Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

Now he said, “is it true Vane wants you to go off to Cornwall with him?” It was another day and she was so happy spreading her fingers to the unaccustomed luxury of the fire that she didn’t think, couldn’t think and Darrington, Jerrold, had brought her winter daffodils. “He never came here while you were away. Only lately.” “Lately?” Darrington was different, he was looking at her, eyes wide and staring, not the mad badness of him but wide and somehow lost, lost in the room, looking around the room, their room, that he hardly ever came to now, asking her about Vane. “What — does — he — want?” “He doesn’t want anything. He’s just sorry—” “Sorry? You told him?” “No. Things get about. You can’t expect them not to. He asked me if I — liked you.” “And you told him?” “I said I had liked you, loved you. That you were different.” “And he said?” “He said, you’d better wait till the war’s over and give the lieutenant a fresh chance.’” “Why did he say that?” “I don’t know. He doesn’t really like me. He wants to— save me.” “Damn right—” “Right?” “To save you. You’d best hop it. Clear out. You can’t stay here another flu epidemic. You’re most all in now.” “Yes. We — all — are.” “Astraea—”

Trampled flowers smell sweet. “Do you remember the spray of violets that were growing, by just that miracle at the base of the broken white marble foot, that hadn’t been dug out yet, leaves brushed away, a foot that had been there, had been standing. So Beauty is still standing, a broken foot—” “You are obsessed with these things, sister of Charmides.” “Charmides? I don’t remember.” “Surely you do, Astraea. That poem of Wilde. He loved statues.” “Yes, Charmides. Statues—” “You never loved, cared. We were never married.” “Married? But Naples?” “The wind from the Bay was as married, more, than I to you, Astraea. The rock cytisus was more your lover, not as people love.” “Was that my fault?” “Fault? Your misfortune I sometimes think, seeing others, knowing the red wine of ecstacy that you’ve missed.” “Missed? Have I missed anything? I smell the locust blossoms that fell along the quay, the smell of salt weed and the honey locust blossom and the atrocious guitars with Verdi, their Bella Lucia which weren’t atrocious. Things are what they are in proportion to their setting. Love is what it is in relation to its surroundings. I loved you, loved the wrong sound of guitars that weren’t wrong. Things change and love is not to be measured even with an angel’s rod. You are wrong. I loved more than all these people.” “I tell you, frankly, (we were always frank) you do not.” “Do they know that ecstacy of the senses when a phosphorescent eel or some globe shaped sea-monster turns and makes a cone of light in the shadowy tank of the aquarium? There are senses and sets of sense vibration that they don’t know. I felt with senses that you don’t know—” “Don’t argue. You can’t argue of Love. You don’t know about love—” Let him go on. Broken cyclamen, trampled flowers are sweeter. He loved her very much and his self had opened to let self out. His other self, or sleeping self opened before her eyes. It was hidden like the fleck of colour in the tulip bulb, that fleck of colour that was his life, his soul. It opened before her eyes but it couldn’t go on opening. They were severed, had been severed. It is to their credit that they recognized that severance, saw it, stood up to it, dared it, challenged it. “You won’t forget—” “Forget?” What was forget. Things are part of you as the threads of a deep sea creature, its threads of feelers are itself. Butterfly antennae are the butterfly body, more subtly, more intrinsically than the soft moth-belly of it. It was her misfortune (sometimes her questionable strength) that she felt outwardly with her aura as it were of vibrant feelers rather than with the soft moth-belly of her body. She felt knowing her limitations, more than they felt. Knowing her limitations, she realised that the tender feelers of her being were in danger. Butterfly antennae to be withered like the soft forward feeling of a moth’s breath. Breath of a moth, of some soul. . “Does he really want you?”

“I tell you yes. At least he doesn’t want to go alone there.” “If I go west, then he’ll marry you, look after you.” “O no. I don’t want that. I don’t think so far. If you come back I come back. You will be different after it’s over. This is no test of courage. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more, helped further.” “There is no help, there was none. Louise knows my needs. I love her. You don’t know what I mean by that. I love her, she adores me.” “Obviously. Do you want to marry then?” “God help me — no. Not Louise. . wait for me.”

So she waited. She was in two parts. Part of her had got out, was out, was herself, the gold gauze, the untrampled winged thing, the spirit, if you will or if you will the mere careless nymph, the careless lover, the faithless wife. The faithless wife had wings of gauze and now she knew better what love was for Cyril Vane was tall and gentle and not heavy and not domineering like her husband. Husband, lover. . the 1860 thrill. I don’t yet quite know how I did it, it was partly that he helped me, seeing that it was all lop-sided, it was brotherly of him, rather dear of him at the last bursting into my room after he had said good-bye saying he would — come — back. She had come away out of the ruin of London, escaping raids, escaping cold and colds and the horror that was around them. She had poise here, power. She was re-established. It was Vane who was her husband, more her husband, thoughtful, always right. She had reticences with Vane. . a “nice” woman, over-romantic, tenuous, poetical and this was her right husband. Vane was right and Darrington never had been and that was why looking back, looking back across the weeks, across the few lovely months that she felt tremours, sadness, wistful longings for that other who was so very far from perfect. “What, another letter?” The letters came now more and more frequently from France. Letters from Darrington from France. Letters, it was right to have letters. Whose were the letters? Postman seeing letters, all the letters, it was right that she should have letters. Hermione hid the letters from her husband as if they were from a lover — it was so mixed, lover, husband. She should have obviously married someone like Cyril Vane, great house, everything clear and clean and beautiful, walls lined with books, her own room and everything right, the house-keeper dignified, everything right. People like Vane didn’t have to explain things. It was people like Darrington that had to bluster a little, say “the gov’nor you know, four quarterings, but all faked.” Faked or not faked you did not hear of Vane’s people, nor his quarterings. People, faces. She was right here, face looking at you is right face for you Hermione. Your face now belongs to you, skin with a hint of burnt-honey brown, hair drawn back and fastened with broad band. Face looks at you and your hands though thin are firm and strong and fasten the velvet band and your frock is smooth and your hands are clean and your sewing bag is right and you don’t care too much now about reading. You lie in the sun and your face nozzles down into tiny bell-flower, tiny white bells of heather, so sweet a smell rising up, rising up from the edge of the cliff and below you, there are further shelves clotted now with primroses, thick with clotted blossom. Shelves flow like veins of lapis and those lapis veins are simply hyacinth but seen from up here they make just such a deep blue line like a crack of lapis in a shelf of emerald. Was there ever such green? Flowers that are (it must be) rose-campion, little flowers along the edge of a field; the fields are small, small, simply imagination come true. This is reality. Heady gorse, thick with its yellow makes ridges and lumps of pure gold and I must be somewhere else. I haven’t died for I am substantiated, there is no breaking out of myself, I am myself. I can walk, run, lie on the grass for there is never anyone about here and it’s odd the place being haunted and Vane getting it cheap and a bore Fletcher, the house-keeper keeps saying she hears noises. She’ll leave, that’s the next thing and I hate cooking and we are so far from anywhere and no one has been here since the — war. What is the war? There is a thing you mean when you say “since” and “the.” What is the war? People, faces that don’t matter. That is the war. The war is people and faces that don’t matter. The war is Louise with her Sienna slant of eyes and the carnation embroidered Chinese shawl and her standing and looking and looking and standing. . the war is some boy who was swept out in the column for the whole column was swept out and they said it that way as if the whole column being swept out was the reason for his being swept out and that that explained it. They didn’t seem to understand death, didn’t know it when it faced them, was this bravado, or sheer stupidity? But I can’t cope with England. I can’t cope with all this. Cornwall is Phoenician and that boats tipped their sails toward this very rock and certainly if I went high on the earn at night, I should see things, images, ghosts. Funny old Mrs. Fletcher the housekeeper hearing things, says she can’t stand it much longer. Loneliness. She must be. . lonely. What is loneliness? Loneliness is a room full of people and Louise in a carnation embroidered shawl and the crowd going round and round and round and having to keep one’s head up. Loneliness is a crowded room and the guns making a row and people, people, people. . a gull wings up and wings around and screeches at me. His nest must be near here. I’ll find it.