“Well. What did he say?”
“Oh, nothing; he made a great opportunity. He didn’t like the stories.”
“Remarkable!”
“I did it all the wrong way. When I accepted their invitation I wrote
that I was bringing down some translations of the loveliest short
stories I had ever read.” I was suddenly proud, in Lyons, of remembering
“short stories” and excited about having something written to show him
at last. The sentence felt like an entry into their set.
“If he did not agree with this I pity him.”
“I don’t know how it would have been if I had said nothing at all.” He
might have said look here this is good stuff. You must do something with
this.
“I tell you again this man is superficial.”
“He said the sentiment was gross and that they were feeble in
construction.” Waiting, in the window seat, with the large fresh light
from the sea pouring in from behind across the soft clear buffs and
greens of the room; weaving for Alma, with the wonder of keeping him
arrested, alone in his study, with his eyes on her written sentences, a
view of the London life as eventful, enviable leisure; the door opening
at last, the swift compact entry of the little figure with the sheaf of
manuscript, the sudden lifting jubilance of the light; the eager
yielding to the temptation to enhance the achievement by a disclaiming
explanation of the difficult circumstances, the silencing minatory
finger--wait, wait, you’re taking it the wrong way--and at last the
high-pitched, colourless, thinking voice in brief comprehensive
judgment; the shattering of the bright scene, the end of the triumphant
visit, with a day still to pass, going about branded as an admirer of
poor stuff.
“That is no _opinion_. It is simply a literary finessing. I will tell
you _more_. This judgment indicates an _immense_ blindness. There is in
Andrayeff a directness and simplicity of feeling towards life that is
entirely lacking in this man.”
“Mm. Perhaps the Russians are more simple; less” ... civilised.
“Simplicity and directness of feeling does not necessarily indicate a
less highly organised psychological temperament.”
“I know what he meant. Andrayeff does try deliberately to work on your
feelings. I felt that when I was writing. But the pathos of those little
boys and the man with the Chinese mask is his _subject_. What he does is
artistic exaggeration. That is Art. Light and shade;” ...... a ‘masterly
study’ of a little boy ....?
“Very well then. What is the matter?”
“No, but I’m just thinking the whole trouble is that life is not
pathetic. People don’t feel pathetic; or never _altogether_ pathetic.
There is something else; that’s the worst of novels, something that has
to be left out. Tragedy; curtain. But there never _is_ a curtain and
even if there were, the astounding thing is that there is _anything_ to
let down a curtain on; so _astounding_ that you can’t feel really,
completely, things like “happiness” or “tragedy”; they are both the same,
a half-statement. Everybody is the same really, inside, under all
circumstances. There’s a dead-level of astounding .... _something_.”
“I cannot follow you in all this. But you may not thus lightly deny
tragedy.”
“He also said that the translation was as good as it could be.” .....
You’ve brought it off. That’s the way a translation ought to be done.
It’s slick and clean and extraordinarily well Englished......
“Well? Well? Are you not satisfied?”
“Then he said in a contemptuous sort of way, ‘you could make from two to
three hundred a year at this sort of thing.’”
“But that is most excellent. You should most certainly try this.”
“I don’t believe it. He _says_ that kind of thing.”
“He ought to know.”
“I don’t know. He said in a large easy way you’d get seven or eight
guineas apiece for these things, and then do ’em in a book.”
“Well?”
“Everybody would be doing it if it were so easy.”
“You are really remarkable. A good translation is most rare; and
particularly a good English translation. You have seen these Tolstoys. I
have not met in German or French anything so vile. It is a whole base
trade.”
“The public does not know. And if these things sell why should
publishers pay for good translations? It’s like machine and hand-made
embroidery. It does not pay to do good work. I’ve often heard
translations are badly paid and I can quite understand it. It could be
done in a factory at an immense pace.”
“You are right. I have known a group of poor Russian students translate
a whole book in a single night. But you will not find cynical
vulgarisation of literature anywhere but in England and America. It is
indeed remarkable to the foreigner the way in this country the
profession of letters has become a speculation. Never before I came here
did I meet this idea of writing for a living, in this naïve widespread
form. There is something very bad in it.” Miriam surveyed the green
vista, thinking guiltily of her envy and admiration of the many young
men she had met at the Wilsons’ who were mysteriously “writing” or
“going to write,” of her surprise and disappointment in meeting here and
there things they had written ...... don’t, Miss Henderson .... _don’t_
take up .... a journalistic _career_ on the strength of being able to
write; as badly as Jenkins. Editors--poor dears--are _beleaguered_, by
aspiring relatives. She thought out now, untrammelled by the distraction
of listening to the way he formed his sentences, the meaning of these
last words ..... it spread a chill over the wide stretch of sunlit
grass; in the very moments that were passing, the writing world was
going actively on, the clever people who had ideas and style and those
others, determined, besieging, gradually making themselves into writers,
indistinguishable by most readers, from the others, sharing, even during
their dreadful beginnings, in the social distinctions and privileges of
“writers,” and all of them, the clever ones and the others, quite
untroubled by any sense of guilt, and making, when they were all
together, a social atmosphere that was, in spite of its scepticism, and
its scorn of everyday life, easier to breathe than any other. But being
burdened with a hesitating sense of guilt, unable to be really
interested in the things clever people wrote about, being beguiled by
gross sentimentality because of its foreign dress and the fascination of
transforming it, meant belonging outside the world of clever writers,
tried in their balance and found wanting; and cut off from the world of
innocent unconscious determined aspirants by a mysterious fear.
It was mean to sit waiting for life to throw up things that would
distract one for a while from the sense of emptiness. Sitting moving
about from place to place, in the dress of the period. Being nowhere,
one had no right even to the dress of the period. In the bottom of the
lake .... hidden, and forgotten. Round the far-off lake were feathery
green trees, not minding. She sat imagining their trunks, filmed over
with the murk of London winters, but all the more beautiful now,
standing out black amongst the clouds of green. There were trees in the
distance ahead, trees, forgotten. She was here to look at them. It was
urgent, important. All this long time and she had never once looked. She
lifted her eyes cautiously, without moving, to take in the wide belt
beyond the stretch of grass. It was perfect. Full spring complete,
prepared and set there, ungrudgingly, demanding nothing but love;
embanked between the sky and the grass, a dense perfect shape of various
pure colour, an effect, that would pass; but she had seen it. The sharp
angle of its edge stood out against a farther, far-off belt of misty
green, with here and there a dark maroon blot of copper beech.
“Whatever happens, as long as one lives, there is the spring.”
“Do not be too sure of this.”
“Of course, if the world suddenly came to an end.”
“This appreciation of spring is merely a question of youth.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“On the contrary. Do you imagine for instance that this old woman on the
next seat feels the spring as you do?”
Miriam rose unable to look; wishing she had come alone; or had not
spoken. The green vistas moved all about her, dazzling under the height
of sky. “I’m perfectly sure I shall always feel the spring; perhaps more
and more.” She escaped into irrelevant speech, hurrying along so that he
should hear incompletely until she had firm hold of some far-off topic;
dreading the sound of his voice.
The flower-beds were in sight, gleaming in the gaps between the tree
trunks along the broad walk .... ragged children were shouting and
chasing each other round the fountain. “I must always here think” he
said as they passed through the wicket gate “of this man who preaches
for the conversion of infidels, Jews, Christians, and other
unbelievers.”
She hurried on preparing to face the rows of Saturday afternoon people
on the chairs and seats along the avenue, their suspicious English eyes
on her scrappy, dowdy, out-of-date English self and her extraordinary
looking foreigner. Her spirits lifted. But they must be walking quickly
and talking. The staring self-revealing faces must see that it was a
privilege to have converse with anyone so utterly strange and far away
from their English life.
“I’m not interested in him” she said as they got into their stride.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know why. I can’t fix my thoughts on him; or any of these
people who yell at crowds.” Not quite that; but it made a sentence and
fitted with their walk.
“It is perhaps that you are too individualistic,” panted Mr. Shatov.
There was no opening in this for an appearance of easy conversation; the
words were leaping and barking round her like dogs.
But she turned swiftly leading the way down a winding side path and
demanding angrily as soon as they were alone how it was possible to be
too individualistic.
“I agree to a certain extent that it is impossible. A man is first
himself. But the peril is of being cut off from his fellow creatures.”
“Why _peril_? Men descend to meet. Are you a socialist? Do you believe
in the opinions of mediocre majorities?”
“Why this adjective? Why mediocre? No, I would call myself rather one
who believes in the _race_.”
“_What_ race? The race is nothing without individuals.”
“What is an individual without the race?”
“An individual, with a consciousness; or a soul, whatever you like to
call it. The race, apart from individuals is nothing at all.”
“You have introduced here several immense questions. There is the
question as to whether a human being isolated from his fellows would
retain any human characteristics. Your great Buckle has considered this
in relation to the problem of heredity. But aside of this, has the race
not a soul and an individuality? Greater than that of its single parts?”
“Certainly not. The biggest thing a race does is to produce a few big
individualities.”
“The biggest thing that the race does is that it _goes on_. Individuals
perish.”
“You don’t know that they do.”
“That is speculation; without evidence. I have the most complete
evidence that the race survives.”
“It may die, according to science.”
“That also is a speculation. But what is certain is--that the greatest
individual is great only as he gives much to the race; to his fellow
creatures. Without this, individuality is pure-negative.”
“Individuality _cannot_ be negative.”
“There speaks the Englishwoman. It is certainly England’s highest
attainment that the rights of the individual are sacred here. But even
this is not complete. It is still impeded by class prejudice.”
“_I_ haven’t any class prejudice.”
“You are wrong; believe me you have immensely these prejudices. I could
quite easily prove this to you. You are in many ways most exceptionally
for an Englishwoman emancipated. But you are still pure-Tory.”
“That is only my stamp. I can’t help that. But I myself have no
prejudices.”
“They are so far in you unconscious.” He spoke with extreme gentleness,
and Miriam looked uneasily ahead, wondering whether with this strange
knowledge at her side she might be passing forward to some fresh sense
of things that would change the English world for her. English
prejudices. He saw them as clearly as he saw that she was not beautiful.
And gently, as if they were charming as well as funny to him. Their
removal would come; through a painless association. For a while she
would remain as she was. But even seeing England from his point of view,
was being changed; a little. The past, up to the last few moments, was a
life she had lived without knowing that it was a life lived in special
circumstances and from certain points of view. Now, perhaps moving away
from it, these circumstances and points of view suddenly became a
possession, full of fascinating interest. But she had lived blissfully.
Something here and there in his talk _threatened_ happiness.
He seemed to see people only as members of nations, grouped together
with all their circumstances. Perhaps everything could be explained in
this way.... All her meaning for him was her English heredity, a thing
he seemed to think the finest luck in the world, and her free English
environment, the result of it; things she had known nothing about till
he came, smiling at her ignorance of them, and declaring the ignorance
to be the best testimony .... that was it; he gave her her nationality
and surroundings, the fact of being England to him made everything easy.
There was no need to do or be anything, individual. It was too easy. It
must be demoralising .... just sitting there basking in being
English.... Everything she did, everything that came to her in the
outside world turned out to be demoralising .... too easy ... some
_fraud_ in it..... But the pity she found herself suddenly feeling for
all English people who had not intelligent foreign friends gave her
courage to go on. Meanwhile there was an unsettled troublesome point.
Something that could not be left.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I daresay. But at any rate, I have an open mind.
Do you think that the race is _sacred_, and has purposes, super-man you
know what I mean, Nietzsche, and that individuals are fitted up with the
instincts that keep them going, just to blind them to the fact that they
don’t matter?”
“If one must use these terms, the race is _certainly_ more sacred than
the individual.”
“Very well then; I know what I think. If the sacred race plays tricks on
conscious human beings, using them for its own sacred purposes and
giving them an unreal sense of mattering, I don’t care a button for the
race and I’d rather kill myself than serve its purposes. Besides, the
instincts of self preservation, and reproduction are _not_ the only
human motives .... they are not human at all....”