Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 320
Lady Franks tried to turn off the conversation to the trickles of normal chit-chat. The Colonel was horribly bored — so were all the women — Arthur was indifferent. Only the young Major was implicated, troubled in his earnest and philosophic spirit.
“What I can’t see,” he said, “is the place that others have in your scheme.”
“Is isn’t a scheme,” said Aaron.
“Well then, your way of life. Isn’t it pretty selfish, to marry a woman and then expect her to live on very little indeed, and that always precarious, just because you happen to believe in Providence or in Chance: which I think worse? What I don’t see is where others come in. What would the world be like if everybody lived that way?”
“Other people can please themselves,” said Aaron.
“No, they can’t — because you take first choice, it seems to me. Supposing your wife — or Lilly’s wife — asks for security and for provision, as Sir William says. Surely she has a right to it.”
“If I’ve no right to it myself — and I HAVE no right to it, if I don’t want it — then what right has she?”
“Every right, I should say. All the more since you are improvident.”
“Then she must manage her rights for herself. It’s no good her foisting her rights on to me.”
“Isn’t that pure selfishness?”
“It may be. I shall send my wife money as long as I’ve money to send.”
“And supposing you have none?”
“Then I can’t send it — and she must look out for herself.”
“I call that almost criminal selfishness.”
“I can’t help it.”
The conversation with the young Major broke off.
“It is certainly a good thing for society that men like you and Mr. Lilly are not common,” said Sir William, laughing.
“Becoming commoner every day, you’ll find,” interjaculated the Colonel.
“Indeed! Indeed! Well. May we ask you another question, Mr. Sisson? I hope you don’t object to our catechism?”
“No. Nor your judgment afterwards,” said Aaron, grinning.
“Then upon what grounds did you abandon your family? I know it is a tender subject. But Lilly spoke of it to us, and as far I could see....”
“There were no grounds,” said Aaron. “No, there weren’t I just left them.”
“Mere caprice?”
“If it’s a caprice to be begotten — and a caprice to be born — and a caprice to die — then that was a caprice, for it was the same.”
“Like birth or death? I don’t follow.”
“It happened to me: as birth happened to me once — and death will happen. It was a sort of death, too: or a sort of birth. But as undeniable as either. And without any more grounds.”
The old, tremulous man, and the young man were watching one another.
“A natural event,” said Sir William.
“A natural event,” said Aaron.
“Not that you loved any other woman?”
“God save me from it.”
“You just left off loving?”
“Not even that. I went away.”
“What from?”
“From it all.”
“From the woman in particular?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, that.”
“And you couldn’t go back?”
Aaron shook his head.
“Yet you can give no reasons?”
“Not any reasons that would be any good. It wasn’t a question of reasons. It was a question of her and me and what must be. What makes a child be born out of its mother to the pain and trouble of both of them? I don’t know.”
“But that is a natural process.”
“So is this — or nothing.”
“No,” interposed the Major. “Because birth is a universal process — and yours is a specific, almost unique event.”
“Well, unique or not, it so came about. I didn’t ever leave off loving her — not as far as I know. I left her as I shall leave the earth when I die — because it has to be.”
“Do you know what I think it is, Mr. Sisson?” put in Lady Franks. “I think you are just in a wicked state of mind: just that. Mr. Lilly, too. And you must be very careful, or some great misfortune will happen to you.”
“It may,” said Aaron.
“And it will, mark my word, it will.”
“You almost wish it might, as a judgment on me,” smiled Aaron.
“Oh, no, indeed. I should only be too sorry. But I feel it will, unless you are careful.”
“I’ll be careful, then.”
“Yes, and you can’t be too careful.”
“You make me frightened.”
“I would like to make you very frightened indeed, so that you went back humbly to your wife and family.”
“It would HAVE to be a big fright then, I assure you.”
“Ah, you are really heartless. It makes me angry.”
She turned angrily aside.
“Well, well! Well, well! Life! Life! Young men are a new thing to me!” said Sir William, shaking his head. “Well, well! What do you say to whiskey and soda, Colonel?”
“Why, delighted, Sir William,” said the Colonel, bouncing up.
“A night-cap, and then we retire,” said Lady Franks.
Aaron sat thinking. He knew Sir William liked him: and that Lady Franks didn’t. One day he might have to seek help from Sir William. So he had better placate milady. Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, he turned to his hostess.
“You wouldn’t mind, Lady Franks, if I said nasty things about my wife and found a lot of fault with her. What makes you angry is that I know it is not a bit more her fault than mine, that we come apart. It can’t be helped.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I disapprove of your way of looking at things altogether. It seems to me altogether cold and unmanly and inhuman. Thank goodness my experience of a man has been different.”
“We can’t all be alike, can we? And if I don’t choose to let you see me crying, that doesn’t prove I’ve never had a bad half hour, does it? I’ve had many — ay, and a many.”
“Then why are you so WRONG, so wrong in your behaviour?”
“I suppose I’ve got to have my bout out: and when it’s out, I can alter.”
“Then I hope you’ve almost had your bout out,” she said.
“So do I,” said he, with a half-repentant, half-depressed look on his attractive face. The corners of his mouth grimaced slightly under his moustache.
“The best thing you can do is to go straight back to England, and to her.”
“Perhaps I’d better ask her if she wants me, first,” he said drily.
“Yes, you might do that, too.” And Lady Franks felt she was quite getting on with her work of reform, and the restoring of woman to her natural throne. Best not go too fast, either.
“Say when,” shouted the Colonel, who was manipulating the syphon.
“When,” said Aaron.
The men stood up to their drinks.
“Will you be leaving in the morning, Mr. Sisson?” asked Lady Franks.
“May I stay till Monday morning?” said Aaron. They were at Saturday evening.
“Certainly. And you will take breakfast in your room: we all do. At what time? Half past eight?”
“Thank you very much.”
“Then at half past eight the man will bring it in. Goodnight.”
Once more in his blue silk bedroom, Aaron grimaced to himself and stood in the middle of the room grimacing. His hostess’ admonitions were like vitriol in his ears. He looked out of the window. Through the darkness of trees, the lights of a city below. Italy! The air was cold with snow. He came back into his soft, warm room. Luxurious it was. And luxurious the deep, warm bed.
He was still asleep when the man came noiselessly in with the tray: and it was morning. Aaron woke and sat up. He felt that the deep, warm bed, and the soft, warm room had made him sleep too well: robbed him of his night, like a narcotic. He preferred to be more uncomfortable and more aware of the flight of the dark hours. It seemed numbing.
The footman in his grey house-jacket was neat and Italian and sympathising. He gave good-morning in Italian — then softly arranged the little table by the bedside, and put out the toast and coffee and butter and boiled egg and honey, with silver and delicate china. Aaron watched the soft, catlike motions of the man. The dark eyes glanced once at the blond man, leaning on his elbow on the pillow. Aaron’s face had that watchful, half-amused expression. The man said something in Italian. Aaron shook his head, laughed, and said:
“Tell me in English.”
The man went softly to the window curtains, and motioned them with his hand.
“Yes, do,” said Aaron.
So the man drew the buff-coloured silk curtains: and Aaron, sitting in bed, could see away beyond red roofs of a town, and in the further heaven great snowy mountains.
“The Alps,” he said in surprise.
“Gli Alpi — si, signore.” The man bowed, gathered up Aaron’s clothes, and silently retired.
Aaron watched through the window. It was a frosty morning at the end of September, with a clear blue morning-sky, Alpine, and the watchful, snow-streaked mountain tops bunched in the distance, as if waiting. There they were, hovering round, circling, waiting. They reminded him of marvellous striped sky-panthers circling round a great camp: the red-roofed city. Aaron looked, and looked again. In the near distance, under the house elm-tree tops were yellowing. He felt himself changing inside his skin.
So he turned away to his coffee and eggs. A little silver egg-cup with a curious little frill round it: honey in a frail, iridescent glass bowl, gold-iridescent: the charm of delicate and fine things. He smiled half mockingly to himself. Two instincts played in him: the one, an instinct for fine, delicate things: he had attractive hands; the other, an inclination to throw the dainty little table with all its niceties out of the window. It evoked a sort of devil in him.
He took his bath: the man had brought back his things: he dressed and went downstairs. No one in the lounge: he went down to the ground floor: no one in the big hall with its pillars of yellow marble and its gold arches, its enormous, dark, bluey-red carpet. He stood before the great glass doors. Some red flowers still were blooming in the tubs, on the steps, handsome: and beautiful chrysanthemums in the wide portico. Beyond, yellow leaves were already falling on the green grass and the neat drive. Everywhere was silent and empty. He climbed the wide stairs, sat in the long, upper lounge where the papers were. He wanted his hat and coat, and did not know where to find them. The windows looked on to a terraced garden, the hill rising steeply behind the house. He wanted to go out.
So he opened more doors, and in a long drawing-room came upon five or six manservants, all in the grey house-jackets, all clean-shaven, neat, with neat black hair, all with dusters or brushes or feather brooms, and all frolicking, chattering, playing like so many monkeys. They were all of the same neat, smallish size. They were all laughing. They rolled back a great rug as if it were some football game, one flew at the curtains. And they merely looked at Aaron and went on chattering, and laughing and dusting.
Surprised, and feeling that he trespassed, he stood at the window a moment looking out. The noise went on behind him. So he turned, smiling, and asked for his hat, pointing to his head. They knew at once what he wanted. One of the fellows beckoned him away, down to the hall and to the long cupboard place where hats and coats and sticks were hung. There was his hat; he put it on, while the man chattered to him pleasantly and unintelligibly, and opened for him the back door, into the garden.
CHAPTER XIII. WIE ES IHNEN GEFAELLT
The fresh morning air comes startling after a central heated house. So Aaron found it. He felt himself dashing up the steps into the garden like a bird dashing out of a trap where it has been caught: that warm and luxurious house. Heaven bless us, we who want to save civilisation. We had better make up our minds what of it we want to save. The kernel may be all well and good. But there is precious little kernel, to a lot of woolly stuffing and poisonous rind.
The gardens to Sir William’s place were not imposing, and still rather war-neglected. But the pools of water lay smooth in the bright air, the flowers showed their colour beside the walks. Many birds dashed about, rather bewildered, having crossed the Alps in their migration southwards. Aaron noted with gratification a certain big magnificence, a certain reckless powerfulness in the still-blossoming, harsh-coloured, autumn flowers. Distinct satisfaction he derived from it.
He wandered upwards, up the succeeding flights of step; till he came to the upper rough hedge, and saw the wild copse on the hill-crest just above. Passing through a space in the hedge, he climbed the steep last bit of Sir William’s lane. It was a little vineyard, with small vines and yellowing leaves. Everywhere the place looked neglected — but as if man had just begun to tackle it once more.
At the very top, by the wild hedge where spindle-berries hung pink, seats were placed, and from here the view was very beautiful. The hill dropped steep beneath him. A river wound on the near side of the city, crossed by a white bridge. The city lay close clustered, ruddy on the plains, glittering in the clear air with its flat roofs and domes and square towers, strangely naked-seeming in the clear, clean air. And massive in the further nearness, snow-streaked mountains, the tiger-like Alps. Tigers prowling between the north and the south. And this beautiful city lying nearest exposed. The snow-wind brushed her this morning like the icy whiskers of a tiger. And clear in the light lay Novara, wide, fearless, violent Novara. Beautiful the perfect air, the perfect and unblemished Alp-sky. And like the first southern flower, Novara.
Aaron sat watching in silence. Only the uneasy birds rustled. He watched the city and the winding river, the bridges, and the imminent Alps. He was on the south side. On the other side of the time barrier. His old, sleepy English nature was startled in its sleep. He felt like a man who knows it is time to wake up, and who doesn’t want to wake up, to face the responsibility of another sort of day.
To open his darkest eyes and wake up to a new responsibility. Wake up and enter on the responsibility of a new self in himself. Ach, the horror of responsibility! He had all his life slept and shelved the burden. And he wanted to go on sleeping. It was so hateful to have to get a new grip on his own bowels, a new hard recklessness into his heart, a new and responsible consciousness into his mind and soul. He felt some finger prodding, prodding, prodding him awake out of the sleep of pathos and tragedy and spasmodic passion, and he wriggled, unwilling, oh, most unwilling to undertake the new business.
In fact he ran away again. He gave a last look at the town and its white-fanged mountains, and descended through the garden, round the way of the kitchen garden and garage and stables and pecking chickens, back to the house again. In the hall still no one. He went upstairs to the long lounge. There sat the rubicund, bald, boy-like Colonel reading the Graphic. Aaron sat down opposite him, and made a feeble attempt at conversation. But the Colonel wasn’t having any. It was evident he didn’t care for the fellow — Mr. Aaron, that is. Aaron therefore dried up, and began to sit him out, with the aid of The Queen. Came a servant, however, and said that the Signor Colonello was called up from the hospital, on the telephone. The Colonel once departed, Aaron fled again, this time out of the front doors, and down the steep little park to the gates.
Huge dogs and little dogs came bounding forward. Out of the lodge came the woman with the keys, smiling very pleasantly this morning. So, he was in the street. The wide road led him inevitably to the big bridge, with the violent, physical stone statue-groups. Men and women were moving about, and he noticed for the first time the littleness and the momentaneousness of the Italians in the street. Perhaps it was the wideness of the bridge and the subsequent big, open boulevard. But there it was: the people seemed little, upright brisk figures moving in a certain isolation, like tiny figures on a big stage. And he felt himself moving in the space between. All the northern cosiness gone. He was set down with a space round him.
Little trams flitted down the boulevard in the bright, sweet light. The barbers’ shops were all busy, half the Novarese at that moment ambushed in lather, full in the public gaze. A shave is nothing if not a public act, in the south. At the little outdoor tables of the cafes a very few drinkers sat before empty coffee-cups. Most of the shops were shut. It was too soon after the war for life to be flowing very fast. The feeling of emptiness, of neglect, of lack of supplies was evident everywhere.
Aaron strolled on, surprised himself at his gallant feeling of liberty: a feeling of bravado and almost swaggering carelessness which is Italy’s best gift to an Englishman. He had crossed the dividing line, and the values of life, though ostensibly and verbally the same, were dynamically different. Alas, however, the verbal and the ostensible, the accursed mechanical ideal gains day by day over the spontaneous life-dynamic, so that Italy becomes as idea-bound and as automatic as England: just a business proposition.
Coming to the station, he went inside. There he saw a money-changing window which was open, so he planked down a five-pound note and got two-hundred-and-ten lire. Here was a start. At a bookstall he saw a man buy a big timetable with a large railway map in it. He immediately bought the same. Then he retired to a corner to get his whereabouts.
In the morning he must move: where? He looked on the map. The map seemed to offer two alternatives, Milan and Genoa. He chose Milan, because of its musical associations and its cathedral. Milano then. Strolling and still strolling, he found the boards announcing Arrivals and Departures. As far as he could make out, the train for Milan left at 9:00 in the morning.
So much achieved, he left the big desolating caravanserai of the station. Soldiers were camped in every corner, lying in heaps asleep. In their grey-green uniform, he was surprised at their sturdy limbs and uniformly short stature. For the first time, he saw the cock-feathers of the Bersaglieri. There seemed a new life-quality everywhere. Many worlds, not one world. But alas, the one world triumphing more and more over the many worlds, the big oneness swallowing up the many small diversities in its insatiable gnawing appetite, leaving a dreary sameness throughout the world, that means at last complete sterility.
