Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

Darrington got his job, came over. Paris suddenly became (with the coming of Darrington) Paris. Space existed as space, Paris as Paris. Vérène someone little and tight that Jerrold had to be taken to see. Vérène being charming, in Vérène’s eyes it was all right now. Hermione was no longer (not that she ever had exactly been) in the same catalogue as “poor Shirl-ee.” Shirley herself being a little vague, lost talking on and off in bright spurts about Pater, about Landor. Darrington finding Shirley clever, sparks flying, George making a little mew-call from the divan in the corner. “Ain’t you ever, Dryad, going to speak to me again properly?” “I can’t see that I, George, haven’t.” “Whats the matter? Why so standoffish, Dryad.” In the light of Darrington’s arrival, she could afford to sting out at him, “don’t you think, George, it was a little, just a little — odd—” “Odd, Dryad?” “I mean if you were engaged all that time — to — kiss me.” “The odd thing is not to kiss you, Dryad.” “No. I don’t like it—” George had pulled her down beside him where he curled half hidden by the very grand baby-grand. “Listen Dryad darling—” “O George you might — you might have told me—” “Dryad developing a Puritan conscience—” “No. No that isn’t the argument. It doesn’t — seem — right—” “Well, Dryad as I never see my — ah — fiancée save when surrounded by layers of its mother, by its family portraits, by its own inhibitions, by the especial curve of the spiral of the social scale it belongs to, I think you might be — affable.” “Would you be affable if I were engaged to — to — Darrington?” “Are you?” “I didn’t say I was or wasn’t. Would you?” But George’s only answer to that was a crude drawing her toward him and the baby-grand with its baby-grand manner scowling its disapproval. O it looked hideous, servant-girlish as she saw them in the polished surface of the very grand baby-grand. A little distorted, a distorted vague Hermione pushing away, a distorted heavy George. It was ugly, a lacquer caricature in a polished surface. This was what love was, would be, a heavy ruffled shining and yet hard picture. Someone pulling at something, one or the other pulling, the other (or the one) pulling. Pulling and pushing and all the beauty of virginal line and the glory of independence shattered. Pulling, pushing. Grand piano. There. . even though it had been America and Her was caught, glued in her domesticity somehow had more line, more beauty, more reality than this thing. This lost, somehow, already smirched Hermione who was (in the highly polished surface of the baby grand) pulling away from a monkey in its velvet jacket.

Lillian Merrick. The school at Rome. No. This couldn’t conceivably go on forever. Eugenia with her many letters and these last ones, “We may be coming over so your father thinks you may stay. Be sure to see Mrs. de Leinitz and don’t let your summer things be shabby. You hadn’t enough last year and I can’t imagine how you’re managing. We love to hear all about your friends and your good times. I am glad Mrs. Walter Dowel has been so kind to you. How fortunate you are in knowing these brilliant people.” Brilliant people. Yes George in a red monkey jacket, Fayne with a white face painted like a circus rider, Fayne doing her little “stunt” balancing on toe on a white galloping stallion and holding two clowns (Llewyn and Morrison?) balanced on quivering buttocks. Not hers. The buttocks of the great white horse, and Fayne Rabb pirouetting in white face and white frilled petticoats, Fayne turned from Pygmalion with strong sturdy thighs and staunch young shoulders into a parody of womanhood. Doing her little prize stunt for the world to see. “But you can’t marry him.”

No, one didn’t marry. One did stunts. But she wasn’t any longer interested in George. “Don’t rumple and ruffle my dress.” “Since when Dryad, have you begun to worry about dresses?” “Since this minute.”

Hermione emerged from behind the shelter of the very grand baby-grand piano. “Shirley, we never ask you to play for us—” “Gawd, don’t ask her—” Shirley looked up an odd twist to her fine straight eye-brows. A white flame of pain crossed her eyes, dark eyes, wide apart staring like a crystal gazer’s. Why had George said that? Was he being rude simply? But now his rudeness seemed insanity, seemed blatant cruelty. His rudeness, his casual approach to both of them, for she was sure he had kissed, had long been kissing Shirley. Don’t marry him or her — just go on kissing them. Well, what anyhow did it matter. Wide flame of pain in the almond eyes of Shirley flashed, went, and the almond eyes of Shirley were just odd almond eyes with a little glow of passion. “O George is like that. He thinks I play so badly.” Play badly? Was that it? Was that the thing between them? Hermione knew there had been something there. Something that had drawn her near though so straightly separated, from Shirley. “O but you don’t — I’m sure you don’t. I know you do play nicely.” It was Darrington. For a moment pain swept away and Hermione loved Darrington. Darrington who was making her write again, who was bringing almond eyes back to their normal level of just rather odd blank kindness. Shirley was very kind. Little suppers, tea at any time, people coming and going. It must be lovely to have such a charming flat, a place you could see people, not crowding odd hours in at the Louvre, in restaurants, in tea-shops. It was exhausting never being able to talk properly to Darrington. Shirley was very fortunate, clever too, that was what was wrong really with Shirley. She was clever.

“The trouble is you’re too clever to be a real musician.” “O?” “I feel it. You could write. Criticism. The two don’t go together.”

What was lies, what was truth in all this? But this wasn’t true. This table, this chair, this supper, this coffee after supper, this cigarette. But was this true, just this, this smoke wreathing up and up in the rose-shaded light of the lamp casting its again shaded glow through the half drawn curtain of the inner room beyond the wide French window. Was this true? Was this smoke curling up and up and the numb beatific column of its beauty quite true? “I’m glad I’ve at last taught you to smoke properly.” The voice at her elbow as part of the vagueness of the cigarette was true in the same sense that the smoke was true. Darrington’s voice. Darrington’s voice had always been true for it had always (from the first) been vague, been apprehended through a sort of trance state as first apprehended in that vague drawing room somewhere (London?) where George had made pronouncements on sandal wood and thy painted bark. Whose painted bark? “O George I thought you’d written them to me .” “What made you think that Lointaine?” “I thought you’d told me you had.” “O but I tell that to everybody.” So George had apparently. Told that to everybody. But George Lowndes with his stark beauty, with his brush of beard, with his velvet jacket, with his now accepted scholarship and his little recognized position wasn’t true. He had suddenly projected himself out, become a certain person with a certain reputation and something had departed. Was he a cigarette simply that had been smoked out? “I’m glad Astraea that at last you’re dedicated.” “Dedicated?” It was Walter asking the question, Walter resting his great weight heavily in the low garden chair with the light from within and the shadow from without struggling across his alabaster features. O God. Again pity wracked her. Pity rose and spoiled the dream, the drift and drug of the thing, this smoke that curled up, up in Vérène’s garden, that was reality. Pity cut across like white hail across a smoke-blue lilac bush. Pity was white hail that slashed and tore and rent her. Pity. For who simply? Could it be for Vérène all smooth and small and dark opposite Walter, presiding in her own little garden (their own little garden) over the excellent and exquisite al fresco little supper? Could pity blight with its arrogant assumptions this place of peace, this garden, this far and far and far slow rumble and pulse and beat of light that was far Paris. Could pity so arrogantly enter this demesne? “O Vérène darling, Shirley (I saw her yesterday) sent a message to you — something — I’ve half forgotten—” “Was it about coming in on Monday?” “Yes. That was it. I said I was due out here this evening. She was having some people in and asked — me—” (Hermione had almost said—“us”) “to meet them. When I said I was dining at Vérène’s she said, ‘give her this message for me. Say Shirley’s sorry but she can’t possibly come Monday.’ ” “But she promised — long — ago—” “Why worry with her?” It was Walter, alabaster rose and shadow. Walter spoke seated massive and great in the low chair. “Why, Vérène, have you been so concerned about her?” Vérène said, pouring coffee that she didn’t know, had never really liked the girl, but as she was one of Walter’s pupils—“ Was she? Did she ever do anything?” It was Darrington who asked this, evidently half out of curiosity, half to fill the gap, and Vérène said before Walter could anticipate her, “nothing.”