Title: The eternal moment, and other stories
+Author: E. M. Forster
+Release date: February 7, 2024 [eBook #72890]
+ +Language: English
+ +Original publication: New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1928
+ +Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
+ +and Other Stories
+ +By E. M. FORSTER
+ +New York
+ +HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY
+ +COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY
+HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
+QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC.
+RAHWAY, N. J.
To
+T. E.
+IN THE ABSENCE
+OF ANYTHING ELSE
These stories were written at various dates previous to 1914, and +represent, together with those in the CELESTIAL OMNIBUS volume, all +that I am likely to accomplish in a particular line. Much has happened +since; transport has been disorganised, frontiers rectified on the +map and in the spirit, and under the mass-shock of facts Fantasy has +tended to retreat or at all events to dig herself in. She can be +caught in the open here by those who care to catch her. She flits over +the scenes of Italian and English holidays, or wings her way with +even less justification towards the countries of the future. She or +he. For Fantasy, though often a lady, sometimes resembles a man, and +even functions for Hermes who used to do the smaller behests of the +godsâmessenger, machine-breaker, and conductor of souls to a not too +terrible hereafter.
+ +One of the stories appeared in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY and is reprinted +by courtesy of its editor; the rest, as far as I know, have never been +published in America.
+ + +| THE MACHINE STOPS |
| THE POINT OF IT |
| MR. ANDREWS |
| CO-ORDINATION |
| THE STORY OF THE SIREN |
| THE ETERNAL MOMENT |
Part I
+ +THE AIR-SHIP
+ +Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of +a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled +with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the +air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment +that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. +An arm-chair is in the centre, by its side a reading-deskâthat is +all the furniture. And in the arm-chair there sits a swaddled lump of +fleshâa woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. +It is to her that the little room belongs.
+ +An electric bell rang.
+ +The woman touched a switch and the music was silent.
+ +"I suppose I must see who it is," she thought, and set her chair in +motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery, and it +rolled her to the other side of the room, where the bell still rang +importunately.
+ +"Who is it?" she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been +interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand +people; in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.
+ +But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into +smiles, and she said:
+ +"Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect +anything important will happen for the next five minutesâfor I can +give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on +'Music during the Australian Period.'"
+ +She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to +her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was +plunged into darkness.
+ +"Be quick!" she called, her irritation returning. "Be quick, Kuno; here +I am in the dark wasting my time."
+ +But it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she +held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, +darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, +who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.
+ +"Kuno, how slow you are."
+ +He smiled gravely.
+ +"I really believe you enjoy dawdling."
+ +"I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or +isolated. I have something particular to say."
+ +"What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by +pneumatic post?"
+ +"Because I prefer saying such a thing. I wantââ"
+ +"Well?"
+ +"I want you to come and see me."
+ +Vashti watched his face in the blue plate.
+ +"But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?"
+ +"I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to +speak to you not through the wearisome Machine."
+ +"Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn't say anything +against the Machine."
+ +"Why not?"
+ +"One mustn't."
+ +"You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I +believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not +forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not +everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see +you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not +hear you. That is why I want you to come. Come and stop with me. Pay +me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes +that are in my mind."
+ +She replied that she could scarcely spare the time for a visit.
+ +"The air-ship barely takes two days to fly between me and you."
+ +"I dislike air-ships."
+ +"Why?"
+ +"I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars +when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air-ship."
+ +"I do not get them anywhere else."
+ +"What kind of ideas can the air give you?"
+ +He paused for an instant.
+ +"Do you not know four big stars that form an oblong, and three stars +close together in the middle of the oblong, and hanging from these +stars, three other stars?"
+ +"No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How +interesting; tell me."
+ +"I had an idea that they were like a man."
+ +"I do not understand."
+ +"The four big stars are the man's shoulders and his knees. The three +stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the +three stars hanging are like a sword."
+ +"A sword?"
+ +"Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men."
+ +"It does not strike me as a very good idea, but it is certainly +original. When did it come to you first?"
+ +"In the air-shipââ" He broke off, and she fancied that he looked +sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not transmit nuances +of expression. It only gave a general idea of peopleâan idea that +was good enough for all practical purposes, Vashti thought. The +imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the +actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine, just +as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers +of artificial fruit. Something "good enough" had long since been +accepted by our race.
+ +"The truth is," he continued, "that I want to see these stars again. +They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but +from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of +years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth."
+ +She was shocked again.
+ +"Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of +visiting the surface of the earth."
+ +"No harm," she replied, controlling herself. "But no advantage. The +surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and +you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill +you. One dies immediately in the outer air."
+ +"I know; of course I shall take all precautions."
+ +"And besidesââ"
+ +"Well?"
+ +She considered, and chose her words with care. Her son had a queer +temper, and she wished to dissuade him from the expedition.
+ +"It is contrary to the spirit of the age," she asserted.
+ +"Do you mean by that, contrary to the Machine?"
+ +"In a sense, butââ"
+ +His image in the blue plate faded.
+ +"Kuno!"
+ +He had isolated himself.
+ +For a moment Vashti felt lonely.
+ +Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with +radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were +buttons and switches everywhereâbuttons to call for food, for music, +for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a +basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim +with a warm deodorised liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There +was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the +buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though +it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the +world.
+ +Vashti's next move was to turn off the isolation-switch, and all the +accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was +filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new +food like? Could she recommend it? Had she had any ideas lately? Might +one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the +public nurseries at an early date?âsay this day month.
+ +To most of these questions she replied with irritationâa growing +quality in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was +horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press +of engagements. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been +told oneâthat four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she +doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, +for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music.
+ +The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; +neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in +her arm-chair she spoke, while they in their arm-chairs heard her, +fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous +account of music in the pre-Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe +the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote +and primĂŚval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, +she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musician of +today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas.
+ +Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its +conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the +sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a +respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to many friends, +had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.
+ +The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling +for a small bed. Complaint was useless, for beds were of the same +dimension all over the world, and to have had an alternative size +would have involved vast alterations in the Machine. Vashti isolated +herselfâit was necessary, for neither day nor night existed under the +groundâand reviewed all that had happened since she had summoned the +bed last. Ideas? Scarcely any. Eventsâwas Kuno's invitation an event?
+ +By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages +of litterâone book. This was the Book of the Machine. In it were +instructions against every possible contingency. If she was hot or +cold or dyspeptic or at loss for a word, she went to the book, and it +told her which button to press. The Central Committee published it. In +accordance with a growing habit, it was richly bound.
+ +Sitting up in the bed, she took it reverently in her hands. She glanced +round the glowing room as if some one might be watching her. Then, half +ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine! O Machine!" and raised +the volume to her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, +thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual performed, +she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the departure of the +air-ships from the island in the southern hemisphere, under whose soil +she lived, to the island in the northern hemisphere, whereunder lived +her son.
+ +She thought, "I have not the time."
+ +She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; +she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music +and attended lectures; she made the room dark and slept. Above her, +beneath her, and around her, the Machine hummed eternally; she did not +notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears. The earth, +carrying her, hummed as it sped through silence, turning her now to the +invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She awoke and made the room +light.
+ +"Kuno!"
+ +"I will not talk to you," he answered, "until you come."
+ +"Have you been on the surface of the earth since we spoke last?"
+ +His image faded.
+ +Again she consulted the book. She became very nervous and lay back +in her chair palpitating. Think of her as without teeth or hair. +Presently she directed the chair to the wall, and pressed an unfamiliar +button. The wall swung apart slowly. Through the opening she saw a +tunnel that curved slightly, so that its goal was not visible. Should +she go to see her son, here was the beginning of the journey.
+ +Of course she knew all about the communication-system. There was +nothing mysterious in it. She would summon a car and it would fly with +her down the tunnel until it reached the lift that communicated with +the air-ship station: the system had been in use for many, many years, +long before the universal establishment of the Machine. And of course +she had studied the civilisation that had immediately preceded her +ownâthe civilisation that had mistaken the functions of the system, +and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing +things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air +instead of changing the air in their rooms! And yetâshe was frightened +of the tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. It +curvedâbut not quite as she remembered; it was brilliantâbut not +quite as brilliant as a lecturer had suggested. Vashti was seized with +the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and +the wall closed up again.
+ +"Kuno," she said, "I cannot come to see you. I am not well."
+ +Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling, a +thermometer was automatically inserted between her lips, a stethoscope +was automatically laid upon her heart. She lay powerless. Cool pads +soothed her forehead. Kuno had telegraphed to her doctor.
+ +So the human passions still blundered up and down in the Machine. +Vashti drank the medicine that the doctor projected into her mouth, and +the machinery retired into the ceiling. The voice of Kuno was heard +asking how she felt.
+ +"Better." Then with irritation: "But why do you not come to me +instead?"
+ +"Because I cannot leave this place."
+ +"Why?"
+ +"Because, any moment, something tremendous may happen."
+ +"Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?"
+ +"Not yet."
+ +"Then what is it?"
+ +"I will not tell you through the Machine."
+ +She resumed her life.
+ +But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public +nurseries, her one visit to him there, his visits to herâvisits which +stopped when the Machine had assigned him a room on the other side of +the earth. "Parents, duties of," said the book of the Machine, "cease +at the moment of birth. P. 422327483." True, but there was something +special about Kunoâindeed there had been something special about +all her childrenâand, after all, she must brave the journey if he +desired it. And "something tremendous might happen." What did that +mean? The nonsense of a youthful man, no doubt, but she must go. Again +she pressed the unfamiliar button, again the wall swung back, and she +saw the tunnel that curved out of sight. Clasping the Book, she rose, +tottered on to the platform, and summoned the car. Her room closed +behind her: the journey to the northern hemisphere had begun.
+ +Of course it was perfectly easy. The car approached and in it she +found arm-chairs exactly like her own. When she signalled, it stopped, +and she tottered into the lift. One other passenger was in the lift, +the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months. Few +travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the +earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the +previous civilisation had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. +What was the good of going to Pekin when it was just like Shrewsbury? +Why return to Shrewsbury when it would be just like Pekin? Men seldom +moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.
+ +The air-ship service was a relic from the former age. It was kept up, +because it was easier to keep it up than to stop it or to diminish +it, but it now far exceeded the wants of the population. Vessel after +vessel would rise from the vomitories of Rye or of Christchurch (I use +the antique names), would sail into the crowded sky, and would draw up +at the wharves of the southâempty. So nicely adjusted was the system, +so independent of meteorology, that the sky, whether calm or cloudy, +resembled a vast kaleidoscope whereon the same patterns periodically +recurred. The ship on which Vashti sailed started now at sunset, now +at dawn. But always, as it passed above Rheims, it would neighbour the +ship that served between Helsingfors and the Brazils, and, every third +time it surmounted the Alps, the fleet of Palermo would cross its track +behind. Night and day, wind and storm, tide and earthquake, impeded man +no longer. He had harnessed Leviathan. All the old literature, with its +praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature, rang false as the prattle of +a child.
+ +Yet as Vashti saw the vast flank of the ship, stained with exposure +to the outer air, her horror of direct experience returned. It was +not quite like the air-ship in the cinematophote. For one thing it +smeltânot strongly or unpleasantly, but it did smell, and with her +eyes shut she should have known that a new thing was close to her. Then +she had to walk to it from the lift, had to submit to glances from the +other passengers. The man in front dropped his Bookâno great matter, +but it disquieted them all. In the rooms, if the Book was dropped, the +floor raised it mechanically, but the gangway to the air-ship was not +so prepared, and the sacred volume lay motionless. They stoppedâthe +thing was unforeseenâand the man, instead of picking up his property, +felt the muscles of his arm to see how they had failed him. Then some +one actually said with direct utterance: "We shall be late"âand they +trooped on board, Vashti treading on the pages as she did so.
+ +Inside, her anxiety increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and +rough. There was even a female attendant, to whom she would have to +announce her wants during the voyage. Of course a revolving platform +ran the length of the boat, but she was expected to walk from it to her +cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the +best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and spasms of rage +shook her. The glass valves had closed, she could not go back. She saw, +at the end of the vestibule, the lift in which she had ascended going +quietly up and down, empty. Beneath those corridors of shining tiles +were rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth, and in each +room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. +And buried deep in the hive was her own room. Vashti was afraid.
+ +"O Machine! O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was +comforted.
+ +Then the sides of the vestibule seemed to melt together, as do the +passages that we see in dreams, the lift vanished, the Book that had +been dropped slid to the left and vanished, polished tiles rushed +by like a stream of water, there was a slight jar, and the air-ship, +issuing from its tunnel, soared above the waters of a tropical ocean.
+ +It was night. For a moment she saw the coast of Sumatra edged by the +phosphorescence of waves, and crowned by lighthouses, still sending +forth their disregarded beams. These also vanished, and only the +stars distracted her. They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro +above her head, thronging out of one skylight into another, as if the +universe and not the air-ship was careening. And, as often happens on +clear nights, they seemed now to be in perspective, now on a plane; +now piled tier beyond tier into the infinite heavens, now concealing +infinity, a roof limiting for ever the visions of men. In either case +they seemed intolerable. "Are we to travel in the dark?" called the +passengers angrily, and the attendant, who had been careless, generated +the light, and pulled down the blinds of pliable metal. When the +air-ships had been built, the desire to look direct at things still +lingered in the world. Hence the extraordinary number of skylights and +windows, and the proportionate discomfort to those who were civilised +and refined. Even in Vashti's cabin one star peeped through a flaw in +the blind, and after a few hours' uneasy slumber, she was disturbed by +an unfamiliar glow, which was the dawn.
+ +Quick as the ship had sped westwards, the earth had rolled eastwards +quicker still, and had dragged back Vashti and her companions towards +the sun. Science could prolong the night, but only for a little, +and those high hopes of neutralising the earth's diurnal revolution +had passed, together with hopes that were possibly higher. To "keep +pace with the sun," or even to outstrip it, had been the aim of the +civilisation preceding this. Racing aeroplanes had been built for +the purpose, capable of enormous speed, and steered by the greatest +intellects of the epoch. Round the globe they went, round and round, +westward, westward, round and round, amidst humanity's applause. In +vain. The globe went eastward quicker still, horrible accidents +occurred, and the Committee of the Machine, at the time rising into +prominence, declared the pursuit illegal, unmechanical, and punishable +by Homelessness.
+ +Of Homelessness more will be said later.
+ +Doubtless the Committee was right. Yet the attempt to "defeat the sun" +aroused the last common interest that our race experienced about the +heavenly bodies, or indeed about anything. It was the last time that +men were compacted by thinking of a power outside the world. The sun +had conquered, yet it was the end of his spiritual dominion. Dawn, +midday, twilight, the zodiacal path, touched neither men's lives nor +their hearts, and science retreated into the ground, to concentrate +herself upon problems that she was certain of solving.
+ +So when Vashti found her cabin invaded by a rosy finger of light, +she was annoyed, and tried to adjust the blind. But the blind flew +up altogether, and she saw through the skylight small pink clouds, +swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept higher, its +radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. It +rose and fell with the air-ship's motion, just as waves rise and fall, +but it advanced steadily, as a tide advances. Unless she was careful, +it would strike her face. A spasm of horror shook her and she rang +for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do +nothing; it was not her place to mend the blind. She could only suggest +that the lady should change her cabin, which she accordingly prepared +to do.
+ +People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant +of the air-ship, perhaps owing to her exceptional duties, had grown +a little out of the common. She had often to address passengers +with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and +originality of manner. When Vashti swerved away from the sunbeams with +a cry, she behaved barbaricallyâshe put out her hand to steady her.
+ +"How dare you!" exclaimed the passenger. "You forget yourself!"
+ +The woman was confused, and apologised for not having let her fall. +People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing +to the Machine.
+ +"Where are we now?" asked Vashti haughtily.
+ +"We are over Asia," said the attendant, anxious to be polite.
+ +"Asia?"
+ +"You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit +of calling places over which I pass by their unmechanical names."
+ +"Oh, I remember Asia. The Mongols came from it."
+ +"Beneath us, in the open air, stood a city that was once called Simla."
+ +"Have you ever heard of the Mongols and of the Brisbane school?"
+ +"No."
+ +"Brisbane also stood in the open air."
+ +"Those mountains to the rightâlet me show you them." She pushed back +a metal blind. The main chain of the Himalayas was revealed. "They were +once called the Roof of the World, those mountains."
+ +"What a foolish name!"
+ +"You must remember that, before the dawn of civilisation, they seemed +to be an impenetrable wall that touched the stars. It was supposed +that no one but the gods could exist above their summits. How we have +advanced, thanks to the Machine!"
+ +"How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" said Vashti.
+ +"How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" echoed the passenger +who had dropped his Book the night before, and who was standing in the +passage.
+ +"And that white stuff in the cracks?âwhat is it?"
+ +"I have forgotten its name."
+ +"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."
+ +The northern aspect of the Himalayas was in deep shadow: on the Indian +slope the sun had just prevailed. The forests had been destroyed +during the literature epoch for the purpose of making newspaper-pulp, +but the snows were awakening to their morning glory, and clouds still +hung on the breasts of Kinchinjunga. In the plain were seen the ruins +of cities, with diminished rivers creeping by their walls, and by the +sides of these were sometimes the signs of vomitories, marking the +cities of today. Over the whole prospect air-ships rushed, crossing and +intercrossing with incredible aplomb, and rising nonchalantly when +they desired to escape the perturbations of the lower atmosphere and to +traverse the Roof of the World.
+ +"We have indeed advanced, thanks to the Machine," repeated the +attendant, and hid the Himalayas behind a metal blind.
+ +The day dragged wearily forward. The passengers sat each in his cabin, +avoiding one another with an almost physical repulsion and longing to +be once more under the surface of the earth. There were eight or ten of +them, mostly young males, sent out from the public nurseries to inhabit +the rooms of those who had died in various parts of the earth. The man +who had dropped his Book was on the homeward journey. He had been sent +to Sumatra for the purpose of propagating the race. Vashti alone was +travelling by her private will.
+ +At midday she took a second glance at the earth. The air-ship was +crossing another range of mountains, but she could see little, owing to +clouds. Masses of black rock hovered below her, and merged indistinctly +into grey. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them resembled a +prostrate man.
+ +"No ideas here," murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metal +blind.
+ +In the evening she looked again. They were crossing a golden sea, in +which lay many small islands and one peninsula.
+ +She repeated, "No ideas here," and hid Greece behind a metal blind.
+ +Part II
+ +THE MENDING APPARATUS
+ +By a vestibule, by a lift, by a tubular railway, by a platform, by a +sliding doorâby reversing all the steps of her departure did Vashti +arrive at her son's room, which exactly resembled her own. She might +well declare that the visit was superfluous. The buttons, the knobs, +the reading-desk with the Book, the temperature, the atmosphere, the +illuminationâall were exactly the same. And if Kuno himself, flesh of +her flesh, stood close beside her at last, what profit was there in +that? She was too well-bred to shake him by the hand.
+ +Averting her eyes, she spoke as follows:
+ +"Here I am. I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded +the development of my soul. It is not worth it, Kuno, it is not worth +it. My time is too precious. The sunlight almost touched me, and I have +met with the rudest people. I can only stop a few minutes. Say what +you want to say, and then I must return."
+ +"I have been threatened with Homelessness," said Kuno.
+ +She looked at him now.
+ +"I have been threatened with Homelessness, and I could not tell you +such a thing through the Machine."
+ +Homelessness means death. The victim is exposed to the air, which kills +him.
+ +"I have been outside since I spoke to you last. The tremendous thing +has happened, and they have discovered me."
+ +"But why shouldn't you go outside!" she exclaimed. "It is perfectly +legal, perfectly mechanical, to visit the surface of the earth. I have +lately been to a lecture on the sea; there is no objection to that; one +simply summons a respirator and gets an Egression-permit. It is not the +kind of thing that spiritually-minded people do, and I begged you not +to do it, but there is no legal objection to it."
+ +"I did not get an Egression-permit."
+ +"Then how did you get out?"
+ +"I found out a way of my own."
+ +The phrase conveyed no meaning to her, and he had to repeat it.
+ +"A way of your own?" she whispered. "But that would be wrong."
+ +"Why?"
+ +The question shocked her beyond measure.
+ +"You are beginning to worship the Machine," he said coldly. "You think +it irreligious of me to have found out a way of my own. It was just +what the Committee thought, when they threatened me with Homelessness."
+ +At this she grew angry. "I worship nothing!" she cried. "I am most +advanced. I don't think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as +religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed once have +been destroyed by the Machine. I only meant that to find out a way of +your own wasââBesides, there is no new way out."
+ +"So it is always supposed."
+ +"Except through the vomitories, for which one must have an +Egression-permit, it is impossible to get out. The Book says so."
+ +"Well, the Book's wrong, for I have been out on my feet."
+ +For Kuno was possessed of a certain physical strength.
+ +By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was +examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. +Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to +let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of +life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for +trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he +might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must +he not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount +Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the +Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine +may progress eternally.
+ +"You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say 'space is +annihilated,' but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. +We have lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I +began by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my +room. Up and down, until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning +of 'Near' and 'Far.' 'Near' is a place to which I can get quickly on +my feet, not a place to which the train or the air-ship will take me +quickly. 'Far' is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet; +the vomitory is 'far,' though I could be there in thirty-eight seconds +by summoning the train. Man is the measure. That was my first lesson. +Man's feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure +for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and +desirable and strong. Then I went further: it was then that I called to +you for the first time, and you would not come.
+ +"This city, as you know, is built deep beneath the surface of the +earth, with only the vomitories protruding. Having paced the platform +outside my own room, I took the lift to the next platform and paced +that also, and so with each in turn, until I came to the topmost, above +which begins the earth. All the platforms were exactly alike, and all +that I gained by visiting them was to develop my sense of space and +my muscles. I think I should have been content with thisâit is not a +little thingâbut as I walked and brooded, it occurred to me that our +cities had been built in the days when men still breathed the outer +air, and that there had been ventilation shafts for the workmen. I +could think of nothing but these ventilation shafts. Had they been +destroyed by all the food-tubes and medicine-tubes and music-tubes +that the Machine has evolved lately? Or did traces of them remain? One +thing was certain. If I came upon them anywhere, it would be in the +railway-tunnels of the topmost story. Everywhere else, all space was +accounted for.
+ +"I am telling my story quickly, but don't think that I was not a coward +or that your answers never depressed me. It is not the proper thing, it +is not mechanical, it is not decent to walk along a railway-tunnel. +I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I +feared something far more intangibleâdoing what was not contemplated +by the Machine. Then I said to myself, 'Man is the measure,' and I +went, and after many visits I found an opening.
+ +"The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial +light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the +tiles, I knew that it was an exception, and rejoiced. I put in my +armâI could put in no more at firstâand waved it round and round +in ecstasy. I loosened another tile, and put in my head, and shouted +into the darkness: 'I am coming, I shall do it yet,' and my voice +reverberated down endless passages. I seemed to hear the spirits of +those dead workmen who had returned each evening to the starlight and +to their wives, and all the generations who had lived in the open air +called back to me, 'You will do it yet, you are coming.'"
+ +He paused, and, absurd as he was, his last words moved her. For Kuno +had lately asked to be a father, and his request had been refused by +the Committee. His was not a type that the Machine desired to hand on.
+ +"Then a train passed. It brushed by me, but I thrust my head and arms +into the hole. I had done enough for one day, so I crawled back to the +platform, went down in the lift, and summoned my bed. Ah, what dreams! +And again I called you, and again you refused."
+ +She shook her head and said:
+ +"Don't. Don't talk of these terrible things. You make me miserable. You +are throwing civilisation away."
+ +"But I had got back the sense of space and a man cannot rest then. +I determined to get in at the hole and climb the shaft. And so I +exercised my arms. Day after day I went through ridiculous movements, +until my flesh ached, and I could hang by my hands and hold the pillow +of my bed outstretched for many minutes. Then I summoned a respirator, +and started.
+ +"It was easy at first. The mortar had somehow rotted, and I soon pushed +some more tiles in, and clambered after them into the darkness, and the +spirits of the dead comforted me. I don't know what I mean by that. +I just say what I felt. I felt, for the first time, that a protest +had been lodged against corruption, and that even as the dead were +comforting me, so I was comforting the unborn. I felt that humanity +existed, and that it existed without clothes. How can I possibly +explain this? It was naked, humanity seemed naked, and all these tubes +and buttons and machineries neither came into the world with us, nor +will they follow us out, nor do they matter supremely while we are +here. Had I been strong, I would have torn off every garment I had, and +gone out into the outer air unswaddled. But this is not for me, nor +perhaps for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and my hygienic +clothes and my dietetic tabloids! Better thus than not at all.
+ +"There was a ladder, made of some primĂŚval metal. The light from the +railway fell upon its lowest rungs, and I saw that it led straight +upwards out of the rubble at the bottom of the shaft. Perhaps our +ancestors ran up and down it a dozen times daily, in their building. As +I climbed, the rough edges cut through my gloves so that my hands bled. +The light helped me for a little, and then came darkness and, worse +still, silence which pierced my ears like a sword. The Machine hums! +Did you know that? Its hum penetrates our blood, and may even guide our +thoughts. Who knows! I was getting beyond its power. Then I thought: +'This silence means that I am doing wrong.' But I heard voices in the +silence, and again they strengthened me." He laughed. "I had need of +them. The next moment I cracked my head against something."
+ +She sighed.
+ +"I had reached one of those pneumatic stoppers that defend us from +the outer air. You may have noticed them on the air-ship. Pitch dark, +my feet on the rungs of an invisible ladder, my hands cut; I cannot +explain how I lived through this part, but the voices still comforted +me, and I felt for fastenings. The stopper, I suppose, was about eight +feet across. I passed my hand over it as far as I could reach. It was +perfectly smooth. I felt it almost to the centre. Not quite to the +centre, for my arm was too short. Then the voice said: 'Jump. It is +worth it. There may be a handle in the centre, and you may catch hold +of it and so come to us your own way. And if there is no handle, so +that you may fall and are dashed to piecesâit is still worth it: you +will still come to us your own way.' So I jumped. There was a handle, +andââ"
+ +He paused. Tears gathered in his mother's eyes. She knew that he was +fated. If he did not die today he would die tomorrow. There was not +room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. +She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so +respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom +she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had +given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his +lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the +Machine can have no mercy.
+ +"There was a handle, and I did catch it. I hung tranced over the +darkness and heard the hum of these workings as the last whisper in +a dying dream. All the things I had cared about and all the people +I had spoken to through tubes appeared infinitely little. Meanwhile +the handle revolved. My weight had set something in motion and I span +slowly, and thenââ
+ +"I cannot describe it. I was lying with my face to the sunshine. Blood +poured from my nose and ears and I heard a tremendous roaring. The +stopper, with me clinging to it, had simply been blown out of the +earth, and the air that we make down here was escaping through the vent +into the air above. It burst up like a fountain. I crawled back to +itâfor the upper air hurtsâand, as it were, I took great sips from +the edge. My respirator had flown goodness knows where, my clothes +were torn. I just lay with my lips close to the hole, and I sipped +until the bleeding stopped. You can imagine nothing so curious. This +hollow in the grassâI will speak of it in a minute,âthe sun shining +into it, not brilliantly but through marbled clouds,âthe peace, the +nonchalance, the sense of space, and, brushing my cheek, the roaring +fountain of our artificial air! Soon I spied my respirator, bobbing +up and down in the current high above my head, and higher still were +many air-ships. But no one ever looks out of air-ships, and in my case +they could not have picked me up. There I was, stranded. The sun shone +a little way down the shaft, and revealed the topmost rung of the +ladder, but it was hopeless trying to reach it. I should either have +been tossed up again by the escape, or else have fallen in, and died. I +could only lie on the grass, sipping and sipping, and from time to time +glancing around me.
+ +"I knew that I was in Wessex, for I had taken care to go to a lecture +on the subject before starting. Wessex lies above the room in which +we are talking now. It was once an important state. Its kings held +all the southern coast from the Andredswald to Cornwall, while the +Wansdyke protected them on the north, running over the high ground. The +lecturer was only concerned with the rise of Wessex, so I do not know +how long it remained an international power, nor would the knowledge +have assisted me. To tell the truth I could do nothing but laugh, +during this part. There was I, with a pneumatic stopper by my side and +a respirator bobbing over my head, imprisoned, all three of us, in a +grass-grown hollow that was edged with fern."
+ +Then he grew grave again.
+ +"Lucky for me that it was a hollow. For the air began to fall back into +it and to fill it as water fills a bowl. I could crawl about. Presently +I stood. I breathed a mixture, in which the air that hurts predominated +whenever I tried to climb the sides. This was not so bad. I had not +lost my tabloids and remained ridiculously cheerful, and as for the +Machine, I forgot about it altogether. My one aim now was to get to +the top, where the ferns were, and to view whatever objects lay beyond.
+ +"I rushed the slope. The new air was still too bitter for me and I came +rolling back, after a momentary vision of something grey. The sun grew +very feeble, and I remembered that he was in ScorpioâI had been to a +lecture on that too. If the sun is in Scorpio and you are in Wessex, it +means that you must be as quick as you can, or it will get too dark. +(This is the first bit of useful information I have ever got from a +lecture, and I expect it will be the last.) It made me try frantically +to breathe the new air, and to advance as far as I dared out of my +pond. The hollow filled so slowly. At times I thought that the fountain +played with less vigour. My respirator seemed to dance nearer the +earth; the roar was decreasing."
+ +He broke off.
+ +"I don't think this is interesting you. The rest will interest you even +less. There are no ideas in it, and I wish that I had not troubled you +to come. We are too different, mother."
+ +She told him to continue.
+ +"It was evening before I climbed the bank. The sun had very nearly +slipped out of the sky by this time, and I could not get a good view. +You, who have just crossed the Roof of the World, will not want to hear +an account of the little hills that I sawâlow colourless hills. But to +me they were living and the turf that covered them was a skin, under +which their muscles rippled, and I felt that those hills had called +with incalculable force to men in the past, and that men had loved +them. Now they sleepâperhaps for ever. They commune with humanity in +dreams. Happy the man, happy the woman, who awakes the hills of Wessex. +For though they sleep, they will never die."
+ +His voice rose passionately.
+ +"Cannot you see, cannot all your lecturers see, that it is we who are +dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the +Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it +do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the +sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down +love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and +now it compels us to worship it. The Machine developsâbut not on our +lines. The Machine proceedsâbut not to our goal. We only exist as the +blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work +without us, it would let us die. Oh, I have no remedyâor, at least, +only oneâto tell men again and again that I have seen the hills of +Wessex as Ălfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes.
+ +"So the sun set. I forgot to mention that a belt of mist lay between my +hill and other hills, and that it was the colour of pearl."
+ +He broke off for the second time.
+ +"Go on," said his mother wearily.
+ +He shook his head.
+ +"Go on. Nothing that you say can distress me now. I am hardened."
+ +"I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot: I know that I cannot: +good-bye."
+ +Vashti stood irresolute. All her nerves were tingling with his +blasphemies. But she was also inquisitive.
+ +"This is unfair," she complained. "You have called me across the +world to hear your story, and hear it I will. Tell meâas briefly as +possible, for this is a disastrous waste of timeâtell me how you +returned to civilisation."
+ +"Ohâthat!" he said, starting. "You would like to hear about +civilisation. Certainly. Had I got to where my respirator fell down?"
+ +"Noâbut I understand everything now. You put on your respirator, and +managed to walk along the surface of the earth to a vomitory, and there +your conduct was reported to the Central Committee."
+ +"By no means."
+ +He passed his hand over his forehead, as if dispelling some strong +impression. Then, resuming his narrative, he warmed to it again.
+ +"My respirator fell about sunset. I had mentioned that the fountain +seemed feebler, had I not."
+ +"Yes."
+ +"About sunset, it let the respirator fall. As I said, I had entirely +forgotten about the Machine, and I paid no great attention at the time, +being occupied with other things. I had my pool of air, into which I +could dip when the outer keenness became intolerable, and which would +possibly remain for days, provided that no wind sprang up to disperse +it. Not until it was too late, did I realize what the stoppage of the +escape implied. You seeâthe gap in the tunnel had been mended; the +Mending Apparatus; the Mending Apparatus, was after me.
+ +"One other warning I had, but I neglected it. The sky at night was +clearer than it had been in the day, and the moon, which was about +half the sky behind the sun, shone into the dell at moments quite +brightly. I was in my usual placeâon the boundary between the two +atmospheresâwhen I thought I saw something dark move across the +bottom of the dell, and vanish into the shaft. In my folly, I ran down. +I bent over and listened, and I thought I heard a faint scraping noise +in the depths.
+ +"At thisâbut it was too lateâI took alarm. I determined to put on my +respirator and to walk right out of the dell. But my respirator had +gone. I knew exactly where it had fallenâbetween the stopper and the +apertureâand I could even feel the mark that it had made in the turf. +It had gone, and I realized that something evil was at work, and I had +better escape to the other air, and, if I must die, die running towards +the cloud that had been the colour of a pearl. I never started. Out of +the shaftâit is too horrible. A worm, a long white worm, had crawled +out of the shaft and was gliding over the moonlit grass.
+ +"I screamed. I did everything that I should not have done, I stamped +upon the creature instead of flying from it, and it at once curled +round the ankle. Then we fought. The worm let me run all over the +dell, but edged up my leg as I ran. 'Help!' I cried. (That part is +too awful. It belongs to the part that you will never know.) 'Help!' +I cried. (Why cannot we suffer in silence?) 'Help!' I cried. Then my +feet were wound together, I fell, I was dragged away from the dear +ferns and the living hills, and past the great metal stopper (I can +tell you this part), and I thought it might save me again if I caught +hold of the handle. It also was enwrapped, it also. Oh, the whole dell +was full of the things. They were searching it in all directions, +they were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped out +of the hole, ready if needed. Everything that could be moved they +broughtâbrushwood, bundles of fern, everything, and down we all went +intertwined into hell. The last things that I saw, ere the stopper +closed after us, were certain stars, and I felt that a man of my sort +lived in the sky. For I did fight, I fought till the very end, and it +was only my head hitting against the ladder that quieted me. I woke up +in this room. The worms had vanished. I was surrounded by artificial +air, artificial light, artificial peace, and my friends were calling to +me down speaking-tubes to know whether I had come across any new ideas +lately."
+ +Here his story ended. Discussion of it was impossible, and Vashti +turned to go.
+ +"It will end in Homelessness," she said quietly.
+ +"I wish it would," retorted Kuno.
+ +"The Machine has been most merciful."
+ +"I prefer the mercy of God."
+ +"By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you could live in the +outer air?"
+ +"Yes."
+ +"Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were +extruded after the Great Rebellion?"
+ +"Yes."
+ +"They were left where they perished for our edification. A few crawled +away, but they perished, tooâwho can doubt it? And so with the +Homeless of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no +longer."
+ +"Indeed."
+ +"Ferns and a little grass may survive, but all higher forms have +perished. Has any air-ship detected them?"
+ +"No."
+ +"Has any lecturer dealt with them?"
+ +"No."
+ +"Then why this obstinacy?"
+ +"Because I have seen them," he exploded.
+ +"Seen what?"
+ +"Because I have seen her in the twilightâbecause she came to my help +when I calledâbecause she, too, was entangled by the worms, and, +luckier than I, was killed by one of them piercing her throat."
+ +He was mad. Vashti departed, nor, in the troubles that followed, did +she ever see his face again.
+ +Part III
+ +THE HOMELESS
+ +During the years that followed Kuno's escapade, two important +developments took place in the Machine. On the surface they were +revolutionary, but in either case men's minds had been prepared +beforehand, and they did but express tendencies that were latent +already.
+ +The first of these was the abolition of respirators.
+ +Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish to visit +the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was +the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a +mile or two in a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps +faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection +with the habits that really mattered. So respirators were abolished, +and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors, and except for a +few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their +subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly. Those who still +wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen +to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even the +lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was +none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that +had already been delivered on the same subject. "Beware of first-hand +ideas!" exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. "First-hand ideas +do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced +by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a +philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, +for then they will be far removed from that disturbing elementâdirect +observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mineâthe +French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought +Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought +Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French +Revolution. Through the medium of these eight great minds, the blood +that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles +will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in +your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and +varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. +Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must +myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are +in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. +Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they +will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be +added to the chain. And in time"âhis voice roseâ"there will come a +generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation +absolutely colourless, a generation
+ +which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they +would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it +taken place in the days of the Machine."
+ +Tremendous applause greeted this lecture, which did but voice a feeling +already latent in the minds of menâa feeling that terrestrial facts +must be ignored, and that the abolition of respirators was a positive +gain. It was even suggested that air-ships should be abolished too. +This was not done, because air-ships had somehow worked themselves +into the Machine's system. But year by year they were used less, and +mentioned less by thoughtful men.
+ +The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.
+ +This, too, had been voiced in the celebrated lecture. No one could +mistake the reverent tone in which the peroration had concluded, and +it awakened a responsive echo in the heart of each. Those who had long +worshipped silently, now began to talk. They described the strange +feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of the +Machine, the pleasure that it was to repeat certain numerals out of it, +however little meaning those numerals conveyed to the outward ear, the +ecstasy of touching a button, however unimportant, or of ringing an +electric bell, however superfluously.
+ +"The Machine," they exclaimed, "feeds us and clothes us and houses us; +through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in +it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy +of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the +Machine." And before long this allocution was printed on the first +page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into +a complicated system of praise and prayer. The word "religion" was +sedulously avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the creation +and the implement of man. But in practice all, save a few retrogrades, +worshipped it as divine. Nor was it worshipped in unity. One believer +would be chiefly impressed by the blue optic plates, through which he +saw other believers; another by the mending apparatus, which sinful +Kuno had compared to worms; another by the lifts, another by the Book. +And each would pray to this or to that, and ask it to intercede for +him with the Machine as a whole. Persecutionâthat also was present. +It did not break out, for reasons that will be set forward shortly. +But it was latent, and all who did not accept the minimum known as +"undenominational Mechanism" lived in danger of Homelessness, which +means death, as we know.
+ +To attribute these two great developments to the Central Committee, +is to take a very narrow view of civilisation. The Central Committee +announced the developments, it is true, but they were no more the cause +of them than were the kings of the imperialistic period the cause of +war. Rather did they yield to some invincible pressure, which came no +one knew whither, and which, when gratified, was succeeded by some +new pressure equally invincible. To such a state of affairs it is +convenient to give the name of progress. No one confessed the Machine +was out of hand. Year by year it was served with increased efficiency +and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own duties upon +it, the less he understood the duties of his neighbour, and in all the +world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole. Those +master brains had perished. They had left full directions, it is true, +and their successors had each of them mastered a portion of those +directions. But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached +itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and +complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to +mean the progress of the Machine.
+ +As for Vashti, her life went peacefully forward until the final +disaster. She made her room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room +light. She lectured and attended lectures. She exchanged ideas with her +innumerable friends and believed she was growing more spiritual. At +times a friend was granted Euthanasia, and left his or her room for +the homelessness that is beyond all human conception. Vashti did not +much mind. After an unsuccessful lecture, she would sometimes ask for +Euthanasia herself. But the death-rate was not permitted to exceed the +birth-rate, and the Machine had hitherto refused it to her.
+ +The troubles began quietly, long before she was conscious of them.
+ +One day she was astonished at receiving a message from her son. They +never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only heard +indirectly that he was still alive, and had been transferred from the +northern hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously, to the +southernâindeed, to a room not far from her own.
+ +"Does he want me to visit him?" she thought. "Never again, never. And I +have not the time."
+ +No, it was madness of another kind.
+ +He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and speaking out +of the darkness with solemnity said:
+ +"The Machine stops."
+ +"What do you say?"
+ +"The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs."
+ +She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they +spoke no more.
+ +"Can you imagine anything more absurd?" she cried to a friend. "A man +who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping. It would be +impious if it was not mad."
+ +"The Machine is stopping?" her friend replied. "What does that mean? +The phrase conveys nothing to me."
+ +"Nor to me."
+ +"He does not refer, I suppose, to the trouble there has been lately +with the music?"
+ +"Oh no, of course not. Let us talk about music."
+ +"Have you complained to the authorities?"
+ +"Yes, and they say it wants mending, and referred me to the Committee +of the Mending Apparatus. I complained of those curious gasping sighs +that disfigure the symphonies of the Brisbane school. They sound like +some one in pain. The Committee of the Mending Apparatus say that it +shall be remedied shortly."
+ +Obscurely worried, she resumed her life. For one thing, the defect in +the music irritated her. For another thing, she could not forget Kuno's +speech. If he had known that the music was out of repairâhe could not +know it, for he detested musicâif he had known that it was wrong, +"the Machine stops" was exactly the venomous sort of remark he would +have made. Of course he had made it at a venture, but the coincidence +annoyed her, and she spoke with some petulance to the Committee of the +Mending Apparatus.
+ +They replied, as before, that the defect would be set right shortly.
+ +"Shortly! At once!" she retorted. "Why should I be worried by imperfect +music? Things are always put right at once. If you do not mend it at +once, I shall complain to the Central Committee."
+ +"No personal complaints are received by the Central Committee," the +Committee of the Mending Apparatus replied.
+ +"Through whom am I to make my complaint, then?"
+ +"Through us."
+ +"I complain then."
+ +"Your complaint shall be forwarded in its turn."
+ +"Have others complained?"
+ +This question was unmechanical, and the Committee of the Mending +Apparatus refused to answer it.
+ +"It is too bad!" she exclaimed to another of her friends. "There never +was such an unfortunate woman as myself. I can never be sure of my +music now. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it."
+ +"I too have my troubles," the friend replied. "Sometimes my ideas are +interrupted by a slight jarring noise."
+ +"What is it?"
+ +"I do not know whether it is inside my head, or inside the wall."
+ +"Complain, in either case."
+ +"I have complained, and my complaint will be forwarded in its turn to +the Central Committee."
+ +Time passed, and they resented the defects no longer. The defects +had not been remedied, but the human tissues in that latter day had +become so subservient, that they readily adapted themselves to every +caprice of the Machine. The sigh at the crisis of the Brisbane symphony +no longer irritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody. +The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall, was no longer +resented by her friend. And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so +with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes +that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained +of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from +bad to worse unchallenged.
+ +It was otherwise with the failure of the sleeping apparatus. That +was a more serious stoppage. There came a day when over the whole +worldâin Sumatra, in Wessex, in the innumerable cities of Courland +and Brazilâthe beds, when summoned by their tired owners, failed +to appear. It may seem a ludicrous matter, but from it we may date +the collapse of humanity. The Committee responsible for the failure +was assailed by complainants, whom it referred, as usual, to the +Committee of the Mending Apparatus, who in its turn assured them that +their complaints would be forwarded to the Central Committee. But the +discontent grew, for mankind was not yet sufficiently adaptable to do +without sleeping.
+ +"Some one is meddling with the Machineââ" they began.
+ +"Some one is trying to make himself king, to reintroduce the personal +element."
+ +"Punish that man with Homelessness."
+ +"To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!"
+ +"War! Kill the man!"
+ +But the Committee of the Mending Apparatus now came forward, and +allayed the panic with well-chosen words. It confessed that the Mending +Apparatus was itself in need of repair.
+ +The effect of this frank confession was admirable.
+ +"Of course," said a famous lecturerâhe of the French Revolution, who +gilded each new decay with splendourâ"of course we shall not press our +complaints now. The Mending Apparatus has treated us so well in the +past that we all sympathize with it, and will wait patiently for its +recovery. In its own good time it will resume its duties. Meanwhile let +us do without our beds, our tabloids, our other little wants. Such, I +feel sure, would be the wish of the Machine."
+ +Thousands of miles away his audience applauded. The Machine still +linked them. Under the seas, beneath the roots of the mountains, ran +the wires through which they saw and heard, the enormous eyes and ears +that were their heritage, and the hum of many workings clothed their +thoughts in one garment of subserviency. Only the old and the sick +remained ungrateful, for it was rumoured that Euthanasia, too, was out +of order, and that pain had reappeared among men.
+ +It became difficult to read. A blight entered the atmosphere and dulled +its luminosity. At times Vashti could scarcely see across her room. The +air, too, was foul. Loud were the complaints, impotent the remedies, +heroic the tone of the lecturer as he cried: "Courage, courage! What +matter so long as the Machine goes on? To it the darkness and the +light are one." And though things improved again after a time, the old +brilliancy was never recaptured, and humanity never recovered from its +entrance into twilight. There was an hysterical talk of "measures," +of "provisional dictatorship," and the inhabitants of Sumatra were +asked to familiarize themselves with the workings of the central +power station, the said power station being situated in France. But +for the most part panic reigned, and men spent their strength praying +to their Books, tangible proofs of the Machine's omnipotence. There +were gradations of terrorâat times came rumours of hopeâthe Mending +Apparatus was almost mendedâthe enemies of the Machine had been got +underânew "nerve-centres" were evolving which would do the work even +more magnificently than before. But there came a day when, without the +slightest warning, without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire +communication-system broke down, all over the world, and the world, as +they understood it, ended.
+ +Vashti was lecturing at the time and her earlier remarks had been +punctuated with applause. As she proceeded the audience became silent, +and at the conclusion there was no sound. Somewhat displeased, she +called to a friend who was a specialist in sympathy. No sound: +doubtless the friend was sleeping. And so with the next friend whom +she tried to summon, and so with the next, until she remembered Kuno's +cryptic remark, "The Machine stops."
+ +The phrase still conveyed nothing. If Eternity was stopping it would of +course be set going shortly.
+ +For example, there was still a little light and airâthe atmosphere had +improved a few hours previously. There was still the Book, and while +there was the Book there was security.
+ +Then she broke down, for with the cessation of activity came an +unexpected terrorâsilence.
+ +She had never known silence, and the coming of it nearly killed +herâit did kill many thousands of people outright. Ever since her +birth she had been surrounded by the steady hum. It was to the ear +what artificial air was to the lungs, and agonizing pains shot across +her head. And scarcely knowing what she did, she stumbled forward and +pressed the unfamiliar button, the one that opened the door of her cell.
+ +Now the door of the cell worked on a simple hinge of its own. It was +not connected with the central power station, dying far away in France. +It opened, rousing immoderate hopes in Vashti, for she thought that the +Machine had been mended. It opened, and she saw the dim tunnel that +curved far away towards freedom. One look, and then she shrank back. +For the tunnel was full of peopleâshe was almost the last in that city +to have taken alarm.
+ +People at any time repelled her, and these were nightmares from her +worst dreams. People were crawling about, people were screaming, +whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other, vanishing in the +dark, and ever and anon being pushed off the platform on to the live +rail. Some were fighting round the electric bells, trying to summon +trains which could not be summoned. Others were yelling for Euthanasia +or for respirators, or blaspheming the Machine. Others stood at the +doors of their cells fearing, like herself, either to stop in them or +to leave them. And behind all the uproar was silenceâthe silence which +is the voice of the earth and of the generations who have gone.
+ +Noâit was worse than solitude. She closed the door again and sat +down to wait for the end. The disintegration went on, accompanied by +horrible cracks and rumbling. The valves that restrained the Medical +Apparatus must have been weakened, for it ruptured and hung hideously +from the ceiling. The floor heaved and fell and flung her from her +chair. A tube oozed towards her serpent fashion. And at last the final +horror approachedâlight began to ebb, and she knew that civilisation's +long day was closing.
+ +She whirled round, praying to be saved from this, at any rate, kissing +the Book, pressing button after button. The uproar outside was +increasing, and even penetrated the wall. Slowly the brilliancy of her +cell was dimmed, the reflections faded from her metal switches. Now +she could not see the reading-stand, now not the Book, though she held +it in her hand. Light followed the flight of sound, air was following +light, and the original void returned to the cavern from which it had +been so long excluded. Vashti continued to whirl, like the devotees of +an earlier religion, screaming, praying, striking at the buttons with +bleeding hands.
+ +It was thus that she opened her prison and escapedâescaped in the +spirit: at least so it seems to me, ere my meditation closes. That she +escapes in the bodyâI cannot perceive that. She struck, by chance, the +switch that released the door, and the rush of foul air on her skin, +the loud throbbing whispers in her ears, told her that she was facing +the tunnel again, and that tremendous platform on which she had seen +men fighting. They were not fighting now. Only the whispers remained, +and the little whimpering groans. They were dying by hundreds out in +the dark.
+ +She burst into tears.
+ +Tears answered her.
+ +They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not +bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their +hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. +Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, +man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength +on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the +garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and +here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, +shot with the colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. +And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so +long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is +his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin +against the bodyâit was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of +wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by +which we can alone apprehendâglozing it over with talk of evolution, +until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last +sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.
+ +"Where are you?" she sobbed.
+ +His voice in the darkness said, "Here."
+ +"Is there any hope, Kuno?"
+ +"None for us."
+ +"Where are you?"
+ +She crawled towards him over the bodies of the dead. His blood spurted +over her hands.
+ +"Quicker," he gasped, "I am dyingâbut we touch, we talk, not through +the Machine."
+ +He kissed her.
+ +"We have come back to our own. We die, but we have recaptured life, +as it was in Wessex, when Ălfrid overthrew the Danes. We know what +they know outside, they who dwelt in the cloud that is the colour of a +pearl."
+ +"But, Kuno, is it true? Are there still men on the surface of the +earth? Is thisâthis tunnel, this poisoned darknessâreally not the +end?"
+ +He replied:
+ +"I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them. They are hiding in the +mist and the ferns until our civilisation stops. Today they are the +Homelessâtomorrowââ"
+ +"Oh, tomorrowâsome fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow."
+ +"Never," said Kuno, "never. Humanity has learnt its lesson."
+ +As he spoke, the whole city was broken like a honeycomb. An air-ship +had sailed in through the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed +downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its +wings of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, +before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.
+ + +I
+ +"I don't see the point of it," said Micky, through much imbecile +laughter.
+ +Harold went on rowing. They had spent too long on the sand-dunes, +and now the tide was running out of the estuary strongly. The sun +was setting, the fields on the opposite bank shone bright, and the +farm-house where they were stopping glowed from its upper windows as +though filled to the brim with fire.
+ +"We're going to be carried out to sea," Micky continued. "You'll never +win unless you bust yourself a bit, and you a poor invalid, too. I back +the sea."
+ +They were reaching the central channel, the backbone, as it were, +of the retreating waters. Once past it, the force of the tide would +slacken, and they would have easy going until they beached under the +farm. It was a glorious evening. It had been a most glorious day. They +had rowed out to the dunes at the slack, bathed, raced, eaten, slept, +bathed and raced and eaten again. Micky was in roaring spirits. God had +never thwarted him hitherto, and he could not suppose that they would +really be made late for supper by an ebbing tide. When they came to +the channel, and the boat, which had been slowly edging upstream, hung +motionless among the moving waters, he lost all semblance of sanity, +and shouted:
+ +Harold, who did not care for poetry, only shouted. His spirits also +were roaring, and he neither looked nor felt a poor invalid. Science +had talked to him seriously of late, shaking her head at his sunburnt +body. What should Science know? She had sent him down to the sea to +recruit, and Micky to see that he did not tire himself. Micky had been +a nuisance at first, but common sense had prevailed, as it always does +among the young. A fortnight ago, he would not let the patient handle +an oar. Now he bid him "bust" himself, and Harold took him at his word +and did so. He made himself all will and muscle. He began not to know +where he was. The thrill of the stretcher against his feet, and of the +tide up his arms, merged with his friend's voice towards one nameless +sensation; he was approaching the mystic state that is the athlete's +true though unacknowledged goal: he was beginning to be.
+ +Micky chanted, "One, twoâone, two," and tried to help by twitching the +rudder. But Micky had imagination. He looked at the flaming windows and +fancied that the farm was a star and the boat its attendant satellite. +Then the tide was the rushing ether stream of the universe, the +interstellar surge that beats for ever. How jolly! He did not formulate +his joys, after the weary fashion of older people. He was far too happy +to be thankful. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth," +are the words of one who has left his youth behind, and all that Micky +sang was "One, two."
+ +Harold laughed without hearing. Sweat poured off his forehead. He put +on a spurt, as did the tide.
+ +"Wish the doctor could see you," cried Micky.
+ +No answer. Setting his teeth, he went berserk. His ancestors called to +him that it was better to die than to be beaten by the sea. He rowed +with gasps and angry little cries, while the voice of the helmsman +lashed him to fury.
+ +"That's rightâone, twoâplug it in harder.... Oh, I say, this is a bit +stiff, though. Let's give it up, old man, perhaps."
+ +The gulls were about them now. Some wheeled overhead, others bobbed +past on the furrowed waters. The song of a lark came faintly from the +land, and Micky saw the doctor's trap driving along the road that led +to the farm. He felt ashamed.
+ +"Look here, Harold, you oughtn't toâI oughtn't to have let you. IâI +don't see the point of it."
+ +"Don't you?" said Harold with curious distinctness. "Well, you will +some day," and so saying dropped both oars. The boat spun round at +this, the farm, the trap, the song of the lark vanished, and he fell +heavily against the rowlock. Micky caught at him. He had strained his +heart. Half in the boat and half out of it, he died, a rotten business.
+ +II
+ +A rotten business. It happened when Michael was twenty-two, and he +expected never to be happy again. The sound of his own voice shouting +as he was carried out, the doctor's voice saying, "I consider you +responsible," the coming of Harold's parents, the voice of the curate +summarizing Harold's relations with the unseenâall these things +affected him so deeply that he supposed they would affect him for +ever. They did not, because he lived to be over seventy, and with the +best will in the world, it is impossible to remember clearly for so +long. The mind, however sensitive and affectionate, is coated with new +experiences daily; it cannot clear itself of the steady accretion, +and is forced either to forget the past or to distort it. So it was +with Michael. In time only the more dramatic incidents survived. +He remembered Harold's final gesture (one hand grasping his own, +the other plunged deep into the sea), because there was a certain +ĂŚsthetic quality about it, not because it was the last of his friend. +He remembered the final words for the same reason. "Don't you see the +point of it? Well, you will some day." The phrase struck his fancy, and +passed into his own stock; after thirty or forty years he forgot its +origin. He is not to blame; the business of life snowed him under.
+ +There is also this to say: he and Harold had nothing in common except +youth. No spiritual bond could survive. They had never discussed +theology or social reform, or any of the problems that were thronging +Michael's brain, and consequently, though they had been intimate +enough, there was nothing to remember. Harold melted the more one +thought of him. Robbed of his body, he was so shadowy. Nor could one +imagine him as a departed spirit, for the world beyond death is surely +august. Neither in heaven nor hell is there place for athletics and +aimless good temper, and if these were taken from Harold, what was +left? Even if the unseen life should prove an archetype of this, even +if it should contain a sun and stars of its own, the sunburn of earth +must fade off our faces as we look at it, the muscles of earth must +wither before we can go rowing on its infinite sea. Michael sadly +resigned his friend to God's mercy. He himself could do nothing, for +men can only immortalize those who leave behind them some strong +impression of poetry or wisdom.
+ +For himself he expected another fate. With all humility, he knew that +he was not as Harold. It was no merit of his own, but he had been born +of a more intellectual stock, and had inherited powers that rendered +him worthier of life, and of whatever may come after it. He cared for +the universe, for the tiny tangle in it that we call civilisation, +for his fellow-men who had made the tangle and who transcended it. +Love, the love of humanity, warmed him; and even when he was thinking +of other matters, was looking at Orion perhaps in the cold winter +evenings, a pang of joy, too sweet for description, would thrill him, +and he would feel sure that our highest impulses have some eternal +value, and will be completed hereafter. So full a nature could not +brood over death.
+ +To summarize his career.
+ +Soon after the tragedy, when he in his turn was recruiting, he met the +woman who was to become his helpmate through life. He had met her once +before, and had not liked her; she had seemed uncharitable and hard. +Now he saw that her hardness sprang from a morality that he himself +lacked. If he believed in love, Janet believed in truth. She tested all +men and all things. She had no patience with the sentimentalist who +shelters from the world's rough and tumble. Engaged at that time to +another man, she spoke more freely to Michael than she would otherwise +have done, and told him that it is not enough to feel good and to +feel that others are good; one's business is to make others better, +and she urged him to adopt a profession. The beauty of honest work +dawned upon the youth as she spoke. Mentally and physically, he came to +full manhood, and, after due preparation, he entered the Home Civil +Serviceâthe British Museum.
+ +Here began a career that was rather notable, and wholly beneficial +to humanity. With his ideals of conduct and culture, Michael was not +content with the official routine. He desired to help others, and, +since he was gifted with tact, they consented to the operation. Before +long he became a conciliatory force in his department. He could mollify +his superiors, encourage his inferiors, soothe foreign scholars, and +show that there is something to be said for all sides. Janet, who +watched his rise, taxed him again with instability. But now she was +wrong. The young man was not a mere opportunist. He always had a +sincere opinion of his own, or he could not have retained the respect +of his colleagues. It was really the inherent sweetness of his nature +at work, turned by a woman's influence towards fruitful ends.
+ +At the end of a ten years' acquaintance the two married. In the +interval Janet had suffered much pain, for the man to whom she had been +engaged had proved unworthy of her. Her character was set when she +came to Michael, and, as he knew, strongly contrasted with his own; +and perhaps they had already interchanged all the good they could. But +the marriage proved durable and sufficiently happy. He, in particular, +made endless allowances, for toleration and sympathy were becoming the +cardinal points of his nature. If his wife was unfair to the official +mind, or if his brother-in-law, an atheist, denounced religion, he +would say to himself, "They cannot help it; they are made thus, and +have the qualities of their defects. Let me rather think of my own, and +strive for a wider outlook ceaselessly." He grew sweeter every day.
+ +It was partly this desire for a wider outlook that turned him to +literature. As he was crossing the forties it occurred to him to write +a few essays, somewhat retrospective in tone, and thoughtful rather +than profound in content. They had some success. Their good taste, +their lucid style, the tempered Christianity of their ethics, whetted +the half-educated public, and made it think and feel. They were not, +and were not intended to be, great literature, but they opened the +doors to it, and were indubitably a power for good. The first volume +was followed by "The Confessions of a Middle-aged Man." In it Michael +paid melodious tribute to youth, but showed that ripeness is all. +Experience, he taught, is the only humanizer; sympathy, balance and +many-sidedness cannot come to a man until he is elderly. It is always +pleasant to be told that the best is yet to be, and the sale of the +book was large. Perhaps he would have become a popular author, but +his wife's influence restrained him from writing anything that he did +not sincerely feel. She had borne him three children by nowâHenry, +Catherine, and Adam. On the whole they were a happy family. Henry never +gave any trouble. Catherine took after her mother. Adam, who was wild +and uncouth, caused his father some anxiety. He could not understand +him, in spite of careful observation, and they never became real +friends. Still, it was but a little cloud in a large horizon. At home, +as in his work, Michael was more successful than most men.
+ +Thus he slipped into the fifties. On the death of his father he +inherited a house in the Surrey hills, and Janet, whose real interests +were horticultural, settled down there. After all, she had not proved +an intellectual woman. Her fierce manner had misled him and perhaps +herself into believing it. She was efficient enough in London society, +but it bored her, for she lacked her husband's pliancy, and aged more +rapidly than he did. Nor did the country suit her. She grew querulous, +disputing with other ladies about the names of flowers. And, of course, +the years were not without their effect on him, too. By now he was +somewhat of a valetudinarian. He had given up all outdoor sports, and, +though his health remained good, grew bald, and rather stout and timid. +He was against late hours, violent exercise, night walks, swimming when +hot, muddling about in open boats, and he often had to check himself +from fidgeting the children. Henry, a charming sympathetic lad, would +squeeze his hand and say, "All right, father." But Catherine and Adam +sometimes frowned. He thought of the children more and more. Now that +his wife was declining, they were the future, and he was determined to +keep in touch with them, remembering how his own father had failed with +him. He believed in gentleness, and often stood between them and their +mother. When the boys grew up he let them choose their own friends. +When Catherine, at the age of nineteen, asked if she might go away and +earn some money as a lady gardener, he let her go. In this case he had +his reward, for Catherine, having killed the flowers, returned. She +was a restless, scowling young woman, a trial to her mother, who could +not imagine what girls were coming to. Then she married and improved +greatly; indeed, she proved his chief support in the coming years.
+ +For, soon after her marriage, a great trouble fell on him. Janet became +bedridden, and, after a protracted illness, passed into the unknown. +Sir Michaelâfor he had been knightedâdeclared that he should not +survive her. They were so accustomed to each other, so mutually +necessary, that he fully expected to pass away after her. In this he +was mistaken. She died when he was sixty, and he lived to be over +seventy. His character had passed beyond the clutch of circumstance and +he still retained his old interests and his unconquerable benignity.
+ +A second trouble followed hard on the first. It transpired that Adam +was devoted to his mother, and had only tolerated home life for her +sake. After a brutal scene he left. He wrote from the Argentine that he +was sorry, but wanted to start for himself. "I don't see the point of +it," quavered Sir Michael. "Have I ever stopped him or any of you from +starting?" Henry and Catherine agreed with him. Yet he felt that they +understood their brother better than he did. "I have given him freedom +all his life," he continued. "I have given him freedom, what more does +he want?" Henry, after hesitation, said, "There are some people who +feel that freedom cannot be given. At least I have heard so. Perhaps +Adam is like that. Unless he took freedom he might not feel free." Sir +Michael disagreed. "I have now studied adolescence for many years," he +replied, "and your conclusions, my dear boy, are ridiculous."
+ +The two rallied to their father gallantly; and, after all, he spent a +dignified old age. Having retired from the British Museum, he produced +a little aftermath of literature. The great public had forgotten him, +but the courtliness of his "Musings of a Pensioner" procured him +some circulation among elderly and educated audiences. And he found +a new spiritual consolation. Anima naturaliter Anglicana, he had +never been hostile to the Established Church; and, when he criticized +her worldliness and occasional inhumanity, had spoken as one who +was outside her rather than against her. After his wife's death and +the flight of his son he lost any lingering taste for speculation. +The experience of years disposed him to accept the experience of +centuries, and to merge his feeble personal note in the great voice of +tradition. Yes; a serene and dignified old age. Few grudged it to him. +Of course, he had enemies, who professed to see through him, and said +that Adam had seen through him too; but no impartial observer agreed. +No ulterior motive had ever biased Sir Michael. The purity of his +record was not due to luck, but to purity within, and his conciliatory +manner sprang from a conciliated soul. He could look back on failures +and mistakes, and he had not carried out the ideals of his youth. Who +has? But he had succeeded better than most men in modifying those +ideals to fit the world of facts, and if love had been modified into +sympathy and sympathy into compromise, let one of his contemporaries +cast the first stone.
+ +One fact remainedâthe fact of death. Hitherto, Sir Michael had never +died, and at times he was bestially afraid. But more often death +appeared as a prolongation of his present career. He saw himself +quietly and tactfully organizing some corner in infinity with his +wife's assistance; Janet would be greatly improved. He saw himself +passing from a sphere in which he had been efficient into a sphere +which combined the familiar with the eternal, and in which he would +be equally efficientâpassing into it with dignity and without pain. +This life is a preparation for the next. Those who live longest are +consequently the best prepared. Experience is the great teacher; +blessed are the experienced, for they need not further modify their +ideals.
+ +The manner of his death was as follows. He, too, met with an accident. +He was walking from his town house to Catherine's by a short cut +through a slum; some women were quarrelling about a fish, and as he +passed they appealed to him. Always courteous, the old man stopped, +said that he had not sufficient data to judge on, and advised them to +lay the fish aside for twenty-four hours. This chanced to annoy them, +and they grew more angry with him than with one another. They accused +him of "doing them," of "getting round them," and one, who was the +worse for drink, said, "See if he gets round that," and slapped him +with the fish in the face. He fell. When he came to himself he was +lying in bed with one of his headaches.
+ +He could hear Catherine's voice. She annoyed him. If he did not open +his eyes, it was only because he did not choose.
+ +"He has been like this for nearly two years," said Henry's voice.
+ +It was, at the most, ten minutes since he had fallen in the slum. But +he did not choose to argue.
+ +"Yes, he's pretty well played out," said a third voiceâactually the +voice of Adam; how and when had Adam returned? "But, then, he's been +that for the last thirty years."
+ +"Gently, old boy," said Henry.
+ +"Well, he has," said Adam. "I don't believe in cant. He never did +anything since Mother died, and damned little before. They've forgotten +his books because they aren't first-hand; they're rearranging the cases +he arranged in the British Museum. That's the lot. What else has he +done except tell people to dress warmly, but not too warm?"
+ +"Adam, you really mustn'tââ"
+ +"It's because nobody speaks up that men of the old man's type +get famous. It's a sign of your sloppy civilisation. You're all +afraidâafraid of originality, afraid of work, afraid of hurting +one another's feelings. You let any one come to the top who doesn't +frighten you, and as soon as he dies you forget him and knight some +other figurehead instead."
+ +An unknown voice said, "Shocking, Mr. Adam, shocking. Such a dear old +man, and quite celebrated, too."
+ +"You'll soon get used to me, nurse."
+ +The nurse laughed.
+ +"Adam, it is a relief to have you," said Catherine after a pause. "I +want you and your boy to help me with mine." Her voice sounded dimmer; +she had turned from her father without a word of farewell. "One must +profit by the mistakes of others ... after all, more heroism.... I am +determined to keep in touch with my boyââ"
+ +"Larrup him," said Adam. "That's the secret." He followed his sister +out of the room.
+ +Then Henry's delightful laugh sounded for the last time. "You make us +all feel twenty years younger," he said; "more like whenââ"
+ +The door shut.
+ +Sir Michael grew cold with rage. This was life, this was what the +younger generation had been thinking. Adam he ignored, but at the +recollection of Henry and Catherine he determined to die. If he chose, +he could have risen from bed and driven the whole pack into the +street. But he did not choose. He chose rather to leave this shoddy +and ungrateful world. The immense and super-human cynicism that is +latent in all of us came at last to the top and transformed him. He saw +the absurdity of love, and the vision so tickled him that he began to +laugh. The nurse, who had called him a dear old man, bent over him, and +at the same moment two boys came into the sick-room.
+ +"How's grandpapa?" asked one of themâCatherine's boy.
+ +"Not so well," the nurse answered.
+ +There was a silence. Then the other boy said, "Come along, let's cut."
+ +"But they told us not to."
+ +"Why should we do what old people tell us! Dad's pretty well played +out, and so's your mother."
+ +"Shocking; be off with you both," said the nurse; and, with a little +croon of admiration, Catherine's boy followed his cousin out of the +room. Their grandfather's mirth increased. He rolled about in the bed; +and, just as he was grasping the full irony of the situation, he died, +and pursued it into the unknown.
+ +III
+ +Micky was still in bed. He was aware of so much through long melancholy +dreams. But when he opened his mouth to laugh, it filled with dust. +Choosing to open his eyes, he found that he had swollen enormously, and +lay sunk in the sand of an illimitable plain. As he expected, he had no +occasion greatly to modify his ideals; infinity had merely taken the +place of his bedroom and of London. Nothing moved on its surface except +a few sand-pillars, which would sometimes merge into each other as +though confabulating, and then fall with a slight hiss. Save for these, +there was no motion, no noise, nor could he feel any wind.
+ +How long had he lain here? Perhaps for years, long before death +perhaps, while his body seemed to be walking among men. Life is so +short and trivial, that who knows whether we arrive for it entirely, +whether more than a fraction of the soul is aroused to put on flesh? +The bud and the blossom perish in a moment, the husk endures, and may +not the soul be a husk? It seemed to Micky that he had lain in the +dust for ever, suffering and sneering, and that the essence of all +things, the primal power that lies behind the stars, is senility. Age, +toothless, dropsical age; ungenerous to age and to youth; born before +all ages, and outlasting them; the universe as old age.
+ +The place degraded while it tortured. It was vast, yet ignoble. It +sloped downward into darkness and upward into cloud, but into what +darkness, what clouds! No tragic splendour glorified them. When he +looked at them he understood why he was so unhappy, for they were +looking at him, sneering at him while he sneered. Their dirtiness was +more ancient than the hues of day and night, their irony more profound; +he was part of their jest, even as youth was part of his, and slowly he +realized that he was, and had for some years been, in Hell.
+ +All around him lay other figures, huge and fungous. It was as if +the plain had festered. Some of them could sit up, others scarcely +protruded from the sand, and he knew that they had made the same +mistake in life as himself, though he did not know yet what the mistake +had been; probably some little slip, easily avoided had one but been +told.
+ +Speech was permissible. Presently a voice said, "Is not ours a heavenly +sky? Is it not beautiful?"
+ +"Most beautiful," answered Micky, and found each word a stab of pain. +Then he knew that one of the sins here punished was appreciation; +he was suffering for all the praise that he had given to the bad +and mediocre upon earth; when he had praised out of idleness, or to +please people, or to encourage people; for all the praise that had +not been winged with passion. He repeated "Most beautiful," and the +sky quivered, for he was entering into fuller torments now. One ray +of happiness survived: his wife could not be in this place. She had +not sinned with the people of the plain, and could not suffer their +distortion. Her view of life had proved right after all; and, in his +utter misery, this comforted him. Janet should again be his religion, +and as eternity dragged forward and returned upon itself and dragged +forward she would show him that old age, if rightly managed, can be +beautiful; that experience, if rightly received, can lead the soul of +man to bliss. Then he turned to his neighbour, who was continuing his +hymn of praise.
+ +"I could lie here for ever," he was saying. "When I think of my +restlessness during lifeâthat is to say, during what men miscall life, +for it is death reallyâthis is lifeâwhen I think of my restlessness +on earth, I am overcome by so much goodness and mercy, I could lie here +for ever."
+ +"And will you?" asked Micky.
+ +"Ah, that is the crowning blessingâI shall, and so will you."
+ +Here a pillar of sand passed between them. It was long before they +could speak or see. Then Micky took up the song, chafed by the +particles that were working into his soul.
+ +"I, too, regret my wasted hours," he said, "especially the hours of my +youth. I regret all the time I spent in the sun. In later years I did +repent, and that is why I am admitted here where there is no sun; yes, +and no wind and none of the stars that drove me almost mad at night +once. It would be appalling, would it not, to see Orion again, the +central star of whose sword is not a star but a nebula, the golden seed +of worlds to be. How I dreaded the autumn on earth when Orion rises, +for he recalled adventure and my youth. It was appalling. How thankful +I am to see him no more."
+ +"Ah, but it was worse," cried the other, "to look high leftward from +Orion and see the Twins. Castor and Pollux were brothers, one human, +the other divine; and Castor died. But Pollux went down to Hell that he +might be with him."
+ +"Yes; that is so. Pollux went into Hell."
+ +"Then the gods had pity on both, and raised them aloft to be stars whom +sailors worship, and all who love and are young. Zeus was their father, +Helen their sister, who brought the Greeks against Troy. I dreaded them +more than Orion."
+ +They were silent, watching their own sky. It approved. They had been +cultivated men on earth, and these are capable of the nicer torments +hereafter. Their memories will strike exquisite images to enhance +their pain. "I will speak no more," said Micky to himself. "I will be +silent through eternity." But the darkness prised open his lips, and +immediately he was speaking.
+ +"Tell me more about this abode of bliss," he asked. "Are there grades +in it? Are there ranks in our heaven?"
+ +"There are two heavens," the other replied, "the heaven of the hard and +of the soft. We here lie in the heaven of the soft. It is a sufficient +arrangement, for all men grow either hard or soft as they grow old."
+ +As he spoke the clouds lifted, and, looking up the slope of the +plain, Micky saw that in the distance it was bounded by mountains of +stone, and he knew, without being told, that among those mountains +Janet lay, rigid, and that he should never see her. She had not been +saved. The darkness would mock her, too, for ever. With him lay the +sentimentalists, the conciliators, the peace-makers, the humanists, +and all who have trusted the warmer vision; with his wife were the +reformers and ascetics and all sword-like souls. By different paths +they had come to Hell, and Micky now saw what the bustle of life +conceals: that the years are bound either to liquefy a man or to +stiffen him, and that Love and Truth, who seem to contend for our souls +like angels, hold each the seeds of our decay.
+ +"It is, indeed, a sufficient arrangement," he said; "both sufficient +and simple. But answer one question more that my bliss may be +perfected; in which of these two heavens are the young?"
+ +His neighbour answered, "In neither; there are no young."
+ +He spoke no more, and settled himself more deeply in the dust. Micky +did the same. He had vague memories of men and women who had died +before reaching maturity, of boys and unwedded maidens and youths +lowered into the grave before their parents' eyes. Whither had they +gone, that undeveloped minority? What was the point of their brief +existence? Had they vanished utterly, or were they given another chance +of accreting experiences until they became like Janet or himself? One +thing was certain: there were no young, either in the mountains or the +plain, and perhaps the very memory of such creatures was an illusion +fostered by cloud.
+ +The time was now ripe for a review of his life on earth. He traced his +decompositionâhis work had been soft, his books soft, he had softened +his relations with other men. He had seen good in everything, and this +is itself a sign of decay. Whatever occurred he had been appreciative, +tolerant, pliant. Consequently he had been a success; Adam was right; +it was the moment in civilisation for his type. He had mistaken +self-criticism for self-discipline, he had muffled in himself and +others the keen, heroic edge. Yet the luxury of repentance was denied +him. The fault was his, but the fate humanity's, for every one grows +hard or soft as he grows old.
+ +"This is my life," thought Micky; "my books forgotten, my work +superseded. This is the whole of my life." And his agony increased, +because all the same there had been in that life an elusive joy which, +if only he could have distilled it, would have sweetened infinity. It +was part of the jest that he should try, and should eternally oscillate +between disgust and desire. For there is nothing ultimate in Hell; men +will not lay aside all hope on entering it, or they would attain to the +splendour of despair. To have made a poem about Hell is to mistake its +very essence; it is the imagination of men, who will have beauty, that +fashions it as ice or flame. Old, but capable of growing older, Micky +lay in the sandy country, remembering that once he had remembered a +countryâa country that had not been sand....
+ +He was aroused by the mutterings of the spirits round him. An +uneasiness such as he had not noted in them before had arisen. "A +pillar of sand," said one. Another said, "It is not; it comes from the +river."
+ +He asked, "What river?"
+ +"The spirits of the damned dwell over it; we never speak of that river."
+ +"Is it a broad river?"
+ +"Swift, and very broad."
+ +"Do the damned ever cross it?"
+ +"They are permitted, we know not why, to cross it now and again."
+ +And in these answers he caught a new tone, as if his companions were +frightened, and were finding means to express their fear. When he said, +"With permission, they can do us no harm," he was answered, "They +harm us with light and a song." And again, "They harm us because they +remember and try to remind."
+ +"Of what would they remind us?"
+ +"Of the hour when we were as they."
+ +As he questioned a whisper arose from the low-lying verges. The spirits +were crying to each other faintly. He heard, "It is coming; drive +it back over the river, shatter it, compel it to be old." And then +the darkness was cloven, and a star of pain broke in his soul. He +understood now; a torment greater than any was at hand.
+ +"I was before choice," came the song. "I was before hardness and +softness were divided. I was in the days when truth was love. And I am."
+ +All the plain was convulsed. But the invader could not be shattered. +When it pressed the air parted and the sand-pillars fell, and its path +was filled with senile weeping.
+ +"I have been all men, but all men have forgotten me. I transfigured +the world for them until they preferred the world. They came to me as +children, afraid; I taught them, and they despised me. Childhood is a +dream about me, experience a slow forgetting: I govern the magic years +between them, and am."
+ +"Why trouble us?" moaned the shades. "We could bear our torment, just +bear it, until there was light and a song. Go back again over the +river. This is Heaven, we were saying, that darkness is God; we could +praise them till you came. The book of our deeds is closed; why open +it? We were damned from our birth; leave it there. O supreme jester, +leave us. We have sinned, we know it, and this place is death and Hell."
+ +"Death comes," the voice pealed, "and death is not a dream or a +forgetting. Death is real. But I, too, am real, and whom I will I save. +I see the scheme of things, and in it no place for me, the brain and +the body against me. Therefore I rend the scheme in two, and make a +place, and under countless names have harrowed Hell. Come." Then, in +tones of inexpressible sweetness, "Come to me all who remember. Come +out of your eternity into mine. It is easy, for I am still at your +eyes, waiting to look out of them; still in your hearts, waiting to +beat. The years that I dwelt with you seemed short, but they were +magical, and they outrun time."
+ +The shades were silent. They could not remember.
+ +"Who desires to remember? Desire is enough. There is no abiding home +for strength and beauty among men. The flower fades, the seas dry up in +the sun, the sun and all the stars fade as a flower. But the desire for +such things, that is eternal, that can abide, and he who desires me is +I."
+ +Then Micky died a second death. This time he dissolved through terrible +pain, scorched by the glare, pierced by the voice. But as he died he +said, "I do desire," and immediately the invader vanished, and he +was standing alone on the sandy plain. It had been merely a dream. +But he was standing. How was that? Why had he not thought to stand +before? He had been unhappy in Hell, and all that he had to do was to +go elsewhere. He passed downwards, pained no longer by the mockery +of its cloud. The pillars brushed against him and fell, the nether +darkness went over his head. On he went till he came to the banks of +the infernal stream, and there he stumbledâstumbled over a piece of +wood, no vague substance, but a piece of wood that had once belonged +to a tree. At his impact it moved, and water gurgled against it. He +had embarked. Some one was rowing. He could see the blades of oars +moving towards him through the foam, but the rower was invisible in +cloud. As they neared mid-channel the boat went more slowly, for the +tide was ebbing, and Micky knew that once carried out he would be +lost eternally; there was no second hope of salvation. He could not +speak, but his heart beat time to the oarsâone, two. Hell made her +last effort, and all that is evil in creation, all the distortions of +love and truth by which we are vexed, came surging down the estuary, +and the boat hung motionless. Micky heard the pant of breath through +the roaring, the crack of angelic muscles; then he heard a voice say, +"The point of it ..." and a weight fell off his body and he crossed +mid-stream.
+ +It was a glorious evening. The boat had sped without prelude into +sunshine. The sky was cloudless, the earth gold, and gulls were riding +up and down on the furrowed waters. On the bank they had left were some +sand-dunes rising to majestic hills; on the bank in front was a farm, +full to the brim with fire.
+ + +The souls of the dead were ascending towards the Judgment Seat and the +Gate of Heaven. The world soul pressed them on every side, just as the +atmosphere presses upon rising bubbles, striving to vanquish them, to +break their thin envelope of personality, to mingle their virtue with +its own. But they resisted, remembering their glorious individual life +on earth, and hoping for an individual life to come.
+ +Among them ascended the soul of a Mr. Andrews who, after a beneficent +and honourable life, had recently deceased at his house in town. +He knew himself to be kind, upright and religious, and though he +approached his trial with all humility, he could not be doubtful of +its result. God was not now a jealous God. He would not deny salvation +merely because it was expected. A righteous soul may reasonably be +conscious of its own righteousness and Mr. Andrews was conscious of his.
+ +"The way is long," said a voice, "but by pleasant converse the way +becomes shorter. Might I travel in your company?"
+ +"Willingly," said Mr. Andrews. He held out his hand, and the two souls +floated upwards together.
+ +"I was slain fighting the infidel," said the other exultantly, "and I +go straight to those joys of which the Prophet speaks."
+ +"Are you not a Christian?" asked Mr. Andrews gravely.
+ +"No, I am a Believer. But you are a Moslem, surely?"
+ +"I am not," said Mr. Andrews. "I am a Believer."
+ +The two souls floated upwards in silence, but did not release each +other's hands. "I am broad church," he added gently. The word "broad" +quavered strangely amid the interspaces.
+ +"Relate to me your career," said the Turk at last.
+ +"I was born of a decent middle-class family, and had my education at +Winchester and Oxford. I thought of becoming a missionary, but was +offered a post in the Board of Trade, which I accepted. At thirty-two I +married, and had four children, two of whom have died. My wife survives +me. If I had lived a little longer I should have been knighted."
+ +"Now I will relate my career. I was never sure of my father, and my +mother does not signify. I grew up in the slums of Salonika. Then I +joined a band and we plundered the villages of the infidel. I prospered +and had three wives, all of whom survive me. Had I lived a little +longer I should have had a band of my own."
+ +"A son of mine was killed travelling in Macedonia. Perhaps you killed +him."
+ +"It is very possible."
+ +The two souls floated upward, hand in hand. Mr. Andrews did not speak +again, for he was filled with horror at the approaching tragedy. This +man, so godless, so lawless, so cruel, so lustful, believed that he +would be admitted into Heaven. And into what a heavenâa place full +of the crude pleasures of a ruffian's life on earth! But Mr. Andrews +felt neither disgust nor moral indignation. He was only conscious of an +immense pity, and his own virtues confronted him not at all. He longed +to save the man whose hand he held more tightly, who, he thought, was +now holding more tightly on to him. And when he reached the Gate of +Heaven, instead of saying, "Can I enter?" as he had intended, he cried +out, "Cannot he enter?"
+ +And at the same moment the Turk uttered the same cry. For the same +spirit was working in each of them.
+ +From the gateway a voice replied, "Both can enter." They were filled +with joy and pressed forward together.
+ +Then the voice said, "In what clothes will you enter?"
+ +"In my best clothes," shouted the Turk, "the ones I stole." And he clad +himself in a splendid turban and a waistcoat embroidered with silver, +and baggy trousers, and a great belt in which were stuck pipes and +pistols and knives.
+ +"And in what clothes will you enter?" said the voice to Mr. Andrews.
+ +Mr. Andrews thought of his best clothes, but he had no wish to wear +them again. At last he remembered and said, "Robes."
+ +"Of what colour and fashion?" asked the voice.
+ +Mr. Andrews had never thought about the matter much. He replied, in +hesitating tones, "White, I suppose, of some flowing soft material," +and he was immediately given a garment such as he had described. "Do I +wear it rightly?" he asked.
+ +"Wear it as it pleases you," replied the voice. "What else do you +desire?"
+ +"A harp," suggested Mr. Andrews. "A small one."
+ +A small gold harp was placed in his hand.
+ +"And a palmâno, I cannot have a palm, for it is the reward of +martyrdom; my life has been tranquil and happy."
+ +"You can have a palm if you desire it."
+ +But Mr. Andrews refused the palm, and hurried in his white robes after +the Turk, who had already entered Heaven. As he passed in at the open +gate, a man, dressed like himself, passed out with gestures of despair.
+ +"Why is he not happy?" he asked.
+ +The voice did not reply.
+ +"And who are all those figures, seated inside on thrones and mountains? +Why are some of them terrible, and sad, and ugly?"
+ +There was no answer. Mr. Andrews entered, and then he saw that those +seated figures were all the gods who were then being worshipped on the +earth. A group of souls stood round each, singing his praises. But the +gods paid no heed, for they were listening to the prayers of living +men, which alone brought them nourishment. Sometimes a faith would +grow weak, and then the god of that faith also drooped and dwindled +and fainted for his daily portion of incense. And sometimes, owing to +a revivalist movement, or to a great commemoration, or to some other +cause, a faith would grow strong, and the god of that faith grow strong +also. And, more frequently still, a faith would alter, so that the +features of its god altered and became contradictory, and passed from +ecstasy to respectability, or from mildness and universal love to the +ferocity of battle. And at times a god would divide into two gods, +or three, or more, each with his own ritual and precarious supply of +prayer.
+ +Mr. Andrews saw Buddha, and Vishnu, and Allah, and Jehovah, and the +Elohim. He saw little ugly determined gods who were worshipped by a +few savages in the same way. He saw the vast shadowy outlines of the +neo-Pagan Zeus. There were cruel gods, and coarse gods, and tortured +gods, and, worse still, there were gods who were peevish, or deceitful, +or vulgar. No aspiration of humanity was unfulfilled. There was even +an intermediate state for those who wished it, and for the Christian +Scientists a place where they could demonstrate that they had not died.
+ +He did not play his harp for long, but hunted vainly for one of his +dead friends. And though souls were continually entering Heaven, it +still seemed curiously empty. Though he had all that he expected, he +was conscious of no great happiness, no mystic contemplation of beauty, +no mystic union with good. There was nothing to compare with that +moment outside the gate, when he prayed that the Turk might enter and +heard the Turk uttering the same prayer for him. And when at last he +saw his companion, he hailed him with a cry of human joy.
+ +The Turk was seated in thought, and round him, by sevens, sat the +virgins who are promised in the Koran.
+ +"Oh, my dear friend!" he called out. "Come here and we will never be +parted, and such as my pleasures are, they shall be yours also. Where +are my other friends? Where are the men whom I love, or whom I have +killed?"
+ +"I, too, have only found you," said Mr. Andrews. He sat down by the +Turk, and the virgins, who were all exactly alike, ogled them with coal +black eyes.
+ +"Though I have all that I expected," said the Turk, "I am conscious +of no great happiness. There is nothing to compare with that moment +outside the gate when I prayed that you might enter, and heard you +uttering the same prayer for me. These virgins are as beautiful and +good as I had fashioned, yet I could wish that they were better."
+ +As he wished, the forms of the virgins became more rounded, and their +eyes grew larger and blacker than before. And Mr. Andrews, by a wish +similar in kind, increased the purity and softness of his garment and +the glitter of his harp. For in that place their expectations were +fulfilled, but not their hopes.
+ +"I am going," said Mr. Andrews at last. "We desire infinity and we +cannot imagine it. How can we expect it to be granted? I have never +imagined anything infinitely good or beautiful excepting in my dreams."
+ +"I am going with you," said the other.
+ +Together they sought the entrance gate, and the Turk parted with his +virgins and his best clothes, and Mr. Andrews cast away his robes and +his harp.
+ +"Can we depart?" they asked.
+ +"You can both depart if you wish," said the voice, "but remember what +lies outside."
+ +As soon as they passed the gate, they felt again the pressure of +the world soul. For a moment they stood hand in hand resisting it. +Then they suffered it to break in upon them, and they, and all the +experience they had gained, and all the love and wisdom they had +generated, passed into it, and made it better.
+ + +"Don't thump," said Miss Haddon. "And each run ought to be like a +string of pearls. It is not. Why is it not?"
+ +"Ellen, you beast, you've got my note."
+ +"No, I haven't. You've got mine."
+ +"Well, whose note is it?"
+ +Miss Haddon looked between their pigtails. "It is Mildred's note," she +decided. "Go back to the double bars. And don't thump."
+ +The girls went back, and again the little finger of Mildred's right +hand disputed for middle G with the little finger of Ellen's left.
+ +"It can't be done," they said. "It's the man who wrote it's fault."
+ +"It can easily be done if you don't hold on so long, Ellen," said Miss +Haddon.
+ +Four o'clock struck. Mildred and Ellen went, and Rose and Enid +succeeded them. They played the duet worse than Mildred, but not +as badly as Ellen. At four-fifteen Margaret and Jane came. They +played worse than Rose and Enid, but not as badly as Ellen. At +four-thirty Dolores and Violet came. They played worse than Ellen. +At four-forty-five Miss Haddon went to tea with the Principal, who +explained why she desired all the pupils to learn the same duet. +It was part of her new co-ordinative system. The school was taking +one subject for the year, only oneâNapoleonâand all the studies +were to bear on that one subject. Thusânot to mention French and +Historyâthe Repetition class was learning Wordsworth's political +poems, the literature class was reading extracts from "War and Peace," +the drawing class copied something of David's, the needlework class +designed Empire gowns, and the music pupilsâthey, of course, were +practising Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony, which had been begun (though +not finished) in honour of the Emperor. Several of the other mistresses +were at tea, and they exclaimed that they loved co-ordinating, and +that it was a lovely system: it made work so much more interesting to +them as well as to the girls. But Miss Haddon did not respond. There +had been no co-ordination in her day, and she could not understand it. +She only knew that she was growing old, and teaching music worse and +worse, and she wondered how soon the Principal would find this out and +dismiss her.
+ +Meanwhile, high up in heaven Beethoven sat, and all around him, +ranged on smaller clouds, sat his clerks. Each made entries in a +ledger, and he whose ledger was entitled "'Eroica' Symphony: arranged +for four hands, by Carl MĂźller," was making the following entries: +"3.45, Mildred and Ellen; conductor, Miss Haddon. 4.0, Rose and Enid; +conductor, Miss Haddon. 4.15, Margaret and Jane; conductor, Miss +Haddon. 4.30ââ"
+ +Beethoven interrupted. "Who is this Miss Haddon," he asked, "whose name +recurs like the beat of a drum?"
+ +"She has interpreted you for many years."
+ +"And her orchestra?"
+ +"They are maidens of the upper middle classes, who perform the 'Eroica' +in her presence every day and all day. The sound of it never ceases. It +floats out of the window like a continual incense, and is heard up and +down the street."
+ +"Do they perform with insight?"
+ +Since Beethoven is deaf, the clerk could reply, "With most intimate +insight. There was a time when Ellen was further from your spirit than +the rest, but that has not been the case since Dolores and Violet +arrived."
+ +"New comrades have inspired her. I understand."
+ +The clerk was silent.
+ +"I approve," continued Beethoven, "and in token of my approval I decree +that Miss Haddon and her orchestra and all in their house shall this +very evening hear a perfect performance of my A minor quartette."
+ +While the decree was being entered, and while the staff was wondering +how it would be executed, a scene of even greater splendour was taking +place in another part of the empyrean. There Napoleon sat, surrounded +by his clerks, who were so numerous that the thrones of the outermost +looked no larger than cirro-cumuli clouds. They were busy entering all +the references made on earth to their employer, a task for which he +himself had organized them. Every few moments he asked, "And what is +our latest phase?"
+ +The clerk whose ledger was entitled "Hommages de Wordsworth" answered: +"5.0, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and Jane, all recited the +sonnet, 'Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee.' Dolores and +Violet attempted to recite it, but failed."
+ +"The poet there celebrates my conquest of the Venetian Republic," +said the Emperor, "and the greatness of the theme overcame Violet and +Dolores. It is natural that they should fail. And the next phase?"
+ +Another clerk said, "5.15, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and +Jane, are sketching in the left front leg of Pauline Buonaparte's +couch. Dolores and Violet are still learning their sonnet."
+ +"It seems to me," said Napoleon, "that I have heard these charming +names before."
+ +"They are in my ledger, too," said a third clerk. "You may remember, +sire, that about an hour ago they performed Beethoven's 'Eroica'ââ"
+ +"Written in my honour," concluded the Emperor. "I approve."
+ +"5.30," said a fourth clerk, "with the exception of Dolores and Violet, +who have been sent to sharpen pencils, the whole company sings the +'Marseillaise.'"
+ +"It needed but that," cried Napoleon, rising to his feet. "Ces +demoiselles ont un vrai ĂŠlan vers la gloire. I decree in recompense +that they and all their house shall participate tomorrow morning in the +victory of Austerlitz."
+ +The decree was entered.
+ +Evening prep. was at 7.30. The girls settled down gloomily, for they +were already bored to tears by the new system. But a wonderful thing +happened. A regiment of cavalry rode past the school, headed by the +most spiffing band. The girls went off their heads with joy. They +rose from their seats, they sang, they advanced, they danced, they +pranced, they made trumpets out of paper and used the blackboard as a +kettle-drum. They were able to do this because Miss Haddon, who ought +to have been supervising, had left the room to find a genealogical tree +of Marie Louise; the history mistress had asked her particularly to +take it to prep. for the girls to climb about in, but she had forgotten +it. "I am no good at all," thought Miss Haddon, as she stretched out +her hand for the tree; it lay with some other papers under a shell +which the Principal had procured from St. Helena. "I am stupid and +tired and old; I wish that I was dead." Thus thinking, she lifted the +shell mechanically to her ear; her father, who was a sailor, had often +done the same to her when she was young....
+ +She heard the sea; at first it was the tide whispering over mud-flats +or chattering against stones, or the short, crisp break of a wave on +sand, or the long, echoing roar of a wave against rocks, or the sounds +of the central ocean, where the waters pile themselves into mountains +and part into ravines; or when fog descends, and the deep rises and +falls gently; or when the air is so fresh that the big waves and the +little waves that live in the big waves all sing for joy, and send one +another kisses of white foam. She heard them all, but in the end she +heard the sea itself, and knew that it was hers for ever.
+ +"Miss Haddon!" said the Principal. "Miss Haddon! How is it you are not +supervising the girls?"
+ +Miss Haddon removed the shell from her ear, and faced her employer with +a growing determination.
+ +"I can hear Ellen's voice though we are at the other side of the +house," she continued. "I half thought it was the elocution hour. Put +down that paper-weight at once, please, Miss Haddon, and return to your +duties."
+ +She took the shell from the music mistress's hand, intending to place +it on its proper shelf. But the force of example caused her to raise it +to her own ear. She, too, listened....
+ +She heard the rustling of trees in a wood. It was no wood that she had +ever known, but all the people she had known were riding about in it, +and calling softly to each other on horns. It was night, and they were +hunting. Now and then beasts rustled, and once there was an "Halloo!" +and a chase, but more often her friends rode quietly, and she with +them, penetrating the wood in every direction and for ever.
+ +And while she heard this with one ear, Miss Haddon was speaking as +follows into the other:
+ +"I will not return to my duties. I have neglected them ever since I +came here, and once more will make little difference. I am not musical. +I have deceived the pupils and the parents and you. I am not musical, +but pretended that I was to make money. What will happen to me now I do +not know, but I can pretend no longer. I give notice."
+ +The Principal was surprised to learn that her music mistress was not +musical; the sound of pianos had continued for so many years that +she had assumed all was well. In ordinary circumstances she would +have answered scathingly, for she was an accomplished woman, but the +murmuring forest caused her to reply, "Oh, Miss Haddon, not now; let's +talk it over tomorrow morning. Now, if you will, I want you to lie down +in my sitting-room while I take preparation instead, for it always +rests me to be with the girls."
+ +So Miss Haddon lay down, and as she dozed the soul of the sea returned +to her. And the Principal, her head full of forest murmurs, went to the +preparation-room, and gave her cough three times before she opened the +door. All the girls were at their desks except Dolores and Violet, and +them she affected not to notice. After a time she went to fetch the +tree of Marie Louise, which she had forgotten, and during her absence +the cavalry passed again....
+ +In the morning Miss Haddon said, "I still wish to go, but I wish I had +waited to speak to you. I have had some extraordinary news. Many years +ago my father saved a man from drowning. That man has just died, and he +has left me a cottage by the edge of the sea, and money to live in it. +I need not work any more; so if only I had waited till today I could +have been more civil to you and"âshe blushed a littleâ"to myself."
+ +But the Principal shook her by both hands and kissed her. "I am glad +that you did not wait," she said. "What you said yesterday was a word +of truth, a clear call through the thicket. I wish that I, tooââ" She +stopped. "But the next step is to give the school a whole holiday."
+ +So the girls were summoned, and the Principal made a speech, and +Miss Haddon another, giving every one the address of the cottage, +and inviting them to visit her at it. Then Rose was sent to the +pastrycook's for ices, and Enid to the greengrocer's for fruit, and +Mildred to the sweetshop for lemonade, and Jane to the livery stables +for brakes, and they all drove out an immense distance into the +country, and played disorganized games. Every one hid and nobody +sought; every one batted and nobody fielded; no one knew whose side she +was on, and no mistress tried to tell her; and it was even possible +to play two games at once, and to be Clumps in one and Peter Pan in +the other. As for the co-ordinative system, it was never mentioned, or +mentioned in derision. For example, Ellen composed a song against it, +which ran:
+ +and the smaller girls sang it without stopping for three hours.
+ +At the end of the day the Principal summoned the whole party round Miss +Haddon and herself. She was ringed with happy, tired faces. The sun +was setting, the dust that the day had disturbed was sinking. "Well, +girls," she said, laughing, but just a little shy, "so you don't seem +to value my co-ordinative system?"
+ +"Lauks, we don't!" "Not much!" and so on, replied the girls.
+ +"Well, I must make a confession," the Principal continued. "No more do +I. In fact, I hate it. But I was obliged to take it up, because that +type of thing impresses the Board of Education."
+ +At this all the mistresses and girls laughed and cheered, and Dolores +and Violet, who thought that the Board of Education was a new round +game, laughed too.
+ +Now it may be readily imagined that this discreditable affair did not +escape the attention of Mephistopheles. At the earliest opportunity +he sought the Judgment Seat, bearing an immense scroll inscribed +"J'accuse!" Half-way up he met the angel Raphael, who asked him in his +courteous manner whether he could help him in any way.
+ +"Not this time, thank you," Mephistopheles replied. "I really have a +case now."
+ +"It might be better to show it to me," suggested the archangel. +"It would be a pity to fly so far for nothing, and you had such a +disappointment over Job."
+ +"Oh, that was different."
+ +"And then there was Faust; the verdict there was ultimately against +you, if I remember rightly."
+ +"Oh, that was so different again. No, I am certain this time. I can +prove the futility of genius. Great men think that they are understood, +and are not; men think that they understand them, and do not."
+ +"If you can prove that, you have indeed a case," said Raphael. "For +this universe is supposed to rest on co-ordination, all creatures +co-ordinating according to their powers."
+ +"Listen. Charge one: Beethoven decrees that certain females shall +hear a performance of his A minor quartette. They hearâsome of them +a band, others a shell. Charge two: Napoleon decrees that the same +shall participate in the victory of Austerlitz. Resultâa legacy, +followed by a school treat. Charge three: Females perform Beethoven. +Being deaf, and being served by dishonest clerks, he supposes they +are performing him with insight. Charge four: To impress the Board of +Education, females study Napoleon. He is led to suppose that they are +studying him properly. I have other points, but these will suffice. The +genius and the ordinary man have never co-ordinated once since Abel was +killed by Cain."
+ +"And now for your case," said Raphael, sympathetically.
+ +"My case?" stammered Mephistopheles. "Why, this is my case."
+ +"Oh, innocent devil," cried the other. "Oh, candid if infernal soul. +Go back to the earth and walk up and down it again. For these people +have co-ordinated, Mephistopheles. They have co-ordinated through the +central sources of Melody and Victory."
+ + +Few things have been more beautiful than my notebook on the +Deist Controversy as it fell downward through the waters of the +Mediterranean. It dived, like a piece of black slate, but opened soon, +disclosing leaves of pale green, which quivered into blue. Now it had +vanished, now it was a piece of magical india-rubber stretching out +to infinity, now it was a book again, but bigger than the book of all +knowledge. It grew more fantastic as it reached the bottom, where a +puff of sand welcomed it and obscured it from view. But it reappeared, +quite sane though a little tremulous, lying decently open on its back, +while unseen fingers fidgeted among its leaves.
+ +"It is such pity," said my aunt, "that you will not finish your work +in the hotel. Then you would be free to enjoy yourself and this would +never have happened."
+ +"Nothing of it but will change into something rich and strange," +warbled the chaplain, while his sister said, "Why, it's gone in the +water!" As for the boatmen, one of them laughed, while the other, +without a word of warning, stood up and began to take his clothes off.
+ +"Holy Moses," cried the Colonel. "Is the fellow mad?"
+ +"Yes, thank him, dear," said my aunt: "that is to say, tell him he is +very kind, but perhaps another time."
+ +"All the same I do want my book back," I complained. "It's for my +Fellowship Dissertation. There won't be much left of it by another +time."
+ +"I have an idea," said some woman or other through her parasol. "Let +us leave this child of nature to dive for the book while we go on to +the other grotto. We can land him either on this rock or on the ledge +inside, and he will be ready when we return."
+ +The idea seemed good; and I improved it by saying I would be left +behind too, to lighten the boat. So the two of us were deposited +outside the little grotto on a great sunlit rock that guarded the +harmonies within. Let us call them blue, though they suggest rather the +spirit of what is cleanâcleanliness passed from the domestic to the +sublime, the cleanliness of all the sea gathered together and radiating +light. The Blue Grotto at Capri contains only more blue water, not +bluer water. That colour and that spirit are the heritage of every cave +in the Mediterranean into which the sun can shine and the sea flow.
+ +As soon as the boat left I realized how imprudent I had been to trust +myself on a sloping rock with an unknown Sicilian. With a jerk he +became alive, seizing my arm and saying, "Go to the end of the grotto, +and I will show you something beautiful."
+ +He made me jump off the rock on to the ledge over a dazzling crack of +sea; he drew me away from the light till I was standing on the tiny +beach of sand which emerged like powdered turquoise at the farther end. +There he left me with his clothes, and returned swiftly to the summit +of the entrance rock. For a moment he stood naked in the brilliant sun, +looking down at the spot where the book lay. Then he crossed himself, +raised his hands above his head, and dived.
+ +If the book was wonderful, the man is past all description. His effect +was that of a silver statue, alive beneath the sea, through whom life +throbbed in blue and green. Something infinitely happy, infinitely +wiseâbut it was impossible that it should emerge from the depths +sunburned and dripping, holding the notebook on the Deist Controversy +between its teeth.
+ +A gratuity is generally expected by those who bathe. Whatever I +offered, he was sure to want more, and I was disinclined for an +argument in a place so beautiful and also so solitary. It was a relief +that he should say in conversational tones, "In a place like this one +might see the Siren."
+ +I was delighted with him for thus falling into the key of his +surroundings. We had been left together in a magic world, apart from +all the commonplaces that are called reality, a world of blue whose +floor was the sea and whose walls and roof of rock trembled with the +sea's reflections. Here only the fantastic would be tolerable, and it +was in that spirit I echoed his words, "One might easily see the Siren."
+ +He watched me curiously while he dressed. I was parting the sticky +leaves of the notebook as I sat on the sand.
+ +"Ah," he said at last. "You may have read the little book that was +printed last year. Who would have thought that our Siren would have +given the foreigners pleasure!"
+ +(I read it afterwards. Its account is, not unnaturally, incomplete, in +spite of there being a woodcut of the young person, and the words of +her song.)
+ +"She comes out of this blue water, doesn't she," I suggested, "and sits +on the rock at the entrance, combing her hair."
+ +I wanted to draw him out, for I was interested in his sudden gravity, +and there was a suggestion of irony in his last remark that puzzled me.
+ +"Have you ever seen her?" he asked.
+ +"Often and often."
+ +"I, never."
+ +"But you have heard her sing?"
+ +He put on his coat and said impatiently, "How can she sing under the +water? Who could? She sometimes tries, but nothing comes from her but +great bubbles."
+ +"She should climb on to the rock."
+ +"How can she?" he cried again, quite angry. "The priests have blessed +the air, so she cannot breathe it, and blessed the rocks, so that she +cannot sit on them. But the sea no man can bless, because it is too +big, and always changing. So she lives in the sea."
+ +I was silent.
+ +At this his face took a gentler expression. He looked at me as though +something was on his mind, and going out to the entrance rock gazed at +the external blue. Then returning into our twilight he said, "As a rule +only good people see the Siren."
+ +I made no comment. There was a pause, and he continued. "That is a very +strange thing, and the priests do not know how to account for it, for +she of course is wicked. Not only those who fast and go to Mass are in +danger, but even those who are merely good in daily life. No one in +the village had seen her for two generations. I am not surprised. We +all cross ourselves before we enter the water, but it is unnecessary. +Giuseppe, we thought, was safer than most. We loved him, and many of us +he loved: but that is a different thing from being good."
+ +I asked who Giuseppe was.
+ +"That dayâI was seventeen and my brother was twenty and a great deal +stronger than I was, and it was the year when the visitors, who have +brought such prosperity and so many alterations into the village, first +began to come. One English lady in particular, of very high birth, +came, and has written a book about the place, and it was through her +that the Improvement Syndicate was formed, which is about to connect +the hotels with the station by a funicular railway."
+ +"Don't tell me about that lady in here," I observed.
+ +"That day we took her and her friends to see the grottoes. As we rowed +close under the cliffs I put out my hand, as one does, and caught a +little crab, and having pulled off its claws offered it as a curiosity. +The ladies groaned, but a gentleman was pleased, and held out money. +Being inexperienced, I refused it, saying that his pleasure was +sufficient reward! Giuseppe, who was rowing behind, was very angry with +me and reached out with his hand and hit me on the side of the mouth, +so that a tooth cut my lip, and I bled. I tried to hit him back, but +he always was too quick for me, and as I stretched round he kicked me +under the armpit, so that for a moment I could not even row. There was +a great noise among the ladies, and I heard afterward that they were +planning to take me away from my brother and train me as a waiter. +That, at all events, never came to pass.
+ +"When we reached the grottoânot here, but a larger oneâthe gentleman +was very anxious that one of us should dive for money, and the ladies +consented, as they sometimes do. Giuseppe, who had discovered how much +pleasure it gives foreigners to see us in the water, refused to dive +for anything but silver, and the gentleman threw in a two-lira piece.
+ +"Just before my brother sprang off he caught sight of me holding my +bruise, and crying, for I could not help it. He laughed and said, 'This +time, at all events, I shall not see the Siren!' and went into the +water without crossing himself. But he saw her."
+ +He broke off and accepted a cigarette. I watched the golden entrance +rock and the quivering walls and the magic water through which great +bubbles constantly rose.
+ +At last he dropped his hot ash into the ripples and turned his head +away, and said, "He came up without the coin. We pulled him into the +boat, and he was so large that he seemed to fill it, and so wet that +we could not dress him. I have never seen a man so wet. I and the +gentleman rowed back, and we covered Giuseppe with sacking and propped +him up in the stern."
+ +"He was drowned, then?" I murmured, supposing that to be the point.
+ +"He was not," he cried angrily. "He saw the Siren. I told you."
+ +I was silenced again.
+ +"We put him to bed, though he was not ill. The doctor came, and took +money, and the priest came and spattered him with holy water. But it +was no good. He was too bigâlike a piece of the sea. He kissed the +thumb-bones of San Biagio and they never dried till evening."
+ +"What did he look like?" I ventured.
+ +"Like any one who has seen the Siren. If you have seen her 'often and +often' how is it you do not know? Unhappy, unhappy because he knew +everything. Every living thing made him unhappy because he knew it +would die. And all he cared to do was sleep."
+ +I bent over my notebook.
+ +"He did no work, he forgot to eat, he forgot whether he had his clothes +on. All the work fell on me, and my sister had to go out to service. We +tried to make him into a beggar, but he was too robust to inspire pity, +and as for an idiot, he had not the right look in his eyes. He would +stand in the street looking at people, and the more he looked at them +the more unhappy he became. When a child was born he would cover his +face with his hands. If any one was marriedâhe was terrible then, and +would frighten them as they came out of church. Who would have believed +he would marry himself! I caused that, I. I was reading out of the +paper how a girl at Ragusa had 'gone mad through bathing in the sea.' +Giuseppe got up, and in a week he and that girl came in.
+ +"He never told me anything, but it seems that he went straight to her +house, broke into her room, and carried her off. She was the daughter +of a rich mineowner, so you may imagine our peril. Her father came +down, with a clever lawyer, but they could do no more than I. They +argued and they threatened, but at last they had to go back and we +lost nothingâthat is to say, no money. We took Giuseppe and Maria to +the church and had them married. Ugh! that wedding! The priest made no +jokes afterward, and coming out the children threw stones.... I think I +would have died to make her happy; but as always happens, one could do +nothing."
+ +"Were they unhappy together then?"
+ +"They loved each other, but love is not happiness. We can all get love. +Love is nothing. I had two people to work for now, for she was like +him in everythingâone never knew which of them was speaking. I had to +sell our own boat and work under the bad old man you have today. Worst +of all, people began to hate us. The children firstâeverything begins +with themâand then the women and last of all the men. For the cause of +every misfortune wasâYou will not betray me?"
+ +I promised good faith, and immediately he burst into the frantic +blasphemy of one who has escaped from supervision, cursing the priests, +who had ruined his life, he said. "Thus are we tricked!" was his cry, +and he stood up and kicked at the azure ripples with his feet, till he +had obscured them with a cloud of sand.
+ +I too was moved. The story of Giuseppe, for all its absurdity and +superstition, came nearer to reality than anything I had known before. +I don't know why, but it filled me with desire to help othersâthe +greatest of all our desires, I suppose, and the most fruitless. The +desire soon passed.
+ +"She was about to have a child. That was the end of everything. People +said to me, 'When will your charming nephew be born? What a cheerful, +attractive child he will be, with such a father and mother!' I kept my +face steady and replied, 'I think he may be. Out of sadness shall come +gladness'âit is one of our proverbs. And my answer frightened them +very much, and they told the priests, who were frightened too. Then the +whisper started that the child would be Antichrist. You need not be +afraid: he was never born.
+ +"An old witch began to prophesy, and no one stopped her. Giuseppe and +the girl, she said, had silent devils, who could do little harm. But +the child would always be speaking and laughing and perverting, and +last of all he would go into the sea and fetch up the Siren into the +air and all the world would see her and hear her sing. As soon as +she sang, the Seven Vials would be opened and the Pope would die and +Mongibello flame, and the veil of Santa Agata would be burned. Then the +boy and the Siren would marry, and together they would rule the world, +for ever and ever.
+ +"The whole village was in tumult, and the hotel-keepers became alarmed, +for the tourist season was just beginning. They met together and +decided that Giuseppe and the girl must be sent inland until the child +was born, and they subscribed the money. The night before they were +to start there was a full moon and wind from the east, and all along +the coast the sea shot up over the cliffs in silver clouds. It is a +wonderful sight, and Maria said she must see it once more.
+ +"'Do not go,' I said. 'I saw the priest go by, and some one with him. +And the hotel-keepers do not like you to be seen, and if we displease +them also we shall starve.'
+ +"'I want to go,' she replied. 'The sea is stormy, and I may never feel +it again.'
+ +"'No, he is right,' said Giuseppe. 'Do not goâor let one of us go with +you.'
+ +"'I want to go alone,' she said; and she went alone.
+ +"I tied up their luggage in a piece of cloth, and then I was so unhappy +at thinking I should lose them that I went and sat down by my brother +and put my arm round his neck, and he put his arm round me, which +he had not done for more than a year, and we remained thus I don't +remember how long.
+ +"Suddenly the door flew open and moonlight and wind came in together, +and a child's voice said laughing, 'They have pushed her over the +cliffs into the sea.'
+ +"I stepped to the drawer where I keep my knives.
+ +"'Sit down again,' said GiuseppeâGiuseppe of all people! 'If she is +dead, why should others die too?'
+ +"'I guess who it is,' I cried, 'and I will kill him.'
+ +"I was almost out of the door, and he tripped me up and, kneeling upon +me, took hold of both my hands and sprained my wrists; first my right +one, then my left. No one but Giuseppe would have thought of such a +thing. It hurt more than you would suppose, and I fainted. When I woke +up, he was gone, and I never saw him again."
+ +But Giuseppe disgusted me.
+ +"I told you he was wicked," he said. "No one would have expected him to +see the Siren."
+ +"How do you know he did see her?"
+ +"Because he did not see her 'often and often,' but once."
+ +"Why do you love him if he is wicked?"
+ +He laughed for the first time. That was his only reply.
+ +"Is that the end?" I asked.
+ +"I never killed her murderer, for by the time my wrists were well he +was in America; and one cannot kill a priest. As for Giuseppe, he went +all over the world too, looking for some one else who had seen the +Sirenâeither a man, or, better still, a woman, for then the child +might still have been born. At last he came to Liverpoolâis the +district probable?âand there he began to cough, and spat blood until +he died.
+ +"I do not suppose there is any one living now who has seen her. There +has seldom been more than one in a generation, and never in my life +will there be both a man and a woman from whom that child can be born, +who will fetch up the Siren from the sea, and destroy silence, and save +the world!"
+ +"Save the world?" I cried. "Did the prophecy end like that?"
+ +He leaned back against the rock, breathing deep. Through all the +blue-green reflections I saw him colour. I heard him say: "Silence and +loneliness cannot last for ever. It may be a hundred or a thousand +years, but the sea lasts longer, and she shall come out of it and +sing." I would have asked him more, but at that moment the whole cave +darkened, and there rode in through its narrow entrance the returning +boat.
+ + +I
+ +"Do you see that mountain just behind Elizabeth's toque? A young man +fell in love with me there so nicely twenty years ago. Bob your head a +minute, would you, Elizabeth, kindly."
+ +"Yes'm," said Elizabeth, falling forward on the box like an unstiffened +doll. Colonel Leyland put on his pince-nez, and looked at the mountain +where the young man had fallen in love.
+ +"Was he a nice young man?" he asked, smiling, though he lowered his +voice a little on account of the maid.
+ +"I never knew. But it is a very gratifying incident to remember at my +age. Thank you, Elizabeth."
+ +"May one ask who he was?"
+ +"A porter," answered Miss Raby in her usual tones. "Not even a +certificated guide. A male person who was hired to carry the luggage, +which he dropped."
+ +"Well! well! What did you do?"
+ +"What a young lady should. Screamed and thanked him not to insult me. +Ran, which was quite unnecessary, fell, sprained my ankle, screamed +again; and he had to carry me half a mile, so penitent that I thought +he would fling me over a precipice. In that state we reached a certain +Mrs. Harbottle, at sight of whom I burst into tears. But she was so +much stupider than I was, that I recovered quickly."
+ +"Of course you said it was all your own fault?"
+ +"I trust I did," she said more seriously. "Mrs. Harbottle, who, like +most people, was always right, had warned me against him; we had had +him for expeditions before."
+ +"Ah! I see."
+ +"I doubt whether you do. Hitherto he had known his place. But he was +too cheap: he gave us more than our money's worth. That, as you know, +is an ominous sign in a low-born person."
+ +"But how was this your fault?"
+ +"I encouraged him: I greatly preferred him to Mrs. Harbottle. He was +handsome and what I call agreeable; and he wore beautiful clothes. +We lagged behind, and he picked me flowers. I held out my hand for +themâinstead of which he seized it and delivered a love oration which +he had prepared out of I Promessi Sposi."
+ +"Ah! an Italian."
+ +They were crossing the frontier at that moment. On a little bridge amid +fir trees were two poles, one painted red, white and green, and the +other black and yellow.
+ +"He lived in Italia Irredenta," said Miss Raby. "But we were to fly to +the Kingdom. I wonder what would have happened if we had."
+ +"Good Lord!" said Colonel Leyland, in sudden disgust. On the box +Elizabeth trembled.
+ +"But it might have been a most successful match."
+ +She was in the habit of talking in this mildly unconventional way. +Colonel Leyland, who made allowances for her brilliancy, managed to +exclaim: "Rather! yes, rather!"
+ +She turned on him with: "Do you think I'm laughing at him?"
+ +He looked a little bewildered, smiled, and did not reply. Their +carriage was now crawling round the base of the notorious mountain. +The road was built over the debris which had fallen and which still +fell from its sides; and it had scarred the pine woods with devastating +rivers of white stone. But farther up, Miss Raby remembered, on its +gentler eastern slope, it possessed tranquil hollows, and flower-clad +rocks, and a most tremendous view. She had not been quite as facetious +as her companion supposed. The incident, certainly, had been ludicrous. +But she was somehow able to laugh at it without laughing much at the +actors or the stage.
+ +"I had rather he made me a fool than that I thought he was one," she +said, after a long pause.
+ +"Here is the Custom House," said Colonel Leyland, changing the subject.
+ +They had come to the land of Ach and Ja. Miss Raby sighed; for she +loved the Latins, as every one must who is not pressed for time. But +Colonel Leyland, a military man, respected Teutonia.
+ +"They still talk Italian for seven miles," she said, comforting herself +like a child.
+ +"German is the coming language," answered Colonel Leyland. "All the +important books on any subject are written in it."
+ +"But all the books on any important subject are written in Italian. +Elizabethâtell me an important subject."
+ +"Human Nature, ma'am," said the maid, half shy, half impertinent.
+ +"Elizabeth is a novelist, like her mistress," said Colonel Leyland. He +turned away to look at the scenery, for he did not like being entangled +in a mixed conversation. He noted that the farms were more prosperous, +that begging had stopped, that the women were uglier and the men more +rotund, that more nourishing food was being eaten outside the wayside +inns.
+ +"Colonel Leyland, shall we go to the Grand HĂ´tel des Alpes, to +the HĂ´tel de Londres, to the Pension Liebig, to the Pension +Atherley-Simon, to the Pension Belle Vue, to the Pension +Old-England, or to the Albergo Biscione?"
+ +"I suppose you would prefer the Biscione."
+ +"I really shouldn't mind the Grand HĂ´tel des Alpes. The Biscione +people own both, I hear. They have become quite rich."
+ +"You should have a splendid receptionâif such people know what +gratitude is."
+ +For Miss Raby's novel, "The Eternal Moment," which had made her +reputation, had also made the reputation of Vorta.
+ +"Oh, I was properly thanked. Signor CantĂš wrote to me about three years +after I had published. The letter struck me as a little pathetic, +though it was very prosperous: I don't like transfiguring people's +lives. I wonder whether they live in their old house or in the new one."
+ +Colonel Leyland had come to Vorta to be with Miss Raby; but he was +very willing that they should be in different hotels. She, indifferent +to such subtleties, saw no reason why they should not stop under the +same roof, just as she could not see why they should not travel in the +same carriage. On the other hand, she hated anything smart. He had +decided on the Grand HĂ´tel des Alpes, and she was drifting towards +the Biscione, when the tiresome Elizabeth said: "My friend's lady is +staying at the Alpes."
+ +"Oh! if Elizabeth's friend is there that settles it: we'll all go."
+ +"Very well'm," said Elizabeth, studiously avoiding even the appearance +of gratitude. Colonel Leyland's face grew severe over the want of +discipline.
+ +"You spoil her," he murmured, when they had all descended to walk up a +hill.
+ +"There speaks the military man."
+ +"Certainly I have had too much to do with Tommies to enter into what +you call 'human relations.' A little sentimentality, and the whole army +would go to pieces."
+ +"I know; but the whole world isn't an army. So why should I pretend +I'm an officer. You remind me of my Anglo-Indian friends, who were so +shocked when I would be pleasant to some natives. They proved, quite +conclusively, that it would never do for them, and have never seen that +the proof didn't apply. The unlucky people here are always trying to +lead the lucky; and it must be stopped. You've been unlucky: all your +life you've had to command men, and exact prompt obedience and other +unprofitable virtues. I'm lucky: I needn't do the sameâand I won't."
+ +"Don't then," he said, smiling. "But take care that the world isn't an +army after all. And take care, besides, that you aren't being unjust to +the unlucky people: we're fairly kind to your beloved lower orders, for +instance."
+ +"Of course," she said dreamily, as if he had made her no concession. +"It's becoming usual. But they see through it. They, like ourselves, +know that only one thing in the world is worth having."
+ +"Ah! yes," he sighed. "It's a commercial age."
+ +"No!" exclaimed Miss Raby, so irritably that Elizabeth looked back to +see what was wrong. "You are stupid. Kindness and money are both quite +easy to part with. The only thing worth giving away is yourself. Did +you ever give yourself away?"
+ +"Frequently."
+ +"I mean, did you ever, intentionally, make a fool of yourself before +your inferiors?"
+ +"Intentionally, never." He saw at last what she was driving at. It was +her pleasure to pretend that such self-exposure was the only possible +basis of true intercourse, the only gate in the spiritual barrier +that divided class from class. One of her books had dealt with the +subject; and very agreeable reading it made. "What about you?" he added +playfully.
+ +"I've never done it properly. Hitherto I've never felt a really big +fool; but when I do, I hope I shall show it plainly."
+ +"May I be there!"
+ +"You might not like it," she replied. "I may feel it at any moment and +in mixed company. Anything might set me off."
+ +"Behold Vorta!" cried the driver, cutting short the sprightly +conversation. He and Elizabeth and the carriage had reached the top of +the hill. The black woods ceased; and they emerged into a valley whose +sides were emerald lawns, rippling and doubling and merging each into +each, yet always with an upward trend, so that it was 2000 feet to +where the rock burst out of the grass and made great mountains, whose +pinnacles were delicate in the purity of evening.
+ +The driver, who had the gift of repetition, said: "Vorta! Vorta!"
+ +Far up the valley was a large white village, tossing on undulating +meadows like a ship in the sea, and at its prow, breasting a sharp +incline, stood a majestic tower of new grey stone. As they looked at +the tower it became vocal and spoke magnificently to the mountains, who +replied.
+ +They were again informed that this was Vorta, and that that was the +new campanileâlike the campanile of Venice, only finerâand that the +sound was the sound of the campanile's new bell.
+ +"Thank you; exactly," said Colonel Leyland, while Miss Raby rejoiced +that the village had made such use of its prosperity. She had feared to +return to the place she had once loved so well, lest she should find +something new. It had never occurred to her that the new thing might be +beautiful. The architect had indeed gone south for his inspiration, and +the tower which stood among the mountains was akin to the tower which +had once stood beside the lagoons. But the birthplace of the bell it +was impossible to determine, for there is no nationality in sound.
+ +They drove forward into the lovely scene, pleased and silent. Approving +tourists took them for a well-matched couple. There was indeed nothing +offensively literary in Miss Raby's kind angular face; and Colonel +Leyland's profession had made him neat rather than aggressive. They +did very well for a cultured and refined husband and wife, who had +spent their lives admiring the beautiful things with which the world is +filled.
+ +As they approached, other churches, hitherto unnoticed, repliedâtiny +churches, ugly churches, churches painted pink with towers like +pumpkins, churches painted white with shingle spires, churches hidden +altogether in the glades of a wood or the folds of a meadowâtill the +evening air was full of little voices, with the great voice singing in +their midst. Only the English church, lately built in the Early English +style, kept chaste silence.
+ +The bells ceased, and all the little churches receded into darkness. +Instead, there was a sound of dressing-gongs, and a vision of +tired tourists hurrying back for dinner. A landau, with Pension +Atherly-Simon upon it, was trotting to meet the diligence, which was +just due. A lady was talking to her mother about an evening dress. +Young men with rackets were talking to young men with alpenstocks. +Then, across the darkness, a fiery finger wrote Grand HĂ´tel des +Alpes.
+ +"Behold the electric light!" said the driver, hearing his passengers +exclaim.
+ +Pension Belle Vue started out against a pine-wood, and from the +brink of the river the HĂ´tel de Londres replied. Pensions Liebig +and Lorelei were announced in green and amber respectively. The +Old-England appeared in scarlet. The illuminations covered a large +area, for the best hotels stood outside the village, in elevated or +romantic situations. This display took place every evening in the +season, but only while the diligence arrived. As soon as the last +tourist was suited, the lights went out, and the hotel-keepers, cursing +or rejoicing, retired to their cigars.
+ +"Horrible!" said Miss Raby.
+ +"Horrible people!" said Colonel Leyland.
+ +The HĂ´tel des Alpes was an enormous building, which, being made of +wood, suggested a distended chalet. But this impression was corrected +by a costly and magnificent view-terrace, the squared stones of which +were visible for miles, and from which, as from some great reservoir, +asphalt paths trickled over the adjacent country. Their carriage, +having ascended a private drive, drew up under a vaulted portico of +pitch-pine, which opened on to this terrace on one side, and into the +covered lounge on the other. There was a whirl of officialsâmen with +gold braid, smarter men with more gold braid, men smarter still with +no gold braid. Elizabeth assumed an arrogant air, and carried a small +straw basket with difficulty. Colonel Leyland became every inch a +soldier. Miss Raby, whom, in spite of long experience, a large hotel +always flustered, was hurried into an expensive bedroom, and advised to +dress herself immediately if she wished to partake of table d'hĂ´te.
+ +As she came up the staircase, she had seen the dining-room filling with +English and Americans and with rich, hungry Germans. She liked company, +but tonight she was curiously depressed. She seemed to be confronted +with an unpleasing vision, the outlines of which were still obscure.
+ +"I will eat in my room," she told Elizabeth. "Go to your dinner: I'll +do the unpacking."
+ +She wandered round, looking at the list of rules, the list of prices, +the list of excursions, the red plush sofa, the jugs and basins on +which was lithographed a view of the mountains. Where amid such +splendour was there a place for Signor CantĂš with his china-bowled +pipe, and for Signora CantĂš with her snuff-coloured shawl?
+ +When the waiter at last brought up her dinner, she asked after her host +and hostess.
+ +He replied, in cosmopolitan English, that they were both well.
+ +"Do they live here, or at the Biscione?"
+ +"Here, why yes. Only poor tourists go the Biscione."
+ +"Who lives there, then?"
+ +"The mother of Signor CantĂš. She is unconnected," he continued, like +one who has learnt a lesson, "she is unconnected absolutely with us. +Fifteen years back, yes. But now, where is the Biscione? I beg you +contradict if we are spoken about together."
+ +Miss Raby said quietly: "I have made a mistake. Would you kindly give +notice that I shall not want my room, and say that the luggage is to be +taken, immediately, to the Biscione."
+ +"Certainly! certainly!" said the waiter, who was well trained. He added +with a vicious snort, "You will have to pay."
+ +"Undoubtedly," said Miss Raby.
+ +The elaborate machinery which had so recently sucked her in began to +disgorge her. The trunks were carried down, the vehicle in which she +had arrived was recalled. Elizabeth, white with indignation, appeared +in the hall. She paid for beds in which they had not slept, and for +food which they had never eaten. Amidst the whirl of gold-laced +officials, who hoped even in that space of time to have established +a claim to be tipped, she moved towards the door. The guests in the +lounge observed her with amusement, concluding that she had found the +hotel too dear.
+ +"What is it? Whatever is it? Are you not comfortable?" Colonel Leyland +in his evening dress ran after her.
+ +"Not that; I've made a mistake. This hotel belongs to the son; I must +go to the Biscione. He's quarrelled with the old people: I think the +father's dead."
+ +"But reallyâif you are comfortable hereââ"
+ +"I must find out tonight whether it is true. And I must also"âher +voice quiveredâ"find out whether it is my fault."
+ +"How in the name of goodnessââ"
+ +"I shall bear it if it is," she continued gently. "I am too old to be a +tragedy queen as well as an evil genius."
+ +"What does she mean? Whatever does she mean?" he murmured, as he +watched the carriage lights descending the hill. "What harm has she +done? What harm is there for that matter? Hotel-keepers always quarrel: +it's no business of ours." He ate a good dinner in silence. Then his +thoughts were turned by the arrival of his letters from the post office.
+ +"Dearest Edwin,âIt is with the greatest diffidence that +I write to you, and I know you will believe me when I say that I +do not write from curiosity. I only require an answer to one plain +question. Are you engaged to Miss Raby or no? Fashions have altered +even since my young days. But, for all that an engagement is still +an engagement, and should be announced at once, to save all parties +discomfort. Though your health has broken down and you have abandoned +your profession, you can still protect the family honour."
+"Drivel!" exclaimed Colonel Leyland. Acquaintance with Miss Raby had +made his sight keener. He recognized in this part of his sister's +letter nothing but an automatic conventionality. He was no more moved +by its perusal than she had been by its composition.
+ +"As for the maid whom the Bannons mentioned to me, she is not a +chaperoneânothing but a sop to throw in the eyes of the world. I am +not saying a word against Miss Raby, whose books we always read. +Literary people are always unpractical, and we are confident that she +does not know. Perhaps I do not think her the wife for you; but that +is another matter.
+ +"My babes, who all send love (so does Lionel), are at present an +unmitigated joy. One's only anxiety is for the future, when the +crushing expenses of good education will have to be taken into account.
+ +"Your loving Nelly."
+How could he explain the peculiar charm of the relations between +himself and Miss Raby? There had never been a word of marriage, and +would probably never be a word of love. If, instead of seeing each +other frequently, they should come to see each other always it would +be as sage companions, familiar with life, not as egoistic lovers, +craving for infinities of passion which they had no right to demand and +no power to supply. Neither professed to be a virgin soul, or to be +ignorant of the other's limitations and inconsistencies. They scarcely +even made allowances for each other. Toleration implies reserve; and +the greatest safeguard of unruffled intercourse is knowledge. Colonel +Leyland had courage of no mean order: he cared little for the opinion +of people whom he understood. Nelly and Lionel and their babes were +welcome to be shocked or displeased. Miss Raby was an authoress, a kind +of radical; he a soldier, a kind of aristocrat. But the time for their +activities was passing; he was ceasing to fight, she to write. They +could pleasantly spend together their autumn. Nor might they prove the +worst companions for a winter.
+ +He was too delicate to admit, even to himself, the desirability of +marrying two thousand a year. But it lent an unacknowledged perfume to +his thoughts. He tore Nelly's letter into little pieces, and dropped +them into the darkness out of the bedroom window.
+ +"Funny lady!" he murmured, as he looked towards Vorta, trying to detect +the campanile in the growing light of the moon. "Why have you gone to +be uncomfortable? Why will you interfere in the quarrels of people who +can't understand you, and whom you don't understand? How silly you are +to think you've caused them. You think you've written a book which has +spoilt the place and made the inhabitants corrupt and sordid. I know +just how you think. So you will make yourself unhappy, and go about +trying to put right what never was right. Funny lady!"
+ +Close below him he could now see the white fragments of his sister's +letter. In the valley the campanile appeared, rising out of wisps of +silvery vapour.
+ +"Dear lady!" he whispered, making towards the village a little movement +with his hands.
+ +II
+ +Miss Raby's first novel, "The Eternal Moment," was written round the +idea that man does not live by time alone, that an evening gone may +become like a thousand ages in the courts of heavenâthe idea that was +afterwards expounded more philosophically by Maeterlinck. She herself +now declared that it was a tiresome, affected book, and that the title +suggested the dentist's chair. But she had written it when she was +feeling young and happy; and that, rather than maturity, is the hour in +which to formulate a creed. As years pass, the conception may become +more solid, but the desire and the power to impart it to others are +alike weakened. It did not altogether displease her that her earliest +work had been her most ambitious.
+ +By a strange fate, the book made a great sensation, especially in +unimaginative circles. Idle people interpreted it to mean that there +was no harm in wasting time, vulgar people that there was no harm in +being fickle, pious people interpreted it as an attack upon morality. +The authoress became well known in society, where her enthusiasm for +the lower classes only lent her an additional charm. That very year +Lady Anstey, Mrs. Heriot, the Marquis of Bamburgh, and many others, +penetrated to Vorta, where the scene of the book was laid. They +returned enthusiastic. Lady Anstey exhibited her water-colour drawings; +Mrs. Heriot, who photographed, wrote an article in The Strand; while +The Nineteenth Century published a long description of the place +by the Marquis of Bamburgh, entitled "The Modern Peasant, and his +Relations with Roman Catholicism."
+ +Thanks to these efforts, Vorta became a rising place, and people who +liked being off the beaten track went there, and pointed out the way +to others. Miss Raby, by a series of trivial accidents, had never +returned to the village whose rise was so intimately connected with +her own. She had heard from time to time of its progress. It had also +been whispered that an inferior class of tourist was finding it out, +and, fearing to find something spoilt, she had at last a certain +diffidence in returning to scenes which once had given her so much +pleasure. Colonel Leyland persuaded her; he wanted a cool healthy spot +for the summer, where he could read and talk and find walks suitable +for an athletic invalid. Their friends laughed; their acquaintances +gossiped; their relatives were furious. But he was courageous and she +was indifferent. They had accomplished the expedition under the scanty +ĂŚgis of Elizabeth.
+ +Her arrival was saddening. It displeased her to see the great hotels in +a great circle, standing away from the village where all life should +have centred. Their illuminated titles, branded on the tranquil evening +slopes, still danced in her eyes. And the monstrous HĂ´tel des Alpes +haunted her like a nightmare. In her dreams she recalled the portico, +the ostentatious lounge, the polished walnut bureau, the vast rack for +the bedroom keys, the panoramic bedroom crockery, the uniforms of the +officials, and the smell of smart peopleâwhich is to some nostrils +quite as depressing as the smell of poor ones. She was not enthusiastic +over the progress of civilisation, knowing by Eastern experiences that +civilisation rarely puts her best foot foremost, and is apt to make +the barbarians immoral and vicious before her compensating qualities +arrive. And here there was no question of progress: the world had more +to learn from the village than the village from the world.
+ +At the Biscione, indeed, she had found little changeâonly the +pathos of a survival. The old landlord had died, and the old landlady +was ill in bed, but the antique spirit had not yet departed. On the +timbered front was still painted the dragon swallowing the childâthe +arms of the Milanese Visconti, from whom the CantĂšs might well be +descended. For there was something about the little hotel which +compelled a sympathetic guest to believe, for the time at all events, +in aristocracy. The great manner, only to be obtained without effort, +ruled throughout. In each bedroom were three or four beautiful +thingsâa little piece of silk tapestry, a fragment of rococo carving, +some blue tiles, framed and hung upon the whitewashed wall. There were +pictures in the sitting-rooms and on the stairsâeighteenth-century +pictures in the style of Carlo Dolce and the Caracciâa blue-robed +Mater Dolorosa, a fluttering saint, a magnanimous Alexander with +a receding chin. A debased styleâso the superior person and the +textbooks say. Yet, at times, it may have more freshness and +significance than a newly-purchased Fra Angelico. Miss Raby, who had +visited dukes in their residences without a perceptible tremor, felt +herself blatant and modern when she entered the Albergo Biscione. +The most trivial thingsâthe sofa cushions, the table cloths, the +cases for the pillowsâthough they might be made of poor materials and +be ĂŚsthetically incorrect, inspired her with reverence and humility. +Through this cleanly, gracious dwelling there had once moved Signor +CantĂš with his china-bowled pipe, Signora CantĂš in her snuff-coloured +shawl, and Bartolommeo CantĂš, now proprietor of the Grand HĂ´tel des +Alpes.
+ +She sat down to breakfast next morning in a mood which she tried to +attribute to her bad night and her increasing age. Never, she thought, +had she seen people more unattractive and more unworthy than her +fellow-guests. A black-browed woman was holding forth on patriotism and +the duty of English tourists to present an undivided front to foreign +nations. Another woman kept up a feeble lament, like a dribbling tap +which never gathers flow yet never quite ceases, complaining of the +food, the charges, the noise, the clouds, the dust. She liked coming +here herself, she said; but she hardly liked to recommend it to her +friends: it was the kind of hotel one felt like that about. Males were +rare, and in great demand; a young one was describing, amid fits of +laughter, the steps he had taken to astonish the natives.
+ +Miss Raby was sitting opposite the famous fresco, which formed the only +decoration of the room. It had been discovered during some repairs; +and, though the surface had been injured in places, the colours were +still bright. Signora CantĂš attributed it now to Titian, now to Giotto, +and declared that no one could interpret its meaning; professors and +artists had puzzled themselves in vain. This she said because it +pleased her to say it; the meaning was perfectly clear, and had been +frequently explained to her. Those four figures were sibyls, holding +prophecies of the Nativity. It was uncertain for what original reason +they had been painted high up in the mountains, at the extreme boundary +of Italian art. Now, at all events, they were an invaluable source of +conversation; and many an acquaintance had been opened, and argument +averted, by their timely presence on the wall.
+ +"Aren't those saints cunning!" said an American lady, following Miss +Raby's glance.
+ +The lady's father muttered something about superstition. They were +a lugubrious couple, lately returned from the Holy Land, where they +had been cheated shamefully, and their attitude towards religion had +suffered in consequence.
+ +Miss Raby said, rather sharply, that the saints were sibyls.
+ +"But I don't recall sibyls," said the lady, "either in the N.T. or the +O."
+ +"Inventions of the priests to deceive the peasantry," said the father +sadly. "Same as their churches; tinsel pretending to be gold, cotton +pretending to be silk, stucco pretending to be marble; same as their +processions, same as theirâ(he swore)âcampaniles."
+ +"My father," said the lady, bending forward, "he does suffer so from +insomnia. Fancy a bell every morning at six!"
+ +"Yes, ma'am; you profit. We've stopped it."
+ +"Stopped the early bell ringing?" cried Miss Raby.
+ +People looked up to see who she was. Some one whispered that she wrote.
+ +He replied that he had come up all these feet for rest, and that if he +did not get it he would move on to another centre. The English and +American visitors had co-operated, and forced the hotel-keepers to +take action. Now the priests rang a dinner bell, which was endurable. +He believed that "corperation" would do anything: it had been the same +with the peasants.
+ +"How did the tourists interfere with the peasants?" asked Miss Raby, +getting very hot, and trembling all over.
+ +"We said the same; we had come for rest, and we would have it. Every +week they got drunk and sang till two. Is that a proper way to go on, +anyhow?"
+ +"I remember," said Miss Raby, "that some of them did get drunk. But I +also remember how they sang."
+ +"Quite so. Till two," he retorted.
+ +They parted in mutual irritation. She left him holding forth on the +necessity of a new universal religion of the open air. Over his head +stood the four sibyls, gracious for all their clumsiness and crudity, +each proffering a tablet inscribed with concise promise of redemption. +If the old religions had indeed become insufficient for humanity, it +did not seem probable that an adequate substitute would be produced in +America.
+ +It was too early to pay her promised visit to Signora CantĂš. Nor was +Elizabeth, who had been rude overnight and was now tiresomely penitent, +a possible companion. There were a few tables outside the inn, at which +some women sat, drinking beer. Pollarded chestnuts shaded them; and a +low wooden balustrade fenced them off from the village street. On this +balustrade Miss Raby perched, for it gave her a view of the campanile. +A critical eye could discover plenty of faults in its architecture. But +she looked at it all with increasing pleasure, in which was mingled a +certain gratitude.
+ +The German waitress came out and suggested very civilly that she should +find a more comfortable seat. This was the place where the lower +classes ate; would she not go to the drawing-room?
+ +"Thank you, no; for how many years have you classified your guests +according to their birth?"
+ +"For many years. It was necessary," replied the admirable woman. She +returned to the house full of meat and common sense, one of the many +signs that the Teuton was gaining on the Latin in this debatable valley.
+ +A grey-haired lady came out next, shading her eyes from the sun, and +crackling The Morning Post. She glanced at Miss Raby pleasantly, blew +her nose, apologized for speaking, and spoke as follows:
+ +"This evening, I wonder if you know, there is a concert in aid of the +stained-glass window for the English Church. Might I persuade you to +take tickets? As has been said, it is so important that English people +should have a rallying point, is it not?"
+ +"Most important," said Miss Raby; "but I wish the rallying point could +be in England."
+ +The grey-haired lady smiled. Then she looked puzzled. Then she realized +that she had been insulted, and, crackling The Morning Post, +departed.
+ +"I have been rude," thought Miss Raby dejectedly. "Rude to a lady as +silly and as grey-haired as myself. This is not a day on which I ought +to talk to people."
+ +Her life had been successful, and on the whole happy. She was +unaccustomed to that mood, which is termed depressed, but which +certainly gives visions of wider, if greyer, horizons. That morning +her outlook altered. She walked through the village, scarcely noticing +the mountains by which it was still surrounded, or the unaltered +radiance of its sun. But she was fully conscious of something new; of +the indefinable corruption which is produced by the passage of a large +number of people.
+ +Even at that time the air was heavy with meat and drink, to which were +added dust and tobacco smoke and the smell of tired horses. Carriages +were huddled against the church, and underneath the campanile a +woman was guarding a stack of bicycles. The season had been bad for +climbing; and groups of young men in smart Norfolk suits were idling +up and down, waiting to be hired as guides. Two large inexpensive +hotels stood opposite the post office; and in front of them innumerable +little tables surged out into the street. Here, from an early hour in +the morning, eating had gone on, and would continue till a late hour +at night. The customers, chiefly German, refreshed themselves with +cries and with laughter, passing their arms round the waists of their +wives. Then, rising heavily, they departed in single file towards some +view-point, whereon a red flag indicated the possibility of another +meal. The whole population was employed, even down to the little girls, +who worried the guests to buy picture postcards and edelweiss. Vorta +had taken to the tourist trade.
+ +A village must have some trade; and this village had always been full +of virility and power. Obscure and happy, its splendid energies had +found employment in wresting a livelihood out of the earth, whence +had come a certain dignity, and kindliness, and love for other men. +Civilisation did not relax these energies, but it had diverted them; +and all the precious qualities, which might have helped to heal the +world, had been destroyed. The family affection, the affection for +the commune, the sane pastoral virtuesâall had perished while the +campanile which was to embody them was being built. No villain had +done this thing: it was the work of ladies and gentlemen who were good +and rich and often cleverâwho, if they thought about the matter at +all, thought that they were conferring a benefit, moral as well as +commercial, on any place in which they chose to stop.
+ +Never before had Miss Raby been conscious of such universal misdoing. +She returned to the Biscione shattered and exhausted, remembering +that terrible text in which there is much semblance of justice: "But +woe to him through whom the offence cometh."
+ +Signora CantĂš, somewhat over-excited, was lying in a dark room on the +ground floor. The walls were bare; for all the beautiful things were +in the rooms of her guests whom she loved as a good queen might love +her subjectsâand the walls were dirty also, for this was Signora +CantĂš's own room. But no palace had so fair a ceiling; for from the +wooden beams were suspended a whole dowry of copper vesselsâpails, +cauldrons, water pots, of every colour from lustrous black to the +palest pink. It pleased the old lady to look up at these tokens of +prosperity. An American lady had lately departed without them, more +puzzled than angry.
+ +The two women had little in common; for Signora CantĂš was an inflexible +aristocrat. Had she been a great lady of the great century, she +would have gone speedily to the guillotine, and Miss Raby would have +howled approval. Now, with her scanty hair in curl-papers, and the +snuff-coloured shawl spread over her, she entertained the distinguished +authoress with accounts of other distinguished people who had +stopped, and might again stop, at the Biscione. At first her tone +was dignified. But before long she proceeded to village news, and a +certain bitterness began to show itself. She chronicled deaths with +a kind of melancholy pride. Being old herself, she liked to meditate +on the fairness of Fate, which had not spared her contemporaries, and +often had not spared her juniors. Miss Raby was unaccustomed to extract +such consolation. She too was growing old, but it would have pleased +her better if others could have remained young. She remembered few of +these people well, but deaths were symbolical, just as the death of a +flower may symbolize the passing of all the spring.
+ +Signora CantĂš then went on to her own misfortunes, beginning with an +account of a landslip, which had destroyed her little farm. A landslip, +in that valley, never hurried. Under the green coat of turf water +would collect, just as an abscess is formed under the skin. There +would be a lump on the sloping meadow, then the lump would break and +discharge a slowly-moving stream of mud and stones. Then the whole area +seemed to be corrupted; on every side the grass cracked and doubled +into fantastic creases, the trees grew awry, the barns and cottages +collapsed, all the beauty turned gradually to indistinguishable pulp, +which slid downwards till it was washed away by some stream.
+ +From the farm they proceeded to other grievances, over which Miss Raby +became almost too depressed to sympathize. It was a bad season; the +guests did not understand the ways of the hotel; the servants did not +understand the guests; she was told she ought to have a concierge. But +what was the good of a concierge?
+ +"I have no idea," said Miss Raby, feeling that no concierge would ever +restore the fortunes of the Biscione.
+ +"They say he would meet the diligence and entrap the new arrivals. What +pleasure should I have from guests I entrapped?"
+ +"The other hotels do it," said Miss Raby, sadly.
+ +"Exactly. Every day a man comes down from the Alpes."
+ +There was an awkward silence. Hitherto they had avoided mentioning that +name.
+ +"He takes them all," she continued, in a burst of passion. "My son +takes all my guests. He has taken all the English nobility, and the +best Americans, and all my old Milanese friends. He slanders me up and +down the valley, saying that the drains are bad. The hotel-keepers +will not recommend me; they send on their guests to him, because he +pays them five per cent. for every one they send. He pays the drivers, +he pays the porters, he pays the guides. He pays the band, so that it +hardly ever plays down in the village. He even pays the little children +to say my drains are bad. He and his wife and his concierge, they mean +to ruin me, they would like to see me die."
+ +"Don'tâdon't say these things, Signora CantĂš." Miss Raby began to walk +about the room, speaking, as was her habit, what was true rather than +what was intelligible. "Try not to be so angry with your son. You don't +know what he had to contend with. You don't know who led him into it. +Some one else may be to blame. And whoever it may beâyou will remember +them in your prayers."
+ +"Of course I am a Christian!" exclaimed the angry old lady. "But he +will not ruin me. I seem poor, but he has borrowedâtoo much. That +hotel will fail!"
+ +"And perhaps," continued Miss Raby, "there is not much wickedness in +the world. Most of the evil we see is the result of little faultsâof +stupidity or vanity."
+ +"And I even know who led him into itâhis wife, and the man who is now +his concierge."
+ +"This habit of talking, of self-expressionâit seems so pleasant and +necessaryâyet it does harmââ"
+ +They were both interrupted by an uproar in the street. Miss Raby opened +the window; and a cloud of dust, heavy with petrol, entered. A passing +motor car had twitched over a table. Much beer had been spilt, and a +little blood.
+ +Signora CantĂš sighed peevishly at the noise. Her ill-temper had +exhausted her, and she lay motionless, with closed eyes. Over her head +two copper vases clinked gently in the sudden gust of wind. Miss Raby +had been on the point of a great dramatic confession, of a touching +appeal for forgiveness. Her words were ready; her words always were +ready. But she looked at those closed eyes, that suffering enfeebled +frame, and she knew that she had no right to claim the luxury of pardon.
+ +It seemed to her that with this interview her life had ended. She had +done all that was possible. She had done much evil. It only remained +for her to fold her hands and to wait, till her ugliness and her +incompetence went the way of beauty and strength. Before her eyes +there arose the pleasant face of Colonel Leyland, with whom she might +harmlessly conclude her days. He would not be stimulating, but it did +not seem desirable that she should be stimulated. It would be better if +her faculties did close, if the senseless activity of her brain and +her tongue were gradually numbed. For the first time in her life, she +was tempted to become old.
+ +Signora CantĂš was still speaking of her son's wife and concierge; of +the vulgarity of the former and the ingratitude of the latter, whom +she had been kind to long ago, when he first wandered up from Italy, +an obscure boy. Now he had sided against her. Such was the reward of +charity.
+ +"And what is his name?" asked Miss Raby absently.
+ +"Feo Ginori," she replied. "You would not remember him. He used to +carryââ"
+ +From the new campanile there burst a flood of sound to which the copper +vessels vibrated responsively. Miss Raby lifted her hands, not to her +ears but to her eyes. In her enfeebled state, the throbbing note of the +bell had the curious effect of blood returning into frozen veins.
+ +"I remember that man perfectly," she said at last; "and I shall see him +this afternoon."
+ +III
+ +Miss Raby and Elizabeth were seated together in the lounge of the +HĂ´tel des Alpes. They had walked up from the Biscione to see +Colonel Leyland. But he, apparently, had walked down there to see +them, and the only thing to do was to wait, and to justify the wait +by ordering some refreshment. So Miss Raby had afternoon tea, while +Elizabeth behaved like a perfect lady over an ice, occasionally +turning the spoon upside down in the mouth when she saw that no one +was looking. The under-waiters were clearing cups and glasses off the +marble-topped tables, and the gold-laced officials were rearranging +the wicker chairs into seductive groups of three and two. Here and +there the visitors lingered among their crumbs, and the Russian +Prince had fallen asleep in a prominent and ungraceful position. But +most people had started for a little walk before dinner, or had +gone to play tennis, or had taken a book under a tree. The weather +was delightful, and the sun had so far declined that its light had +become spiritualized, suggesting new substance as well as new colour +in everything on which it fell. From her seat Miss Raby could see +the great precipices under which they had passed the day before; and +beyond those precipices she could see Italyâthe Val d'Aprile, the Val +Senese and the mountains she had named "The Beasts of the South." All +day those mountains were insignificantâdistant chips of white or grey +stone. But the evening sun transfigured them, and they would sit up +like purple bears against the southern sky.
+ +"It is a sin you should not be out, Elizabeth. Find your friend if you +can, and make her go with you. If you see Colonel Leyland, tell him I +am here."
+ +"Is that all, ma'am?" Elizabeth was fond of her eccentric mistress, and +her heart had been softened by the ice. She saw that Miss Raby did not +look well. Possibly the course of love was running roughly. And indeed +gentlemen must be treated with tact, especially when both parties are +getting on.
+ +"Don't give pennies to the children: that is the only other thing."
+ +The guests had disappeared, and the number of officials visibly +diminished. From the hall behind came the genteel sniggers of those two +most vile creatures, a young lady behind the bureau and a young man in +a frock coat who shows new arrivals to their rooms. Some of the porters +joined them, standing at a suitable distance. At last only Miss Raby, +the Russian Prince, and the concierge were left in the lounge.
+ +The concierge was a competent European of forty or so, who spoke +all languages fluently, and some well. He was still active, and had +evidently once been muscular. But either his life or his time of life +had been unkind to his figure: in a few years he would certainly +be fat. His face was less easy to decipher. He was engaged in the +unquestioning performance of his duty, and that is not a moment for +self-revelation. He opened the windows, he filled the match-boxes, he +flicked the little tables with a duster, always keeping an eye on the +door in case any one arrived without luggage, or left without paying. +He touched an electric bell, and a waiter flew up and cleared away +Miss Raby's tea things. He touched another bell, and sent an underling +to tidy up some fragments of paper which had fallen out of a bedroom +window. Then "Excuse me, madam!" and he had picked up Miss Raby's +handkerchief with a slight bow. He seemed to bear her no grudge for her +abrupt departure of the preceding evening. Perhaps it was into his hand +that she had dropped a tip. Perhaps he did not remember she had been +there.
+ +The gesture with which he returned the handkerchief troubled her +with vague memories. Before she could thank him he was back in the +doorway, standing sideways, so that the slight curve of his stomach was +outlined against the view. He was speaking to a youth of athletic but +melancholy appearance, who was fidgeting in the portico without. "I +told you the percentage," she heard. "If you had agreed to it, I would +have recommended you. Now it is too late. I have enough guides."
+ +Our generosity benefits more people than we suppose. We tip the +cabman, and something goes to the man who whistled for him. We tip +the man who lights up the stalactite grotto with magnesium wire, and +something goes to the boatman who brought us there. We tip the waiter +in the restaurant, and something goes off the waiter's wages. A vast +machinery, whose existence we seldom realize, promotes the distribution +of our wealth. When the concierge returned, Miss Raby asked: "And what +is the percentage?"
+ +She asked with the definite intention of disconcerting him, not because +she was unkind, but because she wished to discover what qualities, if +any, lurked beneath that civil, efficient exterior. And the spirit of +her inquiry was sentimental rather than scientific.
+ +With an educated man she would have succeeded. In attempting to reply +to her question, he would have revealed something. But the concierge +had no reason to pay even lip service to logic. He replied: "Yes, +madam! this is perfect weather, both for our visitors and for the hay," +and hurried to help a bishop, who was selecting a picture postcard.
+ +Miss Raby, instead of moralizing on the inferior resources of the +lower classes, acknowledged a defeat. She watched the man spreading +out the postcards, helpful yet not obtrusive, alert yet deferential. +She watched him make the bishop buy more than he wanted. This was the +man who had talked of love to her upon the mountain. But hitherto +he had only revealed his identity by chance gestures bequeathed to +him at birth. Intercourse with the gentle classes had required new +qualitiesâcivility, omniscience, imperturbability. It was the old +answer: the gentle classes were responsible for him. It is inevitable, +as well as desirable, that we should bear each other's burdens.
+ +It was absurd to blame Feo for his worldlinessâfor his essential +vulgarity. He had not made himself. It was even absurd to regret +his transformation from an athlete: his greasy stoutness, his big +black kiss-curl, his waxed moustache, his chin which was dividing +and propagating itself like some primitive form of life. In England, +nearly twenty years before, she had altered his figure as well as his +character. He was one of the products of "The Eternal Moment."
+ +A great tenderness overcame herâthe sadness of an unskilful demiurge, +who makes a world and beholds that it is bad. She desired to ask pardon +of her creatures, even though they were too poorly formed to grant it. +The longing to confess, which she had suppressed that morning beside +the bed of Signora CantĂš, broke out again with the violence of a +physical desire. When the bishop had gone she renewed the conversation, +though on different lines, saying: "Yes, it is beautiful weather. I +have just been enjoying a walk up from the Biscione. I am stopping +there!"
+ +He saw that she was willing to talk, and replied pleasantly: "The +Biscione must be a very nice hotel: many people speak well of it. +The fresco is very beautiful." He was too shrewd to object to a little +charity.
+ +"What lots of new hotels there are!" She lowered her voice in order not +to rouse the Prince, whose presence weighed on her curiously.
+ +"Oh, madam! I should indeed think so. When I was a ladâExcuse me one +moment."
+ +An American girl, who was new to the country, came up with her hand +full of coins, and asked him hopelessly "whatever they were worth." He +explained, and gave her change: Miss Raby was not sure that he gave her +right change.
+ +"When I was a ladââ" He was again interrupted, to speed two parting +guests. One of them tipped him; he said, "Thank you." The other did not +tip him; he said, "Thank you," all the same but not in the same way. +Obviously he had as yet no recollections of Miss Raby.
+ +"When I was a lad, Vorta was a poor little place."
+ +"But a pleasant place?"
+ +"Very pleasant, madam."
+ +"Kouf!" said the Russian Prince, suddenly waking up and startling +them both. He clapped on a felt hat, and departed at full speed for a +constitutional. Miss Raby and Feo were left together.
+ +It was then that she ceased to hesitate, and determined to remind him +that they had met before. All day she had sought for a spark of life, +and it might be summoned by pointing to that other fire which she +discerned, far back in the travelled distance, high up in the mountains +of youth. What he would do, if he also discerned it, she did not know; +but she hoped that he would become alive, that he at all events would +escape the general doom which she had prepared for the place and the +people. And what she would do, during their joint contemplation, she +did not even consider.
+ +She would hardly have ventured if the sufferings of the day had not +hardened her. After much pain, respectability becomes ludicrous. And +she had only to overcome the difficulty of Feo's being a man, not the +difficulty of his being a concierge. She had never observed that +spiritual reticence towards social inferiors which is usual at the +present day.
+ +"This is my second visit," she said boldly. "I stayed at the Biscione +twenty years ago."
+ +He showed the first sign of emotion: that reference to the Biscione +annoyed him.
+ +"I was told I should find you up here," continued Miss Raby. "I +remember you very well. You used to take us over the passes."
+ +She watched his face intently. She did not expect it to relax into an +expansive smile. "Ah!" he said, taking off his peaked cap, "I remember +you perfectly, madam. What a pleasure, if I may say so, to meet you +again!"
+ +"I am pleased, too," said the lady, looking at him doubtfully.
+ +"You and another lady, madam, was it not? Missââ"
+ +"Mrs. Harbottle."
+ +"To be sure; I carried your luggage. I often remember your kindness."
+ +She looked up. He was standing near an open window, and the whole +of fairyland stretched behind him. Her sanity forsook her, and she +said gently: "Will you misunderstand me, if I say that I have never +forgotten your kindness either?"
+ +He replied: "The kindness was yours, madam; I only did my duty."
+ +"Duty?" she cried; "what about duty?"
+ +"You and Miss Harbottle were such generous ladies. I well remember how +grateful I was: you always paid me above the tariff fareââ"
+ +Then she realized that he had forgotten everything; forgotten her, +forgotten what had happened, even forgotten what he was like when he +was young.
+ +"Stop being polite," she said coldly. "You were not polite when I saw +you last."
+ +"I am very sorry," he exclaimed, suddenly alarmed.
+ +"Turn round. Look at the mountains."
+ +"Yes, yes." His fishy eyes blinked nervously. He fiddled with his watch +chain which lay in a furrow of his waistcoat. He ran away to warn some +poorly dressed children off the view-terrace. When he returned she +still insisted.
+ +"I must tell you," she said, in calm, business-like tones. "Look at +that great mountain, round which the road goes south. Look half-way up, +on its eastern sideâwhere the flowers are. It was there that you once +gave yourself away."
+ +He gaped at her in horror. He remembered. He was inexpressibly shocked.
+ +It was at that moment that Colonel Leyland returned.
+ +She walked up to him, saying, "This is the man I spoke of yesterday."
+ +"Good afternoon; what man?" said Colonel Leyland fussily. He saw that +she was flushed, and concluded that some one had been rude to her. +Since their relations were somewhat anomalous, he was all the more +particular that she should be treated with respect.
+ +"The man who fell in love with me when I was young."
+ +"It is untrue!" cried the wretched Feo, seeing at once the trap that +had been laid for him. "The lady imagined it. I swear, sirâI meant +nothing. I was a lad. It was before I learnt behaviour. I had even +forgotten it. She reminded me. She has disturbed me."
+ +"Good Lord!" said Colonel Leyland. "Good Lord!"
+ +"I shall lose my place, sir; and I have a wife and children. I shall be +ruined."
+ +"Sufficient!" cried Colonel Leyland. "Whatever Miss Raby's intentions +may be, she does not intend to ruin you."
+ +"You have misunderstood me, Feo," said Miss Raby gently.
+ +"How unlucky we have been missing each other," said Colonel Leyland, in +trembling tones that were meant to be nonchalant. "Shall we go a little +walk before dinner? I hope that you are stopping."
+ +She did not attend. She was watching Feo. His alarm had subsided; and +he revealed a new emotion, even less agreeable to her. His shoulders +straightened, he developed an irresistible smile, and, when he saw that +she was looking and that Colonel Leyland was not, he winked at her.
+ +It was a ghastly sight, perhaps the most hopelessly depressing of all +the things she had seen at Vorta. But its effect on her was memorable. +It evoked a complete vision of that same man as he had been twenty +years before. She could see him to the smallest detail of his clothes +or his hair, the flowers in his hand, the graze on his wrist, the heavy +bundle that he had loosed from his back, so that he might speak as a +freeman. She could hear his voice, neither insolent nor diffident, +never threatening, never apologizing, urging her first in the studied +phrases he had learnt from books, then, as his passion grew, becoming +incoherent, crying that she must believe him, that she must love him +in return, that she must fly with him to Italy, where they would live +for ever, always happy, always young. She had cried out then, as a +young lady should, and had thanked him not to insult her. And now, in +her middle age, she cried out again, because the sudden shock and the +contrast had worked a revelation. "Don't think I'm in love with you +now!" she cried.
+ +For she realized that only now was she not in love with him: that the +incident upon the mountain had been one of the great moments of her +lifeâperhaps the greatest, certainly the most enduring: that she had +drawn unacknowledged power and inspiration from it, just as trees draw +vigour from a subterranean spring. Never again could she think of it +as a half-humorous episode in her development. There was more reality +in it than in all the years of success and varied achievement which +had followed, and which it had rendered possible. For all her correct +behaviour and lady-like display, she had been in love with Feo, and +she had never loved so greatly again. A presumptuous boy had taken her +to the gates of heaven; and, though she would not enter with him, the +eternal remembrance of the vision had made life seem endurable and +good.
+ +Colonel Leyland, by her side, babbled respectabilities, trying to pass +the situation off as normal. He was saving her, for he liked her very +much, and it pained him when she was foolish. But her last remark to +Feo had frightened him; and he began to feel that he must save himself. +They were no longer alone. The bureau lady and the young gentleman +were listening breathlessly, and the porters were tittering at the +discomfiture of their superior. A French lady had spread amongst the +guests the agreeable news that an Englishman had surprised his wife +making love to the concierge. On the terrace outside, a mother waved +away her daughters. The bishop was preparing, very leisurely, for a +walk.
+ +But Miss Raby was oblivious. "How little I know!" she said. "I never +knew till now that I had loved him and that it was a mere chanceâa +little catch, a kinkâthat I never told him so."
+ +It was her habit to speak out; and there was no present passion to +disturb or prevent her. She was still detached, looking back at a fire +upon the mountains, marvelling at its increased radiance, but too far +off to feel its heat. And by speaking out she believed, pathetically +enough, that she was making herself intelligible. Her remark seemed +inexpressibly coarse to Colonel Leyland.
+ +"But these beautiful thoughts are a poor business, are they not?" she +continued, addressing Feo, who was losing his gallant air, and becoming +bewildered. "They're hardly enough to grow old on. I think I would give +all my imagination, all my skill with words, if I could recapture one +crude fact, if I could replace one single person whom I have broken."
+ +"Quite so, madam," he responded, with downcast eyes.
+ +"If only I could find some one here who would understand me, to whom I +could confess, I think I should be happier. I have done so much harm in +Vorta, dear Feoââ"
+ +Feo raised his eyes. Colonel Leyland struck his stick on the parquetry +floor.
+ +"âand at last I thought I would speak to you, in case you understood +me. I remembered that you had once been very gracious to meâyes, +gracious: there is no other word. But I have harmed you also: how could +you understand?"
+ +"Madam, I understand perfectly," said the concierge, who had recovered +a little, and was determined to end the distressing scene, in which his +reputation was endangered, and his vanity aroused only to be rebuffed. +"It is you who are mistaken. You have done me no harm at all. You have +benefited me."
+ +"Precisely," said Colonel Leyland. "That is the conclusion of the whole +matter. Miss Raby has been the making of Vorta."
+ +"Exactly, sir. After the lady's book, foreigners come, hotels are +built, we all grow richer. When I first came here, I was a common +ignorant porter who carried luggage over the passes; I worked, I found +opportunities, I was pleasing to the visitorsâand now!" He checked +himself suddenly. "Of course I am still but a poor man. My wife and +childrenââ"
+ +"Children!" cried Miss Raby, suddenly seeing a path of salvation. "What +children have you?"
+ +"Three dear little boys," he replied, without enthusiasm.
+ +"How old is the youngest?"
+ +"Madam, five."
+ +"Let me have that child," she said impressively, "and I will bring him +up. He shall live among rich people. He shall see that they are not the +vile creatures he supposes, always clamouring for respect and deference +and trying to buy them with money. Rich people are good: they are +capable of sympathy and love: they are fond of the truth; and when they +are with each other they are clever. Your boy shall learn this, and he +shall try to teach it to you. And when he grows up, if God is good to +him he shall teach the rich: he shall teach them not to be stupid to +the poor. I have tried myself, and people buy my books and say that +they are good, and smile and lay them down. But I know this: so long as +the stupidity exists, not only our charities and missions and schools, +but the whole of our civilization, is vain."
+ +It was painful for Colonel Leyland to listen to such phrases. He made +one more effort to rescue Miss Raby. "Je vous prie de ne pasââ" he +began gruffly, and then stopped, for he remembered that the concierge +must know French. But Feo was not attending, nor, of course, had +he attended to the lady's prophecies. He was wondering if he could +persuade his wife to give up the little boy, and, if he did, how much +they dare ask from Miss Raby without repulsing her.
+ +"That will be my pardon," she continued, "if out of the place where +I have done so much evil I bring some good. I am tired of memories, +though they have been very beautiful. Now, Feo, I want you to give me +something else: a living boy. I shall always puzzle you; and I cannot +help it. I have changed so much since we met, and I have changed you +also. We are both new people. Remember that; for I want to ask you one +question before we part, and I cannot see why you shouldn't answer it. +Feo! I want you to attend."
+ +"I beg your pardon, madam," said the concierge, rousing himself from +his calculations. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
+ +"Answer 'yes' or 'no'; that day when you said you were in love with +meâwas it true?"
+ +It was doubtful whether he could have answered, whether he had now any +opinion about that day at all. But he did not make the attempt. He saw +again that he was menaced by an ugly, withered, elderly woman, who was +trying to destroy his reputation and his domestic peace. He shrank +towards Colonel Leyland, and faltered: "Madam, you must excuse me, but +I had rather you did not see my wife; she is so sharp. You are most +kind about my little boy; but, madam, no, she would never permit it."
+ +"You have insulted a lady!" shouted the colonel, and made a chivalrous +movement of attack. From the hall behind came exclamations of horror +and expectancy. Some one ran for the manager.
+ +Miss Raby interposed, saying, "He will never think me respectable." +She looked at the dishevelled Feo, fat, perspiring, and unattractive, +and smiled sadly at her own stupidity, not at his. It was useless to +speak to him again; her talk had scared away his competence and his +civility, and scarcely anything was left. He was hardly more human than +a frightened rabbit. "Poor man," she murmured, "I have only vexed him. +But I wish he would have given me the boy. And I wish he would have +answered my question, if only out of pity. He does not know the sort +of thing that keeps me alive." She was looking at Colonel Leyland, and +so discovered that he too was discomposed. It was her peculiarity that +she could only attend to the person she was speaking with, and forgot +the personality of the listeners. "I have been vexing you as well: I am +very silly."
+ +"It is a little late to think about me," said Colonel Leyland grimly.
+ +She remembered their conversation of yesterday, and understood him at +once. But for him she had no careful explanation, no tender pity. +Here was a man who was well born and well educated, who had all those +things called advantages, who imagined himself full of insight and +cultivation and knowledge of mankind. And he had proved himself to be +at the exact spiritual level of the man who had no advantages, who was +poor and had been made vulgar, whose early virtue had been destroyed by +circumstance, whose manliness and simplicity had perished in serving +the rich. If Colonel Leyland also believed that she was now in love +with Feo, she would not exert herself to undeceive him. Nor indeed +would she have found it possible.
+ +From the darkening valley there rose up the first strong singing note +of the campanile, and she turned from the men towards it with a motion +of love. But that day was not to close without the frustration of every +hope. The sound inspired Feo to make conversation and, as the mountains +reverberated, he said: "Is it not unfortunate, sir? A gentleman went to +see our fine new tower this morning and he believes that the land is +slipping from underneath, and that it will fall. Of course it will not +harm us up here."
+ +His speech was successful. The stormy scene came to an abrupt and +placid conclusion. Before they had realized it, she had taken up her +Baedeker and left them, with no tragic gesture. In that moment of +final failure, there had been vouchsafed to her a vision of herself, +and she saw that she had lived worthily. She was conscious of a triumph +over experience and earthly facts, a triumph magnificent, cold, hardly +human, whose existence no one but herself would ever surmise. From the +view-terrace she looked down on the perishing and perishable beauty +of the valley, and, though she loved it no less, it seemed to be +infinitely distant, like a valley in a star. At that moment, if kind +voices had called her from the hotel, she would not have returned. "I +suppose this is old age," she thought. "It's not so very dreadful."
+ +No one did call her. Colonel Leyland would have liked to do so; for +he knew she must be unhappy. But she had hurt him too much; she had +exposed her thoughts and desires to a man of another class. Not only +she, but he himself and all their equals, were degraded by it. She had +discovered their nakedness to the alien.
+ +People came in to dress for dinner and for the concert. From the hall +there pressed out a stream of excited servants, filling the lounge as +an operatic chorus fills the stage, and announcing the approach of the +manager. It was impossible to pretend that nothing had happened. The +scandal would be immense, and must be diminished as it best might.
+ +Much as Colonel Leyland disliked touching people he took Feo by the +arm, and then quickly raised his finger to his forehead.
+ +"Exactly, sir," whispered the concierge. "Of course we +understandââOh, thank you, sir, thank you very much: thank you very +much indeed!"
+ +