Eustace and Hilda (76 page)

Suddenly two lines of fire ran up from the extremities of its base. Systematically they explored the great façade until all its outlines were re-created in light. Floodlit below, dark at the top, the dome still floated free of the golden chains; then from three points at once the creeping fire attacked it, and in a moment the huge bubble was imprisoned in three ropes of light. Broken by the moving shapes of boats, elongated and wavy, the reflection of the fire-girt church spread across the quiet water almost to where they sat.

“Why, that's the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life,” Héloise exclaimed.

“Ah, but you haven't seen Piccadilly Circus on Boat-race Night,” her husband reminded her. “White Horse Whisky and Sandeman's Port have this beat, as your compatriots say.”

“Guardi, guardi,” cried Silvestro, urgent with excitement. “Adesso comincia la vera sorpresa.”

As though traced by an invisible finger, the outline of a face began to appear on the dark wall, a pointed face, drooping in weariness. The features were hardly more than indicated, but it was plain that the eyes were closed. Then, above the face, little runnels of light started in all directions, branching out until they filled and overflowed the architrave, leaving at the edges sharp golden spikes that pierced the darkness. Always when it seemed that the representation was complete another thread of fire would worm its way through the others, to add its sharp point to the bristling circumference. Soon it seemed to Eustace as though the lines of light began to move and the whole emblem was aflame; and at the same moment thin trickles of red, starting from the top, dripped their way downwards on to the forehead of the Redeemer.

“The Crown of Thorns,” murmured Héloise, awestruck.

Silence had fallen on the spectators; in the light that was now as bright as day and with a much more startling power of visibility, he saw the backs of countless heads all motionless and all turned the same way, and in the stillness it seemed to Eustace that the sound of crackling was borne across the water. For one timeless instant the appearance on the church glowed with an increasing brightness that transformed not only the scene but the very sense of life; reversing the lighting system of the mind.

Dazzled, Eustace closed his eyes, but a shadow pressed against his eyelids and they opened on darkness.

When the applause broke out he was absent in the fire and the clapping seemed an irrelevance. But his hands, less absent-minded, put him back among the merry-makers who were showing appreciation of their entertainment in the most unmistakable manner. For after all it was an entertainment, the climax of a show of fireworks at the feast of the Redeemer; and it was this aspect of it that showed in the busy hands of Silvestro and Erminio and their faces wreathed in smiles. Beyond the radius of their smiles everything was dark, pitchy dark. No one spoke, and Silvestro moved forward, an immense white figure in the gloom. Leaning over the cushions of the gondola, he asked anxiously, “Si sono divertiti i signori?”

From behind him the translation came promptly. “He asks if you have hamused yourselves.”

But having carried his point about waiting for the finale, Silvestro would brook no more interference from his assistant.

“Zitto! zitto!” he cried impatiently. “I signori mi intendono perfettamente bene. Era un bel spettacolo, non è vero?”

Lady Nelly assured him that it was a beautiful spectacle, which they had all greatly enjoyed.

Silvestro seemed immensely relieved.

“Bello, bello,” he repeated, as though to hypnotise himself with the words. “Magnifico, tremendo. E religioso, Signora Contessa, religioso, cristiano, un vero testimonio alla fede cattolica.”

“Si, si,” said Lady Nelly. “You agree, Harry, don't you, that it was a religious performance, a real testimony to the Christian faith?”

“Seemed like fire-worshipping to me,” said Lord Morecambe. “I shall reserve my comments until later, when your pagan transports have cooled down.”

Lady Nelly gave her wrap a twitch.

“They're cooling now,” she said. “Shall we be going back, Héloise?”

“Oh, Lady Nelly,” sighed Héloise, “I don't want ever to go back. But I suppose we must.”

“Never mind, Héloise,” said her husband, “we'll make you some bonfires when we get home.”

They went back much quicker than they came, for the little canals were almost deserted. The sparse lamps emphasised the darkness round them, but in Eustace's mind the fiery emblem on the church still glowed and sparkled.

When they reached the riva he was surprised to find himself so stiff that he could hardly stand. Lord Morecambe, too, made a rather rheumatic landing, and both the ladies had to be supported up the steps. They stood together in the entrata for a moment, sighing and stretching, and trying to sum up the experience of the evening in a sentence before the tide of ordinary life rolled back.

“How strange it all looks,” said Lady Nelly. “I feel like Rip Van Winkle. What's the time by your beautiful watch, Eustace? I can't see mine.”

By the light of the great rococo lantern in the middle of the hall Eustace saw that it was nearly three.

“Nearly three!” said Lord Morecambe. “How nice to be going to bed. Nice for us, I mean. Not for poor Cherrington—he's got to go and have a bathe.”

Though he was carrying his towel and bathing-suit rolled up under his arm, Eustace had completely forgotten why he brought them.

“Oh, you'll never think of going now, will you, Eustace?” said Lady Nelly. “It's so late, and the Lido's so far away.”

“He must go,” said Lord Morecambe firmly. “It's a ritual bath, you know, and his redemption won't be complete without it. If I was his age” (Lord Morecambe was only a year or two older than Eustace) “and had half his sins on my conscience I shouldn't hesitate.”

The remark touched Eustace in a tender place, and he looked uneasily towards the door.

“Perhaps I ought to go,” he said.

“There's no ought,” said Lady Nelly, “and I believe the whole thing's a legend. You'll find yourself the only bather on the beach.”

As Eustace was hesitating, a loud ‘Pardon' was heard, and Silvestro, beaming, marched in with a pair of oars.

“But if you mean to go,” said Lady Nelly, “you'd better go now before they dismantle the gondola.”

They all looked at Eustace, and the familiar ferment of indecision threatened mental stoppage.

“If you think they wouldn't mind taking me——”

“Stout fellow!” cried Lord Morecambe. “I knew he wouldn't rat on us.”

Lady Nelly explained to Silvestro, and with a subdued demeanour he took up the oars again.

They all bade Eustace extravagant farewells.

“I wish you wouldn't,” said Lady Nelly, “but I dare say it'll be fun.”

“Fun?” said Lord Morecambe. “Fun? You don't seem to appreciate the serious nature of a lustral bath.”

O
NCE IN
the gondola Eustace began to experience a revulsion of feeling. Why had he acted as he did? It was selfish to take the gondoliers out again after their long day. But for Lord Morecambe's remark about redemption, probing a susceptible nerve in his mind, he wouldn't have gone. It was an exaggerated act, disproportionate, as Stephen would have said—the kind of thing that he often did and that Hilda did sometimes, but always in the interest of something outside, greater than herself. He had been indignant when some ignorant person called Highcross Hill a Folly. But this was folly—folly with a little f—wandering out in the small hours to take—what had Lord Morecambe called it?—a lustral bath.

How dark the night was. To Eustace's eyes, still filled with retrospective light, it seemed immeasurably dark. They were going down the Grand Canal, but he could scarcely see the palaces on either side, and when they passed under the iron bridge, its floor seemed no nearer or darker than the floor of Heaven. Not a star showed through the thick summer night. Gone was the silver romantic moonlight; gone the showers of coloured rain; gone from the world he looked at the great gold symbol of the Redeemer. The year of my redeemed has come, thought Eustace. He did not know what the phrase meant, or why it moved him; but it returned again and again to his mind, fortifying and lulling it. He dozed and dreamed.

Hilda was with him. She was wearing the red dress he had given her, as he could tell by looking in the mirrors; it seemed as though he could not see her directly, though she was sitting by his side and he was trying to pour champagne into her glass. ‘No, no,' she kept saying, ‘I don't want it. Dick tried to make me drink it.' ‘But this is Lady Nelly's champagne,' Eustace urged. ‘It's Bollinger 1911.' ‘I don't care what it is,' said Hilda. ‘It doesn't suit me, nothing suits me now.' To his horror he saw that she was crying; there were tears on her cheeks, red tears like drops of blood.

He woke with a start, not knowing where he was, but thankful to be out of his dream. Silvestro paused in his rowing, looked round and said, laughing, “Dormiva, signore.” Eustace took heart at the laugh: he was not alone, he belonged to the great company of human beings, who were funny when they slept. Indeed, he was not alone, for all around him were the black shapes of boats, almost as thick as at the fireworks, and the people in them were all going his way. Silvestro, still driven by his dæmon, kept overtaking them, and some he passed quite close; their faces were hidden from him, fatigue had stilled their songs; but their little lamps blinked at him, and their voices made a murmuring on the water.

Silvestro ceased rowing again and pointed. “Ecco il Lido!” he said, and Eustace wondered why he had not seen it sooner, the long barrier with its indented outline. Two great square buildings towered up in front of him. The straggling flock of boats had narrowed to a procession in which impatient Silvestro had perforce to keep his place and move by inches. Eustace felt a tingle of excitement; he was glad that he hadn't shirked the adventure.

Only two boats in front of them now. He saw a girl in a white dress mounting the steps, she laughed and slipped, and was hauled up by the arms.

The arrival of the gondola caused a flutter among the onlookers. They peered down at its gilt furnishings as if they had never seen a gondola before. Silvestro ignored their compliments, as he ignored the press of shabby plebeian boats waiting to move into his place; he took his time and shouted directions to all and sundry. Eustace sat as passive as a parcel, an object of luxury, swaddled in the arrogance of wealth. Ragged figures with dirty hands pressed forward offering help, but Silvestro waved them aside. “Vuole che aspetta, signore?” he asked; but Eustace from the bank said no, he would find his own way back. A look of intense relief and a brilliant smile rewarded him. “Buon bagno, allora!” he cried. “A good bath!” said Erminio, not to be left out. Eustace stopped for a moment, floodlit by the effulgence of gilt from the gondola, and then, the golden link broken, he turned into the crowd.

He was one of them now, he no longer commanded awe, he was to be jostled like anyone else. Perhaps, could they have seen him properly, they would have thought him shabbier than they, for his old overcoat had a green tinge by daylight. Unsuitable as it was, he was glad he had brought it, for as he moved slowly down the wide boulevard a cool wind met him from the sea. Couples scurried round him with a muttered ‘pardon,' and rejoined each other in front of him, glad to have circumvented this brief obstacle to happiness. But still they talked in low tones, hardly louder than the clatter of their feet on road and pavement, and with a subdued excitement which communicated itself to Eustace. The effect of being with people without really seeing them was to make him feel separate but not lonely: sharing their purpose and their destination relieved him of the burden of himself.

At the end of the street they came up against an obstacle, he could not quite see what it was—some kind of fence or palisade, no doubt, beyond which lay the sea. The crowd divided to right and left. Eustace had only been to the Lido once, and didn't remember his way about. Soon he would be often there, a frequent, perhaps a daily, visitor, for to-morrow was to inaugurate the new régime—the motor-boat, the capanna at the Excelsior Hotel, the long hours of sun-bathing which Lady Nelly had promised him. To-morrow would be an absolute change. The Excelsior, he remembered, lay on the right, and instinctively he followed the section of the crowd that went that way. He found he could make out the shapes of the hotels and houses that bordered one side of the road—the night must be passing.

Suddenly he was aware that the throng was bending outwards; the palisade ended here, and they were pouring through the gap. The clatter of shoes stopped too, and Eustace felt sand soft under his feet. Ahead lay a dark but transparent luminousness that must be the sea. He heard the soft plash of a wave and his heart quickened its beat.

The wind seemed colder, and his clothes hung about him clammily. It was foolish to have walked in his overcoat; no one else that he could see was wearing one. What should he do next? Some of his companions were streaming away towards a vague range of buildings on the right that might be bathing-huts: those who stayed behind were mostly men. Some of them sat down and Eustace sat down too, but the sand was damp and cold: the tide must only just have left it. He retreated a little, and taking off his overcoat, sat on that. They all seemed to know what to do. He didn't. When would the dawn come? Were daybreak and dawn the same? Would the bathe lose its virtue if he missed the designated moment? Should he take a streak in the sky for a signal, or await the appearance of the sun itself?

How meaningless and far away now seemed the interests of his life in Venice! Indeed, all his interests. They had brought him thus far, to the sands of the Lido, only to drop off him, as his clothes must soon drop off, leaving him lonely and naked in this crowd of strangers, not one of whom knew anything about him, to all of whom his drowned body would be just the body of another foreigner killed by cramp or indigestion. He felt his identity flowing out of him, to be soaked up heedlessly by the grains of sand or parcelled out in fragments of a thousandth among all the figures standing or sprawling round him. Shall I go back? he thought in a panic, back the way I came, first to the right and then to the left, meeting the crowd instead of going with it, until I come to the landing-stage and the waiting gondola, and Silvestro will say, ‘Did you have a good bathe, signore?' and I shall say, ‘Yes, meraviglioso,' and he will reply, ‘Bravo, ha fatto bene.' But under the shadow of the lie Eustace's meditation did not prosper, so he tried again. I shall say, ‘No, Silvestro, it was rather cold, and I was hot and tired, so I didn't go in after all.' And he will answer, ‘Bravo, signore, ha fatto bene, anzi, ha fatto benissimo, because a bathe at this hour would be very dangerous.' In either case he would have won Silvestro's approval and the approval of all sensible people.