Italians! Of course. Well—Europeans. It is the difference between the Europeans and the Japanese that Hearn had meant.
5
Then there is tragedy! Things are not simple right and wrong. There are a million sides to every question; as many sides as there are people to see and feel them and in all big national struggles two clear sides, both right and both wrong. The man who wrote “The Struggle against Absolute Monarchy” was a Roundhead; and he made me a Roundhead; Green’s History is Roundhead. I never saw Charles’ point of view or thought about it; but only of the unjust levies and the dissolution of Parliament and the dissoluteness of the Court. If I had seen Irving then it would have made a difference. He could never have been Cromwell. He is Charles. Things happen. People tell him things and he cannot understand. He believes in divine right ... sweet and gentle, with perfect manners for all ... perfect in private life ... the first gentleman in the land, the only person free to have perfect manners; the representative of God on earth. “Decaying feudalism.” But they ought not to have killed him. He cannot understand. He is the scapegoat. Freedom looks so fine in your mind. Parliaments and Trial by Jury and the abolition of the Star Chamber and the triumph of Cromwell’s visionaries. But it means this gentle velvet-coated figure with its delicate ruffled hands, its sweetness and courtesy, going with bandaged eyes—to death. Was there no way out? Must one either be a Royalist or a Roundhead. Must monarchies decay? Then why did the Restoration come? What do English people want? “A limited Monarchy”; a King controlled by Parliament. As well not have a King at all. Who would not rather live with Charles than with Cromwell? Charles would have entertained a beggar royally. Cromwell was too busy with “affairs of State” to entertain beggars. Charles dying for his faith was more beautiful than Cromwell fighting for his reason. Yet the people must be free; there must be justice. Kings ought to be taught differently. He did not understand. No one believing in divine right can understand. Was the idea of divine right a mistake? Can no one be trusted? Cromwell’s son was a weak fool. How can a country be ruled? People will never agree. What ought one to be if one can neither be quite a Roundhead nor quite a Cavalier? They worshipped two gods. Are there two Gods?... Irving ... walking gently about inside Charles feeling as he felt the beauty of the sunlit garden, the delicate clothes, the refinement of fine living, the charm of perfect association, the rich beauty of each day as it passed.... Charles died with all that in his eyes, knowing it good. Cromwell was a farmer. Christ was a carpenter. Christ did not bother about kings. “Render unto Cæsar.”
CHAPTER XVI
1
They had walked swiftly and silently along through the bright evening daylight of the Finchley Road. Miriam held her knowledge suspended, looking forward to the enclosure at the end of the few minutes’ walk. But the conservatoire was not enclosed. The clear bright light flooding the rows and rows of seated summer clad Hampstead people and lighting up every corner of the level square hall was like the outside evening daylight. The air seemed as pure as the outside air. She followed Mr. Hancock to their seats at the gangway end of the fourth row passing between the sounds echoing thinly from the platform and the wave of attention sweeping towards the platform from the massed rows of intelligent faces. As they sat down the chairman’s voice ceased and the lights were lowered; but so slightly that the hall was still perfectly exposed and clear. The people still looked as though they were out of doors or in their large houses. This was modern improvement—hard clear light. Their minds and their thoughts and their lives and their clothes were always in it. She stared at the screen. A large slide was showing, lit from behind. It made a sort of stage scenery for the rest of the scene, all in one light. She fixed her attention. An enormous vessel with its side stove in, yes, “stove in”; in a dock. They got information at any rate and then perhaps got free and thought their own thoughts. No. They would follow and think and talk intelligently about the information. Rattling their cultured voices. Mad with pretences.... In dry dock, going to be repaired. Gazing sternly at the short man with the long pointer talking in an anxious high thin voice, his head with its upstanding crest of hair half-turned towards the audience, she suppressed a giggle. Folding her hands she gazed, shaking in every limb, not daring to follow what he said for fear of laughing aloud. Shreds of his first long sentence caught in her thoughts and gave her his meaning, shaking her into giggles. Her features quivered under her skin as she held them in forcing her eyes towards the distances of sky beyond the ship. Her customary expletives shot through her mind in rapid succession with each one the scarves and silk and velvet of the audience grew brighter about the edge of her circle of vision.
2
She was an upstart and an alien and here she was. It was more extraordinary in this Hampstead clarity than at a theatre or concert in town. It was a part of his world ... and theirs; one might get the manner and still keep alive.... Was he out of humour because he had realised what he had done or because she had been late for dinner? Was he thinking what his behaviour amounted to in the eyes of his aunt and cousins; even supposing they did not know that the invitation to dinner and the lecture had been given only this afternoon? He must have known it was necessary to go home and tidy up. When he said the conservatoire was so near that there would be plenty of time was not that as good as saying she might be a little late? Why had he not said they were staying with him? Next week was full of appointments for their teeth. So he knew they were coming ... and then to go marching in to the midst of them three quarters of an hour late and to be so dumbfounded as to be unable to apologise ... my dear I shall never forget the faces of those women. I could not imagine at first what was wrong. He was looking so strange. The women barely noticed me—barely noticed me. “I’m afraid dinner will be spoiled” he said, in his way. “They had all been sitting round the fire three mortal quarters of an hour waiting for me!” How they would talk. Their thoughts and feelings about employees could be seen at a glance. It was bad enough for them to have a secretary appearing at dinner the first evening of their great visit. And now they were sitting alone round the fire and she was at the lecture alone, unchaperoned, with him, “she had the effrontery to come to dinner three quarters of an hour late ...” feathery hair and periwinkle eyes and white noses; gentle die-away voices. Perhaps the thought of his favourite cousins coming next week buoyed him up. No wonder he wanted to get away to the lecture. He had come, reasonably; not seeing why he should not; just as he would have gone if they had not been there. Now he saw it as they saw it. There he sat. She gazed at the shifting scenes ... ports and strange islands in distant seas, sunlit coloured mountains tops peaking up from forests. The lecturing voice was far away, irrelevant and unintelligible. Peace flooded her.