William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

The whole week before Christmas had seemed unusually dull. Melancholy life. When I was a child home for the holidays, I sat on the hat rack and imagined I was a bird. The passing of the day, twilight — just like now in the Far East. And ‘Far East’ suggested that we were far away. But far from what? — the world after all was round. — A dreary day. You stand still, your nose pressed against the cold pane, and watch the movement in the street: life is passing swiftly. You are bored by life, but it is passing much too quickly: worse, you stand here at the window in Harbin and you think you ought to be somewhere in Adrianople. And it would seem that whatever you did — if you were to run out into the street, shout, dance, work, forget, go on a voyage, engage in politics, drink, marry, love — it would slip away even more quickly while you did not reflect; and the moment you tried to envisage it you would be leading again a still life.

Christmas Day was a cold but snowless and sunny day, and I was wakened early by Harry, who had come in for his present.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

He smiled his old man’s smile, a little confused. ‘I’m not asking for anything,’ he said.

There was another shuffle at the door.

‘Ah, Nora in her pom-poms!’ said he.

She came up, a little mushroom, smiling all over, in her red shoes and striped jumper.

‘Have you bought me something?’ she said.

‘You mustn’t ask ,’ he whispered in her ear, stooping to do so. And both stood waiting. When they had got their presents they at once ran away with them.

In the dining-room was Natàsha — so pretty, so fragile, so happy in her new white and pink frock. ‘Look me! Look me!’ she said, turning round. ‘Shut your eyes and open your mouth.’ And I ate a chocolate. ‘There will be trifle cakes, vinaigrette , meat, tea, pastry, cocoa!’ she said roguishly.

‘What nice shoes you have.’

‘4.25,’ she said.

‘Shanghai dollars?’

She shrugged her shoulders, sucking a sweet the while. ‘I don’t know what’s it means. Daddy bought them.’

She stood on, wondering why I was not admiring her new frock. She had curled her hair with paper overnight so as to enhance the effect upon Harry. ‘Oh, I wonder what will Harry say when he sees me in my new dress! He will say, “Oh, Natàsha, isn’t it beauty!” ’

Harry came in, and Natàsha waited for him, a little confused, to notice her frock. But taking no notice, he said, ‘Where’s that peddling-motor?’

There wasn’t one. Father Christmas up the chimney flue had played him false.

‘Oh, damn!’ he said — and smiled.

When Sylvia came up, like a China rose, in her champagne georgette, Natàsha relapsed into ecstatic delight: ‘Look, look! What a beauty thing! Oh! Oh! Look!’ And, indeed, Berthe’s present could not have been more welcome.

‘Ah! little Nortchik!’ Natàsha cried as soon as she saw her, and at once began hopping about — and then lifted her by the waist, which you could see was no great satisfaction to Nora, to judge by her face. ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Stop it!’ she said.

There she stood — like a little mushroom, red-cheeked, awfully appetizing.

‘Isn’t she just a little apple dumpling?’ said Aunt Teresa. ‘Come on your old auntie’s knees, you little applie-dumplie.’

Nora climbed up Aunt Teresa’s knees and putting her small arms round her neck tenderly—‘Auntie Terry,’ she said, ‘have you bought me something?’

‘Have you seen my dress, Harry?’ Natàsha ventured.

‘H’m … yes!’ he said, looking at her, while she beamed all over. ‘Have you seen Nora’s pom-poms?’

‘Shut your eyes and open your mouth,’ she said.

Which he did at once.

‘That’s not a sweet!’ he cried, spitting out the silver paper, while Natàsha laughed aloud her gurgling, bubbling laugh, hopping and clapping her palms together in ecstatic mirth.

While we were at our Christmas dinner, the virgin called, and Uncle Emmanuel went out to speak to her, and she pestered him for a Belgian certificate. His Christmas pudding was quite cold when he returned.

At four o’clock the tree was lighted. Uncle Emmanuel, who had donned his made-up Belgian uniform and waxed his moustache with especial care, gave Harry a toy motor which, being wound up, ran across the room and up against the wall. But Harry was very peevish and could not be prevailed upon by Uncle Lucy to take the slightest interest in the toy motor. ‘Look here, Harry, look here,’ Uncle Lucy urged — to save his own face and possibly to spare Uncle Emmanuel the sense of humiliation. But Harry would not look and turned his back to it. ‘It’s no good! I can’t get inside it,’ he said — when Slap ! his father landed him one over the ear. Not at once, but as if on mustering enough self-pity, Harry began to cry softly. ‘Come, come,’ said the people surrounding him. ‘I want a peddling-motor,’ he sobbed, drying his tears with his fist. And thinking of it, he cried louder and louder and louder, until he had to be given the little cupboard Aunt Teresa had given Natàsha, my aunt promising to get Natàsha another one exactly like it immediately the holidays were over. Natàsha was reluctant. ‘No, s’mine! s’mine!’ she said. But Captain Negodyaev, out of deference to his hosts, at once ordered her to give it up.

‘To keep?’ asked Harry, incredulous, accepting the gift, with the old man’s smile coming over his tear-stained face.

Natàsha cried softly.

‘I will get you another one, Natàsha, a better one,’ drawled Aunt Teresa. And Aunt Molly gave Natàsha a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin , intended for Harry, to placate her for the temporary parting with the cupboard. Natàsha smiled through her tears at the book. ‘No give back?’ she asked.

‘No.’

And she smiled away the rest of her tears.

Meanwhile the candles were flickering, rapidly burning down … Melancholy life. How it passes! even while it seems to hang so heavily on your hands. A little more, and we shall join the throngs who went before us. Then why don’t we make haste and live? But how? How make the most of life? If you grip it, it runs through your fingers. While music played hilariously, life seemed to have stopped. Ah, if it were never to move on again I’d bear it: but it’s stopped — and then, next moment, it will slip away — into the dustbin … What the deuce was the matter with life? I liked, for instance, spending Christmas in other people’s homes because then I liked to think of my own home; but I never liked being at home. The children, who were between the ages of ten and fifteen, were all shy and reluctant, and I think looked on this Christmas tree as a nuisance. ‘What extraordinary, unnatural children!’ demurred Aunt Teresa. ‘You should enjoy yourselves like everybody else!’ Alas! You either do — or else you don’t — enjoy yourself. There is no ‘should’ about enjoyment. Uncle Lucy was shy, too. Aunt Molly alone was sending forth sounds of ‘Green grow the leaves’ at the top of her not very agreeable voice, to her own not very efficient accompaniment on the piano, and urging us to join in. But no one did — at least not for some time. We stood around the wall sulkily and shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, and perhaps regretted that Jesus Christ was born at all. Besides ourselves there were Stepan’s little nephews and nieces — evil smelling things with hair greased with butter — who also stood at the wall and shuffled their feet. At last, with some difficulty, and thanks to Berthe’s initiative, the mechanism was set in motion: we began to go round, gingerly at first and feeling somewhat foolish, but gradually gaining confidence. Tall Uncle Lucy, small Uncle Emmanuel, Captain Negodyaev with the wooden leg — all but Aunt Teresa — went round the tree merrily. I thought: a few more æons, and we shall have joined the vast battalions which lie in wait for us and possibly begrudge us our temporary advantage. Why then is life so peculiarly unsatisfying? Why is there a streak of sadness, a deep strata of melancholy beneath all joy? ‘Green grow the leaves of the old oak tree. Green grow the leaves on the old oak tree. They waggled and they jaggled and they never could agree: till the tenor of the song goes merrily.