I
“I believe you take as long to dress as I do,” she said pettishly; “I call it neither more nor less than poaching when a man looks so well turned out. And a Poet, too! Well—you can sit down; I have twenty minutes free.”
She was dressed for a bridge party. Dressed—oh, the tilt of the hat over her delicate little nose; the shadow it cast over the liquid eyes, ambushing them, as it were, for the flash and spring upon the victim! But I was no victim—not I! I knew my young friend too well. She endured me more or less gladly. I sat at her feet and learned the ways of the sex, and turned them into verse, or didn’t, according to the mood of the minute. I had versified her more than once. She was a rondeau, a triolet, a trill—nothing more.
“Why mayn’t a poet look respectable as well as another?” I asked, dropping into a chair.
“Because it isn’t in the picture. You were much more effective, you folks, when you went about with long hair, and scowled, with a finger on your brows. But never mind—you’ve given us up and we’ve given you up, so it doesn’t matter what women think of you any more.”
“You never said a truer word!” I replied, lighting my cigarette at hers. “The connection between women and poetry is clean-cut for the time. As for the future—God knows! You’re not poetic any more. And it’s deuced hard, for we made you.”
“Nonsense. God made us, they say—or Adam—I never quite made out which.”
“It’s a divided responsibility, anyhow. For the Serpent dressed you. He knew his business there—he knew that beauty unadorned may do well enough in a walled garden and with only one to see and no one else to look at. But in the great world, and with competition—no! And you—you little fools, you’re undoing all his charitable work and undressing yourselves again. When I was at the dance the other night I thirsted for the Serpent to take the floor and hiss you a lecture on your stupidities.”
She pouted: “Stupidities? I’m sure the frocks were perfectly lovely.”
“As far as they went, but they didn’t go nearly far enough for the Serpent. And believe me, he knows all the tricks of the trade. He wants mystery—he wants the tremble in the lips when a man feels—‘I can’t see—I can only guess, and I guess the Immaculate, the Exquisite—the silent silver lights and darks undreamed of.’ And you—you go and strip your backs to the waist and your legs to the knees. No, believe me, the Dark Continent isn’t large enough; and when there is nothing left to explore, naturally the explorer ceases to exist.”
“I think you’re very impertinent. Look at Inez. Wasn’t she perfectly lovely? She can wear less than any of us, and wear it well.”
“I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, if you mean that. But not along the Serpent line of thought. It was mathematical. I was calculating the chances for and against, all the time—whether that indiscreet rose-leaf in front would hold on. Whether the leaf at the back would give. At last I got to counting. She’s laughing—will it last till I get to five-and-twenty? thirty? And I held on to the switches to switch off the light if it gave. The suspense was terrific. Did she hold together after midnight? I left then.”
“I won’t tell you. You don’t deserve to hear,” she said with dignity.
A brief silence.
“What do you mean by saying you poets made us?” she began again, pushing the ash-tray toward me.
“Well, you know, as a matter of fact people long ago didn’t believe you had any souls.”
“Rot!”
“I shouldn’t think of contradicting you, my dear Joan, but it’s a fact.”
“Oh, the Turks, and heathen like that.”
“Well, no—the Church. The Fathers of the Church, met in solemn council, remarked you had no souls. It was a long time ago, however.”
“They didn’t!”
“They did. They treated you as pretty dangerous little animals, with snake’s blood in you. Listen to this: ‘Chrysostom’—a very distinguished saint—‘only interpreted the general sentiment of the Fathers when he pronounced woman to be a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, a painted ill.’ You see you had found the way to the rouge-box even then.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if they were right,” she said, incredibly. “I’ve often doubted whether I’ve a soul myself. And I’m sure Inez hasn’t.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“At all events, the poets thought you were not as pretty without one. We disagreed with the Church. We always have. So we took you in hand. Your soul was born, my dear Joan, in Provence, about the year 1100.”
She began to be a little interested, but looked at her tiny watch—grey platinum with a frosty twinkle of diamonds.
“Go on. I’ve ten minutes more.”
“Well—we were sorry for you. We were the Troubadours of Provence, and we found you kicked into the mud by the Church, flung out into the world to earn your bread in various disreputable ways—by marriage, and otherwise. You simply didn’t exist. We found your beautiful dead body in the snow and mud. And we picked you up and warmed you and set you on a throne all gold and jewels. Virtually, you never breathed until we wrote poems about you.”
“Jewels! We have always liked jewels,” she sighed.
“We gave you a wonderful crown first, all white and shining. We made you Queen of Heaven, and then even the Church had to eat humble pie and worship you, for you were Mary. We did that—we only. But that wasn’t enough. You opened your eyes, and grew proud and spoiled, and heaven was by no means enough. You wanted more. You would be Queen of Earth, too. And we did it! We gave you a crown of red jewels,—red like heart’s blood,—and we put a sceptre in your hand, and we fell down and worshipped you. And you were Venus. And you have been Queen of Europe and the New World ever since.”
“Of Europe only? Not of Asia? Why not?”
“Oh, they are much too old and wise in Asia. They are much wiser than we. Wiser than the Church. Wiser than the poets—than any of us.”
“What do they say?”
“Well—let’s think. That you have your uses—uses. That you are valuable in so far as you bear children and are obedient to your husbands. That, outside that, your beauty has its uses also within limits that are rather strictly marked. That in many rebirths you will develop your soul and be immortal; if you behave, that is! If not—then who shall say? But you have your chance all the time. With them you are neither goddess or fiend. You are just women. Not even Woman.”
“What ghastly materialism!”
“No, no! The happy mean. The perfect wisdom. Meanwhile, you yourselves are all hunting after the ideals of the market-place, the platform, the pulpit. I wonder how many extra rebirths it will cost you! Never mind. Time is long. The gods are never in a hurry, and you will arrive even if you only catch the last train.”
“But this is all fault-finding, and unfair at that. Will you have the goodness to advise? If we stick on our pedestals, you all run off to the frivolers. If we frivol, you weep for the pedestal. What is it you really want? If we knew, we’d try to deliver the goods, I’m sure.”
“I’m not!” I said, and reflected. Then, gathering resolution, “Have you the patience to listen to a story?”
“If it’s a good one. How long will it take?”
“Ten minutes. The author is the Serpent.”
“Then I’ll certainly put off Inez for fifteen minutes. Who’s it about?”—running to the telephone.
“Eve, Lilith, Adam.”
“Who was Lilith?”
“Adam’s first love.”
She sat down, her eyes dancing, her lips demure; the prettiest combination!
“I didn’t know he had one. But I might have guessed. They always have. Go on!”
I went on, and this is the story.