1
Every friend to tea at the club is an event. Never-to-be-forgotten. What each one says is written in my memory. And all of them are more real there than on their own backgrounds. Simpler.
They are overwhelming, bringing both life and themselves; at large. Shining; so that I want not to talk to them, but to keep them there in place and contemplate them.
But for them it is dull. Perhaps embarrassing. They find me empty-minded, distraite. And do not know why I am distraite. When they go, there is no reason for asking them to come again, but my desire to contemplate them.
Except Mrs. Orly.
Every moment in her presence is realisation. She babbles.... Has no ideas. No self. Knows nothing about anyone. But redeems everyone.... God can’t be worse than Mrs. Orly. And if she were on the judgment-seat, everyone would be recklessly forgiven. With a flushed little face and flashing eyes she would spank. Flare and scold. And then, pitiful helping hands. Unscrupulously covering.
Having no self, she brings everyone a rich sense of self.
Most people, all the time, in every relationship, seek only themselves. Past selves, if they are old....
Affection is joy in things past or things to come? Bereavement is losing one’s deposits.... That would explain why old people always think the past, the world of their own time, better than the one that is developing under their eyes. We can take only what we have. Even from genius. The accepting party must have within himself the same genius. Otherwise, no taking what is given. There comes a new way of thinking; a new world. But ultimately the changed world is the action of one’s own spirit. The only sureness in things is the action of one’s own spirit. Egoism. But egoism carried far enough....
Whoso would save his life must lose it. But not for the sake of saving it. And first he must have a life he loves well enough to make it worth losing. Perhaps all those big sayings of Christ are dangerous for small people. So the Catholics won’t trust them with the Bible. The Bible let loose means a crowd of uncultured little churches; fighting each other.
Insufficient egoism keeps people plaintive. That’s another line of thought, but it joins. Egoism must be huge. Free from self.
Then I am the smallest thing I know. Caring only for the come and go of days, and the promise of more days. There is not a soul I would sacrifice myself for. Nor even Michael, in his helplessness. When I felt that the world must stop to prevent his going to the Russian war, it was myself I feared to lose. Otherwise I should want to stop the world for all who go to be killed on battlefields. I do; a little. But that may be fear.
2
“You were a lovely person in your blue gown.” A lovely person in your blue gown....
“You were a lovely person in your blue gown.”
For that moment, walking across the empty spaces of the large high room full of blazing lights—that was when it was I felt him looking, and felt myself not there but looking on, with his eyes—I was a lovely person in a blue gown....
“You were a lovely person in your blue gown. Again you surprise me with a new aspect. I’ve seen you look charming, in Miriam’s quiet way. Didn’t know you could be splendid. Don’t fly out. It’s all right. I’m staying friends. Honour bright. For the present.”
That was written in the study in some luminous interval, eyes on a person crossing a room in a blue gown. Written on his principle of the niceness of saying nice things and having them said.... He is right. It works.
“You were a lovely person....”
Yet there is something wrong in his way of wanting effects, illusions. Seeing through them even while he goes under to them. Outline and surface, the lines of flowing draperies, carriage, the shape of a skull, he sees as fine because he sees them emerging from a fire-mist and a planet. Pitiful, and passing in their turn towards other forms. Yet those he singles out are at once in a solemn compulsion. Comically consecrated. Set somewhere between heaven and earth.
But for a while it is a real state ... changing you.
What a difference it made to the sitting here in the club smoking-room, waiting for people to arrive. This might have been shivering loneliness, nervous anticipation of coming guests. Instead, there was calm, easy anticipation and forgetfulness. Yet even now he might be moving forward to some fresh beginning that would set her definitely in the past.
Meanwhile she was launched in a tide flowing brightly to music.... Launched with her own hands still steering the fragile barque ... how to continue the metaphor? ... the bright firelight was intruding another. The launched barque was best, suggesting cool freedom and movement. If it stayed in mind it would serve to shape the letter to be written to-day or to-morrow. To-morrow it must be, with the full evening ahead to be followed by the disappearance of the secret life in the companionship of Miss Holland.
To-morrow at Wimpole Street, where perhaps already another letter would have arrived....
The fragile barque; ships that pass in the Night. In sunlight. There is no night. For those who are alive there is no darkness. Meetings and meetings and meetings, and every time a new setting.
“You are being made. You’ve no idea how you are growing.”
Better to find out for oneself and be grateful. But he must always be instructing.... Yet there was joy apart from him. Joy that had lived so long in secret, flowing out now across the strange world of people and events.
She blessed the club. Its gift at the moment when solitude had departed from her home-life, of a new solitude; strange lives surrounding her without pressure, and sometimes granting these large quiet moments.
The door opened upon Miss Holland....
Miss Holland at an immense distance. And somehow changed; coming in like a visitor. She was dressed, what she called twollettay, and evidently at the height of her social form. Free for the evening and looking in here on her way almost as if she knew how supporting would be her familiar figure, ceremonially transformed, at this moment of first launching out as an evening hostess.
Miriam watched her come largely down the empty room. Ah, hers was splendour, par exemple! How well she bore the high spaciousness. Hers was an effectiveness that made its own terms, in advance.
“They’ve made you an enchanting table,” said Miss Holland, reaching the fireplace to stand sideways, firm hand on the mantelpiece and well-shod foot extended to the blaze.
Miriam had given no thought to the table. She gazed admiringly. What nobility of form and outline....
The large shady hat hid the limp hair and gave the eyes more than their usual depth. They were alight altogether, hesitating. She was communing with herself, eager to communicate. What? Something about Flaxman’s. No, or she would be frowning. And this high social moment was not for such things.
Miriam plunged into the story of her visit to Dr. Densley, compressing it to a few phrases, and throwing up her hands with the despairing gesture of the correct hostess off duty, told how he had invited himself to her party as an awkward fifth.
“But he gave you good news, or you would not look so bonny and happy.”
“Said Densleyish things. A number of old saws. Overwork, late hours, heading for a crash. Said that for a New Woman I am disquietingly sane, and that my criminal carelessness about things that most women are in a reasonable hurry over, may possibly mean that I’m in for a long life.”
“A most ingenious theory!”
“I don’t know. He’s been reading Shaw. Can’t believe that women really think about anything but capturing a man; for life. He wound up by imploring me not to miss marriage and what of all things do you think is his idea, or at least the idea that most appeals to him in marriage? The famous ‘conflict for supremacy!’”
“Indeed an unfortunate definition of matrimony.”
“Yes, but wait. That’s not all. Talk about women getting hypnotised by ideas! His mind, his so scientific mind—is putty. With immense solemnity he informed me, ‘No woman, dear girl, is truly happy until she is the loser in that supreme conflict.’”
“Dear, dear! An essentially pagan view.”
“It’s the view of a man who knows he would lose.”
“I trust you did not tell the poor thing that!”
“Oh, but I did. I know it’s begging the question. But I say things like that on principle. Anything to break up addlepated masculine complacency. Not that it matters a toss to women, but because it’s all over everything in the world like a fungus, hiding the revelations waiting on every bush.”
“What was his response?”
“He looked very sick for a moment, and then laughed his laugh and began repeating himself. Went back to his saws about wasting youth.”
“Indeed, indeed, many are doomed to that. There at least he is right. Though most certainly not in regard to yourself. A propos, I am dining here, with the Wheelers. The child is in great trouble. The Polish ’cellist, it seems, is not after all to be in London this season. She is in despair.
“Of course, after coming across the world to see him.”
“In despair. They must now, if they can raise sufficient funds, go to Poland. It seems that there is a lady, high up in the social scale and a patroness of musicians in general, who might be willing to help, provided that the ’cellist is willing to see the child and to make an exception to his rule of not taking pupils. It is therefore imperative to communicate with him by letter. I have been wondering whether your Russian friend ...”
“Michael. Of course. I’ll ask him to-night. What is he to say?”
Miss Holland was flurried, transfigured; but still polite. Managing to phrase her decorous thanks before she hurried, almost running, away down the room. She returned in an instant, radiant.
“The Wheelers are delighted.”
But she was blushing. Evidently the Wheelers were in the next room. Could easily be brought in to state their needs. She wanted to keep them to herself. Be all in all to their stranded helplessness. And when a moment later a maid announced Dr. Densley, she made at once for the door, where she was held up for a moment by his entry, and so escaped back to the tremendous consultation.