Hilda Doolittle: Asphodel

Heat roasting from the pavement. Heat with black devil wings to catch her. Christ in Heaven keep Jeanne d’Arc safe for ever.

Christ in Heaven, Christ in Heaven, reconcile these things in our hearts. Christ in Heaven stoop low and shelter Athene who is after all only a girl and the Corinthians spoke of idols of silver, idols of gold, O Christ, Christ let me bring you every conceivable kind of lily. . “Yes, Mrs. Rabb. . Clara. I do think the baptismal fount is lovely and the Fennels, you know of the Art Academy (yes he is the Fennel) told me I must be sure to look in the fount at the odd angle, I don’t know what the odd angle is but you must walk round and round and try it. The Fennels said nobody would mind as everyone does it and you see the whole cathedral reflected in a tiny space, all upside down with all the windows. Fennel’s wife had to drag him away, she said, and everybody laughed (because he is so dignified) by the coat tail. No they don’t mind our whispering. It’s not like our churches . And you do get it a little (I see what they mean) from this angle. See it’s like a shell, not such a big one either and the whole of the church is reflected. It’s like some Hokusai drawings I saw once (you know seeing Fujiyama) a hundred views and the same idea. The painter with a little cup or bowl, I suppose and the reflection of the mountain in the bowl. It’s oriental I suppose”. . Christ in Heaven, Christ in Heaven. I suppose this is your church. I suppose it is. I don’t think it’s like you. It’s like the woods simply, tree trunks in long rows and the shade and coolness of the woods. I don’t think this is your temple but they say so so for God’s as for Christ’s sake (but you are Christ and I shouldn’t swear and blaspheme) keep Jeanne d’Arc—“O Fayne Rabb come and look at this. Funniest thing. A sort of little alcove to the Thief. I suppose the repentant one. What happened to the other?” Christ in Heaven is this your temple? Maybe it is. Its the first temple I’ve anyhow seen and “who was Saint Ouen? Have you the guide book, Mrs. Rabb. Clara. Here’s actually a bench to sit on like an art gallery. That’s all it is after all, isn’t it? I’m glad we came in now, all empty. I hope they won’t begin mumbo-jumbo. No. I don’t mean anything. Clara. I didn’t mean to be irreligious .” Christ in Heaven let me fling myself down, something, somewhere, something, some expression of something but not this, not this. This is all trying to make us forget. It’s like a wood where one is lost, singing going on somewhere, some sort of chant to keep us from being afraid. But Beauty is Fear. This says fear is to be numbed but I don’t think really that was your doctrine. . long shafts of light from the pool set slant wise in the wall, set slant wise, a pool defying laws of gravitation and dripping ruby colour. The Holy Grail. A cup to take and to forget, to forget — but not this. This classic thing, this action daring the soldiers, rough treatment, no kindness, daring to be herself, like Athene, like Artemis. Love in her heart too that led her on for France. Fleur de lys. White lilies. I would find you white lilies like the lilies of Helios. White lilies for you and for Jeanne d’Arc fleur de lys. Of course. Fleur de lys. Blue and gold and white too. A soft cream gold white blue — Jeanne d’Arc. They grow in the meadows and your feet sink in to the ankles. Never mind wet shoes. Your own mired in filth, dragging through mud. They insulted you. But who, who did? They put a crimson robe and a reed, no a sword and they dragged your armour from you. You died defenceless in a white robe. No in no robe. They parted His garments. . and the soldiers laughed but it wasn’t they that slew you. “I know I’m irreligious.” “What Hermione?” “I said. I know I’m irreligious but don’t you find all this — this — broken line — you know what I mean, a little ginger-bread-y?” “Ginger—? What?” “Ginger-bread. You know. Too much decoration.” “What are you trying to do, Hermione? Trying to show off? Pretending you don’t care? Pretending not to care? Really caring awfully.” “No. Not as you think. Not as you think. I do care. It’s looking back, walking off one’s own shelf of life, sliding off like sliding off a raft, a float—” “Perhaps. You swim then?” “Well. Not exactly. Yes. I do swim.” “Thinking of your vacation in your precious Jersey mud flats?” “I hadn’t. I wasn’t.” “This is a little bit of a comedown, Miss Expensive?” Christ in Heaven. Why is Josepha so ill-natured, so perverse? It meant everything getting away with her and she goes on this way. I suppose were all dead and tired with sights. Why is she so destructive? What’s wrong with her anyhow? “Do you believe in this — ah — you know—” “What, Josepha?” “Are you, I don’t believe I ever asked you, a — a Christian?” “What is — that, Fayne Rabb?” “What is what?” “A Christian?” “A Christian is a person who goes to communion. Do you? I do every Sunday, ever since I can remember or Madre would sulk. Do you go to communion?” “I used to. I taught some filthy children who called poppies coloured rags’ and I thought that was better than communion—” “Was it?” “I don’t know. It was, while I loved them. But I got sick with them, disgusted. . their voices, the impossibility of doing anything.” “What did you do? This is a new phase, little smug Miss Settlement Worker.” “I took them roses. All I could get, borrow or steal.” “Well?” “I could never get, borrow or steal enough. There was one filthy brat with its nose running—” “Dear me, not in a cleaned up college settlement?” “There was always one filthy one, a girl or boy. They were all the same. (They were immigrant class.) There was always one there wasn’t a rose for.” “Well what about the ninety and nine?” “It wasn’t worth it. I always remembered the filthy dirty one, I hated that there hadn’t been a rose for.” “What a sweet picture.” “Yes. Isn’t it? As like as not with scabs and they always had a patch of something, colour, or bright blue patches on the seat of their pants—” “Pretty. You should have been an art student at the academy—” “Yes. Shouldn’t I? Art — Beauty. What’s the use of art and art and Beauty when there’s one filthy brat with a running nose that you hate anyway who cringes at you and leaves finger marks on your summer clothes and says ‘but sister’ (they called me sister. I suppose they never saw anyone but a Catholic sister at a funeral who had flowers) ‘but sister. Isn’t there one dirty broken one left for me — not even any pieces.’ Pieces of a rose.” “You seem unduly sensitive.” “Pieces of a rose. I ask you. Pieces of a lily. He meant petals I suppose. Scrapings. Sweepings. With a filthy face and as like as not some hideous inherited affliction. That’s the Church. Have all the children. Suffer little children—” “So, I presume you are not, Miss Wrath of God, a Christian?” “Not in your sense. I’m going over to look at that Lady Chapel — they’re going to begin some hocus-pocus. O go get Clara’s guide book. She’ll put out her eyes reading in this gloom. And it’s my fault asking for details. Tell her I don’t care.” Get away. Get away. Get away. O let me alone. Don’t follow me. Don’t let me slip O Christ into this pool of numbness, of death in life. A cold place but I am not a hospital patient, a convalescent. O Christ in Heaven — Mea beata. . gratia mea. . domina. . regina. .

Lady if you are a lady though they said you had one illegitimate child whom they called God, listen to me. Are you really a creature to bring and alleviate people’s odd numbing blackness? Are you really a mother and would you really understand? I always think the most awful thing in the world to be would be to be the mother of God. But maybe that’s because I’m afraid. George said there needn’t be any children. Must I ever, should I ever have one? George Lowndes said I would look like Maria della something or other, he was always rubbing in his filthy old Italians. Italians crowded the steerage of rotten second class boats. . but they aren’t the same. Something tells me, Lady mea gratia, beata or whatever they are calling you that in Italy the mother of God is different. George. . pearls on her gown. It is hemmed and she wears pearls. Florence is (Browning says orris root or doesn’t he?) and pearls are wound round and round the diadem of the baby that hadn’t even the dirty ragged pieces of a rose. Not a petal of a rose. Is that what you are meant for, beata domina regina or whatever they are calling you? Incense to numb out your pain but Christ wouldn’t take the sponge (O why, why didn’t he?) they offered Him. Chloroform I read in the Materia Medica doesn’t always help though sometimes — don’t let me scream. Don’t let me die. Perhaps it’s my Hell and must we all pass through it to get to meadows thick with water lilies? Meadows, thick with iris, I search the meadows for the mirrored iris . I don’t think Fayne Rabb realized. . how I love her. Christ would understand. Jeanne d’Arc was more beautiful than Fayne, though I’m afraid her hands weren’t pretty. Couldn’t have been tending the swine or sheep or whatever it was she tended in Arc wherever that was or could ever have been. George said I was like the Madonna something or other della something and that all I wanted was a halo, a thin ring, he said of gold thread though that didn’t go with Undine. Undine, mother, lovely Nereid. . “Sleeping?” “I don’t know.” “Crying?” “I don’t know.” “Praying?” “I don’t know. . Josepha, you can’t whisper with this singing going on.” “Well, everyone else is. Shuffling their feet, blowing their noses on their petticoats.” “Where? What do you mean?” “There’s a crowd of gargoylesque, Rabelaisian peasants with market baskets and cheeses who have come to see the spectacle.” “What spectacle?” “Whatever it is that is going on here. Lets get out.” “Why get out?” “Mothers waiting outside in the sunshine. What’s the matter anyhow? Pretending? Showing off? Being emotional, hysterical, artistic? Being temperamental?” “A few of those things. Can’t you let me alone. You and your mother as thick as thieves, always crowding together and poking fun at me and then saying I’m not appreciative. Well, I am appreciative, damn you. Let me alone. This is my cathedral. Didn’t I get you to come here. Would you ever have heard of it if I hadn’t known Clifton Fennel?” “ The Fennel, I think you told us. And if it hadn’t been for madre and me you would be now sunk in your New Jersey mud flat, swamped by your mangy relatives and eaten by mosquitoes.” “Well let’s call it quits then. Go away anyhow—” “Sulky. Pretty Miss Sulks who adores sentiment, hysteria.” Nereid, lovely mother . . “I’m tired. You tire me. You wear me out. Can’t you let me alone. Kill me, do what you want with me, then leave me?” “Sweet perverse adulteress. It was you who started it.” “Started?” “Children, come outside. What are you quarrelling for? I’ve found a new sight—” Sights, sights. Sights. Sights. The clock so huge, the narrow arch and the cobbles that burnt and hurt the soles of her unsuitably clad feet. Court yards that had to be peered into. A little lunch room where a robust sophisticated creature (how did he get there) eyed Hermione and Fayne Rabb. “You girls — attract — attention.” “Well, it isn’t, is it, our fault, Clara.” “You don’t seem to have any — sense — of — proportion.” Whatever did she mean? Trudging along, meals at any hours. Sleep broken. Bugs in the bed. Having to get up and row the hotel people (they made Hermione do all the rowing in her sparse French) and people looking at them as much as to say well if you look like that and are off a transatlantic liner, why don’t you go to another, different hotel? Madame Dupont had given them a list of cheap hotels up the Seine all the way up the Seine even in Paris. Names of hotels, the kind French people go to, “don’t Mrs. Rabb let them cheat you,” just so much and just so much and just so much and don’t go over it or they’ll know you are foreigners though how anyhow could they help knowing it? “Pretend to be English. An English lady with daughters learning French. English people do. English people won’t let themselves be put on like you careless Americans.” Bugs in the bed. Huge room with heavy velvet curtains and they so tired eating plums out of a bag of plums for a few cents and that was what a livre was, a pound of plums not a book of plums. Going on and on. “And this is where Flaubert lived.” “Never heard of him.” Flaubert. Flaubert. Going up the Seine like the Sentimental Journey. Salammbô with ostrich feathers and a little person in tight silk drawers who danced but that was a little story in the Trois Contes. “Yes. He was the adopted father of de Maupassant. You know what I mean. I mean he made , de Maupassant — Guy his name was. How wonderful to be called Guy, you know Guy de Maupassant. He must have come here. I mean Flaubert lived here like a recluse and he taught Guy de Maupassant how to write. Boule de Souife. All ironical. Ironical. George Lowndes helped me to get books—” “O it was George Miss Showoff. You got it all out of George . Picked his brains and now pretending to know so much. Hateful little prig.” “I don’t. I didn’t. But how could one ever forget the woods burning and the smell of the smoke as the woods burnt—” “What woods burnt? Where did you see woods burnt?” “The woods you know. The tables were all laid for the banquet—” “Settlement Sunday School?” “No. No. No. No. No. I mean the banquet in Salammbô where the woods burnt — have another plum. No, there can’t be bugs in the bed. I never saw one in a bed though they always told me that was where to find them. And the clock on the mantel-piece actually is going but it can’t be half nine, we haven’t had our supper and they’re sprinkling the streets below, can you hear them.” “ Don’t lean so far out of the window.” “What is it a little balcony high up over a street can do to one? It’s like a play. A scene in a play. Come look, Clara. All a little triangle and our clock isn’t right for listen to the boom (and the chime that goes with it) from the tower—” Christ in Heaven. Christ in Heaven, keep Jeanne d’Arc safe forever .