“I'm afraid I didn't bring my flute along,” said Aaron “I didn't want to arrive with a little bag.”
“Quite!” said Algy. “What a pity it wouldn't go in your pocket.”
“Not music and all,” said Aaron.
“Dear me! What acombleof disappointment. I never felt so strongly, Marchesa, that the old life and the old world had collapsed.—Really—I shall soon have to try to give up being cheerful at all.”
“Don't do that,” said the Marchesa. “It isn't worth the effort.”
“Ah! I'm glad you find it so. Then I have hope.”
She merely smiled, indifferent.
The teaparty began to break up—Aaron found himself going down the stairs with the Marchesa and her husband. They descended all three in silence, husband and wife in front. Once outside the door, the husband asked:
“How shall we go home, dear? Tram or carriage—?” It was evident he was economical.
“Walk,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Aaron. “We are all going the same way, I believe.”
Aaron said where he lived. They were just across the river. And so all three proceeded to walk through the town.
“You are sure it won't be too much for you—too far?” said the little officer, taking his wife's arm solicitously. She was taller than he. But he was a spirited fellow.
“No, I feel like walking.”
“So long as you don't have to pay for it afterwards.”
Aaron gathered that she was not well. Yet she did not look ill—unless it were nerves. She had that peculiar heavy remote quality of pre-occupation and neurosis.
The streets of Florence were very full this Sunday evening, almost impassable, crowded particularly with gangs of grey-green soldiers. The three made their way brokenly, and with difficulty. The Italian was in a constant state of returning salutes. The grey-green, sturdy, unsoldierly soldiers looked at the woman as she passed.
“I am sure you had better take a carriage,” said Manfredi.
“No—I don't mind it.”
“Do you feel at home in Florence?” Aaron asked her.
“Yes—as much as anywhere. Oh, yes—quite at home.”
“Do you like it as well as anywhere?” he asked.
“Yes—for a time. Paris for the most part.”
“Never America?”
“No, never America. I came when I was quite a little girl to Europe—Madrid—Constantinople—Paris. I hardly knew America at all.”
Aaron remembered that Francis had told him, the Marchesa's father had been ambassador to Paris.
“So you feel you have no country of your own?”
“I have Italy. I am Italian now, you know.”
Aaron wondered why she spoke so muted, so numbed. Manfredi seemed really attached to her—and she to him. They were so simple with one another.
They came towards the bridge where they should part.
“Won't you come and have a cocktail?” she said.
“Now?” said Aaron.
“Yes. This is the right time for a cocktail. What time is it, Manfredi?”
“Half past six. Do come and have one with us,” said the Italian. “We always take one about this time.”
Aaron continued with them over the bridge. They had the first floor of an old palazzo opposite, a little way up the hill. A man-servant opened the door.
“If only it will be warm,” she said. “The apartment is almost impossible to keep warm. We will sit in the little room.”
Aaron found himself in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident he liked his guest.
“Would you like to see the room where we have music?” he said. “It is a fine room for the purpose—we used before the war to have music every Saturday morning, from ten to twelve: and all friends might come. Usually we had fifteen or twenty people. Now we are starting again. I myself enjoy it so much. I am afraid my wife isn't so enthusiastic as she used to be. I wish something would rouse her up, you know. The war seemed to take her life away. Here in Florence are so many amateurs. Very good indeed. We can have very good chamber-music indeed. I hope it will cheer her up and make her quite herself again. I was away for such long periods, at the front.—And it was not good for her to be alone.—I am hoping now all will be better.”
So saying, the little, odd officer switched on the lights of the long salon. It was a handsome room in the Italian mode of the Empire period—beautiful old faded tapestry panels—reddish—and some ormolu furniture—and other things mixed in—rather conglomerate, but pleasing, all the more pleasing. It was big, not too empty, and seemed to belong to human life, not to show and shut-upedness. The host was happy showing it.
“Of course the flat in Paris is more luxurious than this,” he said. “But I prefer this. I prefer it here.” There was a certain wistfulness as he looked round, then began to switch off the lights.
They returned to the little salotta. The Marchesa was seated in a low chair. She wore a very thin white blouse, that showed her arms and her throat. She was a full-breasted, soft-skinned woman, though not stout.
“Make the cocktails then, Manfredi,” she said. “Do you find this room very cold?” she asked of Aaron.
“Not a bit cold,” he said.
“The stove goes all the time,” she said, “but without much effect.”
“You wear such thin clothes,” he said.
“Ah, no, the stove should give heat enough. Do sit down. Will you smoke? There are cigarettes—and cigars, if you prefer them.”
“No, I've got my own, thanks.”
She took her own cigarette from her gold case.
“It is a fine room, for music, the big room,” said he.
“Yes, quite. Would you like to play for us some time, do you think?”
“Do you want me to? I mean does it interest you?”
“What—the flute?”
“No—music altogether—”
“Music altogether—! Well! I used to love it. Now—I'm not sure. Manfredi lives for it, almost.”
“For that and nothing else?” asked Aaron.
“No, no! No, no! Other things as well.”
“But you don't like it much any more?”
“I don't know. Perhaps I don't. I'm not sure.”
“You don't look forward to the Saturday mornings?” he asked.
“Perhaps I don't—but for Manfredi's sake, of course, I do. But for his sake more than my own, I admit. And I think he knows it.”
“A crowd of people in one's house—” said Aaron.
“Yes, the people. But it's not only that. It's the music itself—I think I can't stand it any more. I don't know.”
“Too emotional? Too much feeling for you?”
“Yes, perhaps. But no. What I can't stand is chords, you know: harmonies. A number of sounds all sounding together. It just makes me ill. It makes me feel so sick.”
“What—do you want discords?—dissonances?”
“No—they are nearly as bad. No, it's just when any number of musical notes, different notes, come together, harmonies or discords. Even a single chord struck on the piano. It makes me feel sick. I just feel as if I should retch. Isn't it strange? Of course, I don't tell Manfredi. It would be too cruel to him. It would cut his life in two.”
“But then why do you have the music—the Saturdays—then?”
“Oh, I just keep out of the way as much as possible. I'm sure you feel there is something wrong with me, that I take it as I do,” she added, as if anxious: but half ironical.
“No—I was just wondering—I believe I feel something the same myself. I know orchestra makes me blind with hate or I don't know what. But I want to throw bombs.”
“There now. It does that to me, too. Only now it has fairly got me down, and I feel nothing but helpless nausea. You know, like when you are seasick.”
Her dark-blue, heavy, haunted-looking eyes were resting on him as if she hoped for something. He watched her face steadily, a curious intelligence flickering on his own.
“Yes,” he said. “I understand it. And I know, at the bottom, I'm like that. But I keep myself from realising, don't you know? Else perhaps, where should I be? Because I make my life and my living at it, as well.”
“At music! Do you! But how bad for you. But perhaps the flute is different. I have a feeling that it is. I can think of one single pipe-note—yes, I can think of it quite, quite calmly. And I can't even think of the piano, or of the violin with its tremolo, or of orchestra, or of a string quartette—or even a military band—I can't think of it without a shudder. I can only bear drum-and-fife. Isn't it crazy of me—but from the other, from what we call music proper, I've endured too much. But bring your flute one day. Bring it, will you? And let me hear it quite alone. Quite, quite alone. I think it might do me an awful lot of good. I do, really. I can imagine it.” She closed her eyes and her strange, sing-song lapsing voice came to an end. She spoke almost like one in a trance—or a sleep-walker.
“I've got it now in my overcoat pocket,” he said, “if you like.”
“Have you? Yes!” She was never hurried: always slow and resonant, so that the echoes of her voice seemed to linger. “Yes—do get it. Do get it. And play in the other room—quite—quite without accompaniment. Do—and try me.”
“And you will tell me what you feel?”
“Yes.”
Aaron went out to his overcoat. When he returned with his flute, which he was screwing together, Manfredi had come with the tray and the three cocktails. The Marchesa took her glass.
“Listen, Manfredi,” she said. “Mr. Sisson is going to play, quite alone in the sala. And I am going to sit here and listen.”
“Very well,” said Manfredi. “Drink your cocktail first. Are you going to play without music?”
“Yes,” said Aaron.
“I'll just put on the lights for you.”
“No—leave it dark. Enough light will come in from here.”
“Sure?” said Manfredi.
“Yes.”
The little soldier was an intruder at the moment. Both the others felt it so. But they bore him no grudge. They knew it was they who were exceptional, not he. Aaron swallowed his drink, and looked towards the door.
“Sit down, Manfredi. Sit still,” said the Marchesa.
“Won't you let me try some accompaniment?” said the soldier.
“No. I shall just play a little thing from memory,” said Aaron.
“Sit down, dear. Sit down,” said the Marchesa to her husband.
He seated himself obediently. The flash of bright yellow on the grey of his uniform seemed to make him like a chaffinch or a gnome.
Aaron retired to the other room, and waited awhile, to get back the spell which connected him with the woman, and gave the two of them this strange isolation, beyond the bounds of life, as it seemed.
He caught it again. And there, in the darkness of the big room, he put his flute to his lips, and began to play. It was a clear, sharp, lilted run-and-fall of notes, not a tune in any sense of the word, and yet a melody, a bright, quick sound of pure animation, a bright, quick, animate noise, running and pausing. It was like a bird's singing, in that it had no human emotion or passion or intention or meaning—a ripple and poise of animate sound. But it was unlike a bird's singing, in that the notes followed clear and single one after the other, in their subtle gallop. A nightingale is rather like that—a wild sound. To read all the human pathos into nightingales' singing is nonsense. A wild, savage, non-human lurch and squander of sound, beautiful, but entirely unaesthetic.
What Aaron was playing was not of his own invention. It was a bit of mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin, as we know it, a hateful wire-drawn nerve-torturer.
After a little while, when he entered the smaller room again, the Marchesa looked full into his face.
“Good!” she said. “Good!”
And a gleam almost of happiness seemed to light her up. She seemed like one who had been kept in a horrible enchanted castle—for years and years. Oh, a horrible enchanted castle, with wet walls of emotions and ponderous chains of feelings and a ghastly atmosphere of must-be. She felt she had seen through the opening door a crack of sunshine, and thin, pure, light outside air, outside, beyond this dank and beastly dungeon of feelings and moral necessity. Ugh!—she shuddered convulsively at what had been. She looked at her little husband. Chains of necessity all round him: a little jailor. Yet she was fond of him. If only he would throw away the castle keys. He was a little gnome. What did he clutch the castle-keys so tight for?
Aaron looked at her. He knew that they understood one another, he and she. Without any moral necessity or any other necessity. Outside—they had got outside the castle of so-called human life. Outside the horrible, stinking human castle Of life. A bit of true, limpid freedom. Just a glimpse.
“Charming!” said the Marchese. “Truly charming! But what was it you played?”
Aaron told him.
“But truly delightful. I say, won't you play for us one of these Saturdays? And won't you let me take the accompaniment? I should be charmed, charmed if you would.”
“All right,” said Aaron.
“Do drink another cocktail,” said his hostess.
He did so. And then he rose to leave.
“Will you stay to dinner?” said the Marchesa. “We have two people coming—two Italian relatives of my husband. But—”
No, Aaron declined to stay to dinner.
“Then won't you come on—let me see—on Wednesday? Do come on Wednesday. We are alone. And do bring the flute. Come at half-past six, as today, will you? Yes?”
Aaron promised—and then he found himself in the street. It was half-past seven. Instead of returning straight home, he crossed the Ponte Vecchio and walked straight into the crowd. The night was fine now. He had his overcoat over his arm, and in a sort of trance or frenzy, whirled away by his evening's experience, and by the woman, he strode swiftly forward, hardly heeding anything, but rushing blindly on through all the crowd, carried away by his own feelings, as much as if he had been alone, and all these many people merely trees.
Leaving the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele a gang of soldiers suddenly rushed round him, buffeting him in one direction, whilst another gang, swinging round the corner, threw him back helpless again into the midst of the first gang. For some moments he struggled among the rude, brutal little mob of grey-green coarse uniforms that smelt so strong of soldiers. Then, irritated, he found himself free again, shaking himself and passing on towards the cathedral. Irritated, he now put on his overcoat and buttoned it to the throat, closing himself in, as it were, from the brutal insolence of the Sunday night mob of men. Before, he had been walking through them in a rush of naked feeling, all exposed to their tender mercies. He now gathered himself together.
As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello, he stopped. He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket. His letter-case was gone. He had been robbed. It was as if lightning ran through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving him standing there almost unconscious. For a moment unconscious and superconscious he stood there. He had been robbed. They had put their hand in his breast and robbed him. If they had stabbed him, it could hardly have had a greater effect on him.
And he had known it. He had known it. When the soldiers jostled him so evilly they robbed him. And he knew it. He had known it as if it were fate. Even as if it were fated beforehand.
Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some evil electric fluid, he walked on. And as soon as he began to walk, he began to reason. Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat. Perhaps he had not had it with him at all. Perhaps he was feeling all this, just for nothing. Perhaps it was all folly.
He hurried forward. He wanted to make sure. He wanted relief. It was as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it up. He did not want to admit the power of evil—particularly at that moment. For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst of that gang of Italian soldiers. He knew it—it had pierced him. It hadgothim.
But he wanted to say it was not so. Reaching the house, he hastened upwards to his far-off, lonely room, through the dark corridors. Once in his own apartment, he shut the door and switched on the light, a sensation like fear at his heart. Then he searched his other pockets. He looked everywhere. In vain.
In vain, truly enough. For heknewthe thing was stolen. He had known it all along. The soldiers had deliberately plotted, had deliberately rushed him and taken his purse. They must have watched him previously. They must have grinned, and jeered at him.
He sat down in a chair, to recover from the shock. The pocket-book contained four hundred francs, three one-pound notes, and various letters and private effects. Well, these were lost. But it was not so much the loss as the assault on his person that caused him to feel so stricken. He felt the jeering, gibing blows they had given as they jostled him.
And now he sat, weak in every limb, and said to himself: “Yes—and if I hadn't rushed along so full of feeling: if I hadn't exposed myself: if I hadn't got worked up with the Marchesa, and then rushed all kindled through the streets, without reserve, it would never have happened. I gave myself away: and there was someone ready to snatch what I gave. I gave myself away. It is my own fault. I should have been on my guard. I should be always on my guard: always, always. With God and the devil both, I should be on my guard. Godly or devilish, I should hold fast to my reserve and keep on the watch. And if I don't, I deserve what I get.”
But still he sat in his chair in his bedroom, dazed. One part of his soul was saying emphatically: It serves you right. It is nothing but right. It serves everybody right who rushes enkindled through the street, and trusts implicitly in mankind and in the life-spirit, as if mankind and the life-spirit were a playground for enkindled individuals. It serves you right. You have paid about twelve pounds sterling for your lesson. Fool, you might have known beforehand, and then you needn't have paid at all. You can ill afford twelve pounds sterling, you fool. But since paid you have, then mind, mind the lesson is learned. Never again. Never expose yourself again. Never again absolute trust. It is a blasphemy against life, is absolute trust. Has a wild creature ever absolute trust? It minds itself. Sleeping or waking it is on its guard. And so must you be, or you'll go under. Sleeping or waking, man or woman, God or the devil, keep your guard over yourself. Keep your guard over yourself, lest worse befall you. No man is robbed unless he incites a robber. No man is murdered unless he attracts a murderer. Then be not robbed: it lies within your own power. And be not murdered. Or if you are, you deserve it. Keep your guard over yourself, now, always and forever. Yes, against God quite as hard as against the devil. He's fully as dangerous to you....
Thus thinking, not in his mind but in his soul, his active, living soul, he gathered his equanimity once more, and accepted the fact. So he rose and tidied himself for dinner. His face was now set, and still. His heart also was still—and fearless. Because its sentinel was stationed. Stationed, stationed for ever.
And Aaron never forgot. After this, it became essential to him to feel that the sentinel stood guard in his own heart. He felt a strange unease the moment he was off his guard. Asleep or awake, in the midst of the deepest passion or the suddenest love, or in the throes of greatest excitement or bewilderment, somewhere, some corner of himself was awake to the fact that the sentinel of the soul must not sleep, no, never, not for one instant.
Aaron and Lilly sat in Argyle's little loggia, high up under the eaves of the small hotel, a sort of long attic-terrace just under the roof, where no one would have suspected it. It was level with the grey conical roof of the Baptistery. Here sat Aaron and Lilly in the afternoon, in the last of the lovely autumn sunshine. Below, the square was already cold in shadow, the pink and white and green Baptistery rose lantern-shaped as from some sea-shore, cool, cold and wan now the sun was gone. Black figures, innumerable black figures, curious because they were all on end, up on end—Aaron could not say why he expected them to be horizontal—little black figures upon end, like fishes that swim on their tails, wiggled endlessly across the piazza, little carriages on natural all-fours rattled tinily across, the yellow little tram-cars, like dogs slipped round the corner. The balcony was so high up, that the sound was ineffectual. The upper space, above the houses, was nearer than the under-currents of the noisy town. Sunlight, lovely full sunlight, lingered warm and still on the balcony. It caught the facade of the cathedral sideways, like the tips of a flower, and sideways lit up the stem of Giotto's tower, like a lily stem, or a long, lovely pale pink and white and green pistil of the lily of the cathedral. Florence, the flowery town. Firenze—Fiorenze—the flowery town: the red lilies. The Fiorentini, the flower-souled. Flowers with good roots in the mud and muck, as should be: and fearless blossoms in air, like the cathedral and the tower and the David.
“I love it,” said Lilly. “I love this place, I love the cathedral and the tower. I love its pinkness and its paleness. The Gothic souls find fault with it, and say it is gimcrack and tawdry and cheap. But I love it, it is delicate and rosy, and the dark stripes are as they should be, like the tiger marks on a pink lily. It's a lily, not a rose; a pinky white lily with dark tigery marks. And heavy, too, in its own substance: earth-substance, risen from earth into the air: and never forgetting the dark, black-fierce earth—I reckon here men for a moment were themselves, as a plant in flower is for the moment completely itself. Then it goes off. As Florence has gone off. No flowers now. But it HAS flowered. And I don't see why a race should be like an aloe tree, flower once and die. Why should it? Why not flower again? Why not?”
“If it's going to, it will,” said Aaron. “Our deciding about it won't alter it.”
“The decision is part of the business.”
Here they were interrupted by Argyle, who put his head through one of the windows. He had flecks of lather on his reddened face.
“Do you think you're wise now,” he said, “to sit in that sun?”
“In November?” laughed Lilly.
“Always fear the sun when there's an 'r' in the month,” said Argyle. “Always fear it 'r' or no 'r,'Isay. I'm frightened of it. I've been in the South, I know what it is. I tell you I'm frightened of it. But if you think you can stand it—well—”
“It won't last much longer, anyhow,” said Lilly.
“Too long for me, my boy. I'm a shady bird, in all senses of the word, in all senses of the word.—Now are you comfortable? What? Have another cushion? A rug for your knees? You're quite sure now? Well, wait just one moment till the waiter brings up a syphon, and you shall have a whiskey and soda. Precious—oh, yes, very precious these days—like drinking gold. Thirty-five lire a bottle, my boy!” Argyle pulled a long face, and made a noise with his lips. “But I had this bottle given me, and luckily you've come while there's a drop left. Very glad you have! Very glad you have.”
Here he poked a little table through the window, and put a bottle and two glasses, one a tooth-glass, upon it. Then he withdrew again to finish shaving. The waiter presently hobbled up with the syphon and third glass. Argyle pushed his head through the window, that was only a little higher than the balcony. He was soon neatly shaved, and was brushing his hair.
“Go ahead, my boys, go ahead with that whiskey!” he said.
“We'll wait for you,” said Lilly.
“No, no, don't think of it. However, if you will, I shall be one minute only—one minute only. I'll put on the water for the tea now. Oh, damned bad methylated spirit they sell now! And six francs a litre! Six francs a litre! I don't know what I'm going to do, the air I breathe costs money nowadays—Just one moment and I'll be with you! Just one moment—”
In a very little while he came from the tiny attic bedroom, through the tiniest cupboard of a sitting-room under the eaves, where his books were, and where he had hung his old red India tapestries—or silk embroideries—and he emerged there up above the world on the loggia.
“Now then—siamo nel paradiso, eh? Paradisal enough for you, is it?”
“The devil looking over Lincoln,” said Lilly laughing, glancing up into Argyle's face.
“The devil looking over Florence would feel sad,” said Argyle. “The place is fast growing respectable—Oh, piety makes the devil chuckle. But respectability, my boy, argues a serious diminution of spunk. And when the spunk diminishes we-ell—it's enough to make the most sturdy devil look sick. What? No doubt about it, no doubt whatever—There—!” he had just finished settling his tie and buttoning his waistcoat. “How do I look, eh? Presentable?—I've just had this suit turned. Clever little tailor across the way there. But he charged me a hundred and twenty francs.” Argyle pulled a face, and made the little trumping noise with his lips. “However—not bad, is it?—He had to let in a bit at the back of the waistcoat, and a gusset, my boy, a gusset—in the trousers back. Seems I've grown in the arsal region. Well, well, might do worse.—Is it all right?”
Lilly eyed the suit.
“Very nice. Very nice indeed. Such a good cloth! That makes all the difference.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, all the difference! This suit is eleven years old—eleven years old. But beautiful English cloth—before the war, before the war!”
“It looks quite wonderfully expensive and smart now,” said Lilly.
“Expensive and smart, eh! Ha-ha-ha! Well, it cost me a hundred and twenty francs to have it turned, and I found that expensive enough. Well, now, come—” here Argyle's voice took on a new gay cheer. “A whiskey and soda, Lilly? Say when! Oh, nonsense, nonsense! You're going to have double that. You're no lily of the valley here, remember. Not with me. Not likely.Siamo nel paradiso, remember.”
“But why should we drink your whiskey? Tea would do for us just as well.”
“Not likely! Not likely! When I have the pleasure of your company, my boy, we drink a glass of something, unless I am utterly stripped. Say when, Aaron.”
“When,” said Aaron.
Argyle at last seated himself heavily in a small chair. The sun had left the loggia, but was glowing still on Giotto's tower and the top of the cathedral facade, and on the remoter great red-tiled dome.
“Look at my little red monthly rose,” said Argyle. “Wonderful little fellow! I wouldn't have anything happen to him for the world. Oh, a bacchic little chap. I made Pasquale wear a wreath of them on his hair. Very becoming they were, very.—Oh, I've had a charming show of flowers. Wonderful creatures sunflowers are.” They got up and put their heads over the balcony, looking down on the square below. “Oh, great fun, great fun.—Yes, I had a charming show of flowers, charming.—Zinnias, petunias, ranunculus, sunflowers, white stocks—oh, charming. Look at that bit of honeysuckle. You see the berries where his flowers were! Delicious scent, I assure you.”
Under the little balcony wall Argyle had put square red-tiled pots, all round, and in these still bloomed a few pansies and asters, whilst in a corner a monthly rose hung flowers like round blood-drops. Argyle was as tidy and scrupulous in his tiny rooms and his balcony as if he were a first-rate sea-man on a yacht. Lilly remarked on this.
“Do you see signs of the old maid coming out in me? Oh, I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. We all end that way. Age makes old maids of us all. And Tanny is all right, you say? Bring her to see me. Why didn't she come today?”
“You know you don't like people unless you expect them.”
“Oh, but my dear fellow!—You and Tanny; you'd be welcome if you came at my busiest moment. Of course you would. I'd be glad to see you if you interrupted me at any crucial moment.—I am alone now till August. Then we shall go away together somewhere. But you and Tanny; why, there's the world, and there's Lilly: that's how I put it, my boy.”
“All right, Argyle.—Hoflichkeiten.”
“What? Gar keine Hoflichkeiten. Wahrhaftiger Kerl bin ich.—When am I going to see Tanny? When are you coming to dine with me?”
“After you've dined with us—say the day after tomorrow.”
“Right you are. Delighted—. Let me look if that water's boiling.” He got up and poked half himself inside the bedroom. “Not yet. Damned filthy methylated spirit they sell.”
“Look,” said Lilly. “There's Del Torre!”
“Like some sort of midge, in that damned grey-and-yellow uniform. I can't stand it, I tell you. I can't stand the sight of any more of these uniforms. Like a blight on the human landscape. Like a blight. Like green-flies on rose-trees, smother-flies. Europe's got the smother-fly in these infernal shoddy militarists.”
“Del Torre's coming out of it as soon as he can,” said Lilly.
“I should think so, too.”
“I like him myself—very much. Look, he's seen us! He wants to come up, Argyle.”
“What, in that uniform! I'll see him in his grandmother's crinoline first.”
“Don't be fanatical, it's bad taste. Let him come up a minute.”
“Not for my sake. But for yours, he shall,” Argyle stood at the parapet of the balcony and waved his arm. “Yes, come up,” he said, “come up, you little mistkafer—what the Americans call a bug. Come up and be damned.”
Of course Del Torre was too far off to hear this exhortation. Lilly also waved to him—and watched him pass into the doorway far below.
“I'll rinse one of these glasses for him,” said Argyle.
The Marchese's step was heard on the stone stairs: then his knock.
“Come in! Come in!” cried Argyle from the bedroom, where he was rinsing the glass. The Marchese entered, grinning with his curious, half courteous greeting. “Go through—go through,” cried Argyle. “Go on to the loggia—and mind your head. Good heavens, mind your head in that doorway.”
The Marchese just missed the top of the doorway as he climbed the abrupt steps on to the loggia.—There he greeted Lilly and Aaron with hearty handshakes.
“Very glad to see you—very glad, indeed!” he cried, grinning with excited courtesy and pleasure, and covering Lilly's hand with both his own gloved hands. “When did you come to Florence?”
There was a little explanation. Argyle shoved the last chair—it was a luggage stool—through the window.
“All I can do for you in the way of a chair,” he said.
“Ah, that is all right,” said the Marchese. “Well, it is very nice up here—and very nice company. Of the very best, the very best in Florence.”
“The highest, anyhow,” said Argyle grimly, as he entered with the glass. “Have a whiskey and soda, Del Torre. It's the bottom of the bottle, as you see.”
“The bottom of the bottle! Then I start with the tail-end, yes!” He stretched his blue eyes so that the whites showed all round, and grinned a wide, gnome-like grin.
“You made that start long ago, my dear fellow. Don't play theingenuewith me, you know it won't work. Say when, my man, say when!”
“Yes, when,” said Del Torre. “When did I make that start, then?”
“At some unmentionably young age. Chickens such as you soon learn to cheep.”
“Chickens such as I soon learn to cheap,” repeated Del Torre, pleased with the verbal play. “What is cheap, please? What is TO CHEAP?”
“Cheep! Cheep!” squeaked Argyle, making a face at the little Italian, who was perched on one strap of the luggage-stool. “It's what chickens say when they're poking their little noses into new adventures—naughty ones.”
“Are chickens naughty? Oh! I thought they could only be good!”
“Featherless chickens like yourself, my boy.”
“Oh, as for featherless—then there is no saying what they will do.—” And here the Marchese turned away from Argyle with the inevitable question to Lilly:
“Well, and how long will you stay in Florence?”
Lilly did not know: but he was not leaving immediately.
“Good! Then you will come and see us at once....”
Argyle rose once more, and went to make the tea. He shoved a lump of cake—or rather panetone, good currant loaf—through the window, with a knife to cut it.
“Help yourselves to the panetone,” he said. “Eat it up. The tea is coming at once. You'll have to drink it in your glasses, there's only one old cup.”
The Marchese cut the cake, and offered pieces. The two men took and ate.
“So you have already found Mr. Sisson!” said Del Torre to Lilly.
“Ran straight into him in the Via Nazionale,” said Lilly.
“Oh, one always runs into everybody in Florence. We are all already acquainted: also with the flute. That is a great pleasure.”
“So I think.—Does your wife like it, too?”
“Very much, indeed! She is quiteeprise. I, too, shall have to learn to play it.”
“And run the risk of spoiling the shape of your mouth—like Alcibiades.”
“Is there a risk? Yes! Then I shan't play it. My mouth is too beautiful.—But Mr. Sisson has not spoilt his mouth.”
“Not yet,” said Lilly. “Give him time.”
“Is he also afraid—like Alcibiades?”
“Are you, Aaron?” said Lilly.
“What?”
“Afraid of spoiling your beauty by screwing your mouth to the flute?”
“I look a fool, do I, when I'm playing?” said Aaron.
“Only the least little bit in the world,” said Lilly. “The way you prance your head, you know, like a horse.”
“Ah, well,” said Aaron. “I've nothing to lose.”
“And were you surprised, Lilly, to find your friend here?” asked Del Torre.
“I ought to have been. But I wasn't really.”
“Then you expected him?”
“No. It came naturally, though.—But why did you come, Aaron? What exactly brought you?”
“Accident,” said Aaron.
“Ah, no! No! There is no such thing as accident,” said the Italian. “A man is drawn by his fate, where he goes.”
“You are right,” said Argyle, who came now with the teapot. “A man is drawn—or driven. Driven, I've found it. Ah, my dear fellow, what is life but a search for a friend? A search for a friend—that sums it up.”
“Or a lover,” said the Marchese, grinning.
“Same thing. Same thing. My hair is white—but that is the sum of my whole experience. The search for a friend.” There was something at once real and sentimental in Argyle's tone.
“And never finding?” said Lilly, laughing.
“Oh, what would you? Often finding. Often finding. And losing, of course.—A life's history. Give me your glass. Miserable tea, but nobody has sent me any from England—”
“And you will go on till you die, Argyle?” said Lilly. “Always seeking a friend—and always a new one?”
“If I lose the friend I've got. Ah, my dear fellow, in that case I shall go on seeking. I hope so, I assure you. Something will be very wrong with me, if ever I sit friendless and make no search.”
“But, Argyle, there is a time to leave off.”
“To leave off what, to leave off what?”
“Having friends: or a friend, rather: or seeking to have one.”
“Oh, no! Not at all, my friend. Not at all! Only death can make an end of that, my friend. Only death. And I should say, not even death. Not even death ends a man's search for a friend. That is my belief. You may hang me for it, but I shall never alter.”
“Nay,” said Lilly. “There is a time to love, and a time to leave off loving.”
“All I can say to that is that my time to leave off hasn't come yet,” said Argyle, with obstinate feeling.
“Ah, yes, it has. It is only a habit and an idea you stick to.”
“Indeed, it is no such thing. Indeed, it is no such thing. It is a profound desire and necessity: and what is more, a belief.”
“An obstinate persistency, you mean,” said Lilly.
“Well, call it so if it pleases you. It is by no means so to me.” There was a brief pause. The sun had left the cathedral dome and the tower, the sky was full of light, the square swimming in shadow.
“But can a man live,” said the Marchese, “without having something he lives for: something he wishes for, or longs for, and tries that he may get?”
“Impossible! Completely impossible!” said Argyle. “Man is a seeker, and except as such, he has no significance, no importance.”
“He bores me with his seeking,” said Lilly. “He should learn to possess himself—to be himself—and keep still.”
“Ay, perhaps so,” said Aaron. “Only—”
“But my dear boy, believe me, a man is never himself save in the supreme state of love: or perhaps hate, too, which amounts to the same thing. Never really himself.—Apart from this he is a tram-driver or a money-shoveller or an idea-machine. Only in the state of love is he really a man, and really himself. I say so, because I know,” said Argyle.
“Ah, yes. That is one side of the truth. It is quite true, also. But it is just as true to say, that a man is never less himself, than in the supreme state of love. Never less himself, than then.”
“Maybe! Maybe! But what could be better? What could be better than to lose oneself with someone you love, entirely, and so find yourself. Ah, my dear fellow, that is my creed, that is my creed, and you can't shake me in it. Never in that. Never in that.”
“Yes, Argyle,” said Lilly. “I know you're an obstinate love-apostle.”
“I am! I am! And I have certain standards, my boy, and certain ideals which I never transgress. Never transgress. And never abandon.”
“All right, then, you are an incurable love-maker.”
“Pray God I am,” said Argyle.
“Yes,” said the Marchese. “Perhaps we are all so. What else do you give? Would you have us make money? Or do you give the centre of your spirit to your work? How is it to be?”
“I don't vitally care either about money or my work or—” Lilly faltered.
“Or what, then?”
“Or anything. I don't really care about anything. Except that—”
“You don't care about anything? But what is that for a life?” cried the Marchese, with a hollow mockery.
“What do YOU care for?” asked Lilly.
“Me? I care for several things. I care for my wife. I care for love. And I care to be loved. And I care for some pleasures. And I care for music. And I care for Italy.”
“You are well off for cares,” said Lilly.
“And you seem to me so very poor,” said Del Torre.
“I should say so—if he cares for nothing,” interjaculated Argyle. Then he clapped Lilly on the shoulder with a laugh. “Ha! Ha! Ha!—But he only says it to tease us,” he cried, shaking Lilly's shoulder. “He cares more than we do for his own way of loving. Come along, don't try and take us in. We are old birds, old birds,” said Argyle. But at that moment he seemed a bit doddering.
“A man can't live,” said the Italian, “without an object.”
“Well—and that object?” said Lilly.
“Well—it may be many things. Mostly it is two things.—love, and money. But it may be many things: ambition, patriotism, science, art—many things. But it is some objective. Something outside the self. Perhaps many things outside the self.”
“I have had only one objective all my life,” said Argyle. “And that was love. For that I have spent my life.”
“And the lives of a number of other people, too,” said Lilly.
“Admitted. Oh, admitted. It takes two to make love: unless you're a miserable—”
“Don't you think,” said Aaron, turning to Lilly, “that however you try to get away from it, if you're not after money, and can't fit yourself into a job—you've got to, you've got to try and find something else—somebody else—somebody. You can't really be alone.”
“No matter how many mistakes you've made—you can't really be alone—?” asked Lilly.
“You can be alone for a minute. You can be alone just in that minute when you've broken free, and you feel heart thankful to be alone, because the other thing wasn't to be borne. But you can't keep on being alone. No matter how many tunes you've broken free, and feel, thank God to be alone (nothing on earth is so good as to breathe fresh air and be alone), no matter how many times you've felt this—it wears off every time, and you begin to look again—and you begin to roam round. And even if you won't admit it to yourself, still you are seeking—seeking. Aren't you? Aren't you yourself seeking?”
“Oh, that's another matter,” put in Argyle. “Lilly is happily married and on the shelf. With such a fine woman as Tanny I should think so—RATHER! But his is an exceptional nature, and an exceptional case. As for me, I made a hell of my marriage, and I swear it nearly sent me to hell. But I didn't forswear love, when I forswore marriage and woman. Not by ANY means.”
“Are you not seeking any more, Lilly?” asked the Marchese. “Do you seek nothing?”
“We married men who haven't left our wives, are we supposed to seek anything?” said Lilly. “Aren't we perfectly satisfied and in bliss with the wonderful women who honour us as wives?”
“Ah, yes, yes!” said the Marchese. “But now we are not speaking to the world. Now we try to speak of that which we have in our centre of our hearts.”
“And what have we there?” said Lilly.
“Well—shall I say? We have unrest. We have another need. We have something that hurts and eats us, yes, eats us inside. Do I speak the truth?”
“Yes. But what is the something?”
“I don't know. I don't know. But it is something in love, I think. It is love itself which gnaws us inside, like a cancer,” said the Italian.
“But why should it? Is that the nature of love?” said Lilly.
“I don't know. Truly. I don't know.—But perhaps it is in the nature of love—I don't know.—But I tell you, I love my wife—she is very dear to me. I admire her, I trust her, I believe her. She is to me much more than any woman, more even than my mother.—And so, I am very happy. I am very happy, she is very happy, in our love and our marriage.—But wait. Nothing has changed—the love has not changed: it is the same.—And yet we are NOT happy. No, we are not happy. I know she is not happy, I know I am not—”
“Why should you be?” said Lilly.
“Yes—and it is not even happiness,” said the Marchese, screwing up his face in a painful effort of confession. “It is not even happiness. No, I do not ask to be happy. Why should I? It is childish—but there is for both of us, I know it, something which bites us, which eats us within, and drives us, drives us, somewhere, we don't know where. But it drives us, and eats away the life—and yet we love each other, and we must not separate—Do you know what I mean? Do you understand me at all in what I say? I speak what is true.”
“Yes, I understand. I'm in the same dilemma myself.—But what I want to hear, is WHY you think it is so. Why is it?”
“Shall I say what I think? Yes? And you can tell me if it is foolish to you.—Shall I tell you? Well. Because a woman, she now first wants the man, and he must go to her because he is wanted. Do you understand?—You know—supposing I go to a woman—supposing she is my wife—and I go to her, yes, with my blood all ready, because it is I who want. Then she puts me off. Then she says, not now, not now, I am tired, I am not well. I do not feel like it. She puts me off—till I am angry or sorry or whatever I am—but till my blood has gone down again, you understand, and I don't want her any more. And then she puts her arms round me, and caresses me, and makes love to me—till she rouses me once more. So, and so she rouses me—and so I come to her. And I love her, it is very good, very good. But it was she who began, it was her initiative, you know.—I do not think, in all my life, my wife has loved me from my initiative, you know. She will yield to me—because I insist, or because she wants to be a good submissive wife who loves me. So she will yield to me. But ah, what is it, you know? What is it a woman who allows me, and who has no answer? It is something worse than nothing—worse than nothing. And so it makes me very discontented and unbelieving.—If I say to her, she says it is not true—not at all true. Then she says, all she wants is that I should desire her, that I should love her and desire her. But even that is putting her will first. And if I come to her so, if I come to her of my own desire, then she puts me off. She puts me off, or she only allows me to come to her. Even now it is the same after ten years, as it was at first. But now I know, and for many years I did not know—”
The little man was intense. His face was strained, his blue eyes so stretched that they showed the whites all round. He gazed into Lilly's face.
“But does it matter?” said Lilly slowly, “in which of you the desire initiates? Isn't the result the same?”
“It matters. It matters—” cried the Marchese.
“Oh, my dear fellow, how MUCH it matters—” interrupted Argyle sagely.
“Ay!” said Aaron.
The Marchese looked from one to the other of them.
“It matters!” he cried. “It matters life or death. It used to be, that desire started in the man, and the woman answered. It used to be so for a long time in Italy. For this reason the women were kept away from the men. For this reason our Catholic religion tried to keep the young girls in convents, and innocent, before marriage. So that with their minds they should not know, and should not start this terrible thing, this woman's desire over a man, beforehand. This desire which starts in a woman's head, when she knows, and which takes a man for her use, for her service. This is Eve. Ah, I hate Eve. I hate her, when she knows, and when she WILLS. I hate her when she will make of me that which serves her desire.—She may love me, she may be soft and kind to me, she may give her life for me. But why? Only because I am HERS. I am that thing which does her most intimate service. She can see no other in me. And I may be no other to her—”
“Then why not let it be so, and be satisfied?” said Lilly.
“Because I cannot. I cannot. I would. But I cannot. The Borghesia—the citizens—the bourgeoisie, they are the ones who can. Oh, yes. The bourgeoisie, the shopkeepers, these serve their wives so, and their wives love them. They are the marital maquereaux—the husband-maquereau, you know. Their wives are so stout and happy, and they dote on their husbands and always betray them. So it is with the bourgeoise. She loves her husband so much, and is always seeking to betray him. Or she is a Madame Bovary, seeking for a scandal. But the bourgeois husband, he goes on being the same. He is the horse, and she the driver. And when she says gee-up, you know—then he comes ready, like a hired maquereau. Only he feels so good, like a good little boy at her breast. And then there are the nice little children. And so they keep the world going.—But for me—” he spat suddenly and with frenzy on the floor.
“You are quite right, my boy,” said Argyle. “You are quite right. They've got the start of us, the women: and we've got to canter when they say gee-up. I—oh, I went through it all. But I broke the shafts and smashed the matrimonial cart, I can tell you, and I didn't care whether I smashed her up along with it or not. I didn't care one single bit, I assure you.—And here I am. And she is dead and buried these dozen years. Well—well! Life, you know, life. And women oh, they are the very hottest hell once they get the start of you. There's NOTHING they won't do to you, once they've got you. Nothing they won't do to you. Especially if they love you. Then you may as well give up the ghost: or smash the cart behind you, and her in it. Otherwise she will just harry you into submission, and make a dog of you, and cuckold you under your nose. And you'll submit. Oh, you'll submit, and go on calling her my darling. Or else, if you won't submit, she'll do for you. Your only chance is to smash the shafts, and the whole matrimonial cart. Or she'll do for you. For a woman has an uncanny, hellish strength—she's a she-bear and a wolf, is a woman when she's got the start of you. Oh, it's a terrible experience, if you're not a bourgeois, and not one of the knuckling-under money-making sort.”
“Knuckling-under sort. Yes. That is it,” said the Marchese.
“But can't there be a balancing of wills?” said Lilly.
“My dear boy, the balance lies in that, that when one goes up, the other goes down. One acts, the other takes. It is the only way in love—And the women are nowadays the active party. Oh, yes, not a shadow of doubt about it. They take the initiative, and the man plays up. That's how it is. The man just plays up.—Nice manly proceeding, what!” cried Argyle.
“But why can't man accept it as the natural order of things?” said Lilly. “Science makes it the natural order.”
“All my —— to science,” said Argyle. “No man with one drop of real spunk in him can stand it long.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” cried the Italian. “Most men want it so. Most men want only, that a woman shall want them, and they shall then play up to her when she has roused them. Most men want only this: that a woman shall choose one man out, to be her man, and he shall worship her and come up when she shall provoke him. Otherwise he is to keep still. And the woman, she is quite sure of her part. She must be loved and adored, and above all, obeyed, particularly in her sex desire. There she must not be thwarted, or she becomes a devil. And if she is obeyed, she becomes a misunderstood woman with nerves, looking round for the next man whom she can bring under. So it is.”
“Well,” said Lilly. “And then what?”
“Nay,” interrupted Aaron. “But do you think it's true what he says? Have you found it like that? You're married. Has your experience been different, or the same?”
“What was yours?” asked Lilly.
“Mine was the same. Mine was the same, if ever it was,” said Aaron.
“And mine was EXTREMELY similar,” said Argyle with a grimace.
“And yours, Lilly?” asked the Marchese anxiously.
“Not very different,” said Lilly.
“Ah!” cried Del Torre, jerking up erect as if he had found something.
“And what's your way out?” Aaron asked him.
“I'm not out—so I won't holloa,” said Lilly. “But Del Torre puts it best.—What do you say is the way out, Del Torre?”
“The way out is that it should change: that the man should be the asker and the woman the answerer. It must change.”
“But it doesn't. Prrr!” Argyle made his trumpeting noise.
“Does it?” asked Lilly of the Marchese.
“No. I think it does not.”
“And will it ever again?”
“Perhaps never.”
“And then what?”
“Then? Why then man seeks apis-aller. Then he seeks something which will give him answer, and which will not only draw him, draw him, with a terrible sexual will.—So he seeks young girls, who know nothing, and so cannot force him. He thinks he will possess them while they are young, and they will be soft and responding to his wishes.—But in this, too, he is mistaken. Because now a baby of one year, if it be a female, is like a woman of forty, so is its will made up, so it will force a man.”
“And so young girls are no good, even as apis-aller.”
“No good—because they are all modern women. Every one, a modern woman. Not one who isn't.”
“Terrible thing, the modern woman,” put in Argyle.
“And then—?”
“Then man seeks other forms of loves, always seeking the loving response, you know, of one gentler and tenderer than himself, who will wait till the man desires, and then will answer with full love.—But it is allpis-aller, you know.”
“Not by any means, my boy,” cried Argyle.
“And then a man naturally loves his own wife, too, even if it is not bearable to love her.”
“Or one leaves her, like Aaron,” said Lilly.
“And seeks another woman, so,” said the Marchese.
“Does he seek another woman?” said Lilly. “Do you, Aaron?”
“I don't WANT to,” said Aaron. “But—I can't stand by myself in the middle of the world and in the middle of people, and know I am quite by myself, and nowhere to go, and nothing to hold on to. I can for a day or two—But then, it becomes unbearable as well. You get frightened. You feel you might go funny—as you would if you stood on this balcony wall with all the space beneath you.”
“Can't one be alone—quite alone?” said Lilly.
“But no—it is absurd. Like Saint Simeon Stylites on a pillar. But it is absurd!” cried the Italian.
“I don't mean like Simeon Stylites. I mean can't one live with one's wife, and be fond of her: and with one's friends, and enjoy their company: and with the world and everything, pleasantly: and yet KNOW that one is alone? Essentially, at the very core of me, alone. Eternally alone. And choosing to be alone. Not sentimental or LONELY. Alone, choosing to be alone, because by one's own nature one is alone. The being with another person is secondary,” said Lilly.
“One is alone,” said Argyle, “in all but love. In all but love, my dear fellow. And then I agree with you.”
“No,” said Lilly, “in love most intensely of all, alone.”
“Completely incomprehensible,” said Argyle. “Amounts to nothing.”
“One man is but a part. How can he be so alone?” said the Marchese.
“In so far as he is a single individual soul, he IS alone—ipso facto. In so far as I am I, and only I am I, and I am only I, in so far, I am inevitably and eternally alone, and it is my last blessedness to know it, and to accept it, and to live with this as the core of my self-knowledge.”
“My dear boy, you are becoming metaphysical, and that is as bad as softening of the brain,” said Argyle.
“All right,” said Lilly.
“And,” said the Marchese, “it may be so by REASON. But in the heart—? Can the heart ever beat quite alone? Plop! Plop!—Can the heart beat quite alone, alone in all the atmosphere, all the space of the universe? Plop! Plop! Plop!—Quite alone in all the space?” A slow smile came over the Italian's face. “It is impossible. It may eat against the heart of other men, in anger, all in pressure against the others. It may beat hard, like iron, saying it is independent. But this is only beating against the heart of mankind, not alone.—But either with or against the heart of mankind, or the heart of someone, mother, wife, friend, children—so must the heart of every man beat. It is so.”
“It beats alone in its own silence,” said Lilly.
The Italian shook his head.
“We'd better be going inside, anyhow,” said Argyle. “Some of you will be taking cold.”
“Aaron,” said Lilly. “Is it true for you?”
“Nearly,” said Aaron, looking into the quiet, half-amused, yet frightening eyes of the other man. “Or it has been.”
“A miss is as good as a mile,” laughed Lilly, rising and picking up his chair to take it indoors. And the laughter of his voice was so like a simple, deliberate amiability, that Aaron's heart really stood still for a second. He knew that Lilly was alone—as far as he, Aaron, was concerned. Lilly was alone—and out of his isolation came his words, indifferent as to whether they came or not. And he left his friends utterly to their own choice. Utterly to their own choice. Aaron felt that Lilly wasthere, existing in life, yet neither asking for connection nor preventing any connection. He was present, he was the real centre of the group. And yet he asked nothing of them, and he imposed nothing. He left each to himself, and he himself remained just himself: neither more nor less. And there was a finality about it, which was at once maddening and fascinating. Aaron felt angry, as if he were half insulted by the other man's placing the gift of friendship or connection so quietly back in the giver's hands. Lilly would receive no gift of friendship in equality. Neither would he violently refuse it. He let it lie unmarked. And yet at the same time Aaron knew that he could depend on the other man for help, nay, almost for life itself—so long as it entailed no breaking of the intrinsic isolation of Lilly's soul. But this condition was also hateful. And there was also a great fascination in it.