Bliss, and other stories
“Here’s another queer thing. If I shut my eyes I can see this place
down to every detail—every detail. . . . Now I come to think of it—I’ve
never realized this consciously before. Often when I am away from here
I revisit it in spirit—wander about among your red chairs, stare at the
bowl of fruit on the black table—and just touch, very lightly, that
marvel of a sleeping boy’s head.”
He looked at it as he spoke. It stood on the corner of the mantelpiece;
the head to one side down-drooping, the lips parted, as though in his
sleep the little boy listened to some sweet sound. . . .
“I love that little boy,” he murmured. And then they both were silent.
A new silence came between them. Nothing in the least like the
satisfactory pause that had followed their greetings—the “Well, here we
are together again, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on from
just where we left off last time.” That silence could be contained in
the circle of warm, delightful fire and lamplight. How many times
hadn’t they flung something into it just for the fun of watching the
ripples break on the easy shores. But into this unfamiliar pool the
head of the little boy sleeping his timeless sleep dropped—and the
ripples flowed away, away—boundlessly far—into deep glittering
darkness.
And then both of them broke it. She said: “I must make up the fire,”
and he said: “I have been trying a new . . .” Both of them escaped. She
made up the fire and put the table back, the blue chair was wheeled
forward, she curled up and he lay back among the cushions. Quickly!
Quickly! They must stop it from happening again.
“Well, I read the book you left last time.”
“Oh, what do you think of it?”
They were off and all was as usual. But was it? Weren’t they just a
little too quick, too prompt with their replies, too ready to take each
other up? Was this really anything more than a wonderfully good
imitation of other occasions? His heart beat; her cheek burned and the
stupid thing was she could not discover where exactly they were or what
exactly was happening. She hadn’t time to glance back. And just as she
had got so far it happened again. They faltered, wavered, broke down,
were silent. Again they were conscious of the boundless, questioning
dark. Again, there they were—two hunters, bending over their fire, but
hearing suddenly from the jungle beyond a shake of wind and a loud,
questioning cry. . . .
She lifted her head. “It’s raining,” she murmured. And her voice was
like his when he had said: “I love that little boy.”
Well. Why didn’t they just give way to it—yield—and see what will
happen then? But no. Vague and troubled though they were, they knew
enough to realize their precious friendship was in danger. She was the
one who would be destroyed—not they—and they’d be no party to that.
He got up, knocked out his pipe, ran his hand through his hair and
said: “I have been wondering very much lately whether the novel of the
future will be a psychological novel or not. How sure are you that
psychology _qua_ psychology has got anything to do with literature at
all?”
“Do you mean you feel there’s quite a chance that the mysterious
non-existent creatures—the young writers of to-day—are trying simply to
jump the psycho-analyst’s claim?”
“Yes, I do. And I think it’s because this generation is just wise
enough to know that it is sick and to realize that its only chance of
recovery is by going into its symptoms—making an exhaustive study of
them—tracking them down—trying to get at the root of the trouble.”
“But oh,” she wailed. “What a dreadfully dismal outlook.”
“Not at all,” said he. “Look here . . .” On the talk went. And now it
seemed they really had succeeded. She turned in her chair to look at
him while she answered. Her smile said: “We have won.” And he smiled
back, confident: “Absolutely.”
But the smile undid them. It lasted too long; it became a grin. They
saw themselves as two little grinning puppets jigging away in
nothingness.
“What have we been talking about?” thought he. He was so utterly bored
he almost groaned.
“What a spectacle we have made of ourselves,” thought she. And she saw
him laboriously—oh, laboriously—laying out the grounds and herself
running after, putting here a tree and there a flowery shrub and here a
handful of glittering fish in a pool. They were silent this time from
sheer dismay.
The clock struck six merry little pings and the fire made a soft
flutter. What fools they were—heavy, stodgy, elderly—with positively
upholstered minds.
And now the silence put a spell upon them like solemn music. It was
anguish—anguish for her to bear it and he would die—he’d die if it were
broken. . . . And yet he longed to break it. Not by speech. At any rate
not by their ordinary maddening chatter. There was another way for them
to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur: “Do you
feel this too? Do you understand it at all?” . . .
Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say: “I must be off; I’m
meeting Brand at six.”
What devil made him say that instead of the other? She jumped—simply
jumped out of her chair, and he heard her crying: “You must rush, then.
He’s so punctual. Why didn’t you say so before?”
“You’ve hurt me; you’ve hurt me! We’ve failed!” said her secret self
while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily. She wouldn’t
give him a moment for another word, but ran along the passage and
opened the big outer door.
Could they leave each other like this? How could they? He stood on the
step and she just inside holding the door. It was not raining now.
“You’ve hurt me—hurt me,” said her heart. “Why don’t you go? No, don’t
go. Stay. No—go!” And she looked out upon the night.
She saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with
glittering ivy, on the other side of the road the huge bare willows and
above them the sky big and bright with stars. But of course he would
see nothing of all this. He was superior to it all. He—with his
wonderful “spiritual” vision!
She was right. He did see nothing at all. Misery! He’d missed it. It
was too late to do anything now. Was it too late? Yes, it was. A cold
snatch of hateful wind blew into the garden. Curse life! He heard her
cry “au revoir” and the door slammed.
Running back into the studio she behaved so strangely. She ran up and
down lifting her arms and crying: “Oh! Oh! How stupid! How imbecile!
How stupid!” And then she flung herself down on the _sommier_ thinking
of nothing—just lying there in her rage. All was over. What was over?
Oh—something was. And she’d never see him again—never. After a long
long time (or perhaps ten minutes) had passed in that black gulf her
bell rang a sharp quick jingle. It was he, of course. And equally, of
course, she oughtn’t to have paid the slightest attention to it but
just let it go on ringing and ringing. She flew to answer.
On the doorstep there stood an elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who
simply idolized her (heaven knows why) and had this habit of turning up
and ringing the bell and then saying, when she opened the door: “My
dear, send me away!” She never did. As a rule she asked her in and let
her admire everything and accepted the bunch of slightly soiled looking
flowers—more than graciously. But to-day . . .
“Oh, I am so sorry,” she cried. “But I’ve got someone with me. We are
working on some woodcuts. I’m hopelessly busy all evening.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all, darling,” said the good
friend. “I was just passing and I thought I’d leave you some violets.”
She fumbled down among the ribs of a large old umbrella. “I put them
down here. Such a good place to keep flowers out of the wind. Here they
are,” she said, shaking out a little dead bunch.
For a moment she did not take the violets. But while she stood just
inside, holding the door, a strange thing happened. . . . Again she saw
the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering
ivy, the willows, the big bright sky. Again she felt the silence that
was like a question. But this time she did not hesitate. She moved
forward. Very softly and gently, as though fearful of making a ripple
in that boundless pool of quiet she put her arms round her friend.
“My dear,” murmured her happy friend, quite overcome by this gratitude.
“They are really nothing. Just the simplest little thrippenny bunch.”
But as she spoke she was enfolded—more tenderly, more beautifully
embraced, held by such a sweet pressure and for so long that the poor
dear’s mind positively reeled and she just had the strength to quaver:
“Then you really don’t mind me too much?”
“Good night, my friend,” whispered the other. “Come again soon.”
“Oh, I will. I will.”
This time she walked back to the studio slowly, and standing in the
middle of the room with half-shut eyes she felt so light, so rested, as
if she had woken up out of a childish sleep. Even the act of breathing
was a joy. . . .
The _sommier_ was very untidy. All the cushions “like furious
mountains” as she said; she put them in order before going over to the
writing-table.
“I have been thinking over our talk about the psychological novel,” she
dashed off, “it really is intensely interesting.” . . . And so on and
so on.
At the end she wrote: “Good night, my friend. Come again soon.”
Pictures
Eight o’clock in the morning. Miss Ada Moss lay in a black iron
bedstead, staring up at the ceiling. Her room, a Bloomsbury top-floor
back, smelled of soot and face powder and the paper of fried potatoes
she brought in for supper the night before.
“Oh, dear,” thought Miss Moss, “I am cold. I wonder why it is that I
always wake up so cold in the mornings now. My knees and feet and my
back—especially my back; it’s like a sheet of ice. And I always was
such a one for being warm in the old days. It’s not as if I was
skinny—I’m just the same full figure that I used to be. No, it’s
because I don’t have a good hot dinner in the evenings.”
A pageant of Good Hot Dinners passed across the ceiling, each of them
accompanied by a bottle of Nourishing Stout. . . .
“Even if I were to get up now,” she thought, “and have a sensible
substantial breakfast . . .” A pageant of Sensible Substantial
Breakfasts followed the dinners across the ceiling, shepherded by an
enormous, white, uncut ham. Miss Moss shuddered and disappeared under
the bedclothes. Suddenly, in bounced the landlady.
“There’s a letter for you, Miss Moss.”
“Oh,” said Miss Moss, far too friendly, “thank you very much, Mrs.
Pine. It’s very good of you, I’m sure, to take the trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” said the landlady. “I thought perhaps it was the
letter you’d been expecting.”
“Why,” said Miss Moss brightly, “yes, perhaps it is.” She put her head
on one side and smiled vaguely at the letter. “I shouldn’t be
surprised.”
The landlady’s eyes popped. “Well, I should, Miss Moss,” said she, “and
that’s how it is. And I’ll trouble you to open it, if you please. Many
is the lady in my place as would have done it for you and have been
within her rights. For things can’t go on like this, Miss Moss, no
indeed they can’t. What with week in week out and first you’ve got it
and then you haven’t, and then it’s another letter lost in the post or
another manager down at Brighton but will be back on Tuesday for
certain—I’m fair sick and tired and I won’t stand it no more. Why
should I, Miss Moss, I ask you, at a time like this, with prices flying
up in the air and my poor dear lad in France? My sister Eliza was only
saying to me yesterday—‘Minnie,’ she says, ‘you’re too soft-hearted.
You could have let that room time and time again,’ says she, ‘and if
people won’t look after themselves in times like these, nobody else