Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

“ The wild fruit trees bend . .

All is silent and grave;

’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty ,

How fair but a slave .

So I turned to the sea. . ”

“So I turned to the sea. Do you remember? I went first. You were heavier. You were surprised and I loved plaguing you. You had only seen me in London and in Paris and you had no idea what I was like really. You found what I was like really. I think it frightened you. Open my heart and you will see engraved inside of it Italy. How could I have known, loving France, loving England that I would love so much better, Italy? France is a polished gem, a priceless intaglio, England is a great wide rose spread just before its falling, Italy is a live ember burning the hearts of men.”

Now why must he do this? Why must he do this? She might have known he would do this, clutching her in his arms, the moment she was happy with him. Everything had come clear talking of Italy. Images smudged, as it were, on a square of thick glass were smudged out by this Sirocco rain they read of. Italy and the talk of Italy had washed out the black, dark grey and khaki-coloured images. Khaki images were splashed like mud across the clear window of her mind and now the clear images of beauty, the gaudy melon flower, the rock islets showed clear. She looked through her mind into a far country. Pays lointain. . pro patria. She looked through a clear glass far and far and just before her as if the wall of the room had parted, she was looking through between columns (the two sides of the enormous book-case) into a fair country, rocks, the silver lentisk, the white plaques of sea-rosemary, a flute in the distance and the lines of Theocritus. Why must Darrington now spoil it? Hadn’t she had enough? Months and months of waiting and now this. Now this, this curious weakness and this reward of weakness; the mind clarified past all recognition, herself gazing through her mind into a fair country. There was no wind. The sea so far below gave no sound. A boy far and far and far was pulling a boat and colours familiar through cheap water colours all their lives took vivid form, were prismatic colours seen through crystal. The walls of cone-shaped Vesuvius and the jagged edge of Capri, the wall that was Capri was rising out of the sea, an island, a Greek island, the island where Odysseus heard the Syren voices. Little plots of earth set like bright rugs on the vertical island mountain, were bright marigolds, and clumps of early winter flowering irises. Irises, white, yellow, blue and lavender. Marguerites growing in enormous balls of white flower made the immaculate white walls a shade more subtle — shell grey. Oranges were flowering and against citron flowers great globes of ripe fruit, rocks and the crevices and the slopes of trees and flax flowers laid like rugs, true gardens of the Hesperides. A church bell (a cathedral bell) was ringing and it was Easter. “Do you remember that odd poor Christ we said looked like Adonis?” Darrington remembered, but he didn’t really care as she cared. He was living in the present and its terror.

Why didn’t he go then if he felt like this? He said he would wait now for conscription, he was dead sick of hypocrisy and can’t his “gov’nor” try to get him into a snobby regiment for the family kudos. Family. Kudos. But she was sick, so weak that she only wanted him to go, to go away somewhere, somehow quickly. Everyone took it out on her, would do when she got a little stronger. Nurses bending over her. . watching her. . asking. . no, no. It was impossible. There was no such criminal cruelty in any world, never never in England. She had dreamed a horrible dream and reality was different. Reality that she looked at, propped on the heavy cushions while the guns went on, went on, went on, was something very different. Guns dropped sound like lead-hail and if the guns were quiet they might hear some more pertinent manifestation. One like last time, an enormous shattering, breaking and tearing. . guns over-head were better though they dropped lead hail that beat and seared her brain, brought pain back to her consciousness. “O Mrs. Darrington. Everything’s arranged beautifully. There is at the moment, only one other — in— your — state.” Only two of them. Only two of them waiting. But the other woman had a husband in France so they were nicer to her. O God. Why isn’t my husband in France? Guns, guns, guns. Let him at least have the decency to leave me, let me lie here listening. I love listening. Maybe the next one will crash on us. Then I will go simply through the two tall columns (two upright edges of the enormous book-case) into a land that claims me. Patriotism. “There was that Austrian poet at Corpo di Cava, do you remember?” Darrington remembered but there was an odd wide glare to his eyes. He was thinking like those nurses of the cellar.

“Darling wouldn’t it be better — in — your — condition—” “No. No. No. I can’t go downstairs with all the other people. At least it’s cool here and so quiet—” “ Quiet ?” “I mean with you — yes — quiet—” She wasn’t with Darrington really, not here. But how explain it to him? His eyes went wide, vacant. He didn’t dare think about it. O God don’t let his eyes go vacant, then he’ll spoil it, then he’ll bend and kiss me. Why can’t we be happy? Why can’t I just remember?

“But you don’t care?” “Darling. You — know — I—do—” Guns were quiet. Tea steamed into her face and she drank the fumes of the tea like some drug fiend, the scent of drug. Tea smelt of far sweet hours, of afternoons of all the happy little times they’d had together. Darrington had made the tea while she lay listening. He was nice, did nice things. She supposed he really did care, had been sorry. It’s so hard for a man to say such things. He knew it hurt her to talk about the baby. She supposed he had cared. He wouldn’t have let her go through it, almost a year and her mind glued down, broken, and held back like a wild bird caught in bird-lime. The state she had been in was a deadly crucifixion. Not one torture (though God that had been enough) but months and months when her flaming mind beat up and she found she was caught, her mind not taking her as usual like a wild bird but her mind-wings beating, beating and her feet caught, her feet caught, glued like a wild bird in bird-lime. Darrington hadn’t known this. No one had known this. No one would ever know it for there were no words to tell it in. How tell it? You can’t say this, this. . but men will say O she was a coward, a woman who refused her womanhood. No, she hadn’t. But take a man with a flaming mind and ask him to do this. Ask him to sit in a dark cellar and no books. . but you mustn’t. You can’t. Women can’t speak and clever women don’t have children. So if a clever woman does speak, she must be mad. She is mad. She wouldn’t have had a baby, if she hadn’t been. Darrington had said he would “take care of her.” Did they always say that? Darrington had said he would take. . but he was, he had made the tea, had brought her the tea. He had been reading Browning and the words had cleared her mind, swept away horrors like clean rain on a mud spattered window. Darrington had read her,

Next sip this weak wine

From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,

A leaf of the vine .

Words had fused with her horror and the memories that weren’t real, like a drug. Words were a drug. Darrington had given her this drug.

Darrington had given her words and the ability to cope with words, to write words. People had been asking her (just before the war) for poems, had written saying her things had power, individuality, genius. Darrington had done this. Therefore she must remember, try to remember, try to be things she had been before the war — no before it started. The world was caught as she had been caught. The whole world was breaking and breaking for some new spirit. Men were dying as she had almost died to the sound (as she had almost died) of gun-fire. Guns, guns, guns, guns. Thank God for that. The guns had made her one in her suffering with men — men — men— She had not suffered ignobly like a woman, a bird with wings caught, for she was alone and women weren’t left alone to suffer. There were always doctors, and mothers, and grand-mothers. She had been alone. . alone. . no, there were nurses. No there weren’t nurses. Nurses had all run upstairs to get the others to bring the others. . babies were crying. . ghastly mistake. . some doctor. . and guns. . but there were guns in France and she was in France for women didn’t suffer this way. She was suffering for two, for herself and Darrington. Darrington had refused suffering. . “O no, Jerrold. Don’t let them push you in now. Wait decently for conscription.”