Blue Voyage: A Novel (18 page)

reeked
of petrol, just back from the tailor) that the maid said, “Two ladies to see you, sir …” “Will you show them up?” … Who could it be? Americans? I was going to tea with Cynthia that afternoon—therefore it couldn’t possibly be she … I hurried dressing … It was she, and that artist’s daughter … “What a lovely room!” she cried, “and how extraordinary to find it in
this
street!” … The concert suggested … Delighted, but frightened—the complications … this other girl tall, grave, rather lovely. Ought I to ask them to lunch? No. Perhaps that had been their idea? Good heavens—I wonder! Anyway, I didn’t … “Meet in the entrance at …” … then they were gone, and I discovered my awful hasty unkemptness—hair unbrushed, coat collar kinked up, buttons unbuttoned … and at the concert … smelling abominably of petrol, sitting beside divine Cynthia and listening to the pure rapture of that music! Cynthia so near me—her heart within eighteen inches of mine, her sleeve touching my sleeve—so that I could feel the rhythm of her breathing—her dress once or twice brushing my foot. O God o God o God o God o God … Squirming. Twisting and stretching my wrists. The crucified Christ by Perugino in that chapel in Florence—the wrists quivering, squirming like a spitted worm, worming like an earthworm on a hook, the worm that convulsively embraces the hook, the worm that squirms, the worm that turns … Kwannon, Goddess of mercy, serene and beneficent idol, Cathayan peace! Smile down upon me, reach thy golden hands to me with the golden fingers, touch my eyes that they may see not, touch my mind that it may remember not, touch my heart and make it holy. Take away from me my gross and mischievous and ailing body, let me lie down before thee and sleep forever. Let all be forgiven me, who forgive all; let all love me, and have compassion for me, who love all; let all sorrow cease when my sorrow ceases, suffering with my suffering, and life with my life.… One three five seven nine eleven thirteen fifteen seventeen nineteen twenty-one twenty-three twenty-five twenty-seven 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 47 49 51 53 55 57. One five nine thirteen seventeen twenty-one twenty-five. Too complicated—keeps me awake.
Child Roland to the dark tower came
. The dead sheep lying under the birch tree, in the wood, which the dead leaves swept away in a neat circle by the last struggle. The dead horse in the cellar of the burned stable. The cat with one red eye, blood-filled. The old woman lying against the wall, staring, indifferent, breathing slowly, while blood ran slowly from the corner of her mouth. Dying in the street, strangers walking around her in a ring, and she as inattentive as a dying animal. Her pocketbook, muddy, beside her on the sidewalk. B said afterward he had heard her “scream like a siren” when the accident occurred …
Dying, Egypt, dying
… Crowds walking past while she dies, cars and buses honking, taxis ticking, horses clop-clopping, children running and yelling, “Susie—wait for
ME
!” the policeman’s whistle blowing, the church clock striking, the newsboys running with the
EXTRY EXTREE
and sliding with nailed boots on the asphalt, ferries hooting on the river, “she’s dying, poor Thinggggg,” “Dyinggggg.” “Susie wait for meeeee.” Suuuw-oo-or-nhoreeeeeee … Pax. Pox vobiscum. Dead. One hundred and thirty-two pounds. Five feet four and three-quarters. Torn flannel showing. The blood had run clear across the sidewalk in four separate rivulets …
When the red rim of sight discovers … The void that swarms with shapes of death … and the departing batsoul hovers … Above the fountain’s falling breath …
Rotten. But there is, off in the void there, an idea, a sort of ghostly fountain, tossing up and dying down again …
Green light …
What goes on in the brain just before and just after death? Possible that the brain may live for a time. We may go on thinking, remembering, in a confused sort of way—a jumble of sensations. Or rarefied—a tiny gnat song of consciousness … Dr. Kiernan stated that when called in at 7.13 there was still a spark of life … she looked alive but extraordinarily still. Eyes shut. Mouth wide open, fixed in the act of screaming, but silent. T
ERROR!
… Perhaps she knew I was there, looking at her, and then walking softly, quickly, away … Strange, if that were true—but no stranger than anything else. “Yes, William, I am dead. But I know you are there. Do you want to know if an accident has occurred? Yes. A dreadful accident has occurred. I am quite all right, now. Run and wake Nanny. Shut the door into the nursery. Wind the clocks on Sunday morning. And say good-by to this house and world forever …” M
ISERY
… My bonnie has too-bur-kulosis … My bonnie has only one lung … My bonnie has too-bur-culosis … H
OK
H
OIK
!… My bonnie will surely die young … Be-ring ba-a-ack. Be-ring ba-a-ack. Oh, bring back my bonnie to me … I remembered how for a long time afterwards I couldn’t hear a door squeak on its hinges without hearing her scream. T
ERROR
! I remember her face vividly. Very like mine, same forehead, same mouth. My bonnie lies over the ocean—she used to sing it to me, and what was that other one? that she said used to be sung in the Civil War …
Shine I shine I shine—shine like the evening star … Shoo fly, don’t bother me … Shoo fly, don’t bother me … for I belong to Company G
… I remember her singing and laughing and singing again:
If you don’t wear a collar and a tie … then you won’t go to heaven when you die … If you don’t wear ruffles on your drawers … then you won’t go to heaven when you die
… Negro spirituals. It was Krehbiel, wasn’t it, that wrote that book?
Let mah—pee-pul—go …
And those stories the Negro nurses used to tell us in the mornings while they dressed us. The crane with the cork. What a story to tell children. It was Brer Rabbit who pulled out the cork. At the party, it was—and it created a scandal … Like Smith’s story of the Starcroft Inn. Heavens, how superb—the real Chaucerian flavor. Pop-eyed Popper Smith watching eagerly from the door, with all the other men, while all the women fled from the ball room … She lying on her back there, laughing hysterically, drunk, with her skirt up, fallen down and unable to stand, screeching with laughter, and the jazz orchestra of niggers going suddenly cuckoo with excitement—drums banged, trombones yelling, saxophones bubbling the Himmelfahrt, the niggers themselves screaming and sobbing … Goodness gracious gawdness Agnes. Agnes Day equals Agnus Dei … “No-no!—too many ladies here,” said Smith. Yes, there it is—that whole side of a man’s life that must be concealed. So many things we conceal even from other men … We all have our little p-p-p-p-peculiarities which we don’t mention; and which nevertheless are of great importance to us. Canyon yodling. Pearl diving. Muff barking. Palpation. The dance of the seven unveils. Arrangements of mirrors. That girl at the casino, when I was with Julian—there was a scuffle in the row ahead of us and the young man was taken out. “I didn’t mind when he give me the leg, but when he give me the”—I wonder if he was arrested or what.… That time visiting with Julian for the weekend—at Plymouth it was—the young school-marm who was taking her Easter holiday alone at that little deserted hotel. She sat with her knees, oh, so carelessly crossed—black silk stockings. The misty wisty wistful yearning expression in Julian’s eyes—he sat on the table edge and talked to her in a peculiar soft way, gentle, gently laughing, gently suggestive, gently agreeing and gently echoing: turtledoves,
Cooo—coooo
. A problem: both of us attracted to her, but neither of us admitted it or wanted to say to the other—“You go on to Plymouth—I’ll stay here …” At breakfast in the morning I tried to touch her knee with mine under the table. But I wasn’t bold enough. More wistful conversation, and then we motored away, both of us sulky for the rest of the day … Wonderful charm such incomplete adventures have … They take on gradually a special beauty …
Abbozzi
… Life is full of them … Familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes they are too painful, though. C. I. E., on the train, for example. How frightfully unhappy that made me, and still, when I think about it, makes me … I got into the train and she was sitting opposite me, with her dress-suitcase on the seat beside her … C.I.E. were the initials on it—a fiber suitcase. In the rack above her was a violin. Small, she was, in a soft gray coat; with a mauve or lilac-colored hat—I could see white stitches in it. An artificial flower on her coat lapel. I couldn’t decide at first whether I thought she was pretty or not—but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was reading
Tilly of Bloomsbury
—I watched her blue eyes, small and of a sweet roundness, traveling along the lines. Now and then she smiled. Her mouth—it seemed to me extraordinary. I can’t visualize it, but I thought it like a Michelangelo mouth—great richness and subtlety of modeling, voluptuous and yet suggestive of strength and curtness; the color rather peculiar, a pale coral. Freckled a little, with dark golden hair showing in circular plaits over her ears. Her eyebrows darker than her hair, and richly curved, softly curved, over shy eyes … She occasionally looked up obliquely at the woman who sat beside me—or looked at the woman’s gay-striped stockings when she put her feet on the edge of the seat opposite. She avoided my eyes—if she found me looking at her, she slid her eyes rapidly across me and looked out at the fields, and the bare trees which had been etherealized by a beautiful frost, trees like white smoke. It was cold. The other window open. Had to keep my gloves on. Shy about taking off my gloves to unbutton my gray coat and fish out my handkerchief: she covertly watched me. Then I thought of that theater program in my pocket—so I read it to impress her with our similarity in tastes. Sorry I hadn’t bought
The Nation
instead of
John o’ London
. The cold wind whistling about our feet; she crossed her knees, and then drew them up under her, just touching the floor with the tip of the Cordova slipper, a slipper somewhat worn, but nice. Woolen gloves. Once—halfway, after an hour—she looked at me—O God, what a look. Perplexed, shy, injured, reproachful. “You shouldn’t stare at me like that; I am a nice girl, intelligent and refined, sensitive. Nevertheless I perceive that we have something in common.” Then she turned two pages at once. She read more rapidly, she skipped. A station. Another station. Only an hour more. Clippity clop te clap te clip te clap te cluckle, te W
HEEEEEE
. Tunnel! Shall I rise and shut the other window? No: too shy. It might lead to a harmless and friendly beginning to talk? No. In the dark (the dusty lamp burning dimly on the ceiling) perhaps our feet would encounter? No. I uncrossed my knees and crossed them the other way, away from the door and pointing toward her. No … After she looked at me like that, in that desolated way, I turned to the window, sorrowfully, apologetically, suffering, frowning. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t offend you for worlds. I too am gentle and refined … Then, just that once, her foot slid scraping sharply forward and touched mine. Should I look at her and appear conscious? No. Pay no attention. Out of the corner of my eye observing, I saw that she showed no sign of confusion or self-consciousness. She had withdrawn her foot instantly … We were approaching London. She put
Tilly of Bloomsbury
into the suitcase—it was neatly packed, full, covered with a transparent silk. No secrets disclosed. Would she get out at London Bridge? No—but the two old women did. Now! What would happen? Her toe had touched twice, oh so faintly, the cuff of my trouser-leg. Intentional? Probably not. Dare!… I dared—I slid the right foot forward, resting a little more palpably in contact. Not enough—it might appear accidental. Dare again! I dared again, as the train started from Waterloo, with only five minutes to go. My right ankle rested firmly and ecstatically against the side of the Cordova slipper. I looked at her—devoured her—stared—but she kept her eyes averted, her face suffused with—what? Unhappiness. Speak to her! But I was shy, hungry, weak, cold, psychically out of joint. I had been desiring her too long and too intensely, and though the words went round and round in my head—Will you lunch with me?—I couldn’t speak them. The Thames covered with mist. We were sliding into the station, ankle and toe still praying to each other. Dare! The last chance! Dare! Say “May I help you with your bags?” Hurry! A porter was at the door, with his red tie. I stood up, trembling, to take my bag from the rack. I looked at her beseechingly, still hoping for a miracle; but as I turned she leaned toward the opening door and said in a low harassed voice, her dry lips barely moving, “Porter!” … I got out and walked along the platform, walking slowly, so that she might overtake me. How exquisite, small, graceful she was! The neat, precise, energetic and charmingly girlish gait! She did not turn toward me—her small chin was lowered humbly into the bright batik scarf. Gone. She was gone forever. We were divorced, after a marriage—how divinely happy—of two hours … M
ISERY
… Why hadn’t I said, “Will you have lunch with me?” Why hadn’t I said, “Need we separate like this?” Why hadn’t I said, “Do you like
Tilly
?” Or do you play? I’m passionately fond of music myself. Do you know
Morgen
? by Strauss? or
Wiegenlied
? Do you go to the Queen’s Hall? Wigmore Hall? Have you heard Coates conduct? Glorious, isn’t he? Shall we lunch at Gatti’s—or the Café Royal?… Those side tables at Gatti’s, with red plush sofas. The table legs so close together that if two people sit on the sofa their knees must be contiguous. The music at the far end. That’s where Mary and I went for supper when we came back from Banstead … It would have been so simple to say, “Won’t you lunch with me? I should so much like it if you would!” We were so clearly “made” for each other. And especially now that Cynthia—it might have prevented that. Lost; gone into the jungle of London. I advertised three times in
The Times
Personal Column—there was no answer. I thought of employing a detective to try and trace her. Yes, I three times proposed in
The Times
that she should meet me at the platform gate, and each time waited for half an hour, wondering what we would say when we met … Where are you, C. I. E.? Are you in London? Am I destined someday to see you playing in a hotel orchestra, or in a cinema, playing with the spotlight on you, lighting your shyly downturned small and lovely face?… By that time you will have forgotten me. And as for me—Cynthia has intervened. I am on a ship in the Atlantic, passing the Grand Banks, with Cynthia. I am in love with Cynthia, miserably and humiliatingly in love. More intensely than I was with you? Who can say? Heaven knows I loved you with a blind intensity that made me unhappy for weeks after. But then, how much was my misery due to my feeling of having been so horribly and unforgivably inadequate? Inferiority complex … And so absurd, that I, who on a score of other occasions had … “picked up” … women here and there in two continents … should have sat in silence and allowed you to go out of my life—in spite of your so clearly and so desperately signaling to me. O God that with divine rightness … inestimable lightness … O God that with celestial brightness … merciful and benign Kuan Yin … O lamas riding on llamas and bearded ascetic Arhats hunched meditative on tigers. O Solomon, O Song of Songs and Singer of singers … I will never forgive myself, nor will she ever forgive me … She will say, over and over, “I met a man once, on a train from Folkestone” … C.I.E. The name—good Lord—might have been Cynthia … Do you hear me, Cynthia?… Hear you, tadpole … Forgive me! Absolve me! Let me bury my infant’s face against you and weep! Like Father Smith, I am looking, looking everywhere, for my mother. Is it you, perhaps? I have thought often that it might be you. You remind me of her. Let me be your child, Cynthia! Take me to Kensington Gardens with you in the morning—carry my golliwog in your left hand, and let me clasp your right. Past the tea gardens. To the banks of the Serpentine, or the Ornamental Water … Who is it that has that theory of compulsory repetition. Freud, is it?… Orpheus.… Sequacious of the liar … I shall go mad someday. Yes. Etna will open, flaming and foisting, and I will be engulfed in my own volcano I can hear it, on still days, boiling and muttering. Mephitic vapors escape through cracks in rock. Red-hot lumps are flung up and fall back again—I have seen the livid light of them in my eyes.—And do you know, Cynthia, what form my dementia will take?… No—tell me, absurd one, poser!… I will weep. I will do nothing but weep. That is what I have always wanted to do—to weep. The sorrow of the world. I will sit and weep, day after day, remembering nothing save that the world was created in pain. The syphilitic family in the cobbled mud of Portobello Road. Goya. The lost kitten. The crying child. The dog whose nose had been hurt, bleeding. The old woman dying in the street, far, far from home. Lions weeping in cages and dead men roaring in graves. Our father that weepest in heaven; and angels with whimpering wings. Smith, walking among the stars looking for his wife-mother. The Disciples waiting in vain for the miracle to happen. My father, which art in earth. Billy, who was tied to the bedpost and beaten across his naked back with eight thicknesses of rubber tubing because his younger brother had told a lie about him. Μακάριοι οἱ πενθο