Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 444
‘You didn’t know my husband had become one of the people — a real peon — a Señor Peon, like Count Tolstoy became a Señor Moujik?’ said Doña Carlota, with an attempt at raillery.
‘Anyway it suits him,’ said Kate.
‘There!’ said Don Ramón. ‘Give the devil his dues.’
But there was something unyielding, unbending about him. He laughed and spoke to the women only from a surface self. Underneath, powerful and inscrutable, he made no connection with them.
So it was at lunch. There was a flitting conversation, with intervals of silence. It was evident that Ramón was thinking in another world, in the silence. And the ponderous stillness of his will, working in another sphere, made the women feel overshadowed.
‘The Señora is like me, Ramón,’ said Doña Carlota. ‘She cannot bear the sound of that drum. Must it play any more this afternoon?’
There was a moment’s pause, before he answered:
‘After four o’clock only.’
‘Must we have that noise to-day?’ Carlota persisted.
‘Why not to-day like other days!’ he said. But a certain darkness was on his brow, and it was evident he wanted to leave the presence of the two women.
‘Because the Señora is here: and I am here: and we neither of us like it. And to-morrow the Señora will not be here, and I shall be gone back to Mexico. So why not spare us to-day! Surely you can show us this consideration.’
Ramón looked at her, and then at Kate. There was anger in his eyes. And Kate could almost feel, in his powerful chest, the big heart swelling with a suffocation of anger. Both women kept mum. But it pleased them, anyhow, that they could make him angry.
‘Why not row with Mrs Leslie on the lake!’ he said, with quiet control.
But under his dark brows was a level, indignant anger.
‘We may not want to,’ said Carlota.
Then he did what Kate had not known anyone to do before. He withdrew his consciousness away from them as they all three sat at table, leaving the two women, as it were, seated outside a closed door, with nothing more happening. Kate felt for the time startled and forlorn, then a slow anger burned in her warm ivory cheek.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I can start home before then.’
‘No! No!’ said Doña Carlota, with a Spanish wail. ‘Don’t leave me. Stay with me till evening, and help me to amuse Don Cipriano. He is coming to supper.’
CHAPTER XI
Lords of the Day and Night
When lunch was over, Ramón went to his room, to sleep for an hour. It was a hot, still afternoon. Clouds were standing erect and splendid, at the west end of the lake, like messengers. Ramón went into his room and closed the window-doors and the shutters, till it was quite dark, save for yellow pencils of light that stood like substance on the darkness, from the cracks of the shutters.
He took off his clothes, and in the darkness thrust his clenched fists upwards above his head, in a terrible tension of stretched, upright prayer. In his eyes was only darkness, and slowly the darkness revolved in his brain, too, till he was mindless. Only a powerful will stretched itself and quivered from his spine in an immense tension of prayer. Stretched the invisible bow of the body in the darkness with inhuman tension, erect, till the arrows of the soul, mindless, shot to the mark, and the prayer reached its goal.
Then, suddenly, the clenched and quivering arms dropped, the body relaxed into softness. The man had reached his strength again. He had broken the cords of the world, and was free in the other strength.
Softly, delicately, taking great care not to think, not to remember, not to disturb the poisonous snakes of mental consciousness, he picked up a thin, fine blanket, wrapped it round him, and lay down on the pile of mats on the floor. In an instant he was asleep.
He slept in complete oblivion for about an hour. Then suddenly he opened his eyes wide. He saw the velvety darkness, and the pencils of light gone frail. The sun had moved. Listening, there seemed not a sound in the world: there was no world.
Then he began to hear. He heard the faint rumble of an ox-wagon: then leaves in a wind: then a faint tapping noise: then the creak of some bird calling.
He rose and quickly dressed in the dark, and threw open the doors. It was mid-afternoon, with a hot wind blowing, and clouds reared up dark and bronze in the west, the sun hidden. But the rain would not fall yet. He took a big straw hat and balanced it on his head. It had a round crest of black and white and blue feathers, like an eye, or a sun, in front. He heard the low sound of women talking. Ah, the strange woman! He had forgotten her. And Carlota! Carlota was here! He thought of her for a moment, and of her curious opposition. Then, before he could be angry, he lifted his breast again in the black, mindless prayer, his eyes went dark, and the sense of opposition left him.
He went quickly, driftingly along the terrace to the stone stairs that led down to the inner entrance-way. Going through to the courtyard, he saw two men packing bales of bananas upon donkeys, under a shed. The soldiers were sleeping in the zaguán. Through the open doors, up the avenue of trees, he could see an ox-wagon slowly retreating. Within the courtyard there was the sharp ringing of metal hammered on an anvil. It came from a corner where was a smithy, where a man and a boy were working. In another shed a carpenter was planing wood.
Don Ramón stood a moment to look around. This was his own world. His own spirit was spread over it like a soft, nourishing shadow, and the silence of his own power gave it peace.
The men working were almost instantly aware of his presence. One after the other the dark, hot faces glanced up at him, and glanced away again. They were men, and his presence was wonderful to them; but they were afraid to approach him, even by staring at him. They worked the quicker for having seen him, as if it gave them new life.
He went across to the smithy, where the boy was blowing the old-fashioned bellows, and the man was hammering a piece of metal, with quick, light blows. The man worked on without lifting his head, as the patrón drew near.
‘It is the bird?’ said Ramón, standing watching the piece of metal, now cold upon the anvil.
‘Yes, Patrón! It is the bird. Is it right?’ And the man looked up with black, bright, waiting eyes.
The smith lifted with the tongs the black, flat, tongue-shaped piece of metal, and Ramón looked at it a long time.
‘I put the wings on after,’ said the smith.
Ramón traced with his dark, sensitive hand an imaginary line, outside the edge of the iron. Three times he did it. And the movement fascinated the smith.
‘A little more slender — so!’ said Ramón.
‘Yes, Patrón! Yes! Yes! I understand,’ said the man eagerly.
‘And the rest?’
‘Here it is!’ The man pointed to two hoops of iron, one smaller than the other, and to some flat discs of iron, triangular in shape.
‘Lay them on the ground.’
The man put the hoops on the ground, one within the other. Then, taking the triangular discs, he placed them with quick, sensitive hands, so that their bases were upon the outer circle, and their apices touched the inner. There were seven. And thus they made a seven-pointed sun of the space inside.
‘Now the bird,’ said Ramón.
The man quickly took the long piece of iron: it was the rudimentary form of a bird, with two feet, but, as yet without wings. He placed it in the centre of the inner circle, so that the feet touched the circle and the crest of the head touched opposite.
‘So! It fits,’ said the man.
Ramón stood looking at the big iron symbol on the ground. He heard the doors of the inner entrance: Kate and Carlota walking across the courtyard.
‘I take it away?’ asked the workman quickly.
‘Never mind,’ Ramón answered quietly.
Kate stood and stared at the great wreath of iron on the ground.
‘What is it?’ she asked brightly.
‘The bird within the sun.’
‘Is that a bird?’
‘When it has wings.’
‘Ah, yes! When it has wings. And what is it for?’
‘For a symbol to the people.’
‘It is pretty.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ramón!’ said Doña Carlota, ‘will you give me the key for the boat? Martin will row us out.’
He produced the key from under his sash.
‘Where did you get that beautiful sash?’ asked Kate.
It was the white sash with blue and brown-black bars, and with a heavy red fringe.
‘This?’ he said. ‘We wove it here.’
‘And did you make the sandals too?’
‘Yes! They were made by Manuel. Later I will show you.’
‘Oh, I should like to see! — They are beautiful, don’t you think, Doña Carlota?’
‘Yes! Yes! It is true. But whether beautiful things are wise things, I don’t know. So much I don’t know, Señora. Ay, so much! — And you, do you know what is wise?’
‘I?’ said Kate. ‘I don’t care very much.’
‘Ah! You don’t care! — You think Ramón is wise, to wear the peasants’ clothes, and the huaraches?’ For once Doña Carlota was speaking in slow English.
‘Oh, yes!’ cried Kate. ‘He looks so handsome! — Men’s clothes are so hideous, and Don Ramón looks so handsome in those!’ With the big hat poised on his head, he had a certain air of nobility and authority.
‘Ah!’ cried Doña Carlota, looking at the other woman with intelligent, half-scared eyes, and swinging the key of the boat. ‘Shall we go to the lake?’
The two women departed. Ramón, laughing to himself, went out of the gate and across the outer yard, to where a big, barn-like building stood near the trees. He entered the barn, and gave a low whistle. It was answered from the loft above, and a trap-door opened. Don Ramón went up the steps, and found himself in a sort of studio and carpenter’s shop. A fattish young man with curly hair, wearing an artist’s blouse, and with mallet and chisels in his hand, greeted him.
‘How is it going?’ asked Ramón.
‘Yes — well — ’
The artist was working on a head, in wood. It was larger than life, conventionalized. Yet under the conventional lines the likeness to Ramón revealed itself.
‘Sit for me for half an hour,’ said the sculptor.
Ramón sat in silence, while the other man bent over his model, working in silent concentration. And all the time, Ramón sat erect, almost motionless, with a great stillness of repose and concentration, thinking about nothing, but throwing out the dark aura of power, in the spell of which the artist worked.
‘That is enough,’ he said at last, quietly rising.
‘But give me the pose before you go,’ said the artist.
Ramón slowly took off his blouse-skirt, and stood with naked torso, the sash with its blue and black bars tight round his naked waist. For some moments he stood gathering himself together. Then suddenly, in a concentration of intense, proud prayer, he flung his right arm up above his head, and stood transfixed, his left arm hanging softly by his side, the fingers touching his thigh. And on his face that fixed, intense look of pride which was at once a prayer.
The artist gazed with wonder, and with an appreciation touched with fear. The other man, large and intense, with big dark eyes staring with intense pride, yet prayerful, beyond the natural horizons, sent a thrill of dread and of joy through the artist. He bowed his head as he looked.
Don Ramón turned to him.
‘Now you!’ he said.
The artist was afraid. He seemed to quail. But he met Ramón’s eyes. And instantly, that stillness of concentration came over him, like a trance. And then suddenly, out of the trance, he shot his arm aloft, and his fat, pale face took on an expression of peace, a noble, motionless transfiguration, the blue-grey eyes calm, proud, reaching into the beyond, with prayer. And though he stood in his blouse, with a rather pudgy figure and curly hair, he had the perfect stillness of nobility.
‘It is good!’ said Ramón, bowing his head.
The artist suddenly changed; Ramón held out his two hands; the artist took them in his two hands. Then he lifted Ramón’s right hand and placed the back of it on his brow.
‘Adiós!’ said Ramón, taking his blouse again.
‘Adiós, Señor!’ said the artist.
And with a proud, white look of joy in his face, he turned again to his work.
Ramón visited the adobe house, its yard fenced with cane and overshadowed by a great mango-tree, where Manuel and his wife and children, and two assistants, were spinning and weaving. Two little girls were assiduously carding white wool and brown wool under a cluster of banana-trees: the wife and a young maiden were spinning fine, fine thread. On the line hung dyed wool, red, and blue, and green. And under the shed stood Manuel and a youth, weaving at two heavy hand-looms.
‘How is it going?’ called Don Ramón.
‘Muy bien! Muy bien!’ answered Manuel, with that curious look of transfiguration glistening in his black eyes and in the smile of his face. ‘It is going well, very well, Señor!’
Ramón paused to look at the fine white serape on the loom. It had a zig-zag border of natural black wool and blue, in little diamonds, and the ends a complication of blackish and blue diamond-pattern. The man was just beginning to do the centre — called the boca, the mouth: and he looked anxiously at the design that was tacked to the loom. But it was simple: the same as the iron symbol the smith was making: a snake with his tail in his mouth, the black triangles on his back being the outside of the circle: and in the middle, a blue eagle standing erect, with slim wings touching the belly of the snake with their tips, and slim feet upon the snake, within the hoop.
Ramón went back to the house, to the upper terrace, and round to the short wing where his room was. He put a folded serape over his shoulder, and went along the terrace. At the end of this wing, projecting to the lake, was a square terrace with a low, thick wall and a tiled roof, and a coral-scarlet bignonia dangling from the massive pillars. The terrace, or loggia, was strewn with the native palm-leaf mats, petates, and there was a drum in one corner, with the drum-stick upon it. At the far inner corner went down an enclosed stone staircase, with an iron door at the bottom.
Ramón stood a while looking out at the lake. The clouds were dissolving again, the sheet of water gave off a whitish light. In the distance he could see the dancing speck of a boat, probably Martin with the two women.
He took off his hat and his blouse, and stood motionless, naked to the waist. Then he lifted the drum-stick, and after waiting a moment or two, to become still in soul, he sounded the rhythmic summons, rather slow, yet with a curious urge in its strong-weak, one-two rhythm. He had got the old barbaric power into the drum.
For some time he stood alone, the drum, or tom-tom, lifted by its thong against his legs, his right hand drumming, his face expressionless. A man entered, bareheaded, running from the inner terrace. He was in the white cotton clothes, snow white, but with a dark serape folded on his shoulder, and he held a key in his hand. He saluted Ramón by putting the back of his right hand in front of his eyes for a moment, then he went down the stone stairway and opened the iron door.
Immediately men were coming up, all dressed alike, in the white cotton clothes and the huaraches, each with a folded serape over his shoulder. But their sashes were all blue, and their sandals blue and white. The sculptor came too, and Mirabal was there, also dressed in the cotton clothes.
There were seven men, besides Ramón. At the top of the stairs, one after another, they saluted. Then they took their serapes, dark brown, with blue eyes filled with white, along the edges, and threw them down along the wall, their hats beside them. Then they took off their blouses, and flung them on their hats.
Ramón left the drum, and sat down on his own serape, that was white with the blue and black bars, and the scarlet fringe. The drummer sat down and took the drum. The circle of men sat cross-legged, naked to the waist, silent. Some were of a dark, ruddy coffee-brown, two were white, Ramón was of a soft creamy brown. They sat in silence for a time, only the monotonous, hypnotic sound of the drum pulsing, touching the inner air. Then the drummer began to sing, in the curious, small, inner voice, that hardly emerges from the circle, singing in the ancient falsetto of the Indians:
‘Who sleeps — shall wake! Who sleeps — shall wake! Who treads down the path of the snake shall arrive at the place; in the path of the dust shall arrive at the place and be dressed in the skin of the snake — ’
One by one the voices of the men joined in, till they were all singing in the strange, blind infallible rhythm of the ancient barbaric world. And all in the small, inward voices, as if they were singing from the oldest, darkest recess of the soul, not outwards, but inwards, the soul singing back to herself.
They sang for a time in the peculiar unison like a flock of birds that fly in one consciousness. And when the drum shuddered for an end, they all let their voices fade out, with the same broad, clapping sound in the throat.
There was silence. The men turned, speaking to one another, laughing in a quiet way. But their daytime voices, and their daytime eyes had gone.
Then Ramón’s voice was heard, and the men were suddenly silent, listening with bent heads. Ramón sat with his face lifted, looking far away, in the pride of prayer.
‘There is no Before and After, there is only Now,’ he said, speaking in a proud, but inward voice.
‘The great Snake coils and uncoils the plasm of his folds, and stars appear, and worlds fade out. It is no more than the changing and easing of the plasm.
‘I always am, says his sleep.
‘As a man in a deep sleep knows not, but is, so is the Snake of the coiled cosmos, wearing its plasm.
‘As a man in a deep sleep has no to-morrow, no yesterday, nor to-day, but only is, so is the limpid, far-reaching Snake of the eternal Cosmos, Now, and forever Now.
‘Now, and only Now, and forever Now.
‘But dreams arise and fade in the sleep of the Snake.
‘And worlds arise as dreams, and are gone as dreams.
