Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

The letter burned, vitriolic blue acid in her hand though she hadn’t the letter (had not for some time had the letter) in her hand. The touch of the letter left a scar across the fingers that opened it, scar of burning acid, not of fire, scalding not searing. Scalding and searing. “O Miss Gart. You are too metaphysical.” Bald headed little Chemistry professor catching her up when she wanted to apply his prim formula to the more extensive phases of life, of humanity. One and one and two, and little plus and minus signs and the acid that had broken the test tube and the scars across her wrist, tiny scars that she was rather proud of. Too metaphysical. Not metaphysical enough. Idealists said she was a rank realist and too set and defined in her outlook. Scientists told her off for being idealistic. Must she bow to either judgment? She was herself simply. . bell notes made patterns in the air that no one could take from her. The blue vitriol of Fayne’s letter had left its scar but on the whole, was she not proud of it? Scar that she hadn’t turned from, wound that she had not repudiated. It was so deep, so terrible that it was almost joy to have it. It was all (had been) so terrible that it had removed itself from the first moment from any possible realm of probabilities, it was drama simply, a rather good drama. It was the second act of a rather second-rate play done by first rate actors. It was the second act (was it the third?) of a somewhat hackneyed but odd melodrama that was saved from banality by the very casual and perfect manner of the odd producers. The whole thing was in some realm in which reality was suspended while people watched themselves move, speak. They were not real. Their very unreality saved them, saved her. Had it really mattered? It had never mattered: the odd vitriolic blue that had been the burning destructive acid of the letter had almost cauterized the death wound. So deep, so vitriolic that the rest could not matter. Not even the little note afterwards so gracious, so suave in its serenity. The note from this odd person who was (it appeared) would forever be, just Fayne’s husband. The man Fayne had married wrote to her. She had found the letter with a little batch of things that didn’t matter and the letter itself from this odd suave person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband could not matter. Suave like the breath of a stage producer who comes before the curtain to explain his presence. His presence being due (in all these cases) to the absence of the right hand man or prima donna. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret having to inform you. .” This person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband had suavely countenanced evidently something. “Fayne is worn out with the journey. She misses her mother and has been ill somewhat. She begs me” (when had Fay ever begged anybody anything?) “to explain this. Will you come to our” ( our , I ask you) “hotel as soon as you are able. Fayne tells me you have friends, calls on your time. I would appreciate this from you. Fayne has been a little worn. . ill with excitement.”

Answering the appeal of this person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband, Hermione had found herself one day in April in a little odd street off Piccadilly, little odd eclectic street like going into a foreign city suddenly and it all coming back, all the odd things and little streets but this was a runny little eclectic street in which to find Fayne Rabb. Tiny cool corridor with a great mirror at the far end from which a person (not herself) paused to re-survey her. Grey person looking cool, looking right in the cool little narrow hall. A table and something, a palm in a tall basket. Baskets spilling flowers. A row under the mirror of potted shrub azaleas. Above azaleas, pink and yellow and flame red a person (not Hermione) paused to look at another person, herself simply. The person who was not Hermione turned from the gaze of the person who so simply was Hermione to answer someone, something, “yes, they’re expecting me. Mrs. — Mrs. — ” my God, what was their name? She had forgotten what the name was. Somewhere, somehow someone had signed a name across a page and that name was now the only guarantee that she would find Fayne Rabb. A name she had suddenly and poignantly forgotten. “O,” she couldn’t say “I’ve forgotten what their name is.” These were people who had asked her. She had forgotten their name. Fayne was someone, somewhere in this nice little hotel, everything just right and someone, also just right was waiting by her elbow asking for their name, no it was her name. Hermione looked at the face in the mirror. Would it recall some name? George’s name was George Lowndes, but that wouldn’t do (though he had offered it to her) in this emergency. Whose name? Darrington. Darrington was a good name. The Sussex Darringtons you know. She needn’t tell them that the governor had more or less eloped with a country girl and that Darrington was somewhat in advance of expectations. I mean a seven months’ baby. But damn, he had said, it was barely six. Names. People. Someone might yet help her.

Someone might yet help her. Would yet help her. Someone from the other end of the cool little right little hall was coming toward her. Someone was coming toward her. Where had she seen him? Familiar droop of shoulders. April in London and someone was speaking to her. A tall person who bent a little and squinted a little into her eyes. A tall person who must bend a little to squint a little into even over-tall Hermione’s wide eyes. He squinted a little (who was he?) and the person at her elbow waited a little and this would go on, was going on for ever. It couldn’t be anyone else but Fayne Rabb’s husband. Well that was that. Now he would tell her his name, tell her her own name. He did this last thing first. “I know, feel it couldn’t be any other but — Hermione.” He said it just right, with the exact amount of interest, the exact inflection. No one had ever said Hermione better than he said it. He said “Hermione” again and this time with a little upward inflection. “Hermione?” He was asking with a little upward inflection if it was Hermione but whether it was or wasn’t could make no difference for he would be sure to redeem himself, to retrieve himself perfectly if it wasn’t. She waited for a moment for as long as she dared wait without telling him it was Hermione. She could pretend it wasn’t but that would be no good for she had forgotten his name. Had by the same logic lost Fayne Rabb. “O yes, yes of course. .” she felt colour rise, colour across cheek bones, colour for he still held her with his slight squint. Was it a squint or was he winking at her? Of course he wasn’t winking. He was so utterly right, so right in the little hall way. Probably Fay was right then and he was “a person.” He spoke again in that same right voice saying the just-right thing. Now that was rather right of him, very nice of him, “tea upstairs as quickly as you can, for two — I must rush out — in Mrs. Morrison’s bedroom.”

Fayne Rabb was in a bed, a big bed, a nice bed, a better bed than Hermione had ever seen her in. Fayne was looking at someone who was not Hermione though Fayne (odd little person in a big bed) seemed to think it was Hermione. “O darling—” Darling this. Darling that. What about vitriolic blue letters and a scar across her wrist (no across her breast) that would be there forever? But there was something in this. There was something in the very poignant finality of vitriolic blue. It was a thing final, done for, finished. “Darling—” But she wasn’t having any. A tall person in a wide hat looked at Fayne Rabb on a big bed. It was perhaps Hermione that so regarded Fayne propped up and wearing (for a wonder) a really pretty bed-jacket. “I like your pretty little boudoir jacket.” “Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” “Come to tell you? I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you anything.” “Well after all — this.” “All what?” “O this — all this—” What did Fay conceivably mean by all this? Fayne Rabb lifted her little hand but it was not the hand of Fayne Rabb. It was the hand of something other separated forever now from Fayne Rabb. It was the hand that had waved in its insouciance toward an azalea in a big jar. A plaintive violin was playing (inappositely) the song from Solveig. This was not that. This person that raised a little hand and whose arm stretched magnolia white from a delft-blue bed-jacket trimmed with pretty swansdown was not that one. That person had sturdy knees wound about with straps that held together sandals. Wings on the sandals. Wide breadth of strong and sturdy shoulders. Pygmalion speaking and all the world must listen. All the world must listen when Pygmalion speaks, says what he thinks, all art is this, is that. If Pygmalion could have stayed then with them, but he couldn’t. He was somewhere else safe. He was safe but he was not now here. Fayne’s hand was the hand now of Fayne. It waved vaguely above nice bed-clothes, it emerged from a delft-blue boudoir jacket. That was all simple. The whole thing was so simple. Vitriolic acid had so made it. There was nothing simpler than the simplest of death-wounds. This was not Hermione so this (that was not Hermione) could turn, regard the room about her. Shoes. Whose? What odd shoes on the floor. They were not Clara’s, not Hermione’s. What an odd row of odd shoes, pointed shoes most of them. Brown shoes, patent leather pumps, though he would probably call them something else, being, Fayne had said, so “English” and a “person.” Shoes in a neat row along the opposite wall and shoes untidy along the near wall. “Doesn’t your husband arrange your shoes for you? His own seem to be so neatly put together.” “O my — husband—” “Yes. Your husband. Didn’t you ask me here to meet your husband?” “No. I asked you here to meet me.” “Well anyhow, why doesn’t your— husband arrange your things for you.” “Well, perhaps he thinks I should do it myself.” “What an idea. What a shock for you.” “Yes, isn’t it. Madre always did everything — O-O-O-O — Hermione.”