‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan.Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’
‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan.Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’
‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan.Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’
‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’
And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. . . . Even Valérie Seymour forgot to be pagan.
He was not an exemplary young negro; indeed he could be the reverse very often. A crude animal Henry could be at times, with a taste for liquor and a lust for women—just a primitive force rendered dangerous by drink, rendered offensive by civilization. Yet as he sang his sins seemed to drop from him, leaving him pure, unashamed, triumphant. He sang to his God, to the God of his soul, Who would some day blot out all the sins of the world, and make vast reparation for every injustice: ‘My home is over Jordan, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.’
Lincoln’s deep bass voice kept up a low sobbing. From time to time only did he break into words; but as he played on he rocked his body: ‘Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.’
Once started they seemed unable to stop; carried away they were by their music, drunk with that desperate hope of the hopeless—far drunker than Henry would get on neat whisky. They went from one spiritual into another, while their listeners sat motionless, scarcely breathing. While Jamie’s eyes ached from unshed tears quite as much as from her unsuitable glasses; while Adolphe Blanc, the gentle, the learned, grasped his knees and pondered many things deeply; while Pat remembered her Arabella and found but small consolation in beetles; while Brockett thought of certain brave deeds that he, even he had done out in Mespot—deeds that were not recorded in dispatches, unless in those of the recording angel; while Wanda evolved an enormous canvas depicting the wrongs of all mankind; while Stephen suddenly found Mary’s hand and held it in hers with a painful pressure; while Barbara’s tired and childish brown eyes turned to rest rather anxiously on her Jamie. Not one of them all but was stirred to the depths by that queer, half defiant, half supplicating music.
And now there rang out a kind of challenge; imperious, loud, almost terrifying. They sang it together, those two black brethren, and their voices suggested a multitude shouting. They seemed to be shouting a challenge to the world on behalf of themselves and of all the afflicted:
‘Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Daniel, Daniel!Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Then why not every man?’
‘Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Daniel, Daniel!Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Then why not every man?’
‘Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Daniel, Daniel!Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,Then why not every man?’
‘Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Daniel, Daniel!
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?’
The eternal question, as yet unanswered for those who sat there spellbound and listened. . . . ‘Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel, then why not every man?’
Why not? . . . Yes, but how long, O Lord, how long?
Lincoln got up from the piano abruptly, and he made a small bow which seemed strangely foolish, murmuring some stilted words of thanks on behalf of himself and his brother Henry: ‘We are greatly obliged to you for your patience; we trust that we have satisfied you;’ he murmured.
It was over. They were just two men with black skins and foreheads beaded with perspiration. Henry sidled away to the whisky, while Lincoln rubbed his pinkish palms on an elegant white silk handkerchief. Every one started to talk at once, to light cigarettes, to move about the studio.
Jamie said: ‘Come on, people, it’s time for supper,’ and she swallowed a small glass of crème-de-menthe; but Wanda poured herself out some more brandy.
Quite suddenly they had all become merry, laughing at nothing, teasing each other; even Valérie unbent more than was her wont and did not look bored when Brockett chaffed her. The air grew heavy and stinging with smoke; the stove went out, but they scarcely noticed.
Henry Jones lost his head and pinched Pat’s bony shoulder, then he rolled his eyes: ‘Oh, boy! What a gang! Say, folks, aren’t we having the hell of an evening? When any of you folk decide to come over to my little old New York, why, I’ll show you around. Some burg!’ and he gulped a large mouthful of whisky.
After supper Jamie played the overture to her opera, and they loudly applauded the rather dull music—so scholarly, so dry, so painfully stiff, so utterly inexpressive of Jamie. Then Wanda produced her mandolin and insisted upon singing them Polish love songs; this she did in a heavy contralto voice which was rendered distinctly unstable by brandy. She handled the tinkling instrument with skill, evolving some quite respectable chords, but her eyes were fierce as was also her touch, so that presently a wire snapped with a ping, which appeared completely to upset her balance. She fell back and lay sprawled out upon the floor to be hauled up again by Dupont and Brockett.
Barbara had one of her bad fits of coughing: ‘It’s nothing . . .’ she gasped, ‘I swallowed the wrong way; don’t fuss, Jamie . . . darling . . . I tell you it’s . . . nothing.’
Jamie, flushed already, drank more crème-de-menthe. This time she poured it into a tumbler, tossing it off with a dash of soda. But Adolphe Blanc looked at Barbara gravely.
The party did not disperse until morning; not until four o’clock could they decide to go home. Everybody had stayed to the very last moment, everybody, that is, except Valérie Seymour—she had left immediately after supper. Brockett, as usual, was cynically sober, but Jamie was blinking her eyes like an owl, while Pat stumbled over her own goloshes. As for Henry Jones, he started to sing at the top of his lungs in a high falsetto:
‘Oh, my, help, help, ain’t I nobody’s baby?Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.’
‘Oh, my, help, help, ain’t I nobody’s baby?Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.’
‘Oh, my, help, help, ain’t I nobody’s baby?Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.’
‘Oh, my, help, help, ain’t I nobody’s baby?
Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.’
‘Shut your noise, you poor mutt!’ commanded his brother, but Henry still continued to bawl: ‘Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.’
They left Wanda asleep on a heap of cushions—she would probably not wake up before mid-day.
Stephen’sbook, which made its appearance that May, met with a very sensational success in England and in the United States, an even more marked success thanThe Furrow. Its sales were unexpectedly large considering its outstanding literary merit; the critics of two countries were loud in their praises, and old photographs of Stephen could be seen in the papers, together with very flattering captions. In a word, she woke up in Paris one morning to find herself, for the moment, quite famous.
Valérie, Brockett, indeed all her friends were whole-hearted in their congratulations; and David’s tail kept up a great wagging. He knew well that something pleasant had happened: the whole atmosphere of the house was enough to inform a sagacious person like David. Even Mary’s little bright-coloured birds seemed to take a firmer hold on existence; while out in the garden there was much ado on the part of the proudly parental pigeons—fledglings with huge heads and bleary eyes had arrived to contribute to the general celebration. Adèle went singing about her work, for Jean had recently been promised promotion, which meant that his savings, perhaps in a year, might have grown large enough for them to marry.
Pierre bragged to his friend, the neighbouring baker, anent Stephen’s great eminence as a writer, and even Pauline cheered up a little.
When Mary impressively ordered the meals, ordered this or that delicacy for Stephen, Pauline would actually say with a smile: ‘Mais oui, un grand génie doit nourrir le cerveau!’
Mademoiselle Duphot gained a passing importance in the eyes of her pupils through having taught Stephen. She would nod her head and remark very wisely: ‘I always declare she become a great author.’ Then because she was truthful she would hastily add: ‘I mean that I knowed she was someone unusual.’
Buisson admitted that perhaps, after all, it was well that Stephen had stuck to her writing. The book had been bought for translation into French, a fact which had deeply impressed Monsieur Buisson.
From Puddle came a long and triumphant letter: ‘What did I tell you? I knew you’d do it! . . .’
Anna also wrote at some length to her daughter. And wonder of wonders, from Violet Peacock there arrived an embarrassingly gushing epistle. She would look Stephen up when next she was in Paris; she was longing, so she said, to renew their old friendship—after all, they two had been children together.
Gazing at Mary with very bright eyes, Stephen’s thoughts must rush forward into the future. Puddle had been right, it was work that counted—clever, hard-headed, understanding old Puddle!
Then putting an arm round Mary’s shoulder: ‘Nothing shall ever hurt you,’ she would promise, feeling wonderfully self-sufficient and strong, wonderfully capable of protecting.
Thatsummer they drove into Italy with David sitting up proudly beside Burton. David barked at the peasants and challenged the dogs and generally assumed a grand air of importance. They decided to spend two months on Lake Como, and went to the Hotel Florence at Bellagio. The hotel gardens ran down to the lake—it was all very sunny and soothing and peaceful. Their days were passed in making excursions, their evenings in drifting about on the water in a little boat with a gaily striped awning, which latter seemed a strange form of pleasure to David. Many of the guests at the Florence were English, and not a few scraped an acquaintance with Stephen, since nothing appears to succeed like success in a world that is principally made up of failure. The sight of her book left about in the lounge, or being devoured by some engrossed reader, would make Stephen feel almost childishly happy; she would point the phenomenon out to Mary.
‘Look,’ she would whisper, ‘that man’s reading my book!’ For the child is never far to seek in the author.
Some of their acquaintances were country folk and she found that she was in sympathy with them. Their quiet and painstaking outlook on life, their love of the soil, their care for their homes, their traditions were after all a part of herself, bequeathed to her by the founders of Morton. It gave her a very deep sense of pleasure to see Mary accepted and made to feel welcome by these grey-haired women and gentlemanly men; very seemly and fitting it appeared to Stephen.
And now, since to each of us come moments of respite when the mind refuses to face its problems, she resolutely thrust aside her misgivings, those misgivings that whispered: ‘Supposing they knew—do you think they’d be so friendly to Mary?’
Of all those who sought them out that summer, the most cordial were Lady Massey and her daughter. Lady Massey was a delicate, elderly woman who, in spite of poor health and encroaching years, was untiring in her search for amusement—it amused her to make friends with celebrated people. She was restless, self-indulgent and not over sincere, a creature of whims and ephemeral fancies; yet for Stephen and Mary she appeared to evince a liking which was more than just on the surface. She would ask them up to her sitting-room, would want them to sit with her in the garden, and would sometimes insist upon communal meals, inviting them to dine at her table. Agnes, the daughter, a jolly, red-haired girl, had taken an immediate fancy to Mary, and their friendship ripened with celerity, as is often the way during idle summers. As for Lady Massey she petted Mary, and mothered her as though she were a child, and soon she was mothering Stephen also.
She would say: ‘I seem to have found two new children,’ and Stephen, who was in the mood to feel touched, grew quite attached to this ageing woman. Agnes was engaged to a Colonel Fitzmaurice who would probably join them that autumn in Paris. If he did so they must all foregather at once, she insisted—he greatly admired Stephen’s book and had written that he was longing to meet her. But Lady Massey went further than this in her enthusiastic proffers of friendship—Stephen and Mary must stay with her in Cheshire; she was going to give a house party at Branscombe Court for Christmas; they must certainly come to her for Christmas.
Mary, who seemed elated at the prospect, was for ever discussing this visit with Stephen: ‘What sort of clothes shall I need, do you think? Agnes says it’s going to be quite a big party. I suppose I’ll want a few new evening dresses?’ And one day she inquired: ‘Stephen, when you were younger, did you ever go to Ascot or Goodwood?’
Ascot and Goodwood, just names to Stephen; names that she had despised in her youth, yet which now seemed not devoid of importance since they stood for something beyond themselves—something that ought to belong to Mary. She would pick up a copy ofThe TatlerorThe Sketch, which Lady Massey received from England, and turning the pages would stare at the pictures of securely established, self-satisfied people—Miss this or that sitting on a shooting stick, and beside her the man she would shortly marry; Lady so-and-so with her latest offspring; or perhaps some group at a country house. And quite suddenly Stephen would feel less assured because in her heart she must envy these people. Must envy these commonplace men and women with their rather ridiculous shooting sticks; their smiling fiancés; their husbands; their wives; their estates, and their well cared for, placid children.
Mary would sometimes look over her shoulder with a new and perhaps rather wistful interest. Then Stephen would close the paper abruptly: ‘Let’s go for a row on the lake,’ she might say, ‘it’s no good wasting this glorious evening.’
But then she would remember the invitation to spend Christmas with Lady Massey in Cheshire, and would suddenly start to build castles in the air; supposing that she herself bought a small place near Branscombe Court—near these kind new friends who seemed to have grown so fond of Mary? Mary would also have her thoughts, would be thinking of girls like Agnes Massey for whom life was tranquil, easy and secure; girls to whom the world must seem blessedly friendly. And then, with a little stab of pain, she would suddenly remember her own exile from Morton. After such thoughts as these she must hold Stephen’s hand, must always sit very close to Stephen.
Thatautumn they saw a good deal of the Masseys, who had taken their usual suite at the Ritz, and who often asked Mary and Stephen to luncheon. Lady Massey, Agnes and Colonel Fitzmaurice, a pleasant enough man, came and dined several times at the quiet old house in the Rue Jacob, and those evenings were always exceedingly friendly, Stephen talking of books with Colonel Fitzmaurice, while Lady Massey enlarged upon Branscombe and her plans for the coming Christmas party. Sometimes Stephen and Mary sent flowers to the Ritz, hothouse plants or a large box of special roses—Lady Massey liked to have her rooms full of flowers sent by friends, it increased her sense of importance. By return would come loving letters of thanks; she would write: ‘I do thank my two very dear children.’
In November she and Agnes returned to England, but the friendship was kept up by correspondence, for Lady Massey was prolific with her pen, indeed she was never more happy than when writing. And now Mary bought the new evening dresses, and she dragged Stephen off to choose some new ties. As the visit to Branscombe Court drew near it was seldom out of their thoughts for a moment—to Stephen it appeared like the first fruits of toil; to Mary like the gateway into an existence that must be very safe and reassuring.
Stephennever knew what enemy had prepared the blow that was struck by Lady Massey. Perhaps it had been Colonel Fitzmaurice who might all the time have been hiding his suspicions; he must certainly have known a good deal about Stephen—he had friends who lived in the vicinity of Morton. Perhaps it had merely been unkind gossip connected with Brockett or Valérie Seymour, with the people whom Mary and Stephen knew, although, as it happened, Lady Massey had not met them. But after all, it mattered so little; what did it matter how the thing had come about? By comparison with the insult itself, its origin seemed very unimportant.
It was in December that the letter arrived, just a week before they were leaving for England. A long, rambling, pitifully tactless letter, full of awkward and deeply wounding excuses:
‘If I hadn’t grown so fond of you both,’ wrote Lady Massey, ‘this would be much less painful—as it is the whole thing has made me quite ill, but I must consider my position in the county. You see, the county looks to me for a lead—above all I must consider my daughter. The rumours that have reached me about you and Mary—certain things that I don’t want to enter into—have simply forced me to break off our friendship and to say that I must ask you not to come here for Christmas. Of course a woman of my position with all eyes upon her has to be extra careful. It’s too terribly upsetting and sad for me; if I hadn’t been so fond of you both—but you know how attached I had grown to Mary . . .’ and so it went on; a kind of wail full of self-importance combined with self-pity.
As Stephen read she went white to the lips, and Mary sprang up. ‘What’s that letter you’re reading?’
‘It’s from Lady Massey. It’s about . . . it’s about . . .’ Her voice failed.
‘Show it to me,’ persisted Mary.
Stephen shook her head: ‘No—I’d rather not.’
Then Mary asked: ‘Is it about our visit?’
Stephen nodded: ‘We’re not going to spend Christmas at Branscombe. Darling, it’s all right—don’t look like that . . .’
‘But I want to know why we’re not going to Branscombe.’ And Mary reached out and snatched the letter.
She read it through to the very last word, then she sat down abruptly and burst out crying. She cried with the long, doleful sobs of a child whom some one has struck without rhyme or reason: ‘Oh . . . and I thought they were fond of us . . .’ she sobbed, ‘I thought that perhaps . . . they understood, Stephen.’
Then it seemed to Stephen that all the pain that had so far been thrust upon her by existence, was as nothing to the unendurable pain which she must now bear to hear that sobbing, to see Mary thus wounded and utterly crushed, thus shamed and humbled for the sake of her love, thus bereft of all dignity and protection.
She felt strangely helpless: ‘Don’t—don’t,’ she implored; while tears of pity blurred her own eyes and went trickling slowly down her scarred face. She had lost for the moment all sense of proportion, of perspective, seeing in a vain, tactless woman a kind of gigantic destroying angel; a kind of scourge laid upon her and Mary. Surely never before had Lady Massey loomed so large as she did in that hour to Stephen.
Mary’s sobs gradually died away. She lay back in her chair, a small, desolate figure, catching her breath from time to time, until Stephen went to her and found her hand which she stroked with cold and trembling fingers—but she could not find words of consolation.
Thatnight Stephen took the girl roughly in her arms.
‘I love you—I love you so much . . .’ she stammered; and she kissed Mary many times on the mouth, but cruelly so that her kisses were pain—the pain in her heart leapt out through her lips: ‘God! It’s too terrible to love like this—it’s hell—there are times when I can’t endure it!’
She was in the grip of strong nervous excitation; nothing seemed able any more to appease her. She seemed to be striving to obliterate, not only herself, but the whole hostile world through some strange and agonized merging with Mary. It was terrible indeed, very like unto death, and it left them both completely exhausted.
The world had achieved its first real victory.
TheirChristmas was naturally overshadowed, and so, as it were by a common impulse, they turned to such people as Barbara and Jamie, people who would neither despise nor insult them. It was Mary who suggested that Barbara and Jamie should be asked to share their Christmas dinner, while Stephen who must suddenly pity Wanda for a misjudged and very unfortunate genius, invited her also—after all why not? Wanda was more sinned against than sinning. She drank, oh, yes, Wanda drowned her sorrows; everybody knew that, and like Valérie Seymour, Stephen hated drink like the plague—but all the same she invited Wanda.
An ill wind it is that blows no one any good. Barbara and Jamie accepted with rapture; but for Mary’s most timely invitation, their funds being low at the end of the year, they two must have gone without Christmas dinner. Wanda also seemed glad enough to come, to leave her enormous, turbulent canvas for the orderly peace of the well-warmed house with its comfortable rooms and its friendly servants. All three of them arrived a good hour before dinner, which on this occasion would be in the evening.
Wanda had been up to Midnight Mass at the Sacré Cœur, she informed them gravely; and Stephen, reminded of Mademoiselle Duphot, regretted that she had not offered her the motor. No doubt she too had gone up to Montmartre for Midnight Mass—how queer, she and Wanda. Wanda was quiet, depressed and quite sober; she was wearing a straight-cut, simple black dress that somehow suggested a species of cassock. And as often happened when Wanda was sober, she repeated herself more than when she was drunk.
‘I have been to the Sacré Cœur,’ she repeated, ‘for the Messe de Minuit; it was very lovely.’
But she did not reveal the tragic fact that her fear had suddenly laid hold upon her at the moment of approaching the altar rails, so that she had scuttled back to her seat, terrified of receiving the Christmas Communion. Even a painfully detailed confession of intemperance, of the lusts of the eyes and the mind, of the very occasional sins of the body; even the absolution accorded by a white-haired old priest who had spoken gently and pitifully to his penitent, directing her prayers to the Sacred Heart from which his own heart had derived its compassion—even these things had failed to give Wanda courage when it came to the Christmas Communion. And now as she sat at Stephen’s table she ate little and drank but three glasses of wine; nor did she ask for a cognac brandy when later they went to the study for coffee, but must talk of the mighty temple of her faith that watched day and night, night and day over Paris.
She said in her very perfect English: ‘Is it not a great thing that France has done? From every town and village in France has come money to build that church at Montmartre. Many people have purchased the stones of the church, and their names are carved on those stones for ever. I am very much too hard up to do that—and yet I would like to own a small stone. I would just say: “From Wanda,” because of course one need not bother about the surname; mine is so long and so difficult to spell—yes, I would ask them to say: “From Wanda.” ’
Jamie and Barbara listened politely, yet without sympathy and without comprehension; while Mary must even smile a little at what seemed to her like mere superstition. But Stephen’s imagination was touched, and she questioned Wanda about her religion. Then Wanda turned grateful eyes upon Stephen and suddenly wanted to win her friendship—she looked so reassuring and calm sitting there in her peaceful, book-lined study. A great writer she was, did not every one say so? And yet she was surely even as Wanda . . . Oh, but Stephen had got the better of her fate, had wrestled with her fate so that now it must serve her; that was fine, that was surely true courage, true greatness! For that Christmas none save Mary might know of the bitterness that was in Stephen’s heart, least of all the impulsive, erratic Wanda.
Wanda needed no second invitation to talk, and very soon her eyes were aglow with the fire of the born religious fanatic as she told of the little town in Poland, with its churches, its bells that were always chiming—the Mass bells beginning at early dawn, the Angelus bells, the Vesper bells—always calling, calling they were, said Wanda. Through the years of persecution and strife, of wars and the endless rumours of wars that had ravaged her most unhappy country, her people had clung to their ancient faith like true children of Mother Church, said Wanda. She herself had three brothers, and all of them priests; her parents had been very pious people, they were both dead now, had been dead for some years; and Wanda signed her breast with the Cross, having regard for the souls of her parents. Then she tried to explain the meaning of her faith, but this she did exceedingly badly, finding that words are not always easy when they must encompass the things of the spirit, the things that she herself knew by instinct; and then, too, these days her brain was not clear, thanks to brandy, even when she was quite sober. The details of her coming to Paris she omitted, but Stephen thought she could easily guess them, for Wanda declared with a curious pride that her brothers were men of stone and of iron. Saints they all were, according to Wanda, uncompromising, fierce and relentless, seeing only the straight and narrow path on each side of which yawned the fiery chasm.
‘I was not as they were, ah, no!’ she declared, ‘Nor was I as my father and mother; I was—I was . . .’ She stopped speaking abruptly, gazing at Stephen with her burning eyes which said quite plainly: ‘You know what I was, you understand.’ And Stephen nodded, divining the reason of Wanda’s exile.
But suddenly Mary began to grow restless, putting an end to this dissertation by starting the large, new gramophone which Stephen had given her for Christmas. The gramophone blared out the latest foxtrot, and jumping up Barbara and Jamie started dancing, while Stephen and Wanda moved chairs and tables, rolled back rugs and explained to the barking David that he could not join in, but might, if he chose, sit and watch them dance from the divan. Then Wanda slipped an arm around Mary and they glided off, an incongruous couple, the one clad as sombrely as any priest, the other in her soft evening dress of blue chiffon. Mary lay gently against Wanda’s arm, and she seemed to Stephen a very perfect dancer—lighting a cigarette, she watched them. The dance over, Mary put on a new record; she was flushed and her eyes were considerably brighter.
‘Why did you never tell me?’ Stephen murmured.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Why, that you danced so well.’
Mary hesitated, then she murmured back: ‘You didn’t dance, so what was the good?’
‘Wanda, you must teach me to foxtrot,’ smiled Stephen.
Jamie was blundering round the room with Barbara clasped to her untidy bosom; then she and Barbara started to sing the harmless, but foolish words of the foxtrot—if the servants were singing their old Breton hymns along in the kitchen, no one troubled to listen. Growing hilarious, Jamie sang louder, spinning with Barbara, gyrating wildly, until Barbara, between laughing and coughing, must implore her to stop, must beg for mercy.
Wanda said: ‘You might have a lesson now, Stephen.’
Putting her hands on Stephen’s shoulders, she began to explain the more simple steps, which did not appear at all hard to Stephen. The music seemed to have got into her feet so that her feet must follow its rhythm. She discovered to her own very great amazement that she liked this less formal modern dancing, and after a while she was clasping Mary quite firmly, and they moved away together while Wanda stood calling out her instructions:
‘Take much longer steps! Keep your knees straight—straighter! Don’t get so much to the side—look, it’s this way—hold her this way; always stand square to your partner.’
The lesson went on for a good two hours, until even Mary seemed somewhat exhausted. She suddenly rang the bell for Pierre, who appeared with the tray of simple supper. Then Mary did an unusual thing—she poured herself out a whiskey and soda.
‘I’m tired,’ she explained rather fretfully in answer to Stephen’s look of surprise; and she frowned as she turned her back abruptly. But Wanda shied away from the brandy as a frightened horse will shy from fire; she drank two large glasses of lemonade—an extremist she was in all things, this Wanda. Quite soon she announced that she must go home to bed, because of her latest picture which required every ounce of strength she had in her; but before she went she said eagerly to Stephen:
‘Do let me show you the Sacré Cœur. You have seen it of course, but only as a tourist; that is not really seeing it at all, you must come there with me.’
‘All right,’ agreed Stephen.
When Jamie and Barbara had departed in their turn, Stephen took Mary into her arms: ‘Dearest . . . has it been a fairly nice Christmas after all?’ she inquired almost timidly.
Mary kissed her: ‘Of course it’s been a nice Christmas.’ Then her youthful face suddenly changed in expression, the grey eyes growing hard, the mouth resentful: ‘Damn that woman for what she’s done to us, Stephen—the insolence of it! But I’ve learnt my lesson; we’ve got plenty of friends without Lady Massey and Agnes, friends to whom we’re not moral lepers.’ And she laughed, a queer, little joyless laugh.
Stephen flinched, remembering Brockett’s warning.
Wanda’schastened and temperate mood persisted for several weeks, and while it was on her she clung like a drowning man to Stephen, haunting the house from morning until night, dreading to be alone for a moment. It cannot be said that Stephen suffered her gladly, for now with the New Year she was working hard on a series of articles and short stories; unwilling to visualize defeat, she began once again to sharpen her weapon. But something in Wanda’s poor efforts to keep sober, in her very dependence, was deeply appealing, so that Stephen would put aside her work, feeling loath to desert the unfortunate creature.
Several times they made a long pilgrimage on foot to the church of the Sacré Cœur; just they two, for Mary would never go with them; she was prejudiced against Wanda’s religion. They would climb the steep streets with their flights of steps, grey streets, grey steps leading up from the city. Wanda’s eyes would always be fixed on their goal—pilgrim eyes they would often seem to Stephen. Arrived at the church she and Wanda would stand looking down between the tall, massive columns of the porch, on a Paris of domes and mists, only half revealed by the fitful sunshine. The air would seem pure up there on the height, pure and tenuous as a thing of the spirit. And something in that mighty temple of faith, that amazing thrust towards the sublime, that silent yet articulate cry of a nation to its God, would awaken a response in Stephen, so that she would seem to be brushing the hem of an age-old and rather terrible mystery—the eternal mystery of good and evil.
Inside the church would be brooding shadows, save where the wide lakes of amber fire spread out from the endless votive candles. Above the high altar the monstranced Host would gleam curiously white in the light of the candles. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, would come from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms, all day and all night for the sins of Paris.
Wanda would make her way to the statue of the silver Christ with one hand on His heart, and the other held out in supplication. Kneeling down she would sign herself with His Cross, then cover her eyes and forget about Stephen. Standing quietly behind her Stephen would wonder what Wanda was saying to the silver Christ, what the silver Christ was saying to Wanda. She would think that He looked very weary, this Christ Who must listen to so many supplications. Queer, unbidden thoughts came to her at such moments; this Man Who was God, a God Who waited, could He answer the riddle of Wanda’s existence, of her own existence? If she asked, could He answer? What if she were suddenly to cry out loudly: ‘Look at us, we are two yet we stand for many. Our name is legion and we also are waiting, we also are tired, oh, but terribly tired . . . Will You give us some hope of ultimate release? Will You tell us the secret of our salvation?’
Wanda would rise from her prayers rather stiffly to purchase a couple of votive candles, and when she had stuck them into the sconce she would touch the foot of the silver Christ as she bade Him farewell—a time-honoured custom. Then she and Stephen might turn again to the lake of fire that flowed round the monstrance.
But one morning when they arrived at the church, the monstrance was not above the high altar. The altar had just been garnished and swept, so the Host was still in the Lady Chapel. And while they stood there and gazed at the Host, came a priest and with him a grey-haired server; they would bear their God back again to His home, to the costly shrine of His endless vigil. The server must first light his little lantern suspended from a pole, and must then grasp his bell. The priest must lift his Lord from the monstrance and lay Him upon a silken cover, and carry Him as a man carries a child—protectively, gently, yet strongly withal, as though some frustrated paternal instinct were finding in this a divine expression. The lantern swung rhythmically to and fro, the bell rang out its imperative warning; then the careful priest followed after the server who cleared his path to the great high altar. And even as once very long ago, such a bell had been the herald of death in the putrefying hand of the leper: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ death and putrefaction—the warning bell in the dreadful hand that might never again know the clasp of the healthful—so now the bell rang out the approach of supreme purity, of the Healer of lepers, earth-bound through compassion; but compassion so vast, so urgent, that the small, white disc of the Host must contain the whole suffering universe. Thus the Prisoner of love Who could never break free while one spiritual leper remained to be healed, passed by on His patient way, heavy-laden.
Wanda suddenly fell to her knees, striking her lean and unfruitful breast, for as always she very shamefully feared, and her fear was a bitter and most deadly insult. With downcast eyes and trembling hands she cowered at the sight of her own salvation. But Stephen stood upright and curiously still, staring into the empty Lady Chapel.
Thatspring they made their first real acquaintance with the garish and tragic night life of Paris that lies open to such people as Stephen Gordon.
Until now they had never gone out much at night except to occasional studio parties, or occasional cafés of the milder sort for a cup of coffee with Barbara and Jamie; but that spring Mary seemed fanatically eager to proclaim her allegiance to Pat’s miserable army. Deprived of the social intercourse which to her would have been both natural and welcome, she now strove to stand up to a hostile world by proving that she could get on without it. The spirit of adventure that had taken her to France, the pluck that had steadied her while in the Unit, the emotional, hot-headed nature of the Celt, these things must now work together in Mary to produce a state of great restlessness, a pitiful revolt against life’s injustice. The blow struck by a weak and thoughtless hand had been even more deadly than Stephen had imagined; more deadly to them both, for that glancing blow coming at a time of apparent success, had torn from them every shred of illusion.
Stephen, who could see that the girl was fretting, would be seized with a kind of sick apprehension, a sick misery at her own powerlessness to provide a more normal and complete existence. So many innocent recreations, so many harmless social pleasures must Mary forego for the sake of their union—and she still young, still well under thirty. And now Stephen came face to face with the gulf that lies between warning and realization—all her painful warnings anent the world had not served to lessen the blow when it fell, had not served to make it more tolerable to Mary. Deeply humiliated Stephen would feel, when she thought of Mary’s exile from Morton, when she thought of the insults this girl must endure because of her loyalty and her faith—all that Mary was losing that belonged to her youth, would rise up at this time to accuse and scourge Stephen. Her courage would flicker like a lamp in the wind, and would all but go out; she would feel less steadfast, less capable of continuing the war, that ceaseless war for the right to existence. Then the pen would slip from her nerveless fingers, no longer a sharp and purposeful weapon. Yes, that spring saw a weakening in Stephen herself—she felt tired, and sometimes very old for her age, in spite of her vigorous mind and body.
Calling Mary she would need to be reassured; and one day she asked her: ‘How much do you love me?’
Mary answered: ‘So much that I’m growing to hate . . .’ Bitter words to hear on such young lips as Mary’s.
And now there were days when Stephen herself would long for some palliative, some distraction; when her erstwhile success seemed like Dead Sea fruit, her will to succeed a grotesque presumption. Who was she to stand out against the whole world, against those ruthless, pursuing millions bent upon the destruction of her and her kind? And she but one poor, inadequate creature. She would start to pace up and down her study; up and down, up and down, a most desolate pacing; even as years ago her father had paced his quiet study at Morton. Then those treacherous nerves of hers would betray her, so that when Mary came in with David—he a little depressed, sensing something amiss—she would often turn on the girl and speak sharply.
‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘Only out for a walk. I walked round to Jamie’s, Barbara’s not well; I sent her in a few tins of Brand’s jelly.’
‘You’ve no right to go off without letting me know where you’re going—I’ve told you before I won’t have it!’ Her voice would be harsh, and Mary would flush, unaware of those nerves that were strained to breaking.
As though grasping at something that remained secure, they would go to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, but less often than they had done in the past, for a feeling of guilt would come upon Stephen. Looking at the gentle and foal-like face with its innocent eyes behind the strong glasses, she would think: ‘We’re here under false pretences. If she knew what we were, she’d have none of us, either. Brockett was right, we should stick to our kind.’ So they went less and less to see Mademoiselle Duphot.
Mademoiselle said with her mild resignation: ‘It is natural, for now our Stévenne is famous. Why should she waste her time upon us? I am more than content to have been her teacher.’
But the sightless Julie shook her head sadly: ‘It is not like that; you mistake, my sister. I can feel a great desolation in Stévenne-and some of the youngness has gone from Mary. What can it be? My fingers grow blind when I ask them the cause of that desolation.’
‘I will pray for them both to the Sacred Heart which comprehends all things,’ said Mademoiselle Duphot.
And indeed her own heart would have tried to understand—but Stephen had grown very bitterly mistrustful.
And so now, in good earnest they turned to their kind, for as Puddle had truly divined in the past, it is ‘like to like’ for such people as Stephen. Thus when Pat walked in unexpectedly one day to invite them to join a party that night at the Ideal Bar, Stephen did not oppose Mary’s prompt and all too eager acceptance.
Pat said they were going to do the round. Wanda was coming and probably Brockett. Dickie West the American aviator was in Paris, and she also had promised to join them. Oh, yes, and then there was Valérie Seymour—Valérie was being dug out of her hole by Jeanne Maurel, her most recent conquest. Pat supposed that Valérie would drink lemon squash and generally act as a douche of cold water, she was sure to grow sleepy or disapproving, she was no acquisition to this sort of party. But could they rely upon Stephen’s car? In the cold, grey dawn of the morning after, taxis were sometimes scarce up at Montmartre. Stephen nodded, thinking how absurdly prim Pat looked to be talking of cold, grey dawns and all that they stood for up at Montmartre. After she had left, Stephen frowned a little.
The fivewomen were seated at a table near the door when Mary and Stephen eventually joined them. Pat, looking gloomy, was sipping light beer. Wanda, with the fires of hell in her eyes, in the hell of a temper too, drank brandy. She had started to drink pretty heavily again, and had therefore been avoiding Stephen just lately. There were only two new faces at the table, that of Jeanne Maurel, and of Dickie West, the much discussed woman aviator.
Dickie was short, plump and very young; she could not have been more than twenty-one and she still looked considerably under twenty. She was wearing a little dark blue béret; round her neck was knotted an apache scarf—for the rest she was dressed in a neat serge suit with a very well cut double-breasted jacket. Her face was honest, her teeth rather large, her lips chapped and her skin much weather-beaten. She looked like a pleasant and nice-minded schoolboy well soaped and scrubbed for some gala occasion. When she spoke her voice was a little too hearty. She belonged to the younger, and therefore more reckless, more aggressive and self-assured generation; a generation that was marching to battle with much swagger, much sounding of drums and trumpets, a generation that had come after war to wage a new war on a hostile creation. Being mentally very well clothed and well shod, they had as yet left no blood-stained foot-prints; they were hopeful as yet, refusing point-blank to believe in the existence of a miserable army. They said: ‘We are as we are; what about it? We don’t care a damn, in fact we’re delighted!’ And being what they were they must go to extremes, must quite often outdo men in their sinning; yet the sins that they had were the sins of youth, the sins of defiance born of oppression. But Dickie was in no way exceptionally vile—she lived her life much as a man would have lived it. And her heart was so loyal, so trustful, so kind that it caused her much shame and much secret blushing. Generous as a lover, she was even more so when there could not be any question of loving. Like the horseleech’s daughter, her friends cried: ‘Give! Give!’ and Dickie gave lavishly, asking no questions. An appeal never left her completely unmoved, and suspecting this, most people went on appealing. She drank wine in moderation, smoked Camel cigarettes till her fingers were brown, and admired stage beauties. Her greatest defect was practical joking of the kind that passes all seemly limits. Her jokes were dangerous, even cruel at times—in her jokes Dickie quite lacked imagination.
Jeanne Maurel was tall, almost as tall as Stephen. An elegant person wearing pearls round her throat above a low cut white satin waistcoat. She was faultlessly tailored and faultlessly barbered; her dark, severe Eton crop fitted neatly. Her profile was Greek, her eyes a bright blue—altogether a very arresting young woman. So far she had had quite a busy life doing nothing in particular and everything in general. But now she was Valérie Seymour’s lover, attaining at last to a certain distinction.
And Valérie was sitting there calm and aloof, her glance roving casually round the café, not too critically, yet as though she would say: ‘Enfin, the whole world has grown very ugly, but no doubt to some people this represents pleasure.’
From the stained bar counter at the end of the room came the sound of Monsieur Pujol’s loud laughter. Monsieur Pujol was affable to his clients, oh, but very, indeed he was almost paternal. Yet nothing escaped his cold, black eyes—a great expert he was in his way, Monsieur Pujol. There are many collections that a man may indulge in; old china, glass, pictures, watches and bibelots; rare editions, tapestries, priceless jewels. Monsieur Pujol snapped his fingers at such things, they lacked life—Monsieur Pujol collected inverts. Amazingly morbid of Monsieur Pujol, and he with the face of an ageing dragoon, and he just married en secondes noces, and already with six legitimate children. A fine, purposeful sire he had been and still was, with his young wife shortly expecting a baby. Oh, yes, the most aggressively normal of men, as none knew better than the poor Madame Pujol. Yet behind the bar was a small, stuffy sanctum in which this strange man catalogued his collection. The walls of the sanctum were thickly hung with signed photographs, and a good few sketches. At the back of each frame was a neat little number corresponding to that in a locked leather notebook—it had long been his custom to write up his notes before going home with the milk in the morning. People saw their own faces but not their numbers—no client suspected that locked leather notebook.
To this room would come Monsieur Pujol’s old cronies for a bock or a petit verre before business; and sometimes, like many another collector, Monsieur Pujol would permit himself to grow prosy. His friends knew most of the pictures by heart; knew their histories too, almost as well as he did; but in spite of this fact he would weary his guests by repeating many a threadbare story.
‘A fine lot, n’est-ce pas?’ he would say with a grin, ‘See that man? Ah, yes—a really great poet. He drank himself to death. In those days it was absinthe—they liked it because it gave them such courage. That one would come here like a scared white rat, but Crénom! when he left he would bellow like a bull—the absinthe, of course—it gave them great courage.’ Or: ‘That woman over there, what a curious head! I remember her very well, she was German. Else Weining, her name was—before the war she would come with a girl she’d picked up here in Paris, just a common whore, a most curious business. They were deeply in love. They would sit at a table in the corner—I can show you their actual table. They never talked much and they drank very little; as far as the drink went those two were bad clients, but so interesting that I did not much mind—I grew almost attached to Else Weining. Sometimes she would come all alone, come early. “Pu,” she would say in her hideous French; “Pu, she must never go back to that hell.” Hell! Sacrénom—sheto call it hell! Amazing they are, I tell you, these people. Well, the girl went back, naturally she went back, and Else drowned herself in the Seine. Amazing they are—ces invertis, I tell you!’
But not all the histories were so tragic as this one; Monsieur Pujol found some of them quite amusing. Quarrels galore he was able to relate, and light infidelities by the dozen. He would mimic a manner of speech, a gesture, a walk—he was really quite a good mimic—and when he did this his friends were not bored; they would sit there and split their sides with amusement.
And now Monsieur Pujol was laughing himself, cracking jokes as he covertly watched his clients. From where she and Mary sat near the door, Stephen could hear his loud, jovial laughter.
‘Lord,’ sighed Pat, unenlivened as yet by the beer; ‘some people do seem to feel real good this evening.’
Wanda, who disliked the ingratiating Pujol, and whose nerves were on edge, had begun to grow angry. She had caught a particularly gross blasphemy, gross even for this age of stupid blaspheming. ‘Le salaud!’ she shouted, then, inflamed by drink, an epithet even less complimentary.
‘Hush up, do!’ exclaimed the scandalized Pat, hastily gripping Wanda’s shoulder.
But Wanda was out to defend her faith, and she did it in somewhat peculiar language.
People had begun to turn round and stare; Wanda was causing quite a diversion. Dickie grinned and skilfully egged her on, not perceiving the tragedy that was Wanda. For in spite of her tender and generous heart, Dickie was still but a crude young creature, one who had not yet learnt how to shiver and shake, and had thus remained but a crude young creature. Stephen glanced anxiously at Mary, half deciding to break up this turbulent party; but Mary was sitting with her chin on her hand, quite unruffled, it seemed, by Wanda’s outburst. When her eyes met Stephen’s she actually smiled, then took the cigarette that Jeanne Maurel was offering; and something in this placid, self-assured indifference went so ill with her youth that it startled Stephen. She in her turn must quickly light a cigarette, while Pat still endeavoured to silence Wanda.
Valérie said with her enigmatic smile: ‘Shall we now go on to our next entertainment?’
They paid the bill and persuaded Wanda to postpone her abuse of the ingratiating Pujol. Stephen took one arm, Dickie West the other, and between them they coaxed her into the motor; after which they all managed to squeeze themselves in—that is, all except Dickie, who sat by the driver in order to guide the innocent Burton.
At Le Narcissethey surprised what at first appeared to be the most prosaic of family parties. It was late, yet the mean room was empty of clients, for Le Narcisse seldom opened its eyes until midnight had chimed from the church clocks of Paris. Seated at a table with a red and white cloth were the Patron and a lady with a courtesy title. ‘Madame,’ she was called. And with them was a girl, and a handsome young man with severely plucked eyebrows. Their relationship to each other was . . . well . . . all the same, they suggested a family party. As Stephen pushed open the shabby swing door, they were placidly engaged upon playing belotte.
The walls of the room were hung with mirrors thickly painted with cupids, thickly sullied by flies. A faint blend of odours was wafted from the kitchen which stood in proximity to the toilet. The host rose at once and shook hands with his guests. Every bar had its social customs, it seemed. At the Ideal one must share Monsieur Pujol’s lewd jokes; at Le Narcisse one must gravely shake hands with the Patron.
The Patron was tall and exceedingly thin—a clean-shaven man with the mouth of an ascetic. His cheeks were delicately tinted with rouge, his eyelids delicately shaded with kohl; but the eyes themselves were an infantile blue, reproachful and rather surprised in expression.
For the good of the house, Dickie ordered champagne; it was warm and sweet and unpleasantly heady. Only Jeanne and Mary and Dickie herself had the courage to sample this curious beverage. Wanda stuck to her brandy and Pat to her beer, while Stephen drank coffee; but Valérie Seymour caused some confusion by gently insisting on a lemon squash—to be made with fresh lemons. Presently the guests began to arrive in couples. Having seated themselves at the tables, they quickly became oblivious to the world, what with the sickly champagne and each other. From a hidden recess there emerged a woman with a basket full of protesting roses. The stout vendeuse wore a wide wedding ring—for was she not a most virtuous person? But her glance was both calculating and shrewd as she pounced upon the more obvious couples; and Stephen watching her progress through the room, felt suddenly ashamed on behalf of the roses. And now at a nod from the host there was music; and now at a bray from the band there was dancing. Dickie and Wanda opened the ball—Dickie stodgy and firm, Wanda rather unsteady. Others followed. Then Mary leant over the table and whispered:
‘Won’t you dance with me, Stephen?’
Stephen hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she got up abruptly and danced with Mary.
The handsome young man with the tortured eyebrows was bowing politely before Valérie Seymour. Refused by her, he passed on to Pat, and to Jeanne’s great amusement was promptly accepted.
Brockett arrived and sat down at the table. He was in his most prying and cynical humour. He watched Stephen with coldly observant eyes, watched Dickie guiding the swaying Wanda, watched Pat in the arms of the handsome young man, watched the whole bumping, jostling crowd of dancers.
The blended odours were becoming more active. Brockett lit a cigarette. ‘Well, Valérie darling? You look like an outraged Elgin marble. Be kind, dear, be kind; you must live and let live, this is life. . . .’ And he waved his soft, white hands. ‘Observe it—it’s very wonderful, darling. This is life, love, defiance, emancipation!’
Said Valérie with her calm little smile: ‘I think I preferred it when we were all martyrs!’
The dancers drifted back to their seats and Brockett manœuvred to sit beside Stephen. ‘You and Mary dance well together,’ he murmured. ‘Are you happy? Are you enjoying yourselves?’
Stephen, who hated this inquisitive mood, this mood that would feed upon her emotions, turned away as she answered him, rather coldly: ‘Yes, thanks—we’re not having at all a bad evening.’
And now the Patron was standing by their table; bowing slightly to Brockett he started singing. His voice was a high and sweet baritone; his song was of love that must end too soon, of life that in death is redeemed by ending. An extraordinary song to hear in such a place—melancholy and very sentimental. Some of the couples had tears in their eyes—tears that had probably sprung from champagne quite as much as from that melancholy singing. Brockett ordered a fresh bottle to console the Patron. Then he waved him away with a gesture of impatience.
There ensued more dancing, more ordering of drinks, more dalliance by the amorous couples. The Patron’s mood changed, and now he must sing a song of the lowest boites in Paris. As he sang he skipped like a performing dog, grimacing, beating time with his hands, conducting the chorus that rose from the tables.
Brockett sighed as he shrugged his shoulders in disgust, and once again Stephen glanced at Mary; but Mary, she saw, had not understood that song with its inexcusable meaning. Valérie was talking to Jeanne Maurel, talking about her villa at St. Tropez; talking of the garden, the sea, the sky, the design she had drawn for a green marble fountain. Stephen could hear her charming voice, so cultured, so cool—itself cool as a fountain; and she marvelled at this woman’s perfect poise, the genius she possessed for complete detachment; Valérie had closed her ears to that song, and not only her ears but her mind and spirit.
The place was becoming intolerably hot, the room too over-crowded for dancing. Lids drooped, mouths sagged, heads lay upon shoulders—there was kissing, much kissing at a table in the corner. The air was fœtid with drink and all the rest; unbreathable it appeared to Stephen. Dickie yawned an enormous, uncovered yawn; she was still young enough to feel rather sleepy. But Wanda was being seduced by her eyes, the lust of the eye was heavy upon her, so that Pat must shake a lugubrious head and begin to murmur anent General Custer.
Brockett got up and paid the bill; he was sulky, it seemed, because Stephen had snubbed him. He had not spoken for quite half an hour, and refused point-blank to accompany them further. ‘I’m going home to my bed, thanks—good morning,’ he said crossly, as they crowded into the motor.
They drove to a couple more bars, but at these they remained for only a very few minutes. Dickie said they were dull and Jeanne Maurel agreed—she suggested that they should go on to Alec’s.
Valérie lifted an eyebrow and groaned. She was terribly bored, she was terribly hungry. ‘I do wish I could get some cold chicken,’ she murmured.
As longas she lived Stephen never forgot her first impressions of the bar known as Alec’s—that meeting-place of the most miserable of all those who comprised the miserable army. That merciless, drug-dealing, death-dealing haunt to which flocked the battered remnants of men whom their fellow men had at last stamped under; who, despised of the world, must despise themselves beyond all hope, it seemed, of salvation. There they sat, closely herded together at the tables, creatures shabby yet tawdry, timid yet defiant—and their eyes, Stephen never forgot their eyes, those haunted, tormented eyes of the invert.
Of all ages, all degrees of despondency, all grades of mental and physical ill-being, they must yet laugh shrilly from time to time, must yet tap their feet to the rhythm of music, must yet dance together in response to the band—and that dance seemed the Dance of Death to Stephen. On more than one hand was a large, ornate ring, on more than one wrist a conspicuous bracelet; they wore jewelry that might only be worn by these men when they were thus gathered together. At Alec’s they could dare to give way to such tastes—what was left of themselves they became at Alec’s.
Bereft of all social dignity, of all social charts contrived for man’s guidance, of the fellowship that by right divine should belong to each breathing, living creature; abhorred, spat upon, from their earliest days the prey to a ceaseless persecution, they were now even lower than their enemies knew, and more hopeless than the veriest dregs of creation. For since all that to many of them had seemed fine, a fine, selfless and at times even noble emotion, had been covered with shame, called unholy and vile, so gradually they themselves had sunk down to the level upon which the world placed their emotions. And looking with abhorrence upon these men, drink-sodden, doped as were only too many, Stephen yet felt that some terrifying thing stalked abroad in that unhappy room at Alec’s; terrifying because if there were a God His anger must rise at such vast injustice. More pitiful even than her lot was theirs, and because of them mighty should be the world’s reckoning.
Alec the tempter, the vendor of dreams, the dispenser of illusions whiter than snow; Alec, who sold little packets of cocaine for large bundles of notes, was now opening wine, with a smile and a flourish, at the next-door table.
He set down the bottle: ‘Et voilà, mes filles!’
Stephen looked at the men; they seemed quite complacent.
Against the wall sat a bald, flabby man whose fingers crept over an amber chaplet. His lips moved; God alone knew to whom he prayed, and God alone knew what prayers he was praying—horrible he was, sitting there all alone with that infamous chaplet between his fingers.
The band struck up a onestep. Dickie still danced, but with Pat, for Wanda was now beyond dancing. But Stephen would not dance, not among these men, and she laid a restraining hand upon Mary. Despite her sense of their terrible affliction, she could not dance in this place with Mary.
A youth passed with a friend and the couple were blocked by the press of dancers in front of her table. He bent forward, this youth, until his face was almost on a level with Stephen’s—a grey, drug-marred face with a mouth that trembled incessantly.
‘Ma sœur,’ he whispered.
For a moment she wanted to strike that face with her naked fist, to obliterate it. Then all of a sudden she perceived the eyes, and the memory came of a hapless creature, distracted, bleeding from bursting lungs, hopelessly pursued, glancing this way, then that, as though looking for something, some refuge, some hope—and the thought: ‘It’s looking for God who made it.’
Stephen shivered and stared at her tightly clenched hands; the nails whitened her flesh. ‘Mon frère,’ she muttered.
And now some one was making his way through the crowd, a quiet, tawny man with the eyes of the Hebrew; Adolphe Blanc, the gentle and learned Jew, sat down in Dickie’s seat beside Stephen. And he patted her knee as though she were young, very young and in great need of consolation.
‘I have seen you for quite a long time, Miss Gordon. I’ve been sitting just over there by the window.’ Then he greeted the others, but the greeting over he appeared to forget their very existence; he had come, it seemed, only to talk to Stephen.
He said: ‘This place—these poor men, they have shocked you. I’ve been watching you in between the dances. They are terrible, Miss Gordon, because they are those who have fallen but have not risen again—there is surely no sin so great for them, so unpardonable as the sin of despair; yet as surely you and I can forgive. . . .’
She was silent, not knowing what she should answer.
But he went on, in no way deterred by her silence. He spoke softly, as though for her ears alone, and yet as a man might speak when consumed by the flame of some urgent and desperate mission. ‘I am glad that you have come to this place, because those who have courage have also a duty.’
She nodded without comprehending his meaning.
‘Yes, I am glad that you have come here,’ he repeated. ‘In this little room, to-night, every night, there is so much misery, so much despair, that the walls seem almost too narrow to contain it—many have grown callous, many have grown vile, but these things in themselves are despair, Miss Gordon. Yet outside there are happy people who sleep the sleep of the so-called just and righteous. When they wake it will be to persecute those who, through no known fault of their own, have been set apart from the day of their birth, deprived of all sympathy, all understanding. They are thoughtless, these happy people who sleep—and who is there to make them think, Miss Gordon?’
‘They can read,’ she stammered, ‘there are many books. . . .’
But he shook his head. ‘Do you think they are students? Ah, but no, they will not read medical books; what do such people care for the doctors? And what doctor can know the entire truth? Many times they meet only the neurasthenics, those of us for whom life has proved too bitter. They are good, these doctors—some of them very good; they work hard trying to solve our problem, but half the time they must work in the dark—the whole truth is known only to the normal invert. The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can some day do that. . . . It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.’ He lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully at her for a moment or two. Then he touched her hand. ‘Do you comprehend? There is no destruction.’
She said: ‘When one comes to a place like this, one feels horribly sad and humiliated. One feels that the odds are too heavily against any real success, any real achievement. Where so many have failed who can hope to succeed? Perhaps this is the end.’
Adolphe Blanc met her eyes. ‘You are wrong, very wrong—this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice.’
Strange—this man was actually speaking her thoughts, yet again she fell silent, unable to answer.
Dickie and Pat came back to the table, and Adolphe Blanc slipped quietly away; when Stephen glanced round his place was empty, nor could she perceive him crossing the room through the press and maze of those terrible dancers.
Dickiewent sound asleep in the car with her head against Pat’s inhospitable shoulder. When they got to her hotel she wriggled and stretched. ‘Is it . . . is it time to get up?’ she murmured.
Next came Valérie Seymour and Jeanne Maurel to be dropped at the flat on the Quai Voltaire; then Pat who lived a few streets away, and last but not least the drunken Wanda. Stephen had to lift her out of the car and then get her upstairs as best she could, assisted by Burton and followed by Mary. It took quite a long time, and arrived at the door, Stephen must hunt for a missing latchkey.
When they finally got home, Stephen sank into a chair. ‘Good Lord, what a night—it was pretty awful.’ She was filled with the deep depression and disgust that are apt to result from such excursions.
But Mary pretended to a callousness that in truth she was very far from feeling, for life had not yet dulled her finer instincts; so far it had only aroused her anger. She yawned. ‘Well, at least we could dance together without being thought freaks; there was something in that. Beggars can’t be choosers in this world, Stephen!’