Patrick White: Riders in the Chariot

With more than her usual kindness, Eleanor Hare motioned to their child, and when the latter had come forward-because what else could anyone do? — the mother smoothed a sash, and sighed, and suggested, "Plain is the word, Norbert. And who knows-Mary's plainness may have been given to her for a special purpose." Because she was inexperienced, or because she was born hopeful, Mary did not immediately begin to hate her father. She decided on a watery smile, which only made her uglier, and her parent more enraged. She remained altogether without companions, because it never occurred to anybody that she was in need of them, and she did fairly well without: with sticks, pebbles, skeleton leaves, birds, insects, the hollows of trees, and the cellars and attics of Xanadu. She did have a pony, but preferred to be with it rather than to ride upon it-which would have entailed the company of her father-and soon learned to oblige most of its wishes by studying the quiver of a nostril, the flicker of a muscle, and the varying assertions of silence. Once when, unavoidably, in the company of her father, and they had gone down to inspect a rested paddock, she had thrown herself on the ground, and begun to hollow out a nest in the grass, with little feverish jerks of her body, and foolish grunts, curling round in the shape of a bean, or position of a foetus. So it appeared to him. But, in answer to his quick-drawn demand for an explanation, the child had replied, simply, "Now I know what it feels like to be a dog." He had been so shocked and disgusted by the expression on her freckled face, that he told her to get up at once, and decided not to think about the incident again. On very few occasions Mary Hare and her father, approaching from their opposite sides, arrived simultaneously at a common frontier of understanding, and then only when alcohol, despair, or approaching death loosened the slight restraints of reason-when, indeed, he came closest to resembling in her eyes a distressed or desperate animal. Throughout her life the daughter would remember an incident which occurred about that time, and on which she would employ her intuition in attempting to interpret what her mind failed to understand. She had been standing on the terrace. It was the hour of sunset. Earlier in the afternoon they had gone driving along the roads and lanes round Sar-saparilla, even as far as Barranugli, so that her father might show himself. How relieved she felt to be alone at last, able to look at, and touch, and smell whatever she saw, without danger of being asked by her parents for explanations. The urns on the terrace were running over, she remembered, with cascades of a little milky flower, which would shimmer through darkness like falls of moonlight. But at that hour the light was gold. Or red. So splendid that even she, a red girl, had no need to feel ashamed of the correspondence. Then her father came outside. He had been tasting a new brandy which they had sent out for his personal opinion, and his mouth was still wet and shining from his recent occupation. His eyes, in the dazzle from the sun, appeared almost vulnerable. There they stood, the father and daughter, facing each other, alarmingly exposed. He came forward, and seemed at once both puzzled and assured. Fondling her. Which was not his habit. And it was not altogether pleasant: his hands playing amongst her hair. She was reminded of a pair of black-and-white spaniels she had seen lolloping and playing together, too silly to help themselves. But just because her father's temporary silliness and loss of control had reduced him to the level of herself and dogs, she did submit to his fondling her. She did not remember what he said, not all of it, for that, too, was silly and confused, only that at one point he had shaken his head, as if to dash the sunlight out of his eyes, both frowning and smiling, and spoke in a harsh voice, which, although addressing her, did not seem designed for her attention. Her father said: "Who are the riders in the Chariot, eh, Mary? Who is ever going to know?" Who, indeed? Certainly _she__ would not be expected to understand. Nor did she think she wanted to, just then. But they continued there, the sunset backed up against the sky, as they stood beneath the great swingeing trace-chains of its light. Perhaps she should have been made afraid by some awfulness of the situation, but she was not. She had been translated: she was herself a fearful beam of the ruddy, champing light, reflected back at her own silly, uncertain father. Then he had started frowning, and it became obvious they were again driving along the road from Barranugli to Sarsa-parilla, returning through the comparatively humdrum light of the afternoon already past. "I do not like the off-side front mare," he complained. "Must replace the off-side front. She moves lame, without her being lame at all." For he required perfection in horses, as in everything, and usually got it, except in human beings. He looked at her, and was again irritated, she saw, because she was such an ugly little girl, and she, for her part, could do nothing for him but smile back in the way of those from whom nothing much is expected. Yet, the father's rather oblique remark, made when he was drunk, and uttered with the detachment and harshness of male egotism, encouraged the daughter to expect of life some ultimate revelation. Years after, when his stature was even further diminished in her memory, her mind would venture in foxy fashion, or more blunderingly wormlike, in search of a concealed truth. If fellowship with Himmelfarb and Mrs Godbôld, and perhaps her brief communion with a certain blackfellow, would confirm rather than expound a mystery, the reason could be that, in the last light, illumination is synonymous with blinding. In the meantime, life at Xanadu was disturbed less by transcendental problems than by the economic and social ones which come to those who enjoy nerves and invested income. The Hares never talked about money. To Mrs Hare that would have been an act in the poorest taste. To her husband, on the other hand, money was something he did not care to think about, but which he hoped fervently would still be there. He was not unlike a traveller walking into a landscape which may prove mirage. Fortunate in his inheritance from the wine-merchant father and commercial uncles, and in the devotion of an individual just stupid enough to be honest, just intelligent enough to be practical, who managed his late father's business, Norbert was pretty certain that his landscape was an actual one. But it unnerved him to discuss it, and if drink or insomnia forced him to consider his financial future, he would buy reality off by writing to his London agent to order a fireplace in Parian marble, or a Bonington, which, he was assured, would soon be coming up for sale. In that way he was fortified. In that way they continued to live at Xanadu, and soon it became clear the daughter of the house was a young girl. They put up her hair, and the nape of her neck was greenish and unfreckled where the red hair had lain. She was no prettier, however, and unnaturally small. The mother began to sigh a good deal, and remarked, "It is time we thought about doing something for our poor Mary." But immediately wondered whether her suggestion might not have sounded vulgar. The father could not feel the situation deserved his interest. "If anything is to happen, it will happen." He yawned, and showed his rather handsome, pointed teeth. "How does it happen to at least ninety per cent of the unlikely human race? How did it happen to us?" "We grew fond of each other," his wife ventured, and blushed. The husband laughed out loud. And the wife preferred not to hear. Not long after, Mrs Hare displayed excitement and her husband cynical interest when it was announced that Eustace Cleugh intended to undertake a tour of the world, in the course of which he would visit his relations in New South Wales. Except that he was a member of an English branch of Urquhart Smiths, not a lot was known about Mr Cleugh, but blank sheets are always whitest. Mrs Hare _had__ heard that her Cousin Eustace was _awfully nice__, neither young, nor yet middle-aged, comfortably off, and that his mother's brother had married the Honourable Lavinia Lethbridge, a daughter of Lord Trumpington. "What does Mr Cleugh do for a living?" Mary asked her mother. "I don't exactly know," replied the latter. "I expect he just lives." So, it all sounded most desirable. Eustace Cleugh, when he arrived, was not surprised at a lot of what he heard and saw, for as an Englishman and an Urquhart Smith, he had preconceived notions of what he must expect from colonial life in general and the Norbert Hares in particular. "Breeding is ninety per cent luck, whatever the experts and Urquhart Smiths may tell you, " Mr Hare announced the first night at dinner. "And when I say luck, I mean bad luck, of course." "There are so many _rewarding__ topics!" his wife complained, looking at her cherry stones. Mary Hare stared at her cousin. An absence of interested upbringing had at least left her with a thorough training in observation, and although she looked deeper than was commonly considered decent, she often made discoveries. Now she confirmed that this man was, in fact, as her mother had forewarned, neither young, nor yet middle-aged. To Mary Hare it seemed probable that Mr Cleugh had always been about thirty-five. As she herself was of indeterminate age, she hoped they might become friends. But how was she to go about it? In the first place, he was of her father's sex. In the second, his beautifully kept, slightly droopy moustache, and the long bones of his folded-fan-like hands, appeared unaware of anything beyond the person of Eustace Cleugh. Perhaps if he had been a dog-say, an elegant Italian greyhound-she might have won him over by many infallible means. But as that was not the case, she could only offer him an almond. Which he accepted with an unfolding of hands. Now also he began to unfold his mind, and to offer to the audience in general-everything that Eustace spoke was offered to a general, rather than to a particular, audience-an account of a journey he had made with a friend through Central and Northern Italy. "After a short interlude at Ravenna," Mr Cleugh picked his way, "not in itself of interest, but there are the mosaics, and the _zuppa di pesce__-and they are essential, aren't they? — we went on to Padua, where the Botanic Gardens are said to be the oldest in Europe. They are not, I must admit, particularly large, or _fine__, as gardens go, but we found them to be of peculiarly subtle horticultural interest." Mrs Hare made the little social noises that one made. But her husband had begun to blink, repeatedly, and hard. "In Padua, poor Aubrey Puckeridge was struck down by some ailment we were never able to diagnose, part tummy, part fever, in what turned out to be-our guidebook had sadly misinformed us-a most primitive _albeigo__." Mrs Hare made the same, only slightly more appreciative noises. "And did he die?" asked Norbert. "Well, no," replied Eustace Cleugh. "I hope I did not imply. I intended only to suggest that poor Aubrey was awfully indisposed." "Oh," said Mr Hare. "I thought perhaps the fellow died." Eustace Cleugh noticed that his cousin's husband had been drinking a good deal of his own poisonous wine. Mary Hare was fascinated by Mr Cleugh's story, not so much by the narrative as by how it issued out of his face. She put it together in piles of dead leaves, but neatly, and matched, like bank-notes. It made her sad, too. So many of the things she told died on coming to the surface, when their life, to say nothing of their after life in her mind, could be such a shining one. She wondered whether Mr Cleugh realized how dead his own words were, and if he was suffering for it. There were, after all, many things he and she had in common, if they could first overcome the strangeness of their separate existences, and crack the codes of human intercourse. "When he got better, and left that primitive _albeigo__," she asked, for a start, offering him her assistance. But Eustace Cleugh no longer felt inclined. He had only glanced at his cousin's ugly child, and promised himself that, during his visit, he would look as little as possible in that direction. Her short, stumpy hands were particularly repulsive, and the flare of hair that had not yet submitted to the tyranny of pins. He shuddered inside himself. Even while concentrating on the pattern of his dessert plate, he was conscious of how shockingly the girl was put together. It was almost as though the presence of any kind of physical monstrosity was a personal insult to Mr Cleugh. "I expect Cousin Eustace is tired." Mrs Hare was making his excuses. "My own arrival in a strange house exhausts me beyond anything." Eustace, of course, turned a smile on the company, because his manners were perfect, and became murmurous in protest. But he did retire early, and not to the bachelors' quarters, because, said Mrs Hare, he was a member of the family. Mary soon realized that her life would remain unchanged by their cousin's being with them, because she did not see so very much of him; he was always either reading or writing-his tastes appeared studious-smoking or thinking, or walking in the bush to study the flora of Australia. Once she suggested, "If you like, I shall come with you. I shall take you to places that probably no one else has seen. Only, you mustn't mind crawling and scrambling. And sometimes there are snakes." He could smile very obligingly. He said, "That is a good idea. Yes. Why have we not thought of it before? Yes. Some day. When there is more time." Because there were also social engagements: gentlemen were brought, who told him about their sheep, and ladies, who wished to be told about Home, some mythical land that existed largely in their imaginations. A lot of this did at last surprise the visitor, for it had never occurred to him that sheep could be taken seriously, and together with his English acquaintances, he had always considered that, of all civilizations, real and imagined, only the Italian was worthy of consideration. All the time Mrs Hare remained aware that something must be done for Mary, and so it was decided to give the ball. This was such an undertaking in itself that it did not occur to her how her daughter might be affected by it. The latter did venture, "Do you think Cousin Eustace cares about dancing? He is far too polite to say whether he does or not." But already, mentally, the mother was at the dressmaker's. She was calculating how many oyster patties, and wondering whether in the final hour the maids would obey her orders. Even on the night, everyone was inclined to ignore Mary Hare. Those who were kind enough thought to respect her feelings by not noticing her appearance, but those who were cruel hoped to spare their own by refusing to see what could only upset them. She appeared dressed in a silvery white, because she was a young girl, and this was to be the moment of her triumph, or sacrifice. She stood about, touching the papery stuff of her skirt with disbelieving hands, wearing jewels which her mother had brought from her own box: a little brooch in knots of pearls, and pearl dog-collar which the mother herself no longer wore, and which had lost much of its lustre from lying on velvet instead of on living flesh. So there she was, dressed to kill, as one young fellow remarked, only it was Mary who was killed, by her own pearl dog-collar. Certainly it was rather tight. She was always inclined to be red, however, in patches, according to weather and emotion, to say nothing of rough. Her hands caught in the splendid stuff of her silvery dress, and she was reminded of the many awkwardnesses of behaviour of which she had been guilty. Perhaps the most grotesque detail of her whole appearance, those who discussed it remembered afterwards, was a little bunch of ridiculous flowers that she had pinned half-wilting at her waist: frail fuchsia, and rank geranium, and pinks, and camomile-all stuffed together, and trembling, and falling. It did certainly look peculiar, and most unsuccessful, but she had not been able to resist one touch of what she knew by heart. The evening developed, in gusts of music, and tinkling of glass. The ugly, forgotten girl should have felt miserable, but was preserved finally from unhappiness by the wonder of it, by the long shadows and the pools of light, by the extraordinary, revealing faces of men and women, by receiving a glass of lemonade, off a silver salver, from a servant who pretended not to recognize, in their own house. There were a great many important guests: landowners, professional men and their wives-only those who were rich, hence socially acceptable. And house guests. The bachelors' quarters were full of young men down from the country, with high spirits, good teeth, and brick-red skins. And the dancing. And the dancing. Mary Hare, without aspiring, loved to watch, from some familiar corner, protected by mahogany or gilt, in cave of chalcedony or malachite, peering out. From there the dancers could be seen riding the swell of music (the best that Sydney could provide) in the full arrogance of their intentions. Or, suddenly, they would lose control, whirled around by the unsuspected eddies. But willingly. As they leaned back inside the slippery funnels of the music, they would have allowed themselves to be sucked down, the laughter and the conversation trembling on their transparent teeth. There was, in particular, the girl Helen Antill, whom some considered, in spite of her beauty and assurance-_extravagant__. Miss Antill wore a dress embroidered with little mirrors, oriental it could have been, which reflected the lights, and even, occasionally, a human feature. She carried, moreover, a fan, curiously set in a piece of irregular coral resembling a hand. The fan was of peacocks' feathers. Most unlucky. But Miss Antill could not have been perturbed. Mary Hare, watching, thought she might have loved something like this, just as she fell spontaneously in love with the smooth limbs of certain trees, the texture of marble, and long, immaculate legs of thoroughbred horses spanking at their exercise. Even Mrs Hare became carried away by Miss Antill's performance, and although she had at first suffered qualms on seeing the effect her guest would have upon those others present, admiration overcame her protective instincts as a mother, and she began to move quickly through her house, searching and frowning, her grey mist of chiffon trailing like an obsession after her. "Where is Cousin Eustace?" she asked cursorily of Mary. "It is some time since I noticed him," replied her daughter, and as she diverted her attention, realized how strange it was that she should be addressing her own mother. Mrs Hare frowned again. At the point of sacrificing a daughter, she continued to expect that the latter should do her duty. "You should see to it that he is not alone. When there is nobody else, you should keep him company. In fact, any young girl of serious intentions makes sure that hers is the company he wants." Then Mrs Hare sighed, realizing the difficulty of most situations. "Men do not know what they want without a little guiding." "But I should hate to _guide__ someone," replied Mary. "The way you say it you make it sound like _drag__!" despaired the mother. "I meant to imply that a slight touch on the elbow works wonders." "Cousin Eustace hates to be touched." Mrs Hare preferred to interrupt a conversation that had become so physical. She would bear her cross, and in becoming thus a martyr, she was convinced that only she herself was aware of the source of her martyrdom. So she continued the search for her relative, strengthened by her disappointments, and the vision of Miss Antill in her successful dress. Eustace Cleugh had, in fact, performed most nobly almost all that had been expected of him that night. He had appeared to listen attentively to all those statistics with which the graziers had provided him. He had lent a sympathetic ear to graziers' wives, condemned to use up their lives on Australian soil, removed from all those material advantages which their sensibility, not to say spirituality, required. He had danced, how he had danced with the daughters. At least, his body had accepted the dictatorship of music, and his face had not let him down. But now he had gone upstairs, into the study of his Cousin Norbert Hare, to nurse his numbness, and to look through an album of engravings of German churches in the Gothic style. Here his Cousin Eleanor found him. "Eustace," she exclaimed, "I cannot imagine how you have allowed yourself to overlook Miss Antill. Such an exquisite dancer, and a lovely girl. I cannot rest until I see you lead her out." And she took him by the wrist, _guiding__, as she was convinced. Eustace Cleugh was far too well brought up to wrench himself free of gentle compulsion. All he said was, "Yes, Miss Antill is very lovely. " So Mary Hare watched their cousin brought downstairs. She watched him move out across the treacherous floor. That he was _brought__, and that he no more than _moved__, was something which perhaps only Mary noticed, but she, of course, spent so much of her time observing timid behaviour: of birds, for instance. Now here was her cousin, Eustace Cleugh, netted by the music and Miss Antill. How the mirrors in the dress flashed and reflected. Eustace did not struggle, but revolved most correctly, holding his partner; Mary alone saw how he was held. Almost the colour of nougat, his face asked the expected questions: about theatrical entertainments, the races and the weather. In the short space of his visit, he had grown surprisingly well informed on matters of local importance. But Miss Antill seemed to remain unconvinced. As they revolved and revolved, the phrases into which she bit could have tasted peculiar. She could not quite believe in some _thing__, some failure-was it her own? Or could the bird have died before the kill? They continued, however, to revolve. As Miss Antill clutched her partner's expensive cloth and the travesty of experience, she could have been flickering, although it was attributed by almost her entire audience to the clash between light and mirrors. Such splendour as hers did not encounter uncertainties. Then there was a pause in the music, and Mr Cleugh did behave very oddly, everybody agreed. He simply excused himself, wiped his face with a horribly white handkerchief, and walked away. It was in the end far less humiliating for Miss Antill, in spite of the slight she had suffered, for practically the whole population of the bachelors' quarters rushed upon her, to say nothing of several susceptible solicitors and elderly, unsuspected graziers. Eustace Cleugh disappeared in the direction of the terrace. One or two ladies just noticed in the confusion of movement that dotty Mary went, or rushed, rather, after him, dropping wilted flowers as she ran, but everybody was too distracted by the scene they had just witnessed to envisage further developments of an incomprehensible nature. Besides, they had been taught firmly to suppress, like wind in company, the rise of unreason in their minds. Eustace was on the terrace, Mary found, not quite in darkness, for the lights of the house cast a certain glow, tarnished, but comforting. "Oh," she began, "I shall go away if you would rather." Though she would have hated to be sent. "No," he said. "There is no reason to go away. In this glass house. One is fully exposed, everywhere." "Is it different, then, in other houses?" He laughed. He sounded almost natural. "No," he replied. "I suppose not." "How you hated it," she said. "The dance with Miss Antill. I am sorry." He began to tremble. If she had not pitied, she might have been shocked. But there had been moments when she had absolved even her father from being a man. Cousin Eustace did not speak. He stood and trembled. She touched some ivy. Painfully. "And you will not forget it," she said. "There comes a point where one can't remember everything," Eustace replied, with reason as well as feeling. Then she touched the back of his hand, and he did not withdraw. Of course her skin told her immediately that she could have been a dog, but she was grateful to be accepted if only in that form. In fact, she would not have thought of expecting more, and mercifully it had never yet occurred to her to think of herself as a woman. After a bit, he began to cough and move about without direction or elegance, like an ordinary person when nobody is there. Rather clumsily. But he did not repudiate his companion. "Oh, dear!" He sighed, and laughed, but again roughly, and unlike him. "Do you ever crumble? Suddenly? Without warning?" "Yes," she cried. "Oh, yes! Often. Truly." It was most important that he should know. But he was yawning. It could have been that he had not heard her reply, or that he had heard, and did not believe in the existence of anything outside the closed circle of himself. She saw, however, that he was tamed, and that in future she might walk calmly, though quietly, in his vicinity, and watch him, and he would not mind. Only soon after the ball at Xanadu, Cousin Eustace resumed his tour of the world, as had always been intended, and took refuge finally on the island of Jersey, with a housekeeper, and what eventually became a famous collection of porcelain. Even if her husband had allowed it, Mrs Hare would never have been able to forget how her cousin had insulted her guest. What she did forget, conveniently, was that she had expected of him something impossible, not to say indelicate. It was only in after life, in the régurgitation of memories, that she sometimes came across her true motive for giving the ball at Xanadu. It would drift up to the surface of her mind, almost complete, almost explicit, but always it had a horrid, quickly-to-be-rejected taste. If Mary was less upset by Eustace Cleugh's behaviour, it was because she already expected less of the human animal, and in consequence was not surprised when he diverged from the course which other people intended he should take. The ugliness and weakness which his nature revealed at such moments were, she sensed, far closer to the truth. So she could understand and pity her cousin, even understand and pity her father, even when the latter looked at her with hate for what she saw and understood. In her time she had seen dogs receive a beating for having glimpsed their masters' souls. She was no dog, certainly, and her father had not beaten her, but there had been one occasion when he did start shooting at the chandelier. It was a summer evening, on which the weather had not broken. The expected storm still hung heavy on the leaden mountains to the west, and the air was full of flying ants, dashing themselves against glass and flesh, and fretting off their wings in the last stages of a life over which they seemed to have no control. As the servants, with the exception of an old coachman, who was somewhere in the region of the stables, had not yet returned from a picnic, the family had just finished helping themselves to a supper of cold fowl. This fowl had been coated, all with the best intentions, with an egg sauce, to which in the heat and the dusk the flying ants were fatally attracted, their reddish bodies squirming, with wings, without, as they died upon the baroque carcass of the anointed fowl. "Loathsome creatures!" protested Mrs Hare, to whom any insect was a pest. Mary did not contribute an opinion, as the remarks of parents seldom seemed to ask for confirmation, but continued to eat, or munch, rather loudly, a crisp stick of celery, and to scratch herself, because the heat had made her prickly. In intolerable circumstances, she alone was tolerably comfortable. To the others, it was insufferable. The light in the dining room had turned a dark brown. Then Norbert Hare took the fowl by its surviving drumstick, and flung it through the open window, where it fell into a display of perennial phlox. It was one of his misfortunes to be led repeatedly to ruin his effects. He was still eating. His mouth was, in fact, too full. His cheeks were swollen, and his eyes appeared almost white. "Norbert!" cried his wife. "Whatever are the maids going to say?" Knowing that she herself, with a lantern, would rummage amongst the phlox. Then Norbert Hare took a loaf of bread, and flung it after the boiled fowl. He took a carving knife, and decanter of port wine, and threw. He felt freer. His wife began to cry. "There," he said, for himself. "But it is never possible to free oneself. Not entirely." His wife cried and cried. "I am to blame," offered the daughter, in case that was what they wanted. "If we are to decide on the objects of blame," her father shouted, "it could well be the boiled fowl." And seemed to madden entirely. He was running and pouncing on some intention not yet matured. Then he seemed to remember, and went to a desk, and got out the pistols. In the drawing-room at Xanadu, separated from the dining-room by folding doors, there was a chandelier of exceptional loveliness, which money had brought from some dismembered European house, and of which the crystal fruit now hung above antipodean soil. The great thing loomed and brooded, at times fiery, at times dreamily opalescent, but always enticing away from the endless expanse of flat thought. Mary Hare loved it, though she had always believed her passion to be secret. Now her father went, after loading, and shot into the chandelier. He looked very small and ridiculous standing beneath the transparent branches. "Munching! Munching!" he shouted. And shot. "O God, save us all!" he shouted. And shot. There fell at intervals an excruciating crystal rain. How much actual damage was done, it was not yet possible to estimate, although Mrs Hare did attempt spasmodically. "There!" shouted Norbert Hare. And: "There!" "Come! I cannot endure your father any longer!" announced the mother, and drew her daughter into a little room which was only used when the doctor came, or someone asking for money. Then, when the door was locked, she cried, "I do not know what I have done to deserve so much!" The daughter remained silent, for she knew she was the greater part of what her mother had to endure. Besides, it was of more interest to listen to what her father might be doing. The sound of shots was less frequent, but boards cracked, rooms shook, the whole house seemed under the influence of his passion. He must have been running about a good deal. Until, suddenly, silence took over, its passive structure rising in tiers of indifference and layers of suffocating feathers. "What do you think can have happened?" asked his wife, perhaps as she was expected to. "It is probably less fun when nobody is looking," suggested the daughter, but without bearing a grudge. "That is true," agreed the mother, startled to realize the truth had been spoken by her daughter. For Mary was stupid, and the truth something that one generally avoided, out of respect for good taste, and to preserve peace of mind. "I shall go out now," said Mary, at last, "and look." "How brave you are!" the mother cried, with genuine admiration. "I am not brave," said her daughter. But she was unable to explain that, burning as she was, there could be no question of her dying; life itself would have been extinguished. She found the house big and empty. The weather had changed at last, with the result that a cold wind was blowing through the rooms, scattering dead ants from the sills. The curtains tugged, swollen, at their rings. Then her father came downstairs, very quietly, as if he had been reading in his room, and come to get a glass of water. The situation might have continued innocent enough, if it had not been for the appearance of the outraged house, and the eyes of the man who had just arrived at the bottom of the stairs. He was looking at her, trying to engulf her in a tragedy he was preparing. Looking, and looking. It might have been horrible, if less protracted. As it was, and perhaps realizing his error in judgment, he took the pistol she had failed to notice he was still carrying, and shot it off at his own head. And missed. A piece of plaster thumped down from a moulding on the ceiling. The sound could have completed his exhaustion, for he tumbled immediately into a big, strait wing chair, which stood at hand. All of it he did rather clumsily and ridiculously, because it had not been thought out, or else he had lost interest in the sequence of events. But it seemed for a moment as though she would not allow him to break the thread. She could not prevent herself from continuing to look, right into him, as he sat in the uncomfortable chair, and although he had forgiven her for the crime of being, it was doubtful whether he would ever forgive her for that of seeing. She did not expect it, of course. She went and picked up a pistol lying on the floor, and put it back where it had been in the first place, whether innocently, or through an inherited instinct for malice, he was too exhausted to inquire of his own mind. He continued to sit, looking at his own waistcoat. "All human beings are decadent," he said. "The moment we are born, we start to degenerate. Only the unborn soul is whole, pure." As she had turned away from him, and stood picking at some flaw in the lid of the little desk, he had to torment her. He said, "Tell me, Mary, do you consider yourself one of the unborn?" "I don't understand such things," she replied. "Not yet." And looked round at him. "Liar!" He would never forgive her her eyes, and for refusing to be hurt enough. "Oh yes, you can twist my arm if you like!" she blundered, through thickening lips, for his accusation was causing her actual physical pain. "But the truth is what I understand. Not in words. I have not the gift for words. But know." The abstractions made her shiver. If she could have touched something-moss, for instance-or smelled the smell of burning wood. He continued sitting in the chair, and might even have started to relent. So, she saved him that further humiliation by going outside, and there were the stars, swimming and drowsing towards her as she put out her hands. She was walking and crying, and gulping down the effusions of light, and crying, and smearing her cheeks with the sticky backs of her rough hands. Читать дальше