Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated), page 383
“If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn’t — like causes must beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. You ought to be grateful that you know ‘St. Agnes Eve’ without the book; because, given the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key of the enigma, and approximately represents the latitude and longitude of Fanny Brawne; allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood upon the handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop just now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost perfectly duplicated — the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable as induction.”
Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering in some minute and inadequate corner — at an immense distance.
Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so I had accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness, and had devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before them, assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of that epoch-making theory are the lofty words: “If he has read Keats it’s the chloric-ether. If he hasn’t, it’s the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of tuberculosis, plus Fanny Brand and the professional status which, in conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.”
Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote, muttering:
The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
“No,” he muttered. “Little smoke — little smoke — little smoke. What else?” He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last of the Blaudett’s Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. “Ah!” Then with relief: —
The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and rewrote “gold — cold — mould” many times. Again he sought inspiration from the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had overheard:
And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
As I remembered the original it is “fair” — a trite word — instead of “young,” and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the attempt to reproduce “its little smoke in pallid moonlight died” was a failure.
Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose — the naked soul’s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved — unclean as we count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material, so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the pastille.
“That’s it,” I murmured. “That’s how it’s blocked out. Go on! Ink it in, man. Ink it in!”
Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein “loveliness” was made to rhyme with a desire to look upon “her empty dress.” He picked up a fold of the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff. Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket, rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie’s New Commercial Plants and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face, read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his ear.
“What wonder of Heaven’s coming now?” I thought.
“Manna — manna — manna,” he said at last, under wrinkled brows. “That’s what
I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that’s good!”
His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter: —
Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
He repeated it once more, using “blander” for “smoother” in the second line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes missed no stroke of any word) he substituted “soother” for his atrocious second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in the book — as it is written in the book.
A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
After a smiling pause — and good right had he to smile — he began anew, always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder: —
”The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
Rattling sleet — the wind-blown sleet.”
Then prose: “It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run away like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our own — a fairy sea — a fairy sea….”
He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army — this renewed pulse of the sea — and filled our ears till they, accepting it, marked it no longer.
”A fairyland for you and me
Across the foam — beyond …
A magic foam, a perilous sea.”
He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there are no more than five — five little lines — of which one can say: “These are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry.” And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and re-repeating:
A savage spot as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover.
But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals and cigarette-smoke.
Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then —
”Our open casements facing desolate seas
Forlorn — forlorn — ”
Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my hand.
”Our windows facing on the desolate seas
And pearly foam of magic fairyland — ”
”Not yet — not yet,” he muttered, “wait a minute.
Please wait a minute. I shall get it then — ”
Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
The dangerous foam of desolate seas ..
For aye.
“Ouh, my God!”
From head to heel he shook — shook from the marrow of his bones outwards — then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
“I’ve had a bit of a doze,” he said. “How did I come to knock the chair over? You look rather — ”
“The chair startled me,” I answered. “It was so sudden in this quiet.”
Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
“I suppose I must have been dreaming,” said Mr. Shaynor.
“I suppose you must,” I said. “Talking of dreams — I — I noticed you writing — before — ”
He flushed consciously.
“I meant to ask you if you’ve ever read anything written by a man called
Keats.”
“Oh! I haven’t much time to read poetry, and I can’t say that I remember the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?”
“Middling. I thought you might know him because he’s the only poet who was ever a druggist. And he’s rather what’s called the lover’s poet.”
“Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?”
“A lot of things. Here’s a sample that may interest you.”
Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and once written not ten minutes ago.
“Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the tinctures and syrups. It’s a fine tribute to our profession.”
“I don’t know,” said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the door one half-inch, “if you still happen to be interested in our trifling experiments. But, should such be the case — — ”
I drew him aside, whispering, “Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being rude, it wouldn’t do to take you off your instruments just as the call was coming through. Don’t you see?”
“Granted — granted as soon as asked,” he said unbending. “I did think it a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?”
“I hope I haven’t missed anything,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t say that, but you’re just in time for the end of a rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen, while I read it off.”
The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted: “‘K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals.’” A pause. “‘M.M.V. M.M.V. Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments to-morrow.’ Do you know what that means? It’s a couple of men-o’-war working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to each other. Neither can read the other’s messages, but all their messages are being taken in by our receiver here. They’ve been going on for ever so long. I wish you could have heard it.”
“How wonderful!” I said. “Do you mean we’re overhearing Portsmouth ships trying to talk to each other — that we’re eavesdropping across half South England?”
“Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear.”
“Why is that?”
“God knows — and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is faulty; perhaps the receivers aren’t tuned to receive just the number of vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and there. Just enough to tantalise.”
Again the Morse sprang to life.
“That’s one of ‘em complaining now. Listen: ‘Disheartening — most disheartening.’ It’s quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic seance? It reminds me of that sometimes — odds and ends of messages coming out of nowhere — a word here and there — no good at all.”
“But mediums are all impostors,” said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway, lighting an asthma-cigarette. “They only do it for the money they can make. I’ve seen ‘em.”
“Here’s Poole, at last — clear as a bell. L.L.L. Now we sha’n’t be long.”
Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. “Anything you’d like to tell ‘em?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll go home and get to bed. I’m feeling a little tired.”
SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
“And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be the same.
“And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick. Their knops and their branches shall be the same.” — Exodus.
”Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone —
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on” —
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree,
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And, Hey then up go we!
A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!
And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders to their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
Our doorways that, in time of fear,
We opened overwide
Shall softly close from year to year
Till all be purified;
For though no fluttering fan be heard
Nor chaff be seen to flee —
The Lord shall winnow the Lord’s Preferred —
And, Hey then up go we!
Our altars which the heathen brake
Shall rankly smoke anew,
And anise, mint, and cummin take
Their dread and sovereign due,
Whereby the buttons of our trade
Shall all restored be
With curious work in gilt and braid,
And, Hey then up go we!
Then come, my brethren, and prepare
The candlesticks and bells,
The scarlet, brass, and badger’s hair
Wherein our Honour dwells,
And straitly fence and strictly keep
The Ark’s integrity
Till Armageddon break our sleep …
And, Hey then up go we!
THE ARMY OF A DREAM
PART I
I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
* * * * *
It was entirely natural that I should be talking to “Boy” Bayley. We had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think he stayed a long, long time.
But now he had come back.
“Are you still a Tynesider?” I asked.
“I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son,” he replied.
“Guard which? They’ve been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don’t pull my leg,
Boy.”
“I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
Does that make it any clearer?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren’t a step from barracks. Keep on my right side. I’m — I’m a bit deaf on the near.”
We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could see no sentry at the gates.
“There ain’t any,” said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
“Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
are our chaps — but what am I thinking of? You must know most of ‘em.
Devine’s my second in command now. There’s old Luttrell — remember him at
Cherat? — Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
Pigeon, and Kyd.”
With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember that they had all been Tynesiders.
“I’ve never seen this sort of place,” I said, looking round. “Half the men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children doing?”
“Eating, I hope,” Boy Bayley answered. “Our canteens would never pay if it wasn’t for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started people looked on ‘em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or two to lunch in ‘em, and they’ve been grossly fashionable since.”
“So I see,” I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
“I give it up,” I said. “This is guilty splendour that I don’t understand.”
