THE LADYBIRD by D. H. Lawrence 1923 COMPLIMENTS OF Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks How many swords had Lady Beveridge in her pierced heart! Yet there always seemed room for another. Since she had determined that her heart of pity and kindness should never die. If it had not been for this determination she herself might have died of sheer agony, in the years 1916 and 1917, when her boys were killed, and her brother, and death seemed to be mowing with wide swaths through her family. But let us forget. Lady Beveridge loved humanity, and come what might, she would continue to love it. Nay, in the human sense, she would love her enemies. Not the criminals among the enemy, the men who committed atrocities. But the men who were enemies through no choice of their own. She would be swept into no general hate. Somebody had called her the soul of England. It was not ill said, though she was half Irish. But of an old, aristocratic, loyal family famous for its brilliant men. And she, Lady Beveridge, had for years as much influence on the tone of English politics as any individual alive. The close friend of the real leaders in the House of Lords and in the Cabinet, she was content that the men should act, so long as they breathed from her as from the rose of life the pure fragrance of truth and genuine love. She had no misgiving regarding her own spirit. She, she would never lower her delicate silken flag. For instance, throughout all the agony of the war she never forgot the enemy prisoners; she was determined to do her best for them. During the first years she still had influence. But during the last years of the war power slipped out of the hands of her and her sort, and she found she could do nothing any more: almost nothing. Then it seemed as if the many swords had gone home into the heart of this little, unyielding Mater Dolorosa. The new generation jeered at her. She was a shabby, old-fashioned little aristocrat, and her drawing-room was out of date. But we anticipate. The years 1916 and 1917 were the years when the old spirit died for ever in England. But Lady Beveridge struggled on. She was being beaten. It was in the winter of 1917--or in the late autumn. She had been for a fortnight sick, stricken, paralysed by the fearful death of her youngest boy. She felt she must give in, and just die. And then she remembered how many others were lying in agony. So she rose, trembling, frail, to pay a visit to the hospital where lay the enemy sick and wounded, near London. Countess Beveridge was still a privileged woman. Society was beginning to jeer at this little, worn bird of an out-of-date righteousness and aesthetic. But they dared not think ill of her. She ordered the car and went alone. The Earl, her husband, had taken his gloom to Scotland. So, on a sunny, wan November morning Lady Beveridge descended at the hospital, Hurst Place. The guard knew her, and saluted as she passed. Ah, she was used to such deep respect! It was strange that she felt it so bitterly, when the respect became shallower. But she did. It was the beginning of the end to her. The matron went with her into the ward. Alas, the beds were all full, and men were even lying on pallets on the floor. There was a desperate, crowded dreariness and helplessness in the place: as if nobody wanted to make a sound or utter a word. Many of the men were haggard and unshaven, one was delirious, and talking fitfully in the Saxon dialect. It went to Lady Beveridges heart. She had been educated in Dresden, and had had many dear friendships in the city. Her children also had been educated there. She heard the Saxon dialect with pain. She was a little, frail, bird-like woman, elegant, but with that touch of the blue-stocking of the nineties which was unmistakable. She fluttered delicately from bed to bed, speaking in perfect German, but with a thin, English intonation: and always asking if there was anything she could do. The men were mostly officers and gentlemen. They made little requests which she wrote down in a book. Her long, pale, rather worn face, and her nervous little gestures somehow inspired confidence. One man lay quite still, with his eyes shut. He had a black beard. His face was rather small and sallow. He might be dead. Lady Beveridge looked at him earnestly, and fear came into her face. Why, Count Dionys! she said, fluttered. Are you asleep? It was Count Johann Dionys Psanek, a Bohemian. She had known him when he was a boy, and only in the spring of 1914 he and his wife had stayed with Lady Beveridge in her country house in Leicestershire. His black eyes opened: large, black, unseeing eyes, with curved black lashes. He was a small man, small as a boy, and his face too was rather small. But all the lines were fine, as if they had been fired with a keen male energy. Now the yellowish swarthy paste of his flesh seemed dead, and the fine black brows seemed drawn on the face of one dead. The eyes, however, were alive: but only just alive, unseeing and unknowing. You know me, Count Dionys? You know me, dont you? said Lady Beveridge, bending forward over the bed. There was no reply for some time. Then the black eyes gathered a look of recognition, and there came the ghost of a polite smile. Lady Beveridge. The lips formed the words. There was practically no sound. I am so glad you can recognize me. And I am so sorry you are hurt. I am so sorry. The black eyes watched her from that terrible remoteness of death, without changing. There is nothing I can do for you? Nothing at all? she said, always speaking German. And after a time, and from a distance, came the answer from his eyes, a look of weariness, of refusal, and a wish to be left alone; he was unable to strain himself into consciousness. His eyelids dropped. I am so sorry, she said. If ever there is anything I can do-- The eyes opened again, looking at her. He seemed at last to hear, and it was as if his eyes made the last weary gesture of a polite bow. Then slowly his eyelids closed again. Poor Lady Beveridge felt another sword-thrust of sorrow in her heart, as she stood looking down at the motionless face, and at the black fine beard. The black hairs came out of his skin thin and fine, not very close together. A queer, dark, aboriginal little face he had, with a fine little nose: not an Aryan, surely. And he was going to die. He had a bullet through the upper part of his chest, and another bullet had broken one of his ribs. He had been in hospital five days. Lady Beveridge asked the matron to ring her up if anything happened. Then she drove away, saddened. Instead of going to Beveridge House, she went to her daughters flat near the park--near Hyde Park. Lady Daphne was poor. She had married a commoner, son of one of the most famous politicians in England, but a man with no money. And Earl Beveridge had wasted most of the large fortune that had come to him, so that the daughter had very little, comparatively. Lady Beveridge suffered, going in the narrow doorway into the rather ugly flat. Lady Daphne was sitting by the electric fire in the small yellow drawing-room, talking to a visitor. She rose at once, seeing her little mother. Why, mother, ought you to be out? Im sure not. Yes, Daphne darling. Of course I ought to be out. How are you? The daughters voice was slow and sonorous, protective, sad. Lady Daphne was tall, only twenty-five years old. She had been one of the beauties, when the war broke out, and her father had hoped she would make a splendid match. Truly, she had married fame: but without money. Now, sorrow, pain, thwarted passion had done her great damage. Her husband was missing in the East. Her baby had been born dead. Her two darling brothers were dead. And she was ill, always ill. A tall, beautifully-built girl, she had the fine stature of her father. Her shoulders were still straight. But how thin her white throat! She wore a simple black frock stitched with coloured wool round the top, and held in a loose coloured girdle: otherwise no ornaments. And her face was lovely, fair, with a soft exotic white complexion and delicate pink cheeks. Her hair was soft and heavy, of a lovely pallid gold colour, ash-blond. Her hair, her complexion were so perfectly cared for as to be almost artificial, like a hot-house flower. But alas, her beauty was a failure. She was threatened with phthisis, and was far too thin. Her eyes were the saddest part of her. They had slightly reddened rims, nerve-worn, with heavy, veined lids that seemed as if they did not want to keep up. The eyes themselves were large and of a beautiful green-blue colour. But they were full, languid, almost glaucous. Standing as she was, a tall, finely-built girl, looking down with affectionate care on her mother, she filled the heart with ashes. The little pathetic mother, so wonderful in her way, was not really to be pitied for all her sorrow. Her life was in her sorrows, and her efforts on behalf of the sorrows of others. But Daphne was not born for grief and philanthropy. With her splendid frame, and her lovely, long, strong legs, she was Artemis or Atalanta rather than Daphne. There was a certain width of brow and even of chin that spoke a strong, reckless nature, and the curious, distraught slant of her eyes told of a wild energy dammed up inside her. That was what ailed her: her own wild energy. She had it from her father, and from her fathers desperate race. The earldom had begun with a riotous, dare-devil border soldier, and this was the blood that flowed on. And alas, what was to be done with it? Daphne had married an adorable husband: truly an adorable husband. Whereas she needed a dare-devil. But in her mind she hated all dare-devils: she had been brought up by her mother to admire only the good. So, her reckless, anti-philanthropic passion could find no outlet--and should find no outlet, she thought. So her own blood turned against her, beat on her own nerves, and destroyed her. It was nothing but frustration and anger which made her ill, and made the doctors fear consumption. There it was, drawn on her rather wide mouth: frustration, anger, bitterness. There it was the same in the roll of her green-blue eyes, a slanting, averted look: the same anger furtively turning back on itself. This anger reddened her eyes and shattered her nerves. And yet her whole will was fixed in her adoption of her mothers creed, and in condemnation of her handsome, proud, brutal father, who had made so much misery in the family. Yes, her will was fixed in the determination that life should be gentle and good and benevolent. Whereas her blood was reckless, the blood of daredevils. Her will was the stronger of the two. But her blood had its revenge on her. So it is with strong natures today: shattered from the inside. You have no news, darling? asked the mother. No. My father-in-law had information that British prisoners had been brought into Hasrun, and that details would be forwarded by the Turks. And there was a rumour from some Arab prisoners that Basil was one of the British brought in wounded. When did you hear this? Primrose came in this morning. Then we can hope, dear. Yes. Never was anything more dull and bitter than Daphnes affirmative of hope. Hope had become almost a curse to her. She wished there need be no such thing. Ha, the torment of hoping, and the insult to ones soul. Like the importunate widow dunning for her deserts. Why could it not all be just clean disaster, and have done with it? This dilly-dallying with despair was worse than despair. She had hoped so much: ah, for her darling brothers she had hoped with such anguish. And the two she loved best were dead. So were most others she had hoped for, dead. Only this uncertainty about her husband still rankling. You feel better, dear? said the little, unquenched mother. Rather better, came the resentful answer. And your night? No better. There was a pause. You are coming to lunch with me, Daphne darling? No, mother dear. I promised to lunch at the Howards with Primrose. But I neednt go for a quarter of an hour. Do sit down. Both women seated themselves near the electric fire. There was that bitter pause, neither knowing what to say. Then Daphne roused herself to look at her mother. Are you sure you were fit to go out? she said. What took you out so suddenly? I went to Hurst Place, dear. I had the men on my mind, after the way the newspapers had been talking. Why ever do you read the newspapers! blurted Daphne, with a certain burning, acid anger. Well, she said, more composed. And do you feel better now youve been? So many people suffer besides ourselves, darling. I know they do. Makes it all the worse. It wouldnt matter if it were only just us. At least, it would matter, but one could bear it more easily. To be just one of a crowd all in the same state. And some even worse, dear. Oh, quite! And the worse it is for all, the worse it is for one. Is that so, darling? Try not to see too darkly. I feel if I can give just a little bit of myself to help the others--you know--it alleviates me. I feel that what I can give to the men lying there, Daphne, I give to my own boys. I can only help them now through helping others. But I can still do that, Daphne, my girl. And the mother put her little white hand into the long, white cold hand of her daughter. Tears came to Daphnes eyes, and a fearful stony grimace to her mouth. Its so wonderful of you that you can feel like that, she said. But you feel the same, my love. I know you do. No, I dont. Everyone I see suffering these same awful things, it makes me wish more for the end of the world. And I quite see that the world wont end-- But it will get better, dear. This time its like a great sickness--like a terrible pneumonia tearing the breast of the world. Do you believe it will get better? I dont. It will get better. Of course it will get better. It is perverse to think otherwise, Daphne. Remember what has been before, even in Europe. Ah, Daphne, we must take a bigger view. Yes, I suppose we must. The daughter spoke rapidly, from the lips, in a resonant, monotonous tone. The mother spoke from the heart. And Daphne, I found an old friend among the men at Hurst Place. Who? Little Count Dionys. You remember him? Quite. Whats wrong? Wounded rather badly--through the chest. So ill. Did you speak to him? Yes. I recognized him in spite of his beard. Beard! Yes--a black beard. I suppose he could not be shaven. It seems strange that he is still alive, poor man. Why strange? He isnt old. How old is he? Between thirty and forty. But so ill, so wounded, Daphne. And so small. So small, so sallow--smorto, you know the Italian word. The way dark people look. There is something so distressing in it. Does he look very small now--uncanny? asked the daughter. No, not uncanny. Something of the terrible far-awayness of a child that is very ill and cant tell you what hurts it. Poor Count Dionys, Daphne. I didnt know, dear, that his eyes were so black, and his lashes so curved and long. I had never thought of him as beautiful. Nor I. Only a little comical. Such a dapper little man. Yes. And yet now, Daphne, there is something remote and in a sad way heroic in his dark face. Something primitive. What did he say to you? He couldnt speak to me. Only with his lips, just my name. So bad as that? Oh yes. They are afraid he will die. Poor Count Dionys. I liked him. He was a bit like a monkey, but he had his points. He gave me a thimble on my seventeenth birthday. Such an amusing thimble. I remember, dear. Unpleasant wife, though. Wonder if he minds dying far away from her. Wonder if she knows. I think not. They didnt even know his name properly. Only that he was a colonel of such and such a regiment. Fourth Cavalry, said Daphne. Poor Count Dionys. Such a lovely name, I always thought: Count Johann Dionys Psanek. Extraordinary dandy he was. And an amazingly good dancer, small, yet electric. Wonder if he minds dying. He was so full of life, in his own little animal way. They say small people are always conceited. But he doesnt look conceited now, dear. Something ages old in his face--and, yes, a certain beauty, Daphne. You mean long lashes. No. So still, so solitary--and ages old, in his race. I suppose he must belong to one of those curious little aboriginal races of Central Europe. I felt quite new beside him. How nice of you, said Daphne. Nevertheless, next day Daphne telephoned to Hurst Place to ask for news of him. He was about the same. She telephoned every day. Then she was told he was a little stronger. The day she received the message that her husband was wounded and a prisoner in Turkey, and that his wounds were healing, she forgot to telephone for news of the little enemy Count. And the following day she telephoned that she was coming to the hospital to see him. He was awake, more restless, more in physical excitement. They could see the nausea of pain round his nose. His face seemed to Daphne curiously hidden behind the black beard, which nevertheless was thin, each hair coming thin and fine, singly, from the sallow, slightly translucent skin. In the same way his moustache made a thin black line round his mouth. His eyes were wide open, very black, and of no legible expression. He watched the two women coming down the crowded, dreary room, as if he did not see them. His eyes seemed too wide. It was a cold day, and Daphne was huddled in a black sealskin coat with a skunk collar pulled up to her ears, and a dull gold cap with wings pulled down on her brow. Lady Beveridge wore her sable coat, and had that odd, untidy elegance which was natural to her, rather like a ruffled chicken. Daphne was upset by the hospital. She looked from right to left in spite of herself, and everything gave her a dull feeling of horror: the terror of these sick, wounded enemy men. She loomed tall and obtrusive in her furs by the bed, her little mother at her side. I hope you dont mind my coming! she said in German to the sick man. Her tongue felt rusty, speaking the language. Who is it then? he asked. It is my daughter, Lady Daphne. You remembered me, Lady Beveridge! This is my daughter, whom you knew in Saxony. She was so sorry to hear you were wounded. The black eyes rested on the little lady. Then they returned to the looming figure of Daphne. And a certain fear grew on the low, sick brow. It was evident the presence loomed and frightened him. He turned his face aside. Daphne noticed how his fine black hair grew uncut over his small, animal ears. You dont remember me, Count Dionys? she said dully. Yes, he said. But he kept his face averted. She stood there feeling confused and miserable, as if she had made a faux pas in coming. Would you rather be left alone? she said. Im sorry. Her voice was monotonous. She felt suddenly stifled in her closed furs, and threw her coat open, showing her thin white throat and plain black slip dress on her flat breast. He turned again unwillingly to look at her. He looked at her as if she were some strange creature standing near him. Good-bye, she said. Do get better. She was looking at him with a queer, slanting, downward look of her heavy eyes as she turned away. She was still a little red round the eyes, with nervous exhaustion. You are so tall, he said, still frightened. I was always tall, she replied, turning half to him again. And I, small, he said. I am so glad you are getting better, she said. I am not glad, he said. Why? Im sure you are. Just as we are glad because we want you to get better. Thank you, he said. I have wished to die. Dont do that, Count Dionys. Do get better, she said, in the rather deep, laconic manner of her girlhood. He looked at her with a farther look of recognition. But his short, rather pointed nose was lifted with the disgust and weariness of pain, his brows were tense. He watched her with that curious flame of suffering which is forced to give a little outside attention, but which speaks only to itself. Why did they not let me die? he said. I wanted death now. No, she said. You mustnt. You must live. If we can live we must. I wanted death, he said. Ah, well, she said, even death we cant have when we want it, or when we think we want it. That is true, he said, watching her with the same wide black eyes. Please to sit down. You are too tall as you stand. It was evident he was a little frightened still by her looming, overhanging figure. I am sorry I am too tall, she said, taking a chair which a man-nurse had brought her. Lady Beveridge had gone away to speak with the men. Daphne sat down, not knowing what to say further. The pitch-black look in the Counts wide eyes puzzled her. Why do you come here? Why does your lady mother come? he said. To see if we can do anything, she answered. When I am well, I will thank your ladyship. All right, she replied. When you are well I will let my lord the Count thank me. Please do get well. We are enemies, he said. Who? You and I and my mother? Are we not? The most difficult thing is to be sure of anything. If they had let me die! That is at least ungrateful, Count Dionys. Lady Daphne! Yes. Lady Daphne! Beautiful, the name is. You are always called Lady Daphne? I remember you were so bright a maiden. More or less, she said, answering his question. Ach! We should all have new names now. I thought of a name for myself, but I have forgotten it. No longer Johann Dionys. That is shot away. I am Karl or Wilhelm or Ernst or Georg. Those are names I hate. Do you hate them? I dont like them--but I dont hate them. And you mustnt leave off being Count Johann Dionys. If you do I shall have to leave off being Daphne. I like your name so much. Lady Daphne! Lady Daphne! he repeated. Yes, it rings well, it sounds beautiful to me. I think I talk foolishly. I hear myself talking foolishly to you. He looked at her anxiously. Not at all, she said. Ach! I have a head on my shoulders that is like a childs windmill, and I cant prevent its making foolish words. Please to go away, not to hear me. I can hear myself. Cant I do anything for you? she asked. No, no! No, no! If I could be buried deep, very deep down, where everything is forgotten! But they draw me up, back to the surface. I would not mind if they buried me alive, if it were very deep, and dark, and the earth heavy above. Dont say that, she replied, rising. No, I am saying it when I dont wish to say it. Why am I here? Why am I here? Why have I survived into this? Why can I not stop talking? He turned his face aside. The black, fine, elfish hair was so long, and pushed up in tufts from the smooth brown nape of his neck. Daphne looked at him in sorrow. He could not turn his body. He could only move his head. And he lay with his face hard averted, the fine hair of his beard coming up strange from under his chin and from his throat, up to the socket of his ear. He lay quite still in this position. And she turned away, looking for her mother. She had suddenly realized that the bonds, the connexions between him and his life in the world had broken, and he lay there, a bit of loose, palpitating humanity, shot away from the body of humanity. It was ten days before she went to the hospital again. She had wanted never to go again, to forget him, as one tries to forget incurable things. But she could not forget him. He came again and again into her mind. She had to go back. She had heard that he was recovering very slowly. He looked really better. His eyes were not so wide open, they had lost that black, inky exposure which had given him such an unnatural look, unpleasant. He watched her guardedly. She had taken off her furs, and wore only her dress and a dark, soft feather toque. How are you? she said, keeping her face averted, unwilling to meet his eyes. Thank you, I am better. The nights are not so long. She shuddered, knowing what long nights meant. He saw the worn look in her face too, the reddened rims of her eyes. Are you not well? Have you some trouble? he asked her. No, no, she answered. She had brought a handful of pinky, daisy-shaped flowers. Do you care for flowers? she asked. He looked at them. Then he slowly shook his head. No, he said. If I am on horseback, riding through the marshes or through the hills, I like to see them below me. But not here. Not now. Please do not bring flowers into this grave. Even in gardens, I do not like them. When they are upholstery to human life. I will take them away again, she said. Please do. Please give them to the nurse. Daphne paused. Perhaps, she said, you wish I would not come to disturb you. He looked into her face. No, he said. You are like a flower behind a rock, near an icy water. No, you do not live too much. I am afraid I cannot talk sensibly. I wish to hold my mouth shut. If I open it, I talk this absurdity. It escapes from my mouth. It is not so very absurd, she said. But he was silent--looking away from her. I want you to tell me if there is really nothing I can do for you, she said. Nothing, he answered. If I can write any letter for you. None, he answered. But your wife and your two children. Do they know where you are? I should think not. And where are they? I do not know. Probably they are in Hungary. Not at your home? My castle was burnt down in a riot. My wife went to Hungary with the children. She has her relatives there. She went away from me. I wished it too. Alas for her, I wished to be dead. Pardon me the personal tone. Daphne looked down at him--the queer, obstinate little fellow. But you have somebody you wish to tell--somebody you want to hear from? Nobody. Nobody. I wish the bullet had gone through my heart. I wish to be dead. It is only I have a devil in my body that will not die. She looked at him as he lay with closed, averted face. Surely it is not a devil which keeps you alive, she said. It is something good. No, a devil, he said. She sat looking at him with a long, slow, wondering look. Must one hate a devil that makes one live? she asked. He turned his eyes to her with a touch of a satiric smile. If one lives, no, he said. She looked away from him the moment he looked at her. For her life she could not have met his dark eyes direct. She left him, and he lay still. He neither read nor talked throughout the long winter nights and the short winter days. He only lay for hours with black, open eyes, seeing everything around with a touch of disgust, and heeding nothing. Daphne went to see him now and then. She never forgot him for long. He seemed to come into her mind suddenly, as if by sorcery. One day he said to her: I see you are married. May I ask you who is your husband? She told him. She had had a letter also from Basil. The Count smiled slowly. You can look forward, he said, to a happy reunion and new, lovely children, Lady Daphne. Is it not so? Yes, of course, she said. But you are ill, he said to her. Yes--rather ill. Of what? Oh! she answered fretfully, turning her face aside. They talk about lungs. She hated speaking of it. Why, how do you know I am ill? she added quickly. Again he smiled slowly. I see it in your face, and hear it in your voice. One would say the Evil One had cast a spell on you. Oh no, she said hastily. But do I look ill? Yes. You look as if something had struck you across the face, and you could not forget it. Nothing has, she said. Unless its the war. The war! he repeated. Oh, well, dont let us talk of it, she said. Another time he said to her: The year has turned--the sun must shine at last, even in England. I am afraid of getting well too soon. I am a prisoner, am I not? But I wish the sun would shine. I wish the sun would shine on my face. You wont always be a prisoner. The war will end. And the sun does shine even in the winter in England, she said. I wish it would shine on my face, he said. So that when in February there came a blue, bright morning, the morning that suggests yellow crocuses and the smell of a mezereon tree and the smell of damp, warm earth, Daphne hastily got a taxi and drove out to the hospital. You have come to put me in the sun, he said the moment he saw her. Yes, thats what I came for, she said. She spoke to the matron, and had his bed carried out where there was a big window that came low. There he was put full in the sun. Turning, he could see the blue sky and the twinkling tops of purplish, bare trees. The world! The world! he murmured. He lay with his eyes shut, and the sun on his swarthy, transparent, immobile face. The breath came and went through his nostrils invisibly. Daphne wondered how he could lie so still, how he could look so immobile. It was true as her mother had said: he looked as if he had been cast in the mould when the metal was white hot, all his lines were so clean. So small, he was, and in his way perfect. Suddenly his dark eyes opened and caught her looking. The sun makes even anger open like a flower, he said. Whose anger? she said. I dont know. But I can make flowers, looking through my eyelashes. Do you know how? You mean rainbows? Yes, flowers. And she saw him, with a curious smile on his lips, looking through his almost closed eyelids at the sun. The sun is neither English nor German nor Bohemian, he said. I am a subject of the sun. I belong to the fire-worshippers. Do you? she replied. Yes, truly, by tradition. He looked at her smiling. You stand there like a flower that will melt, he added. She smiled slowly at him with a slow, cautious look of her eyes, as if she feared something. I am much more solid than you imagine, she said. Still he watched her. One day, he said, before I go, let me wrap your hair round my hands, will you? He lifted his thin, short, dark hands. Let me wrap your hair round my hands, like a bandage. They hurt me. I dont know what it is. I think it is all the gun explosions. But if you let me wrap your hair round my hands. You know, it is the hermetic gold--but so much of water in it, of the moon. That will soothe my hands. One day, will you? Let us wait till the day comes, she said. Yes, he answered, and was still again. It troubles me, he said after a while, that I complain like a child, and ask for things. I feel I have lost my manhood for the time being. The continual explosions of guns and shells! It seems to have driven my soul out of me like a bird frightened away at last. But it will come back, you know. And I am so grateful to you; you are good to me when I am soulless, and you dont take advantage of me. Your soul is quiet and heroic. Dont, she said. Dont talk! The expression of shame and anguish and disgust crossed his face. It is because I cant help it, he said. I have lost my soul, and I cant stop talking to you. I cant stop. But I dont talk to anyone else. I try not to talk, but I cant prevent it. Do you draw the words out of me? Her wide, green-blue eyes seemed like the heart of some curious, full-open flower, some Christmas rose with its petals of snow and flush. Her hair glinted heavy, like water-gold. She stood there passive and indomitable with the wide-eyed persistence of her wintry, blond nature. Another day when she came to see him, he watched her for a time, then he said: Do they all tell you you are lovely, you are beautiful? Not quite all, she replied. But your husband? He has said so. Is he gentle? Is he tender? Is he a dear lover? She turned her face aside, displeased. Yes, she replied curtly. He did not answer. And when she looked again he was lying with his eyes shut, a faint smile seeming to curl round his short, transparent nose. She could faintly see the flesh through his beard, as water through reeds. His black hair was brushed smooth as glass, his black eyebrows glinted like a curve of black glass on the swarthy opalescence of his brow. Suddenly he spoke, without opening his eyes. You have been very kind to me, he said. Have I? Nothing to speak of. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Everything finds its mate, he said. The ermine and the pole-cat and the buzzard. One thinks so often that only the dove and the nightingale and the stag with his antlers have gentle mates. But the pole-cat and the ice-bears of the north have their mates. And a white she-bear lies with her cubs under a rock as a snake lies hidden, and the male bear slowly swims back from the sea, like a clot of snow or a shadow of a white cloud passing on the speckled sea. I have seen her too, and I did not shoot her, nor him when he landed with fish in his mouth, wading wet and slow and yellow-white over the black stones. You have been in the North Sea? Yes. And with the Eskimo in Siberia, and across the Tundras. And a white sea-hawk makes a nest on a high stone, and sometimes looks out with her white head over the edge of the rocks. It is not only a world of men, Lady Daphne. Not by any means, said she. Else it were a sorry place. It is bad enough, said she. Foxes have their holes. They have even their mates, Lady Daphne, that they bark to and are answered. And an adder finds his female. Psanek means an outlaw; did you know? I did not. Outlaws, and brigands, have often the finest woman-mates. They do, she said. I will be Psanek, Lady Daphne. I will not be Johann Dionys any more, I will be Psanek. The law has shot me through. You might be Psanek and Johann and Dionys as well, she said. With the sun on my face? Maybe, he said, looking to the sun. There were some lovely days in the spring of 1918. In March the Count was able to get up. They dressed him in a simple, dark-blue uniform. He was not very thin, only swarthy-transparent, now his beard was shaven and his hair was cut. His smallness made him noticeable, but he was masculine, perfect in his small stature. All the smiling dapperness that had made him seem like a monkey to Daphne when she was a girl had gone now. His eyes were dark and haughty; he seemed to keep inside his own reserves, speaking to nobody if he could help it, neither to the nurses nor the visitors nor to his fellow-prisoners, fellow-officers. He seemed to put a shadow between himself and them, and from across this shadow he looked with his dark, beautifully-fringed eyes, as a proud little beast from the shadow of its lair. Only to Daphne he laughed and chatted. She sat with him one day in March on the terrace of the hospital, on a morning when white clouds went endlessly and magnificently about a blue sky, and the sunshine felt warm after the blots of shadow. When you had a birthday, and you were seventeen, didnt I give you a thimble? he asked her. Yes. I have it still. With a gold snake at the bottom, and a Mary-beetle of green stone at the top, to push the needle with. Yes. Do you ever use it? No. I sew rarely. Would it displease you to sew something for me? You wont admire my stitches. What would you wish me to sew? Sew me a shirt that I can wear. I have never before worn shirts from a shop, with a makers name inside. It is very distasteful to me. She looked at him--his haughty little brows. Shall I ask my maid to do it? she said. Oh, please, no! Oh, please, no, do not trouble. No, please, I would not want it unless you sewed it yourself, with the Psanek thimble. She paused before she answered. Then came her slow: Why? He turned and looked at her with dark, searching eyes. I have no reason, he said, rather haughtily. She left the matter there. For two weeks she did not go to see him. Then suddenly one day she took the bus down Oxford Street and bought some fine white flannel. She decided he must wear flannel. That afternoon she drove out to Hurst Place. She found him sitting on the terrace, looking across the garden at the red suburb of London smoking fumily in the near distance, interrupted by patches of uncovered ground and a flat, tin-roofed laundry. Will you give me measurements for your shirt? she said. The number of the neck-band of this English shirt is fifteen. If you ask the matron she will give you the measurement. It is a little too large, too long in the sleeves, you see, and he shook his shirt cuff over his wrist. Also too long altogether. Mine will probably be unwearable when Ive made them, said she. Oh no. Let your maid direct you. But please do not let her sew them. Will you tell me why you want me to do it? Because I am a prisoner, in other peoples clothes, and I have nothing of my own. All the things I touch are distasteful to me. If your maid sews for me, it will still be the same. Only you might give me what I want, something that buttons round my throat and on my wrists. And in Germany--or in Austria? My mother sewed for me. And after her, my mothers sister, who was the head of my house. Not your wife? Naturally not. She would have been insulted. She was never more than a guest in my house. In my family there are old traditions--but with me they have come to an end. I had best try to revive them. Beginning with traditions of shirts? Yes. In our family the shirt should be made and washed by a woman of our own blood: but when we marry, by the wife. So when I married I had sixty shirts, and many other things--sewn by my mother and my aunt, all with my initial, and the ladybird, which is our crest. And where did they put the initial? Here! He put his finger on the back of his neck, on the swarthy, transparent skin. I fancy I can feel the embroidered ladybird still. On our linen we had no crown: only the ladybird. She was silent, thinking. You will forgive what I ask you? he said, since I am a prisoner and can do no other, and since fate has made you so that you understand the world as I understand it. It is not really indelicate, what I ask you. There will be a ladybird on your finger when you sew, and those who wear the ladybird understand. I suppose, she mused, it is as bad to have your bee in your shirt as in your bonnet. He looked at her with round eyes. Dont you know what it is to have a bee in your bonnet? she said. No. To have a bee buzzing among your hair! To be out of your wits, she smiled at him. So! he said. Ah, the Psaneks have had a ladybird in their bonnets for many hundred years. Quite, quite mad, she said. It may be, he answered. But with my wife I was quite sane for ten years. Now give me the madness of the ladybird. The world I was sane about has gone raving. The ladybird I was mad with is wise still. At least, when I sew the shirts, if I sew them, she said, I shall have the ladybird at my fingers end. You want to laugh at me. But surely you know you are funny, with your family insect. My family insect? Now you want to be rude to me. How many spots must it have? Seven. Three on each wing. And what do I do with the odd one? You put that one between its teeth, like the cake for Cerebus. Ill remember that. When she brought the first shirt, she gave it to the matron. Then she found Count Dionys sitting on the terrace. It was a beautiful spring day. Near at hand were tall elm trees and some rooks cawing. What a lovely day! she said. Are you liking the world any better? The world? he said, looking up at her with the same old discontent and disgust on his fine, transparent nose. Yes, she replied, a shadow coming over her face. Is this the world--all those little red-brick boxes in rows, where couples of little people live, who decree my destiny? You dont like England? Ah, England! Little houses like little boxes, each with its domestic Englishman and his domestic wife, each ruling the world because all are alike, so alike. But England isnt all houses. Fields then! Little fields with innumerable hedges. Like a net with an irregular mesh, pinned down over this island and everything under the net. Ah, Lady Daphne, forgive me. I am ungrateful. I am so full of bile, of spleen, you say. My only wisdom is to keep my mouth shut. Why do you hate everything? she said, her own face going bitter. Not everything. If I were free! If I were outside the law. Ah, Lady Daphne, how does one get outside the law? By going inside oneself, she said. Not outside. His face took on a greater expression of disgust. No, no. I am a man, I am a man, even if I am little. I am not a spirit, that coils itself inside a shell. In my soul is anger, anger, anger. Give me room for my anger. Give me room for that. His black eyes looked keenly into hers. She rolled her eyes as if in a half-trance. And in a monotonous, tranced voice she said: Much better get over your anger. And why are you angry? TO BE CONTINUED
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:49:37 +0000
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