Marion Drake, nice name, name like twist of brown coloured silk, silk that runs from fawn brown to dead leaf brown to adder-skin brown, one into the other without perceptible break in the subtle brown-brown shade of it. Nice brown taste, nice brown feel about her name, “night candles are burnt out and jocund day” but I have no reason to think of that. I don’t like Marion Drake meddling, why can’t she let me alone? I’ll have to rake out clothes, rake over clothes, can’t go up there to tea in my old garden smock, why not? These things are more comfortable now, can’t do it, will have to find some back-wash of pseudo-artistic finery as Marion writes in the little note (left under the butter and eggs basket) that she would be disappointed as the girl (who is she?) has read my lyrics, has never met a “poet,” wants to meet a poet, has been to Greece. Why Greece? What Greece? Greece is a thing of rocks that jag into you, every Greek line of poetry breaks you, jags into you, Hellenes the supreme masochists, hurting—how did they manage it? A line, a word, the name of a flower, the name of every flower, hyacinth — but that’s smoke blue, like clouded semi-precious stone. What shall I wear? The girl has been to Greece. There’s that old slate-grey blue thing that I can pull about a bit but it means spending the morning sewing and I wanted more wood, sun lies heavy on the rough brambles, berries are almost over, frost makes a veil, the bride of God, the dead bride, Persephone veil over the bushes, over me, Persephone in Hell. Greek dead. I am a Greek dead. Not a dead Greek. Hellenes are the supreme masochists. . and now she saw that the girl was a Hellene and this was odd for she had been so webbed over with the Egypt sand and sun-dust, with the quattrocento angel and the wax loveliness of the annunciation that she had forgotten (it appeared) stark colour, blue colour, colour of a jacinth, a smoke blue translucent stone that was one phase of Hellas. But Hellenes were masochists and when she looked into two blue eyes across the little extra festive bounty of Marion’s tea-table (the girl had driven some ten miles over from Krissenden) Hermione remembered her name, Hermione, my name is Hermione. Hermione was the mother of Helen, or was Hermione the daughter of Helen? Hermione, Helen and Harmonia. Hymen and Heliodora. Names that began with H and H was a white letter. H was the snow on mountains and Hermione (who now remembered that her name was Hermione) remembered snow on mountains, sensed the strong pull-forward of sea-breakers, sensing the foam that was white and the white steed of some race chariot. And white steeds, white flowers, white rocks looked at her out of enormous eyes set wide in a hard, clear, slightly semitic little face, clear skin, wide brows, hair twisted in two enormous coils and that odd commanding look and that certainty and that lack of understanding and that utter understanding that goes with certain types of people, Delia’s sort, people who were simple and domineering, never having known anything of scraping, of terror, of the wrong thing, of the wrong people. Hard face, child face, how can you be so hard? The smile froze across the white large teeth and the white perfect teeth showed the lips as hard, coral red, clear, beautifully cut and yet the child was not beautiful. Each feature was marked with distinction, with some race clarity but taken all in all, she was not beautiful, repellent a little—“How charming. You have really been to Hellas?”
Hellas, Hermione, herons, hypaticas, Heliodora. . did names make people? Was it saying “Hellas” and not “Greece” that was to save her? Speaking herself frigidly (slightly repelled) to this young old creature who had everything (Marion said so) Hermione was repelled and for the same reason strangely lighted, concentrated, brought to some poignant focus. O this was it. This was to be her undoing again, again, again. . she was not to be let drift and merge into the forest, into the cold green, into the cold shadows and the shadows that smelt of grape-blossom though there was never grape flowering in this Buckinghamshire valley forest. Trees smelt of green grape flowers but she was to be recalled, repelled from her musings, brought back; Morgan le Fay smile your little odd twisted smile for another will replace you. Smile and plunge back home into your little forest and say I’ll never see that hateful hard child again, hard, pedantic and so domineering for you are doomed Morgan le Fay. Don’t think you can get out of it. Smile and waste your brain. . try to waste your brain. . you have no brain. . where have I put my Greek Anthology?
Weave, that is your métier, Morgan le Fay, weave subtly, weave grape-green by grape-silver and let your voice weave songs, songs in the little hut that gets so blithely cold, cold with such clarity so that you are like a flower of green-grape flowering in a crystal globe, in an ice globe for the air that you breathe into your lungs makes you too part of the crystal, you are part of the air, part of the crystal, and the air in your lungs and the voice that rises to some impossible silver shrill note in this empty little hut is a voice of silver, you are nothing, a blur of nothing, only the air in your lungs and the beating of your lungs like wings and the high impossible note make you one with beauty, with reality though you are nothing, ugly dark blue mis-shapen gown, stooping to gather twigs, to light the fire, breathe in the fumes of the smoke and you are one with the forest. Gods, daemons. This is your character. Your voices, your lungs (breathing air) chain you to people, you have lungs like people, air is free to all. On the just and unjust. Air. Air is a deity. To-day he wears silver sandals, the frost of sandals is in his breath and when he kisses me I am taken with his winged heels to the top of Olympus and I stand viewing all Hellas. Hellas? Hellas? What of Hellas? O, Hellas was yesterday at Marion’s and that stark note of command, that demanding of me all that I have — what is the girl, she must be foreign, English people never care like this, don’t read everything, she picked my brains, how tired she left me. Morgan le Fay build your pile of branches, blow high your smoke. . breathe in your enchantments with the forest smoke, sing silver. . silver. . for you are doomed.
What is the matter with me? Why can’t I get away from people? I am in several pieces, it’s true, but I gave up the stark glory of the intellect, I chose finally this thing. O sister, my sister O fleet sweet swallow. I might not have had it. I chose it and I am taking the consequences of this choice which was the great choice, which was heaven. Unless you become as a little child, unless you become one with a little child, I have it and I am it and I don’t see why I can’t be let alone anyhow. Cornwall was some ledge of enchantment and Morgan le Fay fell under a druid altar and a god watching the sunrise, waiting for the sun-set so discovered her and sent his bird, the bird that came in, the sound of a child’s voice crying yet and I said yes, soit, so be it, bowed my head like Magdalene, like Mary and said yes and I know that God makes me one, one with trees, with the sea, this is my terrain, even as a baby I used to crawl away under the bushes, the great white rose bush was like a forest to me then and I made nests of twigs, pretended to be a bird, a great swan with my nest and the kittens were the cygnets. Nests and birds and the kittens whose fur was like down and the colour was right, brown cygnets, rather ugly for beautiful swan, that was me, great swan of four years under a white rose bush. Eugenia (I called her mama then) loved roses. Pull off the thorns, it is more polite, strip them carefully if you offer them to anybody, for it shows you have been brought up nicely and everything you do wrong reacts on your parents. Who had brought up Darrington? Or Cyril Vane? Thorns. Für bei den Rosen gleich die Dornen stehn. Toute épine a sa rose. It works both ways. But it was all right. I ran away. Vane said he would “look after me” but I ran away. I couldn’t sit night after night and see him not understanding, well bred annunciation angel in Chelsea, in Saint John’s Wood. We would have had a pretty house, everything I wanted and the romantic scandal but all patched up, poetical, and his family so wealthy. . I couldn’t have stood it. Except ye become as little children. O he might have tried to understand, just to have said, “good for you, splendid, you are risking your life again like any soldier” but he wasn’t a soldier and Darrington was only an imitation one though she didn’t hold that against him and he couldn’t be expected to understand. Für bei den Rosen gleich die Dornen stehn and after all there had been that beauty of pre-war Italy, pre-war Easter in Sorrento and the oranges that year had an unearthly fragrance. Freesias bordered the garden paths and she found violets to weave a crown. . wound into her hair so funny at night and Darrington called her Aphrogenia. Aphrogenia. . a blossom of flowering seas. . and a goddess and mother of Rome. Rome. The campagna. The Pincian Gardens, it was about this time, early winter that we went there. Tea in a little underground passage, very chic. Italian officers (pre-war) in blue cloaks. O sister my sister, O singing swallow. . all the same I don’t see why they can’t let me alone. I am Morgan le Fay (am I?) and I belong to trees, woods and I have every right to my security in this little hut with its delicious cold and its delicious isolation and I don’t want to be disturbed, worried by the pedantic wretched child. I can’t think of her as grown up. “Dear Mrs. Darrington” (she would call me that) “it meant so much to me to see you yesterday. I’ll send the car over to fetch you. It will be too far for you to walk,” (O bother her, bother her, bother her) “there’s no time for an answer. The car will call anyway. I’d be terribly, terribly disappointed. You can’t understand. I never met anyone before who knew the Greek Anthology” (bother her, damn her, I don’t) “it meant everything to talk that day of Mallarmé” (Mallarmé, had they? Tuerons la lune) “I beg of you. I am so very lonely.”