Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

George had killed her certainly. It was Walter saying it, “But we thought she was going to marry — George.” George must be blamed, scape-goat. He was a scape-goat. Kissing them all. Let all the sins of all the kisses be upon him. For this was a sin. Kisses that had killed Shirley. Vérène was making it right, was trying to make it right. “She should have married — someone.” She should have married. Then it would have been all right. Then she wouldn’t have been a virgin, gone mad, simply, like Cassandra. Shirley was like Cassandra smitten by the sun-god. Music. Walter.

Music could kill people. Love could kill people. It was Hermione who had killed her. Hermione on May-day might have reached her. Shirley looking wan and odd, seeing that Hermione was unhappy Shirley had seen this. Hermione might have reached across, said simply, “I am so unhappy.” Hermione hadn’t done this. Hermione had killed her.

“But I killed her.” “You are mad, dear child. She fell in love with Walter. The letter made it all clear. Vérène asked me, as someone from outside to read the letter. I read it carefully. Dementia. Suicide in the family. She was obsessed with the idea of some white afterlife, words like that. I can’t remember. It was a touching document. She died of love simply.” “No. I might have helped. I was so immersed in my own idiotic little petty hurt, I couldn’t see her. She asked me to come to her house that first day, May-day, in such an odd voice. If I hadn’t been so immersed in myself, so shattered with the web of myself, I would have seen her. Myself had wound round myself so that I was like a white spider shut in by my own hideous selfishness. I should have been a bird, a sort of white star or bird winging up and up and up — I’m not religious. The Rabbs said I wasn’t. I should have been a sort of saint, a sort of flaming thing loving my martyrdom. I should have been white and clear and like a sword at the head of armies or a banner in the hands of soldiers. I should have said love is like this, see I have loved and I am a banner, a star. It would have hurt me to have said that and I didn’t want to be hurt. I was too small. I let my own petty pain wind about me. I let myself be obscured by myself and I became a white spider hidden in web, a mesh of self. A grey hideous web, I can almost see it. Fayne Rabb killed her.”

“Killing and not-killing have nothing to do with it. The letter made it all clear. She had been in love with Walter for some years. She couldn’t go on any longer with it—” “It isn’t true. It’s all lies. No one of us is in love with any one of us. What is love? A circus dancer with a white horse balancing to a fanfare on the back of a black stallion. Circus dust, spectators. What is love? A monkey in a velvet jacket reflected in the back of a polished hand-organ, embracing a white satyress. What is love? A parody — smoke wreathing between lilac bushes, another in a crinoline or a bustle, a dart catching a feather in a gallant hat, a march, a drum, a beating, a forgetting, a memory, I send thee Rhodocleia for thy hair—” “Astraea.” “What is Astraea? What are we all? You are the only one that said a kind word to her—” “Astraea, you exaggerate. You were very nice to her, always.” “Nice? Sheer nice as anyone might have been nice. I, with my flair for rightness, my spirit, my wings. I the thing that Walter said drew out his music, the nymph, the Dryad. I the Spirit you all talk about sat and watched another topple — topple — fall—” “Astraea. This is all wrong, morbid of you.” “I have lost faith in the thing they loved so. Walter saying I drew music out of him. What is music to a soul lost?” “It isn’t lost. Her soul isn’t—” “Plato says we are servants of the gods. No servant can neglect his work. To kill oneself is to drop out, lacking in service.” “The gods won’t look hard on her, Hermione.” “Maybe not. It’s me, I’m thinking of. What have I been doing? Where have I been? Wandering in a maze. Hermione this. Hermione that. An angel, a saint, a poet, a child. I am none of these things.”

“You are all of these things.” “I’m tired of this. I’m sick of my own attitude. What is Fayne Rabb beside this thing? It was so clean. They said she had planned it all so carefully. She left money for the maid’s taxi fare, just the right amount so that she should rush out with that letter to the Dowels. So clean. Not anything horrible. So clean under her breast. All gone. That is true love. That is true marriage. Fear gone. A white bullet—” “Hermione. This thing has upset you. Hermione. .”

Voices down the street. Voices down the hall. Fatigue so great that she held her head up under it, above it like a drowning man gasping, gasping for breath. Herself, the immaculate image, the saint, the spirit, had been shattered for her. Forever. A white bullet had so shattered it. Intuition and fine feeling had not been fine enough to sense this. The very proximity of this other spirit. The very nearness of this authentic sister, tangled in a worse web than she was. Herself had wound about herself blinding herself to the soul’s unhappiness about her. Life had been cruel she had thought. It was herself simply who had been stupid in being so deceived by sheer appearances. Fayne on a white horse led the fantastic circus. Parade round and round a room, parade round and round a world. The whole world was girded by this fantastic procession. Monkeys in velvet jackets jibbered at her. None of the world escaped them. Venice, Prado, Spain, Holland, Dresden— Names came and went like lights flashing on a white screen. Was there no reality in all this? Names and fantastic backgrounds. America, the wilderness, the rockies. How could Americans cope with all this? How could they cope with so much having so many racial strands and counter-impulses? America had killed her.

“I know she was alone too much. She had got away from home. She was, we thought, so happy.” She had got away from home. Shirley had escaped and this happened. Would this happen to them all, to all of them? Darrington might help her to work and she could have something, claim something out of all this. Spain in the Californias. Strains of Dutch and Latin in their make-ups. Coming back to Europe. Flaming out like marsh-lights, brilliant with no roots. Here and there, trying to get lost. Henry James lost in Sussex marshes. One after another but she wouldn’t be lost. Henry James wasn’t really lost. Not Henry James, not Whistler, not Sargent. Lost yet not lost in London.

France was a book of beauty and of terror. Rising up to the highest attainment, Walter talking of notes in the air, beyond the air, harps. It was Walter who had killed her. .

Darrington came across the room. Candles made a smudge in the distance. How far away was the other side of the room? It wavered and fell. It fell and wavered. Perhaps next time it really would fall down. “Jerrold.”

Darrington came across the room. He sat on her bed, their bed. She hadn’t really gone to bed, just piled the cushions behind her back and sat up and sat up and listened. Darrington came as he had always come at her voice, coming toward her, his head bent forward, his yellow French book half open in his hand. “Jerrold.” “Darling.” Darrington called her darling, had always called her darling, had been calling her darling forever. “Where — am I?”

“You’re right here, here right enough. Thank God we got you out of that damned nursing home.” “Yes. I forget. Keep forgetting. The funniest thing was when they stood at the end of my bed and told me about the crucified—” “Hush. Hush darling.” “Jerrold.” “Darling?” “Are there any men left, any at all in the streets, not, not in khaki?”