Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

This thing would prolong itself and clocks were striking. Hermione was in a world of mystery for a great house on Curzon Street is always mysterious. Thank God we were not born on Curzon Street for Curzon Street (say it, you will see what I mean) holds mystery. Clocks were striking, striking, silver and one not as far as the others with chimes. It sang its silly silver song and sang it again and a third time. “One quarter’s missing, like the moon three quarters full.” Ah that was herself, that was Hermione. “A most awkward shape, the shape of the three quarters striking but the chimes are pretty—” Silver, silver, answering silver, silver. Was she dead? Was she enchanted, under the sea in this house on Curzon Street? “Are you — alone?” No one about, nothing. Catullus filled the room for his name lingered and clung like the very wine lees against the marble (in the far corner) of some second rate 1880 French goddess. A sort of small Fragonard Clytie by way of the Luxembourg. The small wrong goddess was right here and like the wax white carnations brought the taste, the character of the owner of it. Dada. Tiberius. Hermione could smell the scent of his excellent cigars, could see the lilt of light (blood-stones, Catullus) in his super after-dinner port. “Port. Do you like it? I was thinking of Catullus”—but she wasn’t. Chimes, silver. Enchantment. Why did the girl stare and still stare at her?

The eyes would still stare at her the other side of — the other side of — Styx. There was another side and this was the great discovery. . another side in fog, in mist, with wounded soldiers sitting in their odd-smoke-blue uniforms along the benches that now in Richmond Park were all marked “for the wounded.” In 1926, 7, or 8 some great distant era, people will forget benches, that benches were marked in parks “for the wounded” and you couldn’t sit down on them, not Hermione even dragging a heavy skirt that swished against inadequate light ankles through the long grass through the gardens. Richmond Park. It was a heaven, an aura of world. The world has an aura, just as they say (odd Indian mystics and illiterate people say) people have them. And the aura of the world was visible to Hermione (and to some soldiers sitting in smoke blue hospital uniforms on a bench) visible, tangible, walking through the late winter mist, it was the aura of the world and the world had melted away (not to everybody, to Hermione, to blue soldiers on a bench in Richmond Park). The whole world had melted, had become an aura and Hermione thanked God, thanked someone (she couldn’t remember who it was — a man called Vane?) for having injured her, wounded her so that she, like soldiers on a bench perceived a world outside or inside the world, part of the world, as the moon-nebula is part of the moon, part of the world and yet not part of the world. The world’s great throb of guns, wounded pulse beat was silent. You see the world was dead. It had died with beat, beat, beat of pulse, that was beat, beat, beat of guns that was going on, had been going on all the time across a narrow strip of water, in France to be exact (have you heard of the war in France?). People forget so easily, I think it was 1919. I don’t remember. Only feel with Hermione how odd it was that her ankles like a deer’s were too frail to hold up an awkward bulk of body that was Hermione’s small le Fay. Hermione looking bulky and unseemly as any char-woman slid past people, past houses, seeing nurse maids that were pulling mis-shapen children, crowds of children, all mis-shapen in the sulphur fog and nothing was real, nothing but the slightly meagre herds of deer, the deer, the deer whose ankles were her ankles and she understood the deer sliding along the hedges of the distant far edge of Richmond Park and the great trees dropping last, last left-over leaves that were already over; there was no real autumn, no real spring, crocuses were darting up in the sulphur spring light, little rows of blue and saffron crocuses and bunches, clots of cream-coloured crocuses that came up, that came out in the yellow sulphur light like odd planet colours, like colours seen through some spectrum, like observing the sun aura or some star aura from a long way. . crocuses weren’t stained glass, radiant in rain washed colour. They were hectic blue that was fire hectic flame blue, like blue given off by burning chemicals, waste of a world and the flames of the waste were hectic fire blue and odd cream white and soft, soft white all blurred in the sulphur that was part of the aura, the edge of the aura, like the edge, the corona of a sun eclipse. The earth was eclipsed and in the eclipse as in ordinary sun eclipse we (Hermione, soldiers on a bench) were permitted to see the odd penumbra, the light that the earth (wasted dead eclipsed earth) gives out. It was our so great privilege. Most people, it seems odd, never saw it, just as most people (it seems odd) never felt the sudden end of the world when the guns (the world pulse) stopped that soggy autumn day. Long ago. That had happened long ago, but still there were soldiers sitting on a bench, what a pity, what a pity when that glory (armistice) happened, you couldn’t do away with the consequences, just be glorious and done with. Blue soldiers witnessed that it took a long time to be resurrected after you are dead. So did Hermione. What a pity, what a pity, Madonna had all that weary and mis-shapen time to go after her glory of the angel and the wax lilies. We never hear about Madonna and her weary waiting and all that and we never hear about blue soldiers on a bench. But I suppose it’s all right. Only some people, char women, tobacconists, evil deck hands felt it. Hermione felt it. Some people who knew that the beauty of things is a snare and you don’t get glory in a sudden moment. Soldiers sat on the bench and watched people. They watched people and saw Hermione sliding by ill-shapen and with her clothes pulled wrong and her bulk too heavy on her thin ankles. They sat on a bench making remarks, common, bitter ugly.

But blue eyes, evil eyes, were calling her out of that nebulous world into which she had so softly fallen, blue eyes were dragging her ashore as one drags the mercifully almost dead to land, blue eyes were working their horrible first aid and were calling, calling to something in Hermione that was lost, that was forgotten, that had slid away, been taken away just as the guns, helmets, bombs, gas masks (what not) had been taken from odd smoke blue soldiers on a bench. Hermione was defenceless and blue eyes called her back to war, to fight, to resist, to appeal. “What do you think of Middleton?” O stuffy books. Couldn’t she let stuffy books alone. Books were books, part of the old world, part of the people who didn’t understand that the world was dead, its heart had stopped beating, guns, guns, guns, you never felt their throb and tremble till they were gone as you never feel the heart beating in you, till it is gone and you are dead. When you are dead, there is merciful quiet and you realize all, all your life you have been slightly listening, slightly asquint as it were mentally, listening, waiting, listening and a little afraid all, all your life, lest it should stop, should stop and you not know it had stopped. It was like that when the guns stopped but most people didn’t know, were still alive (they called it) not drawn out of life, out of the pulse and beat and throb of it like blue, smoke blue soldiers on a bench watching people pass, saying crude and ugly things but all the time at peace with great peace knowing they were dead, not listening any more, not waiting any more; pulse stopped beating. It was so marvellous and nobody knew. No one at all seemed to know but you can’t tell them about it, any more than an Indian mystic (or some illiterate mumbling person) can tell you about your aura; it is blue, it is grey, it is opal clouded with amber. Amber clouded with opal. That would be a lovely aura, some little sempstress in a corner working, sewing, with pricked rough fingers might have it and a great lord who commanded men, men, men, guns, guns, guns to move up, across to men, men, guns might be sodden illiterate green or grey striped with a nothing of blue-smear, no real blue like a convolvulus petal that has been crushed, smeared on an asphalt pavement. That is how it is with auras, with illiterate people seeing, sensing, not actually seeing (but it was only the illusion of mist) that aura and Beryl had not seen it. It was just that kingdom of heaven and being like a little child, accepting everything, like the soldiers on the bench, like Hermione, honourable wounds, dishonourable wounds, it’s all one to God so long as you are wounded. . because she loved much. So it was like that and Beryl with voracious eyes and brilliant intellect was talking of Middleton and Hermione propped up in the one big chair that her room boasted must answer, find an answer. . Middleton? Who was Middleton? “O yes. I think his horse play is legitimate — Aristophanic—”