to whose height, as she sat +down to the table, she glanced up to meet the +intent dark gaze of a man on guard. She was +already far away, and in the instant of her +hurried astonished return to face for the first +and perhaps the last time this man who was +challenging her, the eyes were averted and +the two men sat down: to freshly broken rolls +and steaming cups. +</p> + +<p> +The little self-arranged party was secure in +the morning stillness that was the divine invisible +host equally dear to all three. Happy +in this fulfilment of premonition, she sat silent, +delighting in the challenge left, miscarried and +superfluous upon the empty air, wickedly +<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a> +delighting in the friend’s discomfort in following +the dictates of the code forbidding him +again to look across until she should have +spoken, and confining his large gaze within the +range of his small immediate surroundings. +Refusing rescue, she busied herself with breakfast, +enjoying his large absurdity, free, while +he paid the well-deserved penalty of his innocently +thwarted attack, to observe to +her heart’s content. +</p> + +<p> +He sat taking sanctuary with Vereker—who +at his sunny best was making conversation +about the trials in store—slightly turned +towards him and away from the barred vista +across which no doubt, before she came in, +his large gaze had comfortably extended; +responding now and again with thoughtful +groans. +</p> + +<p> +Beside Vereker’s sunburned fairness he was +an oiled bronze; heavy good features, heavy +well-knit frame. Lethargic, or just a very +tired man on a holiday, bemused by his sudden +translation. Superficially he was formidable, +“strong and silent.” His few remarks, +thrown into the talk that Vereker kept +<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a> +up while he waited for his two friends to +fraternise and admire each other, came forth +upon a voice deliberately cultivated since his +undergraduate days, a ponderous monotone, +the voice of a man infallible, scorning argument, +permanently in the right. Its sound was +accompanied by a swaying movement from +side to side of his body bent forward from the +hips: suggesting some big bovine creature +making up its mind to charge. +</p> + +<p> +She recalled other meetings with his kind, +instant mutual dislike and avoidance. This +time there was no escape. She was linked to +him by Vereker, obliged by Vereker to tolerate +his presence, sit out his portentousness +and be aware, since Vereker found him so very +fine, of the qualities hidden within. Courage +of course, tenacity, strength to adventure in +strange places. Were such things enough to +justify this pose of omniscience? With that +pose it was forever impossible to make terms; +and if this were not a single occasion, if there +were further meetings, there would sooner or +later be a crossing of swords. She considered +his armoury. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a> +Mentally it was a flimsy array; a set of +generalisations, born of the experience that +had matured him and become now his whole +philosophy, simple and tested, immovable; +never suspected of holding good only for the +way of living upon which it was based. +</p> + +<p> +The fact of the existence of life had either +never entered his head or been left behind in +the days before he crystallised. He had now +become one of those who say “our first parents” +and see a happy protégé of an entirely masculine +Jehovah duped into age-long misery +by the first of the charmers. Homage and +contempt for women came equally forth from +him, the manifest faces of his fundamental +ignorance. The feminine world existed for +him as something apart from life as he knew +it, and to be kept apart. Within that world +“charm” and “wit” drew him like magnets +and he never guessed their source; knew +nothing of the hinterlands in the minds of +women who assumed masks, put him at his +ease, appeared not to criticize. And such +women were the sum of his social knowledge. +One day he would be a wise old man “with +<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a> +an eye for a pretty face,” wise with the wisdom +that already was cheating him of life. +</p> + +<p> +There was no hope for him. His youth had +left him Vereker, his chum whose sunny simplicity +had always disarmed him, who did not +resent his portentous manner. From women +he would have, till old age, flattery for his +strength. From his workers nothing but +work, and respect for his English justice and +honesty. It was inconceivable that anyone +should ever pierce his armour; the ultimate +male density backed by “means” and “position.” +</p> + +<p> +His pose had found its bourne in his present +position of authority, his state of being bound +to present a god-like serenity; and it had +become so habitual that even when it was +put out of action he could not disencumber +himself of it. At this moment, for lack of +proper feminine response from across the +table, it was actually embarrassing him. To +proper feminine response, charming chatter +or charming adoring silence he would pay +tribute, the half respectful, half condescending +interest of the giant in his hours of ease. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a> +Unable any longer to endure silently, she +rode across him with speech; pictures, for +Vereker, of her yesterday’s adventure. Lively +and shapely, inspired by the passage of wrath. +Her voice had a bright hard tone, recognisable +as the tone of the lively talker. +</p> + +<p> +She was aware of the friend accepting her +as the bright hard mondaine; at once attentive, +his pose relaxed so far as to be represented +only by the eyebrows left a little lifted and +still knitting his deliberately contemplative +brow. He was looking, poor dear, at the +pictures, enjoying them, their mechanism, +their allusions. And she, for a weary empty +interval, was being a social success. It was +a victory for the friend, a bid for his approval. +</p> + +<p> +Vereker was puzzled, meeting a stranger; +a little taken aback. But when grown weary +of the game of brightly arranged exaggerations, +she relapsed into simplicity, he recovered at +once and again brought forth his ski-club. +The friend sat by while one after another the +persuasive arguments came forth, smiling with +the slightly lifted brow that was now his +apology for smiling at all. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a> +And suddenly he was grave, intent as he +had been at the first moment; this time towards +the door, outside which sounded Daphne’s +eager breathless voice and ceased in the +doorway. Her swift slight footsteps crossed +the room and brought her to a standstill just +in sight, gazing at the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +He remained grave, darkly gazing. Vereker, +half-risen, eager to be off, was looking at him +in the manner of a hostess arrested in giving +the signal for departure. For a moment the +man and the child stared at each other, and +then she moved stealthily, rounding the table-end. +A light came into his unsmiling face. +With a rush she was upon him, mouth set, +eyes blazing, clenched fists beating upon his +breast. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Eaden</em>,” she panted, “evil, <em>evil</em> Eaden.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no defence, no display of comic +fear, no wrist-catching dominance. And when +she desisted and stood back still searching him +with grave face a little thrust forward in her +eagerly-thinking way, he turned more sideways +from the table, to attend while hurriedly +with the air of one having other business on +<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a> +hand and no time to waste, she catechised +him. He answered simply, with just her +manner of one cumbered with affairs and eager +nevertheless to contrive meetings; devouring +all the time with his eyes the strange hurried +little face, the round wide eyes set upon something +seen afar. +</p> + +<p> +They had recognised each other. To the +rest of the party she was a quaint, precocious +child. This man saw the strange power and +beauty of the spirit shining in those eyes almost +round, almost protruding, and, if there +had been in the blue of them, that toned so +gently into the pearly blue surrounding, a +shade more intensity of colour, merely brilliant. +</p> + +<p> +“You <em>must</em>,” she said, her lips closing +firmly on her ultimatum, head a little out-thrust, +hands behind back. “You’d better +go now,” with a glance at the group that had +gathered round. She pattered swiftly away +to her table in the background. +</p> + +<p> +“Daphnee’ll always get what she wants +with her nagging,” said the Skerry youth +standing by. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a> +“She will get what she wants with her +beaux yeux,” said Miriam warmly, and saw +the little form panting along its ardent way up +through life, seeking and testing and never +finding, in any living soul. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Yes</em>,” groaned Eaden and impatiently +sighed away the wrath in his eyes set upon the +departing figure of the youth. Again they +were lit and gentle and as if still gazing upon +Daphne. He sat for a moment, paying tribute +to a suddenly found agreement before +joining Vereker held up at the door in the little +crowd of newly-arriving breakfasters. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It was something like cycling in traffic, +only that this scattered procession making +for the rink seemed all one party. The +<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">achtungs</span> of those starting on their journey +from the top of the slope rising behind her +rang out like greetings, and the agonised +shrieks coming up from below as one and another +neared the gap visible now in the distance +<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a> +as an all-too-swiftly approaching confusion +of narrowly avoided disasters, were +full of friendly laughter: the fearless laughter +of those experienced in collisions. For a +moment she was tempted to steer into the +snow and wait until the road should be clear. +But the sudden sideways swerve of a toboggan +just ahead called forth unawares her first +<span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">achtung</span>. It rang, through the moment which +somehow manœuvred her clear of the obstacle, +most joyously upon the air and hailed her—seeming +to be her very life sounding out into +the far distances of this paradise, claiming +them as long ago it had claimed the far distances +surrounding outdoor games—and sent +her forward one of the glad fellowship of +reckless tobogganners whom now unashamed +she could leave to go along her chosen +way. +</p> + +<p> +Ignoring yells from behind she slowed to +pass the gap and its glimpse of the descending +track dotted with swiftly gliding humanity, +took the sharp bend beyond it and was out of +sight careering down the first slope of the +valley run with sky and landscape sweeping +<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a> +upwards, mountains gigantically sweeping +upwards to the movement of her downward +rush. +</p> + +<p> +The dreaded bends arrived each too swiftly +with its threat of revealing upon the smooth +length of the next slope an upward-coming +sleigh or village children steering down at +large. Slope after slope showed clear and +empty, each steeper than the last, and here +and there a patch of ice sent her headlong, +sent the landscape racing upwards until her +heels could find purchase for a steadying dig +and bring back the joy of steering forward +forever through this moving radiance. +</p> + +<p> +The fencing was growing lower, almost +buried in deep snow. A sweeping turn and +ahead, at the end of a long smooth slope, +the floor of the valley, the end. From a +drive of both heels she leaned back and shot +forward and flew, feet up, down and down +through the crystal air become a rushing wind, +until the runners slurred into the soft snow, +drove it in wreaths about her, and slowed and +stopped dead leaving her thrown forward with +the cord slack in her hands, feet down, elbows +<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a> +on knees come up to meet them, a motionless +triumphantly throbbing atom of humanity in +a stillness that at once kept her as motionless +as itself to listen to its unexpected voice: the +clear silvery tinkle, very far away, of water +upon rock; some little mountain stream freed +to movement by the sun, making its way down +into the valley. She listened for a while to +the perfect little sound, the way it filled the +vast scene, and presently turned to search the +snowy levels, longing to locate it and catch +a glimpse, defying distance, of the sunlit +runnel. The mountains were cliffs upon the +hither side, their shoulders and summits invisible +until one looked up to find them remote +in the ascended sky. +</p> + +<p> +Down here at their feet was <span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">terra firma</span>, +broad levels on either side the windings of +the frozen river that was trimmed here and +there with bare trees sparse and straggling, +their gnarled roots protruding through the +snow that bulged its rim. A bird-cry sounded +from a tree at the roadside; on silent wings +a magpie, brilliant in sunlit black and white +sailed forth and away across the wastes of +<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a> +snow. Birds and the tinkling runnel, the sole +inhabitants of this morning solitude. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whose magic survived the long backward +climb and the run down to the rink amidst +the sociable echoes of the morning’s tumult, +survived the knowledge that in the minds of +these busy skaters it was merely the bottom +of the hill; nothing to do down there unless +you were going on down to the station to meet +and sleigh up with someone newly arrived. +</p> + +<p> +Here on their tree-encircled rink they were +together all day as in a room. Passing and +re-passing each other all day long. Held +together by the enchantment of this continuous +gliding. Everyone seemed to be gliding easily +about. Only here and there a beginner +shuffled along with outstretched jerking arms +and anxious face. It was skating escaped +from the niggardly opportunities of England +and grown perfect. Long sweeping curves; +dreaming eyes seraphic, even the sternest +betrayed by the enchantment in their eyes. +<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a> +There were many of these in this English +crowd. Many who knew there was absurdity +in the picture of grown persons sweeping +gravely about for hours on end. Only a great +enchantment could keep them in countenance +and keep them going on. Envy approached +and stared her in the face. But only for a +moment. She could skate, rather better +than the beginners. In a day or two she could +be sweeping enchantedly about. It was a +temptation answered before it presented itself, +only presenting itself because it could +move more quickly than thought: to be +racing about on a sled was a reckless flouting +of the prescribed programme, but innocent, +begun in forgetfulness. To have come and +seen, to sit and stroll about each day just +seeing, would have been joy enough. +</p> + +<p> +But when she looked across from the grey +crowded rink and its belt of ragged bare trees +to the mountains standing in full sunlight and +filling half the opposite sky and saw away +above the pinewoods ascending beyond the +little bridge the distant high white saddle of +the pass with its twin peaks rising on either +<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a> +side—they startled her with their heightened +beauty. These enchanted skaters, cooped +upon their sunk enclosure had enlivened the +surrounding scene not only by bringing forgetfulness +of it, but because she knew the +secret of their bliss, had shared long ago the +experience that kept them confined here all +day. +</p> + +<p> +Gliding, as if forever; the feeling, coming +even with the first uncertain balance, of breaking +through into an eternal way of being. In +all games it was there, changing the aspect of +life, making friends dearer, making even those +actually disliked dear, as long as they were +within the rhythm of the game. In dancing +it was there. But most strongly that sense +of being in an eternal way of living had come +with skating in the foggy English frost. And +this it must be that kept all these English +eagerly and shamelessly fooling about on +bladed feet; eternal life. +</p> + +<p> +It might be wrong. Wells might be right. +Golf. There must be a secret too in golf. +The mighty swipe, the swirl of the landscape +about the curving swing of the body, the +<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a> +onward march? All these must count even +if the players think only of the science of the +game, only of excelling an opponent. Even +in safe and easy games there is an element of +eternity, something of the quality there must +be in sports that include the thrill of the life-risk. +Savage sports. Fitness, the sense of +well-being of the healthy animal? But what +<em>is</em> health? What <em>is</em> the sense of well-being? +</p> + +<p> +“We know <em>nothing</em>. That at least you must +admit: that we walk in darkness.” +</p> + +<p> +“And proclaim ourselves enlightened by +awareness of the fact.” +</p> + +<p> +A figure swinging swiftly up the rink, a +different movement cutting across the maze +of familiar movements, drawing her eyes to +follow it until it was lost and watch until again +it came by: clothed in uniform purplish +brown close-fitting, a belted jerkin, trousers, +slenderly baggy, tapering down into flexibly +fitting boots. A strong lissome body that +beautifully shaped its clothing and moved in +long easy rushes, untroubled by shackled feet. +</p> + +<p> +He was not perhaps doing anything very +wonderful, just rushing easily about, in the +<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a> +manner of a native of some land of ice and +snow. But he transformed the English skaters +to jerking marionettes, clumsily clothed, stiff-jointed. +Visibly jointed at neck and waist, at +knees and ankles and elbows. Their skating +seemed now to be nicely calculated mechanical +balancing of jointed limbs, each limb trying +to be autonomous, their unity, such as it was, +achieved only by methods thought out and +carefully acquired. They seemed to be giving +exhibitions of style, with minds and bodies +precariously in tune. He was style spontaneously +alive. His whole soul was in his +movements. +</p> + +<p> +She made her way to a near bench under the +trees to watch for him. Sitting there with +her feet upon the ice she became one with the +skaters, felt their efforts and controls, the +demand of the thin hard blade for the perpetual +movements of loss and recovery. Not +all were English, skating with reservations. +Here a little Frenchman with arms folded on +his breast came by as if dancing, so elegantly +pointed were the swinging feet above which +gracefully he leaned now forward now back. +<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a> +Effortlessly. In his stroke there was no jerk +of a heavy-muscular drive, yet he covered as +much space as the English, and more quickly. +Behind him an Englishwoman with a bird’s-wing +pointing back along the side of her little +seal cap, going perfectly gracefully in smooth +slight sweeps; serene. +</p> + +<p> +Near at hand two men practised trick +skating, keeping clear the space about them +with their whirling limbs. They swept about +with eyes intent, and suddenly one or other +would twirl, describe a circle with an outflung +leg and recover, with an absurd hop. +Clever and difficult no doubt, but so very ugly +that it seemed not worth doing. The stout +man’s hop seemed as though it must smash the +ice. Between their dervish whirls they talked. +They were arguing. Amiably quarrelling; +the occasional hysterical squeal in the voice +of the stout man revealing “politics.” They +were at loggerheads over the housekeeping, +the lime-lit, well-paid, public housekeeping, +“affairs,” the difficult responsible important +business that was “beyond the powers of +women,” that was also “dirty work for which +<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a> +women were too good”; wrangling. The stout +man executed a terrific twirl and brought up +facing his opponent who had just spoken. He +advanced upon him bent and sliding, arms +dangling low: “Just <em>so</em>,” he chanted amiably +and, recovering the upright, presented a face +really foolish, a full-moon foolishness, kindly +perfection of inability to see further than his +good British nose: “We’re back at what I told +Hammond this morning: we <em>can’t afford</em> to ignore +the <em>Trades Union Secretaries</em>.” With a +swift turn he was off before the other man +could respond, skating away beyond their enclosure, +smiling his delight, staring ahead, +with wise eyes, at nothing at all but the +spectacle of his opponent caught out and +squashed. +</p> + +<p> +The spectacle of his complacency was profoundly +disquieting. He was the typical +kindly good-natured John Bull. Gently nurtured, +well-educated, “intelligent,” ready to +take any amount of time and trouble in +“getting at facts” and “thinking things out.” +And he was a towering bully. Somewhere +within his naïve pugnacity was the guilty +<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a> +consciousness of being more pleased in downing +an opponent than concerned for human +welfare. There was no peace of certainty in +him. He had scored and was flushed with +victory. And all over English politics was +this perpetual prize-fighting. The power of +life and death was in the hands of men playing +for victory; for their own side. +</p> + +<p> +Morning and evening in some hotel that big +man’s voice boomed incessantly. Behind it a +kindly disposition and a set of fixed ideas. No +mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you skeete?” +</p> + +<p> +Making for the bench, bent forward to reach +it hands first was the younger Croydon girl; +behind her the other, rallentando, balancing +to a standstill. +</p> + +<p> +She had greeted them, ere she was aware, +with the utmost enthusiasm. Smiling in their +way, a gentle relaxation of the features that +left them composed, they stood about her, +pleased to see and greet a stranger who was +also an old friend, renewing their great adventure. +At the same time they were innocently +rebuking her outbreak. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a> +In her suburban past she had instinctively +avoided their kind, scented a snare in their +refined gentility, liked them only for the way, +in the distance, going decorously in pretty +clothes along tree-lined roadways, they contributed +to the brightness of spring. Meeting +them out here, representative of England, +the middle-class counterparts, in their ardent +composure, of the hotel people who so strangely +had received her as a relative, she wanted in +some way to put forth her claim as one who +knew of old their world of villa and garden, +their gentle enclosed world. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s glorious; we’re having a lovely +tame,” said the younger, looking away down +the rink: an English rose, thoroughly pretty +in the characterless English way, shapely +sullen little face, frowning under the compulsion +of direct statements. Her hair, that in +the train had been a neat bun, hung now in a +broad golden plait to her waist where its ends +disappeared behind a large black bow like a +bird with wings outspread. +</p> + +<p> +And now with one seated close on each side +of her it was with difficulty that she attended +<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a> +to their talk so clearly did it exhibit their world +as a replica of the one just above it: as a +state of perpetual urbane association; conformity +to a code in circumstances more +restricted, upon a background more uniform, +and searched by the light of a public opinion +that was sterner than the one prevailing above. +All the bourgeois philistine in her came forth +to sun itself in their presence, zestfully living +their lives, loving their friends and relatives, +ignoring everyone who lived outside the +charmed circle. +</p> + +<p> +One against the other, they joyously relived +the short time whose sunburn had so +becomingly accentuated their Blair Leighton +fairness. Their stories centred round the +success or breakdown of the practical jokes +that seemed to be the fabric of life at their +hotel ... all the old practical jokes: even +apple-pie beds. In and out of these stories +went Mr. Parry who was presently pointed out +upon the ice; a stout little dark man skating +about at random, his movements visibly hampered +by the burden of his sociability, his eyes +turning, to the detriment of his steering, +<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a> +towards everyone he passed in his search for +prey. +</p> + +<p> +“He makes us all <em>roar</em>; every evening.” +</p> + +<p> +There were others, some whose names and +their rôles, as assistants or willing victims of +the schemes of Mr. Parry seemed sufficiently +to describe them, and, as central decoration in +the picture, these two girls newly arrived and +certainly Mr. Parry’s most adored recruits, +ready trained by a brother in the science of +practical joking, yet not hoydenish; demure +and sweet and, to his loneliness, the loneliness +of an undignified little man, not quite grotesque, +and incapable of inspiring romantic +affection, figures of romance. +</p> + +<p> +Growing weary of their inexhaustible theme—of +waiting for the emergence of some sign +of consciousness of the passing moment, a +dropping of references backwards or forwards, +that would leave them in league together, +there as individuals—she pressed them for +personal impressions of the adventure in its +own right, the movement into strangeness, the +being off the chain of accustomed things. +They grew vague, lost interest and fell presently +<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a> +into a silence from which she pulled +them by an enquiry about the plait. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of the story of the plait and +just as some people were being pointed out +who still thought them three sisters, two with +their hair up, and one with a plait who did +not appear at dinner, came a longing to escape, +the sense of a rendez-vous being missed, with +the scene and the time of day. But her preparations +for flight were stayed by their payment +for her interest in the plait. They plied +her with questions; presently they were +offering to lend her skating-boots, and choosing +from amongst the guests at their hotel, +people she would like. They were pitying her, +thinking that she must be having a poor time +and determined at once that she should do +more than just stand upon the edge, sunning +herself in the glow of the life they were finding +so entrancing. +</p> + +<p> +But her contemplation of the desert that +must be, from their point of view, the life of +a woman obviously poor and apparently +isolated, took her for a moment far away, +and when she returned the link between them +<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a> +was snapped. Her silence had embarrassed +their habit of rapid give and take. Making +vague promises, she took leave, rescued by +their immediate reversion to the forms of +speech set for such occasions, from holding +forth upon the subject of the dead level of +happiness existing all over the world independent +of circumstances. They would have +thought her both pious and insane. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All the afternoon they had been in harmony, +strolling and standing about together +in the snow until there seemed nothing more +to say; and after each run there had been +something more to say. Till Italy lost all +strangeness but its beauty and he had seemed +a simpler Michael free from Michael’s certainty +that everyone in the world was marching +to annihilation. It was the discovery of a +shared sense of life at first hand that had +made them not fear saying the very small +things. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a> +And suddenly there was a wall, dividing. +No more communication possible; the mountains +grown small and bleak and sad and even +now, in being alone upon the promontory there +was no peace, in all the wide prospect no +beauty. +</p> + +<p> +Why was it so much a matter of life and +death, for men as for women? Why did each +always gather all its forces for the conflict? +</p> + +<p> +If all he said were a part of the light by +which he lived he should have been able to +remain calm. But he had not remained calm. +He had been first uneasy, then angry, and then +sorry for the destruction of their friendship. +</p> + +<p> +“The thing most needed is for men to +<em>recognise</em> their illusion, to leave off while there +is yet time their newest illusion of life as only +process. Leave off trying to fit into their +mechanical scheme a being who lives all the +time in a world they have never entered. +They seem incapable of unthinking the suggestions +coming to them from centuries of +masculine attempts to represent women only +in relation to the world as known to men.” +</p> + +<p> +It was then he was angry. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a> +“How else shall they be represented?” +</p> + +<p> +“They <em>can’t</em> be represented by men. Because +by every word they use men and women +mean different things.” +</p> + +<p> +Probably Italian women led men by the +nose in the old way, the way of letting them +imagine themselves the whole creation. And +indeed the problem presently will be: how +to save men from collapsing under their loss +of prestige. Their awakening, when it comes, +will make them pitiful. At present they are +surrounded out in the world by women who +are trying to be as much like them as possible. +That will cease when commerce and politics +are socialised. +</p> + +<p> +“Art,” “literature,” systems of thought, +religions, all the fine products of masculine +leisure that are so lightly called “immortal.” +Who makes them immortal? A few men in +each generation who are in the same attitude +of spirit as the creators, and loudly claim them +as humanity’s highest spiritual achievement, +condoning in those who produce them any +failure, any sacrifice of the lives about them +to the production of these crumbling monuments. +<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a> +Who has decreed that “works of +art” are humanity’s highest achievement? +</p> + +<p> +Daphne, preceded by her hurried voice; +followed by her maid carrying a tray. She +came swiftly in her manner of a small panting +tug, eyes surveying ahead with gaze too wide +for detail. +</p> + +<p> +“Put it there; near the lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Hitching herself into a chair, she sighed +deeply, but not to attract attention, nor in the +manner of a conversational opening. She had, +without self-consciousness, the preoccupied +air of one who snatches a tiresome necessary +meal, grudging the expense of time. All her +compact stillness was the stillness of energy +momentarily marking time. Her face, distorted +by efforts, mouth firmly closed, with a +goodly bite of the stout little roll, was busily +thinking and talking. Continuous. There +was no cessation in her way of being, no dependence, +none of the tricks of appeal and +demand that make most children so quickly +wearisome. Yet she was a baby sitting there; +a lonely infant, rotund. +</p> + +<p> +Her face came round, so perfectly impersonal +<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a> +in its gravity that Miriam knew the irrepressible +smile with which she met it for an +affront, felt herself given up to the child’s +judgment, ready to be snubbed. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment the round eyes surveyed her, +deep and clear, a summer sea in shadow, and +then, with her head a little butted forward in +the way she had of holding it during her breathless +sentences, she hurriedly swallowed her +mouthful and cried: +</p> + +<p> +“You’re <em>nice</em>! I didn’t know!” Condemnation +and approval together. Scarcely +daring to breathe she waited while the child +drew near, shouting for her maid who came +grumbling and departed smiling when the +tables were drawn side by side. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s-my-beecely-German-nurse-I-hate-her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She talks German with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“She talks. I don’t listen. She has a +beecely voice. Vicky Vereker says she can’t +helper voice, can’t help being a silly stupid +and Evil Eaden didn’t say anything and Vicky +said show him how she speaks.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did you?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a> +“I should have been <em>sick</em>. Evil Eaden’s +gone ski-ing again. Evil Eaden likes Napoleon +and Vicky doesn’t; he wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you like Napoleon so much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I like him because he’s the good +dear little big one. Everybody is the big +silly small one almost.” +</p> + +<p> +Meditating on Napoleon as a pattern for +womanhood, Miriam heard the returned ski-ers +arrive upon the platform and watched the +eager calm little face that was still busily +talking, for a sign. +</p> + +<p> +“When I’ve done my beecely edjacation, +when I go back to Indja,” it was saying, +looking out with blind eyes across the bright +intolerable valley. +</p> + +<p> +Vereker’s voice, gently vibrant and sunny, +sounded near by, and a deep groan from Eaden +just visible, collapsed in one of the small green +chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to go now,” said Daphne, relinquishing +her second roll and sliding to the +floor. Covering the small space with her little +quick-march, she pulled up in front of Eaden +and stood surveying, hands behind back, feet +<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a> +a little apart, head thrust forward. Napoleon +in a pinafore. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re dead beat, that’s what you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Daphne, I am. I’m a broken man. Don’t +pound me. But you may stroke me if you +like.” +</p> + +<p> +On a table at his side stood a large brown +bear on ski, his gift to her, bought on his way +home from the old woman at the corner and +that now they were surveying together. She +had approached it with two little eager steps +and pulled up just short with her arms at her +sides, volubly talking just out of hearing but +to his delight who heard and watched her. +Between her sallies she sought his face, to +bring him to contemplate and agree. Did it +please her? She had not yet handled it. +Could anything please her? The giver and +the giving were calling forth her best, that +moved him and Vereker as men are moved at +the sight of life in eager operation, spontaneous +as they never seem to be, commanding +and leading them. Vereker was amused. +Eaden disarmed and delighted, protective of +a splendour. Suddenly she seized the bear +<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a> +in her arms and held it while she talked and +put it carefully down and looked back at it +as she turned with her little quick-march to +someone calling from the house. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, Daphne.” Eaden’s voice +eager, free of its drawl, crying out in pity and +wrath. He had leapt from his chair and was +gathering and fixing together the detached +parts, bear and ski and pole found by Daphne +returned, lying as if broken upon the table at +his side. She stood speechless, a little forlorn +child red-cheeked and tearful in dismay. A +little way off stood the Skerry youth with his +grin. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5"> +<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a> +CHAPTER V +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">W</span><span class="postfirstchar">hat</span> had brought this wakening so +near to the edge of night? The +mountains were still wan against a cold sky, +whitening the morning twilight with their snow. +</p> + +<p> +How long to wait, with sleep gone that left +no borderland of drowsiness, until the coming +of their gold? +</p> + +<p> +And in a moment she had seen forever the +ruby gleaming impossibly from the topmost +peak: stillness of joy held still for breathless +watching of the dark ruby set suddenly like a +signal upon the desolate high crag. +</p> + +<p> +It could not last, would soon be plain sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +Already it was swelling, growing brighter, +clearing to crimson. In a moment it became +a star with piercing rays that spread and +slowly tilted over the upper snow a flood of +rose. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a> +Each morning this miracle of light had happened +before her sleeping eyes. It might not +again find her awake. But it had found her +awake, carried her away in a moment of pure +delight that surely was absolution? And +when presently the rose had turned to the +familiar gold creeping down to the valley it +was more than the gold of yesterday. In +watching its birth she had regained the first +day’s sense of endless time. To-day was set +in advance to the rhythm of endless light. +</p> + +<p> +To-day was an unfathomable loop within +the time that remained before the end of +Eaden’s visit, his short allowance that added, +by being set within it, to her own longer portion. +His coming had brought the earlier +time to an end; made it a past, expanding in +the distance. And beyond his far-off departure +was a group of days with features yet +unseen. Looking back upon that distant past +it seemed impossible that the crest of her first +week was not yet reached. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the few days that seemed so many had +already fallen into a shape. Morning blessedness +of leisure smiled down upon by the +<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a> +mountains again tawny in their sunlight, +witnessed to by every part of the house wandered +through; rich sense of strength unspent; +joy of mere going out again into the +wide scene, into the embrace of the crystal +air; the first breath of its piny scent, of the +scent of snow and presently the dry various +scents confined within the little street, messengers +of strange life being lived close at hand; +the morning dive into the baking warmth of +the post-office to find amongst the English +vehement at their pigeon-holes the sharpest +sense of being out in the world of the free; +then the great event, the wild flight down to +the valley’s sudden stillness. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon with Guerini; but, after +yesterday, there might be no afternoon with +Guerini: freedom instead, for fresh discovery +until tea-time, on the promontory in the midst +of unpredictable groupings. Sunset and afterglow, +high day moving away without torment +or regret; the mountains, turning to a darkness +in the sky; telling only of the sure approach +of the deep bright world of evening. +</p> + +<p> +The gold-lit evening feast was still momentous, +<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a> +still under the spell of the setting, the +silent host who kept the party always new. +</p> + +<p> +And it was in part the setting, the feeling +of being out of the world and irresponsible, +that last night had kept Eaden a docile listener. +He had heard a little of the truth, at least +something to balance the misrepresentations +of socialism in the Tory press. But he had +heard in a dream, outside life. Sitting on the +stairs, huge in his meek correctness of evening +dress. There was, to be sure, in face of Vereker’s +determination, nothing else for him to do. +But it was with one consent that they had all +three subsided on the wide stairs, secure from +the intrusions that menaced the little salon. +</p> + +<p> +And it was only for a moment she had sunned +herself in the triumph of being claimed, +forcibly enthroned in the sustaining blue gown +upon the red-carpeted stairs with the best of +the hotel’s male guests a little below on each +side of her. After that moment there was only +effort, the effort to make things clear, to find +convincing answers to Vereker’s questions. +</p> + +<p> +And there were no witnesses, only Guerini, +coming from the salon and apologetically past +<a id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a> +them up the stairs; and the maids, passing +to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +There is no evening social centre in this +hotel, no large room. That is why these +sports-people like it. The day is concentrated +within the daylight. The falling away after +dinner is a turning towards the next day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +That Grindelsteig hotel must be rather fascinating. +She thought I shared her disapproval +of people “running up and down +balconies and in and out of each other’s rooms +all night long.” I did. Yet they are only +carrying out my principles.... +</p> + +<p> +She despises even those who come out for +sport unless all day they are risking life and +limb. So fragile and brittle-looking, so Victorian +and lacy, yet living for her ski-parties +with picked people from the other hotels; +going off at dawn, swallowed up until dinner-time +and then, straight to bed. +</p> + +<p> +The social promise of the first evening has +miscarried. The social centre is the Oberland +Ski-club; the rest, a mere putting in of time. +I am living on the outskirts, looking for developments +in the wrong place; have seen all +<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a> +there will be to see until the end of my +stay. +</p> + +<p> +Into the golden sunlight fell the clashing of +morning sleighbells describing the outdoor +world. Listening to them she felt the vast +surroundings that lately had become a setting, +owing part of its entrancement to the delightful +sense of success in a charming social atmosphere, +re-asserting themselves in their own +right, accusing her of neglect, showing the +days winding themselves off to an end that +would leave her in possession only of the valley +road and the fields beyond the bridge. +</p> + +<p> +The dawn had wakened to remind her. +Watching the coming of the light she had been +restored to her first communion with it, back +in the time when the people downstairs had +seemed superfluity, thrown in with the rest. +When all was over they would appear in the +distance: bright figures of a momentary +widening of her social horizon, unforgotten, +but withdrawn into their own element; not +going forward into her life as this winter +paradise would go forward, brightening her +days with the possibility of reunion. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a> +This morning she would break the snare, be +a claimant for a lunch packet, an absentee +for the whole day. With the coming of the +far-off afternoon, Guerini, looking down from +his window on to the promontory either to +escape or to claim her company, would find +no one there. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Even in terror there was gladness of swift +movement that left her pressed like a niched +effigy into the wall of the drift as the beast +pranced by, revealing in its wake a slouching +peasant; clear brilliant eyes brooding amidst +unkempt shagginess, pipe at an angle of +jaunty defiance to the steep his heedless +tramping brought so near. +</p> + +<p> +She was honourably plastered with snow and +the precious package that had leapt and might +have hurled itself into the void was still safely +on its string about her neck, but the narrow +rising path bereft of its secrecy by evidence of +homely levels above of field and farm was +<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a> +perhaps only a highway for humiliating perils. +More cows might be coming round the bend; +a whole herd. There might be—it would harmonise +with the way life always seemed to +respond to deliberate activity with a personal +challenge—on this very day the dawn had +drawn her away from beaten tracks, a general +turning out of cattle for an airing; mountain +cattle, prancing like colts. +</p> + +<p> +Man and cow were now upon the widening +path, approaching the sloping field with the +barn at the end, the cow trotting swiftly ahead, +through the half buried posts beside the sunken +open gate, and now careering hither and +thither with flying tail, the powdery snow +flung in wreaths about its course. It was half +mad of course, poor thing, with the joy of +release from one of those noisome steamy sheds +whose reek polluted the air surrounding them +and saddened the landscape with reminder of +the price of happiness: oblivion of hidden, +helpless suffering. +</p> + +<p> +But in summer-time this air-intoxicated +captive would stand knee-deep in rich pasture; +mild. Its colouring was mild, soft tan and +<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a> +creamy white, in ill-arranged large blots; and +with its short legs, huge bony mass of head and +shoulders from which the spine curved down +as if sagging beneath the weight of the clumsy +body, it missed the look of breeding, the even +shape and colouring of lowland cattle. Its +horns, too, had no style, rose small and +sharp from the disproportionate mass of +skull. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Almost without warning, so slight in the +dense pinewood was the sound of its muffled +gliding, the sled was upon her, heavy with +piled logs and a ruffian perched upon them: +slithering headlong, fitting and filling the +banked path from side to side. Somehow she +flung herself upon the root-encumbered bank, +somehow hitched her feet clear of the sled as +it rushed by. The villain, unmoved and +placidly smoking, had not even shouted. +</p> + +<p> +No time to shout, no use <em>shouting</em> she murmured +breathless, smiling at the absurd scene, +a treasure now that danger was past, a glimpse +<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a> +into local reality. But danger was past only +for the moment. This pleasant wide path +she had mistaken for a woodland walk winding +and mounting safely amidst the peace of the +pinewoods was a stern highway, almost a +railway; formed like a railway to the exact +dimensions of its traffic. +</p> + +<p> +Intently listening, going swiftly where the +sides of the track were too high for an escaping +sprawl, she toiled on and up and came presently +to a gap and a view of the small hut +seated clear of the pines, high against the pure +blue upon its curve of unblemished snow, +come down now nearly to her level and revealed +as a châlet with burnished face, inhabited: +above its chimney the air quivered +in the heat of a clear-burning fire. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The hotel lunch, opened upon the trestle +table, looked pert, a stray intruder from the +cheap sophisticated world of to-day into these +rich and ancient shadows. The old woman, +but for her bell-like, mountainy voice, was a +gnarled witch moving amongst them, unattained +by the cold light from the small low +<a id="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></a> +windows that struck so short a way into the +warmly varnished interior. +</p> + +<p> +And it seemed by magic that she produced +the marvellous coffee in whose subtle brewing +was a sadness, the sadness of her lonely permanence +above the waste of snow and woods—old +grandmother, a living past, her world +disappeared, leaving only the circling of the +seasons about her emptied being. +</p> + +<p> +In this haunting presence the triumph of +distance accomplished, the delicious sense of +known worlds waiting far below, world behind +world in a chain whose end was the far-off +London she represented here in this high remoteness, +could not perfectly flourish, came in +full only when the silence had had time to fill +itself with joy that was too strong to be oppressed +by the departed ancient voice that was +like the echo of a sound falling elsewhere. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Again, recalling the far-off morning, a dark +barn-like room. But the woman opened a +<a id="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></a> +door at the end of it, led the way through a +passage still darker: another door and she +was out upon the edge of the world, upon a +dilapidated little grey balcony jutting over an +abyss. As far as sight could reach were sunlit +mountain tops range beyond range till they +grew far and faint. +</p> + +<p> +Faced alone, the scene, after the first moment’s +blissfully ranging perception, was saddened +in its grandeur through the absence +there of someone else perceiving. Thousands, +of course, had seen it from this perch in the +centre of the row of slummy little balconies. +But so splendid was the triumph of the unexpected +mountains ranged and lit that no +company, even exclamatory, could break their +onslaught. Alone, there was too heavy a +burden of feeling in the speechless company +of this suddenly revealed magnificence. +</p> + +<p> +The woman coming out with the tea that +one day she must take here accompanied, was +brisk about the view: an adjunct, thrown in +gratis with her refreshments which were good +and which presently caused the mountains, +turned away from, to be felt preparing a +<a id="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></a> +friendliness; becoming the last, best reward of +her day’s accomplishments. +</p> + +<p> +The way home down and down and across +the levels to the rink and up the little homely +slope into Oberland would be a jog-trot taken +half asleep to the haven of things small and +known amidst which she would sit renewed, +to-day’s long life-time stilled to a happy throbbing +of the nerves, a bemused beaming in the +midst of friends. Its incidents blurred that +would come back one day clearer, more +shining than all the rest? +</p> + +<p> +Warned by a growing chill she turned to +face the mountains in farewell and found them +lit by the first of the afterglow. Far away in +the haze beyond the visible distance a group of +slender peaks showed faintly, rose-misted pinnacles +of a dream-city from whose spires would +presently gleam the rubies of farewell. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6"> +<a id="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></a> +CHAPTER VI +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> solitary excursion had made a gap +in the sequence of days. Those standing +behind it were now far away, and yesterday +had failed to bridge the gap and join itself +to their serenity. To-day looked shallow +and hurried, with short hours beyond it rushing +ahead to pause in the sunlight of the ski-fest +and then to fly, helter-skelter towards the end. +</p> + +<p> +Eaden’s departure was helping time to +hurry. In the distance it had promised to +leave things as they were before he came. But +now that it was at hand it seemed a sliding +away of everything. +</p> + +<p> +There was no depth in the morning light. +</p> + +<p> +She turned to survey the scene on which it +fell and saw the early gold stealing faithfully +towards the valley. Once Eaden had gone +this thinned-out urgency of time would cease. +For everyone but Vereker his going was only a +<a id="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></a> +removal of something grown familiar; a +reminder, soon forgotten, of the movement of +time. Slight reminder. He reflected only +surfaces and was going away, unchanged, to +reflect the surfaces of another shape of life. +</p> + +<p> +Yet last night he had talked. Had been +less a passenger unable to take root. It was +he who had been the first to subside on the +stairs—with a groan for his hard day’s work. +Perhaps the approach of his known life had +given him a moment of clairvoyance, showing +its strangeness, the strange fact of its existence. +</p> + +<p> +Last night had been good, was showing +now how very good it had been: three friends +glad to sit down together and presently +talking, each voice transformed, by the approach +of the separation that would make it +cease to sound, to the strange marvel of a +human voice. Everything said had seemed +important in its kindliness, and though there +had been no socialism he had talked at last +of his peasants and his ceaseless fighting with +their ancient ways as though he wished to +excuse himself from accepting socialism, to +<a id="page-196" class="pagenum" title="196"></a> +point out its irrelevance to the life of peasant +and soil. +</p> + +<p> +Industrial socialism had bored him. He +thought its problems irrelevant, raised by +clever doctrinaires who had nothing to lose. +She had failed him by standing too much in +one camp. The proper message for him came +from the people who saw land as the fundamental +unit. +</p> + +<p> +Tell him to look away from capital and +wages. And read George. And the Jewish +land-laws, never surpassed. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye. Please remember that work +is an unlimited quantity.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she remembered that this morning +there would be a meeting at breakfast. He +and Vereker would be there together as on +the first morning; with time to spare. +</p> + +<p> +But going into the dining-room she found +his departure already in full swing. He was +talking, smiling across at Mrs. Sneyde and +Miss Hollebone with the eagerness of one who +finds at the last moment the ice broken and +communication flowing the more easily for +having been dammed up and accumulating. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></a> +Sitting down unnoticed except by Vereker +she presently heard Maud Hollebone, to whom +he had scarcely spoken, arranging, across the +width of the room, to hasten her departure. +</p> + +<p> +They were going down to Italy together; as +casually as guests leaving a party and finding +that their way home lies in the same direction +will share a hansom across London. To +travelled people a journey to Italy was as +simple as crossing London. Was even a bore, +a tiresome experience to be got through as +pleasantly as possible. Behind her manner +of soncy, quietly boisterous school-girl indifference +Maud was pleased, but still kept her +poise, her oblivious independence—of what? +On what, all the time going about with Mrs. +Sneyde, neglecting all opportunities for recognising +the existence of the house-party, aloof +without being stand-offish, was she feeding her +so strongly-rooted life? +</p> + +<p> +She was pleased of course to be carrying off +as her escort the imposing oiled bronze, now +almost animated as he crossed to the little +table to discuss details and stood, a pillar of +strength, at the disposal of the two ladies now +<a id="page-198" class="pagenum" title="198"></a> +looking so small and Mrs. Sneyde, as she fired +remarks at him, so scintillating. She, no +doubt, had her ideas and thought it an excellent +plan. But the sister already knew too +late that it was not. Had felt the project +change during his approach with his week’s +happiness all about him, and realised now that +she represented a reprieve, was to be, by +keeping Oberland before his eyes during part +of his long journeying, an extension of his +holiday. +</p> + +<p> +Standing at close quarters, already accustomed +to her companionship, he was aware, +behind his animation, of sacrificing for the +sake of it the precious silent interval between +his strenuous idling and the arduous work +ahead; was paying the price always paid for +tumult half-consciously insincere. The finding +of Maud also immersed in the business +of departure and therefore seen in a flash of +time as a comrade, had enlivened him as one +is enlivened by a greeting without regard to +the giver of it. That enlivening glow had +already departed and he was left reduced, with +its results upon his hands. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></a> +It was settled. The elopement arranged +and he, with his instructions, moving off to +clear her path. Perhaps secretly he was +pleased after all. Perhaps his life in the south +was not a flight from society and he was glad +to be ever so slightly back again in its conspiracy +to avoid solitude. Glad to be walking +again on those sunny levels where there is +never a complete break-off and departure. +Never a void. Where even sorrow and suffering +are softened by beautiful surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +Their windows, she reflected as Eaden, +meeting the le Mesuriers at the door was +halted for farewells, even their hotel windows, +give on to beauty. And they can always move +on. And soul-sickness, the suffering of mind +so often a result of fatigue and poor food and +ugly surroundings, was rare amongst them. +They were cheerful and amused. If bored +they shift on and begin again. If bored by +the life of society itself they remain within it +and cut figures as cynics. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only fair to warn you,” Maud was +crying from her table, “that I’m a vile fellow-traveller. +Hate travelling.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></a> +She rose and wandered to the window behind +her table. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going to take away our property?” +</p> + +<p> +Here she was, the unknown Miss Hollebone, +close at hand, flopped in a chair, school-girlish. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” +</p> + +<p> +Here in this warm circle was the old freemasonry +of school-fellows, two profiles slightly +turned, abrupt remarks, punctuated by jabbings +at ink-stained desks, the sense of power +and complete difference in relation to a stuffy +old world; sudden glances, perfect happiness. +Happiness that kept both quite still; hearing, +feeling, seeing, in a circle of light suddenly +created, making possible only slight swift +words in whose echo one forgot which had +spoken, which was which. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we to do?” They faced each +other to laugh delight. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know. What we really want is +<em>your</em> socialism in <em>our</em> world. The socialist +ways you have in your world without knowing +it, because you know no other ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t object to us?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></a> +“Good Lord, no! But just to cultivate you +would be to go to sleep as you are all +asleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“You a Londoner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Till death us do part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucky dog!” +</p> + +<p> +Eaden was at her elbow to whom she turned +with a guarded brightness, slipped back into +her own world, into the half-conscious conspiracy +of avoidance. Orderly world. A pattern +world, life flowing in bright set patterns +under a slowly gathering cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Its echoes followed Miriam into the deserted +little salon. Through the open door she heard +a coming and going in the hall that at this hour +should be empty and eloquent of people spread +far and wide in the landscape. The bright +pattern was flowing into a fresh shape, flowing +forward in its way, heedless of clouds, heedless +of the rising tide. On the little table was +Daphne’s bear on ski, immortal. +</p> + +<p> +And now in the hall the sound of her, demanding. +Drawn to the door Miriam saw +Vereker taking the stairs two at a time, immersed +in friendship. And Eaden arrested +<a id="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></a> +in the middle of the hall by Daphne up-gazing +with white determined face. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at me,” she was saying, and his +down-bent face lost its smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not to go,” she said swiftly, in +casual tone, and then breathlessly, still searching +his unmoved face, “You’re not to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right, Daphne,” cried Vereker +pausing on the stairs. “Make him stay for the +Fest, he wants to.” +</p> + +<p> +Eaden watched her while she waited for +Vereker’s footsteps to die away, watched her +in frowning concentration while her voice +came again, the voice of one who tells another’s +woe: “Not for the Fest, but because if you +go away I shall die.” +</p> + +<p> +Miriam turned swiftly back into the room, +but she had seen the pain in his face, seen him +wince. Daphne on her last words had taken +a little impatient step and stood averted with +clenched fists, and now their voices were going +together up the stairs, hers eagerly talking. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a id="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></a> +She made ready to go out amongst the +mountains standing there in their places as +for countless ages they had stood, desolate, +looking down upon nothing. +</p> + +<p> +A door opened at the far end of the corridor +and Vereker’s footsteps came swiftly trotting, +went by and paused at a door further down: +Maud Hollebone’s, at which now he was +urgently tapping. A few words at the opened +door and he had returned. A moment later +came Maud, swishing along at a run: for more +discussion. +</p> + +<p> +Her thoughts turned to the promontory +within easy reach. But it would be absurd to +sit about visibly hung up by the bustle of +events that were not even remotely her events. +It was too late to do the valley run and walk +back before lunch. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall <em>die</em>.” Who was comforting +Daphne? No one. No one could. Somewhere +outside she was disposed of, walking +with her nurse, uncomforted. +</p> + +<p> +She peered into Daphne’s future, into the +years waiting ahead, unworthy of her. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></a> +Vereker’s door opened again, letting out the +returning Maud; coming back to go on with +her packing, to talk to Mrs. Sneyde. The +two of them, surrounded by the opulence of +wealthy packing, talking, skipping about in +talk: family affairs, and in both their minds +Maud’s journey to Milan with the mild and +foolish bronze. +</p> + +<p> +When the footsteps had passed she went out +into the corridor and across the space of sunlight +streaming through Mrs. Harcourt’s door +open upon its empty room. Far away in the +landscape, with those people from the Kursaal, +Mrs. Harcourt was forgetfully ski-ing, +knowing nothing of all this bustle. +</p> + +<p> +But Maud’s door too was set wide. Her +room deserted, neat and calm as Mrs. Harcourt’s +... Where was Maud? +</p> + +<p> +From the room beyond came Mrs. Sneyde, +dressed for outdoors, brilliant in green and +gold, turning, coming forward with laughter +and an outstretched restraining hand, suppressing +her laughter to speak in the manner of +one continuing a confidential talk; laughter +remaining in her eyes that looked, not at the +<a id="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></a> +stranger she addressed for the first time, but +away down the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just,” she whispered, “been in their +room tyin’ up Daphne’s finger. Cut it on one +of their razors. The poor things were terrified. +Had her sittin’ on the table with her finger in a +glass of water! +</p> + +<p> +“No. It’s nothing; but those two great +fellows were jibberin’ with fright. She’s a +little demon. Two towels on the floor. One +all over chocolate and the other bright with +gore. They wanted to fetch old stick-in-the-mud.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a tragedy for Mr. Eaden’s last +hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not goin’; stayin’ for the Fest. Nobody’s +goin’ but the dear Skerrys.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t know they were going.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor nobody else. Till Ma suddenly began +about her luggage. Wants to save the sleigh +fare. Vereker’s arranged it; the luggage is +goin’ by the Post and they’re toboggannin’; +can’t you see them? ‘Whee don’t ye see +goodbee to Daphnee,’ says she to Tammas.” +</p> + +<p> +Cruel, a little cruel. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></a> +“They found out a good deal about the +peasants.” +</p> + +<p> +“The <em>peasants</em>? The village desperadoes? +<em>Is</em> there anything to find out about them?” +</p> + +<p> +“The lives they lead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tammas been tryin’ to convert them? +With his weak eyes? Through his smoked +glasses?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know he smashed his glasses?” +</p> + +<p> +“He would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I heard his mother scolding him on +the balcony and he slowly trying to explain; +all in that low tone, as if they were conspiring.” +</p> + +<p> +“In an enemy camp. They were like that +if you spoke to them. We all tried; but by +the time they’d thought and begun to answer +you’d forgotten what you said.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suddenly remembered some glasses I’d +been advised to bring. They seemed astonished +and suspicious and yet eager. ‘Try +them on, Thomas,’ she said.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tree them on, Tammas. I hear her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yesterday he handed them back +jammy round the edges. I thought he was +<a id="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></a> +tired of them. They said nothing about going. +But he told me about the peasants.” +</p> + +<p> +“They had jam teas, on their own, upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, they got in touch with the +natives.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t surprised. Natives themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“With the people in the châlet behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Methuselah? Not difficult if you +smash things. The old boy mended Daphne’s +watch. Of course she went in to see him do +it. Went in jabberin’ German which she +<em>won’t</em> talk with Frederika. Was there an hour +till I went to fish her out. Couldn’t see her, +my dear—couldn’t see <em>anything</em>; smoke, like +a fog, couldn’t <em>breathe</em>. Made her out at last +squatting close up to the filthy old villain on +his bench. Lost, in the insides of watches. +She’s goin’ to be a watchmaker now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be his son.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who must?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one Thomas told me of. A woodcutter. +Terrible. In the snow. It’s only +on snow they can bring the wood down from +the higher places. Someone bought a high +copse, cheaply, because the higher——” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></a> +“Higher you go, the fewer—now I know +what that means.” +</p> + +<p> +“The cheaper. Over two hours climb from +here; somewhere across the valley. And the +men and sleds must be there by daylight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor devils!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And the horses for the climbing +must be fed two hours before the start. Sometimes +they have to feed them before three in +the morning. One lot of men was caught up +there by an avalanche and were there four days +before they could be got down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-<em>eee</em>; don’t tell us.” +</p> + +<p> +“At the best it’s dangerous work. They +get maimed; lose their lives. All the winter +this is going on. We don’t read their papers, +don’t know the people and don’t hear of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it just as well? <em>We</em> can’t help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It ought to be done some other way. +Men’s lives ought not to be so cheap.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did Tammas get all this learning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Speaks German.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jee-roozlum!” +</p> + +<p> +“And French.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Scotch. And having no one to talk +<a id="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></a> +Scotch to, talks to the peasants, about their +trees. Daphne <em>hates</em> the trees.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Hates</em> them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Would like to make a big bonfire and +burn’m all up.” +</p> + +<p> +Miriam was silent, searching the green eyes +for Daphne. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s Daphne. She’s mad about +Napoleon. Reads all the books. Has’m in +her room. I have to expound when she gets +stuck. Won’t say her prayers till we’ve read +a bit of Bony. Won’t say ‘make me a good +girl.’ Says ‘make me a man and a sojer.’ +She and Eaden are as thick as thieves. He’s +an angel to her. I’ve got to be <em>hoff</em>. Goin’ +to the Curse-all for lunch. Maud’s there. +She’s goin’ south to-morrow with the Chisholmes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Before the Fest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Chisholmes have got to pick up their kid +somewhere. Maud’s had enough of Switzerland +for this year.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7"> +<a id="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></a> +CHAPTER VII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> clouds were a rebuke; for being +spell-bound into imagining this bright +paradise inaccessible. The world’s weather +cannot be arranged as a conversation with one +small person. Then how did the rebuke +manage to arrive punctually at the serenest +moment of self-congratulation? As if someone +were watching ... +</p> + +<p> +She looked levelly across the sunny landscape +and the clouds were out of sight. But +there was a movement in the air, a breeze softly +at work ousting the motionless Oberland air. +</p> + +<p> +She walked ahead, further and further into +the disconcerting change. Everything was +changed, the whole scene, reduced to homeliness. +She caught herself drooping, took +counsel and stiffened into acquiescence: “I +might have known. I’m accustomed to this. +It removes only what I thought I couldn’t +<a id="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></a> +give up. Something is left behind that can’t +be taken away”—and heard at once within +the high stillness the familiar sound of life, +felt the sense of it flowing warmly in along the +old channels, and heard from the past in +various tones, amused, impatient, contemptuous: +“You <em>are</em> philosophical.” Always a +surprise. What did they mean with their +“philosophical”? The alternative was their +way of going on cursing, missing everything +but the unfavourable surface. +</p> + +<p> +Someone has said that there is nothing +meaner than making the best of things. +</p> + +<p> +The clouds made soft patches of shadow +upon the higher snow. Beside the angular +sharp shadows growing upon the northern +slopes they were blemishes, smudgy and +vague. But free, able to move and flow while +the mountains stood crumbling in their places. +</p> + +<p> +The clouds were beautiful, slowly drifting, +leaving torn shreds upon the higher peaks. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the ridge beyond the cloaked silence +of the little wood the breeze blew steadily from +across the levels—that were strangely empty; +no sign of moving specks making for the further +<a id="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></a> +ridge. Hurrying along the track she +recalled too late the slightness of the information +upon which she had built her idea of the +golden scene; the gay throng, herself happily +in the midst. +</p> + +<p> +Without a single clear idea of the direction +she had trusted to the bright magic to draw +her to itself. +</p> + +<p> +The subtly changed air and the melancholy +clouds re-stated themselves, became the prelude +to disaster. The increasing wind and the +cloud-bank hiding the distant mountains were +proclaiming the certainty of punishment well-deserved: +to wander at a loss and miss the Fest. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at her afternoon in retrospect: +aimless walking in a world fallen into greyness +and gloom, into familiarity that was already +opening the door to the old friend, at whose +heart lived a radiance out-doing the beams +shed by anticipation over unknown things. +</p> + +<p> +But all the time the ski-ing which now she +was not to see would be going forward, mocking +her until she could forget it; until the hours +it filled should have passed into others bright +enough to melt regret. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></a> +Climbing the rise beyond the levels she was +at once climbing up to find the Fest, would +plod the landscape until she found it, late, but +still in time to share and remember. She +reached the crest beyond the rise—there it +was: a small shape, like an elongated horseshoe, +upon a distant slope. Black dots close-clustered +in a strange little shape upon the +wastes of snow, defying the wastes of snow. +</p> + +<p> +There was plenty of space. Gaps on each +side of the track and even towards the top of +the rise where people were grouped more +closely about the comforting, the only festal +sign, looking like an altar with its gold-embroidered, +red velvet frontal. Nothing could +be seen behind its shelf but a small hut upon +the levels that extended backwards until the +pinewoods began with the rising mountain-side. +</p> + +<p> +Where to stand? Up amongst the connoisseurs +to see the start, half-way down with a +view of the ski-ers coming, or at the bottom of +the row amongst the black-clothed natives standing +about in scattered groups in the loose snow. +</p> + +<p> +Choosing a place half-way down she became +one of the gathered crowd of Oberland visitors +<a id="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></a> +lining the smoothed and steeply sloping course. +They were all there. The black and distant +dots had become people in every fashion of +sport’s-clothes, standing on skis, sitting on +toboggans, stamping about in the snow, +walking up and down; and all waiting, all +looking betweenwhiles expectantly up the +track towards the deserted altar. There was +a good deal of talking. Here and there the +incessant voices of men who make a hobby of +talking. But most of them talked intermittently, +in the way of these leisured English +who veil their eagerness as they wait half +apologetically and wholly self-consciously for +a show. There patiently they would wait, +good-humoured, not deigning to be disturbed, +not suffering anything to disturb their pose +of amused independence that looked so like +indifference and masked a warmth. +</p> + +<p> +Just across the way was a stout lady in a +seal-skin coat and curiously different snow-boots. +She sat sturdily bunched on her +toboggan and they stuck out in front of her, +close-fitting, the rubber soles curving sharply +to the instep and neatly down again into the +<a id="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></a> +shape of a heel. She clasped a camera and +her sallow heavy face was drawn into a frown +that remained there while she turned towards +a voice sounding from over the way: +</p> + +<p> +“.... and we’ll just be <em>here</em> till judgment +<em>day</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was told,” she answered at large with +face upraised, deep furrows from nose to chin +giving strength to her hanging cheeks, “I +was to see sky-jumping, but I see no men on +their skys to jump.” +</p> + +<p> +American continuousness held up in Europe, +brought to despair by the spectacle of tolerance. +</p> + +<p> +Sunlight had gone and on the slope of the +breeze small snowflakes drifted down to the +snow. For a while it seemed as though the gathering +in the white wilderness were there in vain. +</p> + +<p> +From the group of black figures at the top +of the rise a deep Swiss voice sang out an +English name. Heads were craned forward, +but the altar remained empty. The confronted +rows were transformed. Each life, +risen to gazing eyes, waited in a stillness upon +the edge of time. +</p> + +<p> +The knickerbockered tweed-clad form arrived +<a id="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></a> +upon the shelf from nowhere, leaped, +knees bent and arms outspread, forward +through the air upon the long blades that looked +so like thin oars flattened out, came down, +arms in upward-straining arches, with a resounding +whack upon the slope and slid half-crouching, +gaining the upright, fully upright +with hooked arms swinging, at full speed to +the bottom of the hill, went off in a wide curve +and was stopped, swaying, just not falling, +in wreaths of whirling snow. +</p> + +<p> +Achievement. Thrilling and chastening. +Long ago someone had done this difficult thing +for the first time, alone, perhaps driven by +necessity. Now it was a sport, a deliberate +movement into eternity, shared by all who +looked on. She felt she could watch forever. +Cold had withdrawn from the snow and from +the drifting flakes. One after another the +figures appeared at the top of the rise and +leapt, making the gliding race to the sound of +cheers that now broke forth each time the +forward rush followed the desperate dive. +For those who crashed and rolled, slanting +ski and sloping helpless body rolling over and +<a id="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></a> +over down the slope, there was comment of +laughter silly and cruel. Yet one man sliced +his face with a ski-point and one had lain +stunned at the bottom of the slope ... +</p> + +<p> +Vereker came at last, looking very young +and lightly built, leaping neatly and far, and +gliding easily upright, to the accompaniment +of frantic cheering, at a splendid pace down the +slope and far on into the loose snow and round +in a sweeping curve that encircled a distant +sapling and left him facing up the track half-hidden +in a cloud of churned-up snow. +</p> + +<p> +He was the best. Length of jump, pace, +style. The best of the English. And kind life +had led her to him for speech, for the recovery +of shared things; and was making now more +memories that fitted with the rest. +</p> + +<p> +Skied onlookers were planking sideways up +and down the course, flattening it. Snow still +fell thinly. The distant mountains were lost +in mist. The forgotten scene was utterly +desolate. Warmth flowing forth from within +made a summer in its midst. +</p> + +<p> +“Tsoor-<em>boo</em>-chn!” The strong spell-binding +peasant name filled out the ringing cry. +<a id="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></a> +Switzerland was coming, bringing its so +different life of mountain and pinewood, its +hardy strength, perhaps to outdo the English +in this brave game. +</p> + +<p> +Here he came, in black against his snow, +deep velvety black against the snow, gliding +past the little hut with a powerful different +gait. It was partly his clothes, the way they +seemed all of one piece, closely fitting, without +angles. And his size, huge. From the edge of +the shelf he leapt high into the air and seemed +to stand there against the sky, in a dream. +Down he swooped, sailing, dreaming, to the +track, rose smoothly from the terrific impact +and smoothly went his way. +</p> + +<p> +What could be more beautiful? He was +heavy and solid, thickly built. But with his +shapely clothing and smooth rhythmic movement +he made the English graceless and their +clothes deliberately absurd. +</p> + +<p> +All the Swiss, though some were rough and +ungainly, moved with that strong and steady +grace. But Zurbuchen was the best. It was +he who would live in her memory, poised +against the sky like a great bird. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +<a id="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></a> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“You took photographs?” +</p> + +<p> +“For him,” smiled Vereker with his quizzical +affectionate glance. “To remind him of what +he has to do next year. But we’ll share them. +Yours will remind you that next year you won’t +be let off.” Eaden remained silent and expressionless. +</p> + +<p> +“They will look strange amongst your cypress +groves.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will look passing strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will come out again?” She wanted +neither to know nor to seem to want to know, +but Vereker had left him there for a moment +on her hands. She was caught in the social +trap. Expected, being a woman, not to walk +off alone, but to wait and provide, while she +waited, suitable entertainment, some kind of +parlour trick. For a moment it seemed as +though he would not answer. He was silent +and used to stillness, yet embarrassed now by +stillness in the presence of a perceiving witness. +Another woman would not seem to perceive. +Would have given her question the semblance +of sincerity. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></a> +“No,” he said suddenly. “If I go away at +all next year I shall go east.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’....” +She turned to look towards the returning +Vereker. Eaden gazed away towards +the snowy distances. He was taking his farewell. +To-morrow he would be gone back to +his chosen isolation, uninfluenced. Tender-hearted +lover of brave souls, of Daphne, and +who yet would bring so little to his love-making. +He stood in his heavy silence, heavy man’s +silence of waiting for recognisable things. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that man knew what he was talking +about.” Suddenly his friendly beam and a +forward approaching step, a turning away, at +the first hint of something he had heard before, +from his formal preoccupation, preoccupation +with a glimpse of the next break in his unknown +southern life. She had nothing more to say. +Vereker was at hand who had held them at truce +together. But now without Vereker they were at +truce, the only kind of truce he could understand. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment she was aware, far away in +the future, of one of whom he was the forerunner, +coming into her life for mortal combat. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8"> +<a id="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></a> +CHAPTER VIII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">I</span><span class="postfirstchar">n</span> spite of her contempt for tobogganing +she was going warily, slowing up a little +at the bends, a gnome in an extinguishing cowl, +Mrs. Harcourt, carelessly carrying her long +past and the short future that so strangely she +regarded as indefinite, looking forward, making +plans for next winter with eager school-girl +eyes; carelessly bringing the life she carried +about with her down to the valley this afternoon +with brusque cameraderie, her day-time +manner. +</p> + +<p> +Her company added something to the joy +of flying through the backward-flowing landscape. +But it was shortening the run and +fitting it within reduced surroundings—making +it show as it showed to her within her larger +scale of movement. +</p> + +<p> +Here already was the steepest bend of the +run, with the patch of black ice across its +<a id="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></a> +middle. Mrs. Harcourt had passed it safely +and disappeared. It was past and a group +of people came into sight midway down the +next slope: two figures pushing off and Mrs. +Harcourt at the side of the track, dismounted, +beating her skirt. She had collided, managed +to run into them; a collision and a humiliating +smash ... +</p> + +<p> +“Fools! Fooling all over v’place. Had +to slam into v’side.” +</p> + +<p> +“A blessing the fence is broken just here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not their fault I’m not smashed up. I +was yellin’ for all I was worth.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s <em>really</em> dangerous when you can’t see +what’s ahead. Someone said tobogganing +accounts for more accidents than any other +sport.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t wonder, with so many idjuts about. +Where’s Daphne?” +</p> + +<p> +“Held up, poor little soul. A broken cord, +just as they were starting; the maid went in +for another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Paw kid. She’ll be too late. No good +waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +They mounted and sped off one behind the +<a id="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></a> +other through a scene that was now the child’s +vast desolation. In place of joyous flight, +selfish, in which Daphne had been forgotten, +came now this absurd urgency to arrive. Mrs. +Harcourt felt it. She was sorry, in her kindliness, +for Daphne’s disappointment, but saw +nothing of the uselessness of arriving without +her. Thought of nothing but herself, her +determination, her hatred of being beaten. +This made a shelter. Under the shelter of Mrs. +Harcourt’s determination to be there because +she had said she would be there it was possible +to be seen rushing uselessly to the last farewell. +</p> + +<p> +Another bend. Beyond it a sleigh coming +up and Mrs. Harcourt carefully passing it and +the other tobogganers drawn up in the snow. +It was safely past. Mrs. Harcourt was getting +ahead. Going recklessly. Even for her there +was something more in this desperate urgency +than the mere determination to arrive. +</p> + +<p> +If she too were to arrive it was now or never. +Now, at once, in the midst of this winding +ice-patched roadway, she must give herself up +to what she had learned on the safe snowfields +and never yet dared to try here until the last +<a id="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></a> +clear slope was reached. Lifting her feet to +the bar, leaning back to swing free and steer +by weight she let herself go. The joy of flight +returned, singing joy of the inaccessible world +to which in flight one was translated, bringing +forgetfulness of everything but itself. Bend +after bend appeared and of itself her body +swayed now right now left in unconscious +rhythm. The landscape flew by, sideways-upwards, +its features indistinguishable. She +was movement, increasing, cleaving the backward +rushing air. +</p> + +<p> +At the last slope she was level with Mrs. +Harcourt, safely, triumphantly returned to +the known world, passing her, flying down so +blissfully that arrival would now be nothing +but an end to joy. Flying down towards two +small figures standing on the level, turned this +way, watching up the incline down which +speeded, superfluously, absurdly, just these +two women. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Daphne?” said Eaden in his +rich, indolent voice; looking over their heads, +staring up the slope. +</p> + +<p> +While Mrs. Harcourt’s deep bass, still +<a id="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></a> +staccato with her anger, told the brief tale, she +watched the pain and wrath in his face, strong +man’s sympathy of pain with this child to +whose spirit he gave homage, anger with those +who had deserted her. Her useless explanation +flickered about him unspoken, silenced by +the pain she shared. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good, old man,” said Vereker +gently, watch in hand: “we must be off.” +</p> + +<p> +Formal hand-shaking. To Mrs. Harcourt’s +padding of sociable remarks he paid no heed, +keeping his eyes still above her on the bend at +the head of the slope until he turned to tramp +off with Vereker, to the sound of Vereker’s +kindly, sunny voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Paw kid. Eaden was frightfully wrath. +Thought we ought to have brought her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t have dared, down those slopes, +on a small single,” said Miriam wearily. But +the judge within stood firm. She had not +thought of trying. +</p> + +<p> +The now distant men were marching swiftly, +reaching the point where the road sloped +downwards; had reached it and were settling +on their toboggans. A face came round. +<a id="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></a> +Miriam looked back up the slope still cruelly +empty, and round again to see the men seated, +gliding off, lessening. Their caps vanished +below the level of the ridge. And now the +upward slope held a single small toboggan +coming headlong. Daphne had made the run +alone. +</p> + +<p> +“How <em>dare</em> you let him go?” +</p> + +<p> +Miriam moved forward surprised by her +own approach. Her mind was filled with the +simple selfish truth. The wrath-blazing eyes +saw it, recognised her for what she was and +turned away to the wastes of snow: +</p> + +<p> +“Eaden, my Eaden ... I shall <em>never</em> see +him again.” Tears flowed from the wide eyes +and swiftly down the face so little convulsed +by grief that bent her, standing there with +arms sideways out as if to save her from falling, +to keep her upright, facing her loss, fists +clenched to fight her woe. Of themselves +Miriam’s arms reached forth to stay the torment. +</p> + +<p> +Incredibly Daphne was clinging, sobbing +with hidden face: “Do you love me—do you +love me?” She held her without speaking, +<a id="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></a> +silenced while still the broken voice went on, by +the sense of being carried forward into a world +known only by hearsay and that now was +giving forth all about them in the stillness its +ethereal sounds—sounds she had sometimes +felt within a gentle wind. +</p> + +<p> +Daphne’s head was raised and her flushed +face busy in eager speech as they went forward +together over the snow. When presently she +assured her that one day Eaden would come +back, the child pulled upon her arm and spoke +in a new way of her new love. She spoke no +more of Eaden, walking sturdily uphill, eagerly +talking, sunned for a while in humble helpless +love that soon must be removed. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> + +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +With Eaden’s departure holding Vereker +away until to-morrow and Mrs. Harcourt disappeared +upstairs with all those who sought +sleep and early rising, the hotel was empty, +strange again and going its independent way +as on the day of her arrival. The presence of +<a id="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></a> +Guerini hidden away in the little salon where +daily he had spent his unimaginable evening +of a Milan business man on holiday, increased +its emptiness, made it as desolate as the world +of his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +He must have learned something in seeing +her evening after evening—not in the least +goloshy in her blue gown of many colours—seated +on the crimson stairs between the two +Englishmen, in seeing discussion prevail over +personalities; new world for him of men +seeking, without sentimental emotion, without +polite contempt, conversation with a woman. +Had any light dawned in him? Would he +show any grace of dawning light? +</p> + +<p> +She went into the little salon and there he +was, rising to greet her, with the look of a man +penned within an office, the look upon his low +Italian brow of worry left over from his daily +life. He looked common too, common and +ordinary—she wondered now that she could +ever have mistaken him for a musician wandered +from Russia. But beside the pathetic +appeal of his commonness, supporting it, was +the appeal of his disarray, his obvious gladness +<a id="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></a> +and relief, like Michael coming back after a last, +final explanation and dismissal, saying impenitently: +“You whipped me yesterday, to-day +you must not whip.” He was extraordinarily +like Michael in his belief in the +essential irrelevance of anything a woman may +say. +</p> + +<p> +It was his last evening in Oberland and the +first time they had found themselves alone +together since the afternoons in the snowfields +that were now so clearly in his mind as he +stood still turning over those hopeless little +old Swiss books, but turned towards her as she +ensconced herself in the chair from which so +long ago she had watched Vereker at the +piano. Yet their life together had gone on. +The grim little room was full of it. +</p> + +<p> +Again she had that haunting sense of being +a collection of persons living in a world of +people always single and the same. Mrs. +Harcourt, she reflected as she said the books +were like faded flowers, was fastidiously selective +and always one person, one unfaltering +aspect. Vereker, Eaden, all the others. Yet +the lives she lived with each one were sharply +<a id="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></a> +separated lives, separable parts of herself, +incompatible. The life she lived with Guerini, +beginning unconsciously that first evening +when he had turned upon her throughout +dinner his brown stare, hurrying forward during +their afternoons in the snow, ending with +their quarrel, begun again with the reproachful +gaze he had sent across the table on the evening +of her truancy, had persisted during the +intervening time and was now marching off +afresh on its separate way. +</p> + +<p> +It was clear that these close questionings +held not only the remains of his surprise over +the nature of the things that had separated +them but also his determination to try to see +these things as she saw them. They revealed +much pondering, not over the things in themselves +but over their power with her, and +presently it was clear that he meant to see her +again. She sat ensconced, considering him, +measuring the slow movement of his thoughts, +the swiftness of the impressions he was drawing +from his attention to every inflection of her +voice. +</p> + +<p> +She knew she ought to go, that she was +<a id="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></a> +building up with every moment she stayed in +the room a false relationship. The cordiality +of her voice, its dreamy animation, was not +for him nor made by him. It told its tale to +her alone. His talk of London had taken her +thoughts there and she saw it afar, vivid with +charmed and charming people. For the first +time she was seeing London as people whose +secret had revealed itself during this last two +weeks, and was at this moment beginning +consistently to live her life there as in future +it would be lived, as she had lived it, but +unconsciously and only intermittently, during +the past year. +</p> + +<p> +This man appealed, she realised it now, from +the first to a person who no longer existed, to +a loneliness that during the past years had +been moving away from her life. It was only +in its moving that she had realised its existence. +This man saw her still as lonely and +resourceless; and also as interesting, something +new in his narrow experience. He too +was lonely, had an empty life, in the busy +business man’s way of having an empty life: +no centre and a lonely leisure. And he was +<a id="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></a> +more than half bent on offering her the chance +that so often in the past had been at her +elbow, of pretending herself into a single settled +existence, a single world, safe. Even now it +was a temptation. But it was the Italian +background that was the real temptation. +As soon as he talked of settling himself in +London he was lessened, and the temptation +disappeared. Life as a single conversation +in a single place with the rest of the world +going by might seem possible when thought of +in all the newness of Italy. In London it at +once fell into proportion and became absurd. +</p> + +<p> +In London was Hypo, held up, at any rate +saying he was held up, and not now so much +awaiting her decision as taking it for granted. +A big shadow, that might turn into sunshine. +A gleaming shadow that lost its brightness as +she faced it. And, behind it, a world that +perhaps took most of its glamour from this +uncertain shadow. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9"> +<a id="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></a> +CHAPTER IX +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">I</span><span class="postfirstchar">t</span> was an urgent tapping on the wall from +Mrs. Harcourt’s side, and she was +speaking as she tapped. With half-opened +eyes Miriam grew aware of darkness, half-darkness +of early morning, and listened through +the companion darkness within her of the +knowledge that this was her last whole day, +to this strange clamour from the lady whose +nightly presence at her side had been for so +long forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Look out of ve window!” +</p> + +<p> +Sitting up in bed she saw hanging in mid-air +just outside the window a huge crimson +lamp, circular in a blue darkness. Sleepily +she cried her thanks and leaped awake to +dwell with the strange spectacle, the gently +startling picture, in its sudden huge nearness, +of the loveliness of space. The little distant +moon, enormous and rosy in blue mist, seemed +<a id="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></a> +to float in the blue as in blue water, seemed to +have floated close in sheer unearthly kindliness, +to comfort her thoughts on this last day with +something new and strange. +</p> + +<p> +The day passed with heartless swiftness, +savourless. Full of charms whose spell failed +under the coming loss. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-10"> +<a id="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></a> +CHAPTER X +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">A</span><span class="postfirstchar">nd</span> for the last morning again a strange +surprise. Mountains and valley were +hidden behind impenetrable mist, even the +nearest objects were screened by the thickly +falling snow. Alpine winter tremendously at +work, holding her fascinated at windows downstairs, +upstairs; mighty preparation for the +beauty of days she would not see, robbing her +of farewell, putting farewell back into yesterday’s +superficial seeing which had not +known it was the last. +</p> + +<p> +But when she was forced to turn away to +her packing she found, within the light of this +veiled world that cast within doors a strange +dark brilliance, something of the London +gloom, and the enjoyment of a concentrated +activity that had always been one of the gifts +of a London fog. It was as if already she were +translated, good-byes said and the journey +<a id="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></a> +begun. The hours ahead became a superfluous +time, to be spent in a Switzerland whose +charm, since London had reached forth and +touched her, had fallen into its future place as +part of life: an embellishment, a golden joy +to which she would return. +</p> + +<p> +And when she saw the guests assembled at +lunch in full strength it was as though having +left them for good she returned for a moment +to find them immersed in a life to which she +was a stranger. Confined by the weather, +they had produced the pile of letters waiting +in the lounge and were now rejoicing in unison +over the snowfall. In speech and silence each +one revealed himself, but as a dream-revival +of someone known long ago; and in the dream +it was again as on that first evening when she +had sat a listening outsider, fearing and hoping +to be drawn in, and again it was Mrs. Harcourt +who, when her association with these +people was seeming to be a vain thing cancelled, +drew her in with a question. +</p> + +<p> +The short hour expanded. Once more she +was caught into the medium of their social +vision, into the radiance that would shine +<a id="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></a> +unchanged when she was gone and was the +secret of English social life and could, if it +were revealed to every human soul, be the +steering light of human life throughout the +world. These people were the fore-runners, +free to be almost as nice as they desired. +</p> + +<p> +And then, with the suddenness of a rapid +river, her coming freedom flowed in upon her, +carrying her outside this pleasant enclosure +towards all that could be felt to the full only +in solitude amongst things whose being was +complete, towards that reality of life that +withdrew at the sounding of a human voice. +</p> + +<p> +It was already from a far distance that, alone +with her upon the landing, she promised Mrs. +Harcourt remembrance and letters, said good-bye +and saw once more her first diffident +eagerness; felt that it was she, withdrawn +since the first days, who had yet lived her life +with her, transferred something of her being +into the gathered memories and would keep +them alive, keep the mountain scene in sight +near at hand. +</p> + +<p> +Alone in her room still thinking of Mrs. +Harcourt, she remembered from “Ships that +<a id="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></a> +Pass in the Night” how on the last day all but +one person had forgotten the departing guest. +</p> + +<p> +Then in getting up from lunch she had seen +them all, unknowing, for the last time—as +yesterday the mountains. For all these people +hidden away in their rooms, immersed in +their own affairs, she was already a figure slid +away and forgotten. With the paying of +Frau Knigge’s bill her last link with the Alpenstock +had been snapped. +</p> + +<p> +But when the coach-horn sounded and she +went down into the hall, there they all were, +gathering round, seeing her off. Hurriedly, +with the door open upon the falling snow and +the clashing of sleighbells, she clasped for the +first time strange and friendly hands, saw, in +eyes met full and near, welcome from worlds +she had not entered. Beside the door she +met Daphne forgotten, who clutched and drew +her back into the window space for desperate +clinging, and entreaties sounding lest for this +new slow-witted lover the searching gaze +should not be enough. +</p> + +<p> +It was not until she was inside the dark coach +and its occupants had thanked heaven she was +<a id="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></a> +English and let down a window, that she +remembered Vereker. He alone had made no +farewell. +</p> + +<p> +The coach pulled up outside the post-office +and there he stood in the driving snow, and +all the way down the valley she saw them one +by one and saw him standing in great-coat and +woollen helmet, heard his elegant light distressful +voice begging her to come out next year. +</p> + +<p> +And brighter now than the setting they had +charmed was the glow these people had left +in her heart. They had changed the aspect of +life, given it the promise of their gentle humanity, +given her a frail link with themselves and +their kind. +</p> + +<p> +She climbed into a carriage whose four +corners were occupied and sat down to the +great journeying. +</p> + +<p> +“History repeats itself.” +</p> + +<p> +Looking up she found all about her the +family from Croydon, met the father’s quizzical +brown eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Had a farewell kick-up at our place last +night. We’re feeling the effects. <em>You</em> look +very fit. Enjoyed yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></a> +“I’ve had a splendid time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You collared the handsomest man in Oberland +anyhow—that young giant of a Russian.” +</p> + +<p> +“Italian.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless my soul! Hear that, Doris?” +</p> + +<p> +“We were up till <em>fave</em> this morning,” said +Doris. +</p> + +<p> +The train moved off, but only Doris, once +more grown-up with her hair in a staid bun +under her English winter hat, turned to watch +the station disappear. +</p> + +<p> +“Want to go back, Doris?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah love,” she breathed devoutly, “could +thou and aye with feete conspire——” +</p> + +<p> +Miriam joined the sister in intoning the rest +of the lines. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah Moon——” began Doris, and the +brother leaned forward holding towards her a +gloved hand whose thumb protruded through +a fraying gap: +</p> + +<p> +“A little job for you in Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +She regarded it undisturbed and turned +away the scornful sweetness of her face towards +the window and the snowflakes falling thickly +upon the shroud of snow. +</p> + +<div class="trnote chapter"> +<p class="transnote"> +Transcriber’s Notes +</p> + +<p> +The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors +were silently corrected. Further careful corrections, some after consulting +other editions, are listed here (before/after): +</p> + + + +<ul> + +<li> +... “Schön, die letzte <span class="underline">Gluh</span>,” he said quietly. ...<br> +... “Schön, die letzte <a href="#corr-0"><span class="underline">Glüh</span></a>,” he said quietly. ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... “Man soll sich des Leben<span class="underline">’</span>s freuen, im Berg ...<br> +... “Man soll sich des Leben<a href="#corr-1"></a>s freuen, im Berg ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... und Thal. In so <span class="underline">wass</span> kann sich ein’ Engländerin ...<br> +... und Thal. In so <a href="#corr-2"><span class="underline">was</span></a> kann sich ein’ Engländerin ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... his own path from which <span class="underline">his</span> tacit meeting ...<br> +... his own path from which <a href="#corr-6"><span class="underline">this</span></a> tacit meeting ...<br> +</li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77646 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77646-h/images/cover.jpg b/77646-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..08c7e55 --- /dev/null +++ b/77646-h/images/cover.jpg |
