Der Heimat zu:
Mein irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘And I think: perhaps she will get this letter as she is dining out with Gustave, and will read it to him in cold blood, like that letter from the man in the rubber trade which she once read out to me. I can see you so clearly before me. I can’t forget those eyes, those luminous, lustrous eyes, that soft cooing voice: “Alexander, listen. You never listen when I speak to you, just like water on a duck’s back” (oh, wouldn’t I listen now!), and those soft kisses, and our love.’
I remembered suddenly that the only thing that I had ever said to her that was at all encouraging, the only thing which showed any other than a sexual interest, was: ‘You shouldn’t eat so many chocolates; it’s bad for your teeth.’ And this, after having reluctantly bought her a box of Gala Peter — at five shillings a pound.
Love is like a match lit in the dark: it illumines all the lurking sensibilities for pain — your own and hers. How senseless, how unstable! Gustave looked triumphant at the end of satisfied achievement. And swiftly I conceived a situation typical of the incongruity of life. A plot for a short story. While one man was down and out, another, who has succeeded, was holding forth on the glory of struggle!
I felt a surface unhappiness which dominated the depths of my real happiness; I fretted, but all the time I felt that I was fretting over things not worth the pain. We were so earnest, so unforgiving, exacting, intense; we were shouting ourselves hoarse till we were deaf to the real inner voice which even in moments of peace seemed scarcely resolute enough to make itself heard; and beneath it all was the sense that all this, as it were borrowed emotion, though consuming and painful enough, was trivial and unnecessary.
‘Champagne! Champagne!’ The sound of flying corks, the sparkling wine, voices, music … I felt sorry for myself, jealous of my former casual self whom she had loved, of the thought that she had loved me when I was not worthy of her love, and that now I could have kissed her feet she should care for me no more. And as I watched her tears came to my eyes.
Dinner over, I was invited to play, literally dragged to the piano. I played that voluptuous bit from Tristan, but it aroused no enthusiasm. I was dishonoured. Dr. Murgatroyd gave us a comic song, which must have been a modern comic song about the time of Joseph Chamberlain. Mr. Walton, the British diplomatic representative, who, according to Who’s Who, was ‘privately educated’, had been instructed in the art of playing the piano, and urged by the military (who looked upon this distinguished civilian as withal a good fellow), took his position at the much tried upright piano, while we others, linking up in a brotherly trellis-work of interlocked hands, made a large circle: General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ standing by Uncle Emmanuel, Beastly by General ‘Pshe-Pshe’, Colonel Ishibaiashi by Beastly, I by Colonel Ishibaiashi, the French Colonel by me, and as the music began, shaking our crossed hands with more and more emphasis to the slow deliberate rhythm of the Auld Lang Syne, our shining faces as we sang out expressing beatitude and loyalty everlasting. Having completed the song, Mr. Walton repeated it with more precision and deliberation, Percy Beastly stressing the handshake which, as it were, determined that the word of Britain was as good in peace as in war. The Italian did not lag behind in warmth. Little Uncle Emmanuel, by the gravity with which he kept up the rhythm, showed that he had given his all, and had nothing more to give. Captain Negodyaev, probably still thinking of Percy Beastly’s boorishness, looked gloom itself, and, even as his country, stood aloof and only shared half-heartedly in the triumph of the Allied arms. Brown’s attitude, in its frank bright smile, betrayed the thought that though, to a Yank, foreigners all of us, we were a decent bunch, and that ‘better late than never’ was, after all, worth something to us, conceal it as we may. And the Frenchman in his cool but amiable detachment showed that he did his level best to recollect that France had had some small assistance from outside in winning her victorious war. On and on, on and on, our eyes shining, the sweat running down our faces, our clasped hands came down with a deadening thud to the ever-slackening pace, but gathering emphasis, of the song. If this was not the high climax of victory, the last pitch of the paroxysm of rejoicing, the apotheosis of triumph, the Allied cause victorious in excelsis, then there was no Allied cause. Mr. Walton, as if feeling that it was the Allied cause in excelsis, interjected between each bar of quavers two semi-quavers with his left hand low down on the scales, the effect of which can be imagined. Beastly stressed more and more violently, till one felt that one’s hands would drop off; the Jap sang louder and louder. Victory was ours. The enemy lay prostrate. Heaven had triumphed.
As the time of jollity came to an end and we were dancing in one another’s caps in the corridor (General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ in Colonel Ishibaiashi’s, I in the Italian Major’s, the French Colonel in mine, Beastly in the Czech’s, the Jap in the Yank’s, and so forth) suddenly I noticed Captain Negodyaev’s badge on a table in the hall. I picked it up quickly and went into the dining-room where he stood by the fire-place, brooding, and handed it back to him. ‘There.’
He took it darkly. Then, suddenly, he flung the badge into the fire, which, however — it being spring — was laid but not lit. ‘Well, that’s his affair,’ I thought, and went out into the hall to see the guests out.
When I returned to the dining-room I saw Vladislav crouching at the fire-place, and Captain Negodyaev standing over him, saying:
‘You blithering idiot! What are you squatting and staring at me for? Look for the damned thing! Look for it!’
44
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:
For thy love is better than wine.
‘SADIE.’
‘Yes. Sadie. I am afraid I shall always have that name now.’
The evening sun pressed through the window, over the carpet, over the silk chair. The flies raced like mad round the globe. They seemed to make this their headquarters — a meeting-place. And a wasp, too, was not long in coming. For a moment, we were alone.
‘What can I say? What is there to say?’ My words choked in my throat.
‘Little Prince, you cannot be as lonely as I am.’
The sun vanished, vanished from the carpet, from the silk chair. The flies dispersed to the windows and walls. It had become difficult to breathe. The clouds gathered more and more ominous. A sudden gust; the garden gate slammed. Then a few large and warm drops pelted the hard dusty road, and at once there was the sound of fine rain on the leaves and the hum, long and loud, in the air. And from afar rolled the dim basso of thunder. Already the lightning zigzagged once or twice, in front of your very brows, it seemed. The rain was one mass of grey vertical mist. We stood at the window, inhaling the fresh breezy boon. How long would it last?
‘He?’
‘He is there, with maman—talking.’
‘Gustave—’ I sighed.
‘I don’t like his name.’
‘Why? Flaubert was called Gustave. It ought to be distinguished. It’s no worse than mine any day. Georges — there’s only Georges Carpentier. Unsuitable association for an intellectual!’
‘If it were just the name …’ She looked at me. Suddenly, shyly: ‘I dreamt last night you and I were flying in an aeroplane,’ she said. ‘I threw out two of your books, and you were so angry, so angry — you leapt after them straight out of the aeroplane, and we were so high up, so dreadfully high up. I cried my eyes out, but they could not find you. Afterwards somehow you returned — but how I forget.’