2
There was to be another week-end. Again there would be the sense of being a visitor amongst other visitors; visitor was not the word; there was a French word which described the thing, “convive,” “les convives” ... people sitting easily about a table with flushed faces ... someone standing drunkenly up with eyes blazing with friendliness and a raised wineglass ... women and wine, the roses of Heliogabalus; but he was a Greek and dreadful in some way, convives were Latin, Roman; fountains, water flowing over marble, white-robed strong-faced people reclining on marble couches, feasting ... taking each fair mask for what it shows itself; that was what this kind of wealthy English people did, perhaps what all wealthy people did ... the maimed, the halt, the blind, compel them to come in ... but that was after the others had refused. The thing that made you feel jolliest and strongest was to forget the maimed, to be a fair mask, to keep everything else out and be a little circle of people knowing that everything was kept out. Suppose a skeleton walked in? Offer it a glass of wine. People have no right to be skeletons, or if they are to make a fuss about it. These people would be all the brighter if they happened to have neuralgia; some strong pain or emotion made you able to do things. Taking each fair mask was a fine grown-up game. Perhaps it could be kept up to the end? Perhaps that was the meaning of the man playing cards on his death-bed. Defying God. That was what Satan did. He was brave; defying a tyrant ... “nothing to do but curse God and die.” Who said that? there was something silly about it; giving in, not real defiance. It didn’t settle anything; if the new ideas were true; the thing went on. The love of God was like the love of a mother; always forgiving you, ready to die for you, always waiting for you to be good. Why? It was mean. The things one wanted one could not have if one were just tame and good.... It is morbid to think about being good; better the fair mask—anything. But it did not make people happy. These people were not happy. They were not real.