Conrad Aiken: Blue Voyage

Demarest laughed, — looking through Smith, through the wall, through the sea, the night. He waved his hand weakly.

“Me?” he answered. “Oh, I’m going to see the chimera. The Great Chimera.”

“I didn’t know it was in captivity.”

“It isn’t.”

“A girl? I get you, Steve.”

“Yes.”

There was another pause, and Smith added humorously:

“Well, I’m an old man, but I keep my eyes open myself … Those girls at our table — they have the stateroom opposite mine. There’s some-think funny about those girls — something queer.” He eyed Demarest provocatively. “Don’t you think—”

Demarest thought, but did not answer … After a while they played checkers.

It was manifest to Demarest that he had got into the wrong place. It was totally unfamiliar. He walked quietly along the side of the grape arbor and then, cautiously, passed under a fragrant trellis overgrown with roses. He emerged upon a wide lawn enclosed with trees and flowers, where a garden party was in progress. A score of glitteringly dressed men and women stood talking, sauntered here and there, or set cups down on flower-decked tables. How horrible! He felt out of place, furtive and shabby, an intruder. But how was he to escape? He couldn’t recall where he had got in. Was it over a wall?… He turned back through the trellis, hearing behind him a mild laughter. He looked down, and saw that his shoes were covered with mud and that his trousers were torn. Passing this time to the left of the grape arbor, he hurried along the narrow path of deep, soft turf, and was horrified to encounter a group of ladies coming in. They looked at him with hard eyes. Perhaps they thought he was some kind of a gardener?… This, then, might be the way out?… A flunky in knee breeches eyed him suspiciously. Then he saw a green wooden gate; but just as he was about to open it, there came a loud knock at the other side, which was at once terrifyingly repeated, repeated—

“Bath’s ready, sir.”

He groaned with relief, waking … The ship, of course! he was on a ship. He relaxed, becoming conscious of the regular remote throbbing of the engines. His coat, hanging on the stateroom door, sidled a little … That curious dream! It was just a new version, nevertheless, of the familiar theme — his absurd “inferiority complex.” Good God! Was he destined never to escape it? Why was it that he never could be at his ease with those who were socially his equals — only at ease with his “inferiors”? It was very strange. Formal occasions, polite people, froze him to the marrow: he couldn’t remain himself … It was not that he hadn’t had every opportunity to become accustomed to them — for all the rest of his family were happily and intensely social … Mary and Tom adored parties, and so had his mother … But he had always been instinctively hostile to such things; and while he recognized in himself a passionate attachment for the fine and rich — by way of environment — he wanted the fine and rich freed from the “social”; and moreover, every so often he wanted a good deep foaming bath in the merely vulgar. An occasional debauch was imperative — whether it was only a visit to a cheap vaudeville, with its jazz, its spangles, its coarse jokes, its “Chase me, boys — I issue trading stamps”—or a shabby little clandestine adventure of his own, in which his motive was largely, if not entirely, curiosity … It was precisely this damned inferiority complex that had put him at such an initial disadvantage with Cynthia. By the time he had succeeded in adjusting himself, psychologically, to her exquisite old worldliness, the dim, deep constellations of refinements and manners amid which she so statelily moved, and by the time he had put out of his mind the feeling that he was a mere ugly duckling, and had scraped from his shoes (metaphorically speaking) the mud of the brief, violent, disgusting Helen Shafter affair: by this time Cynthia had left London and gone to the continent. Gone! and that was the end.… He shut his eyes in a spasm of pain.

Presently he put on his ancient slippers and his raincoat and shuffled along the corridor, inhaling a dreadful odor of coffee. The bath was green, deep, dazzling: electrically cold. He was inclined to yelp like a dog, as he emerged — or no — to blaff like a seal. Blaff! Superb word. It suggested the blowing away of the water from mouth and nostrils, and also a certain joie de vivre . Laughter. He overheard, as he was drying himself, a fragment of conversation.

“… She says she’s married to an American naval M.D.”

“Oh, does she? Well, maybe she is … She looks to me like a wild one. You’d better be careful.”

“Oh, I know the ropes … She told me last night she was going back to visit her family.”

“She’s English?”

“Yep … though you wouldn’t guess it. That accent! You could cut it with a knife.”

“I’d like to meet her — introduce me, will you?”

“Sure — if you like.”

One of the men, Demarest saw as he came out, was the Romantic Young Man. The other was a short plump individual, swarthy and sleepy, with a walrus mustache and small green cupidinous eyes … He gathered that they were merely ship acquaintances.

“The Lord’s Day,” murmured the plump one through his lather. “Guess I’ll go to church. They say there’s a good stewards’ choir quartet. Anything to pass the time.”

“Well, put sixpense in the plate for me. I’ll be among the missing.”

“I’ll pray for you — for those lost at sea.”

“Do.”

Demarest shaved, glancing now and then at the smoke-blue Atlantic framed in an open porthole. A glittering day. A pleasant, soft, surfy sound came through the port and filled the white-floored bathroom, giving it oddly the air of an aquarium. Pale water lights danced on the ceiling.

“And who’s that other one — the girl with her?”

“Dacey, her name is. I haven’t talked with her.”

“A silly-looking cat of a girl.”

“By Jove, she is.”

Rasp, rasp — the bally little lawn mower. “ A pynter an’ gilder, I am, an’ I’ve been to Vancouver .”…

Walking the deck after his breakfast — at which he had sat alone — Demarest gave himself up, for the first time, to the enjoyment of the full salt flavor of sea voyage. The sun was hot, the breeze was cold, the sea was an immense disc of blue light, just sufficiently rough to escape monotony; and the bright ship burned and sparkled in the midst of the infinite, swaying its high yellow masts ever so slightly against a witch’s fingernail of white moon, lifting and declining its bows against the cloudless horizon. The long white deck, polished like bone, rose and fell just perceptibly, and with immense leisure, to the soft irregular accompaniment of waves broken and falling; and with it rose and fell the promenading passengers. The sense of the infinite, and of being isolated in its garish and terrifying profundity, was beginning to work upon them. Delighted with the ship and the sea, inquisitive and explorative, nevertheless they were restless; they paced the deck, climbed the companionway, walked through the smoking room and out at the other side, as if driven by a secret feeling of being caged. It amused Demarest to watch them. It amused him to see them, like imprisoned animals, furtively try a bar, when none was looking, elaborately pretending all the while that no bars were there, that all was peace and freedom. They had put on their “old” clothes — supplemented here and there with grotesque white yachting caps, which the wind ballooned on their heads. Tweed suits were strangely accompanied by glaring white canvas shoes; and binoculars, obviously new, were extracted from strapped cases and leveled, with knit brows and a heavily professional air, at remote plumes of smoke which lay faint and supine along the horizon. Every slightest action betrayed their inordinate consciousness of one another. Those who walked, walked either more emphatically than was their wont, or more sheepishly, aware of the scrutiny, more or less veiled, of the row of sitters. Those who sat in deck chairs were conscious of their extended feet, their plaid rugs and shawls, and the slight physical and moral discomfort of having to look “up” at the walkers. The extraordinary feeling of kinship, of unity, of a solidarity far closer and more binding than that of nations or cities or villages, was swiftly uniting them; the ship was making them a community. How often Demarest had observed this process! He now felt, with almost physical vividness, its powerful, secret, and rapid operation. He felt it turning the head of one passenger to another, he felt the yearning confusion of friendliness, curiosity, loneliness, and love, which made them all puppets and set them bowing and nodding at one another; smiling mechanical smiles which concealed outrageous happiness; laughing a little too loudly or a little too politely; all like automatic performants of a queer primitive ritual. Every one of them wanted to be overheard or seen, wanted to be exposed, wanted even — it seemed to Demarest — to be stripped. Those who already knew each other, or were relatives, talked to each other in a tacit mutual conspiracy of unaccustomed emphasis, loudness, and goodnature, made humorous remarks, delivered themselves of aphorisms or scraps of knowledge, with the one aim of making, in all directions, a favorable impression. It was a grotesque sort of love-dance. The young women flaunted and fluttered their ribbons, loitered in the sunlight consciously and gracefully, leaned on the railing with a melancholy abstraction which was deliberately and beautifully an invitation. The young men, beginning to talk with one another, but as yet timid about extending their adventures to the realm of the other sex, tramped the deck, a little flustered and unsteady when they passed the young women. They all desired keenly to talk with the latter, but none wanted to be the first, fearing the eyes and laughter of the community. Only the ship’s officers, coolly sauntering and smoking, were free from this singular spell. Demarest watched their adroit maneuvers, admiring their skill, and their deep social wisdom. He observed the doctor and the young wireless operator strolling appraisingly back and forth; imperturbably selecting, as they did so, the most promising fields for exploits. They were in no hurry — they felt no pressure. They were artists; and having selected their material with care, would manipulate it with the finest of tact and discretion. Ah! how admirable! They had stopped beside an old married couple and were lightly bantering with them. The wireless operator tucked up the old woman’s feet, and the old woman laughed, delighted and flattered, at something he had said. An exquisite approach! They were now in touch with the new cargo of passengers, and in the best possible way — the way which would give them, later on, the greatest possible freedom. The pause was only for a second, the merest skimming of the water with swallow-wings, but much had been set in motion: eyes had seen them, ears had heard, they were marked and sealed now as “such nice young fellows.” The young men among the passengers, who beheld this little maneuver, were frankly scornful and hostile, without knowing why; the young women were envious and reproachful, looking after the retreating officers with a faint momentary pang, soon forgotten, as of sorrow … Ah, these sea dogs, thought Demarest, what cunning devils they are! How well they know human nature! How he envied them their aplomb and cool sophistication, the effrontery with which they accomplished, in such fine publicity, the right thing! Why could he not do likewise, instead of slinking furtively along red-carpeted corridors, avoiding the too-crowded decks, or sitting for whole days at a time in the stuffy smoking room at games of chess or bridge, or vainly endeavoring to read? Why? Why?… Walking toward the smoking room, which was well aft, he passed the Irish girl, who stood with the two bearish prelates. Her eyes turned friendlily toward him, but he averted his face, pretending a distraction. Then he cursed himself. Nothing could have been simpler than to have smiled. Nor could anything, for that matter, have been easier! Her gray eyes, of an innocence not without daring, her kind mouth amiable and a little weak, her tall easy figure, the brown woolen scarf and rough brown stockings to match — he noticed sharply all these things — and noticed also the slight stiffening of shyness with which she observed his approach. Unconsciously, she had contrived to admit the fact that she was aware of him and liked him. The way in which she shifted her balance, at the same time lifting a little before her one of her brown slippers, and frowning at the bright buckle, and the way in which she broke rather emphatically into the middle of something that the older prelate was saying — ah! She would be friendly, she was prepared to like and be liked, and to make confessions by moonlight.