I do not suppose that there is any literal truth in that remarkable
piece of natural history which tells us that eels get used to being
skinned. It may have been invented by those who like eating that
execrable worm, or, more probably, it is a proverbial simile which
is meant to convey a most unquestionable truth, namely, that however
unpleasant a thing may be, in time we get adjusted to it. It would
be an ill thing for the human race if they did not, and argues no
callousness on their part. It is simply one of Nature's arrangements,
an example of the recuperative power which enables us to throw off
colds, and mends the skin when we have cut ourselves shaving. If every
wound, physical and moral alike, remained raw, the race could not
continue, but would speedily expire from loss of blood and gangrene.
And if in process of time we did not rally from staggering blows, we
should all of us, at an early age lie prone on our backs, squealing,
till death mercifully put an end to our troubles. But all our lives we
are receiving wounds and blows, and we recuperate. Only once during
this mortal existence do we fail to recover, more or less, from things
that at first seemed intolerable, and then we die.
This invariable rule applies to the position in which we find ourselves
after thirteen months of war. Most of us have suffered intimate losses;
there is scarcely a man or woman in England whom death has not robbed
of some friend or relation. But we are not as a nation bewildered
and all abroad, as we were thirteen months ago. We do not wake every
morning with the sense that after the oblivion of the night we are
roused to a nightmare existence. We have somehow adjusted ourselves
to what is happening, and this adjustment argues no callousness or
insensibility; it is just the result of the natural process by virtue
of which we are enabled to continue living. Also, the need that Francis
felt when he said, "One must do something," has come to the aid of
those who in general, before the days of the war, never did anything
particular beyond amusing themselves. This really implied that other
people had got to amuse them by giving them dinner-parties and concerts
and what not, and since these had no time to attend to them now, a
remarkably large percentage of the drones, finding that nobody was
providing for them, set to work for once in their lives, and slaved
away at funds or hospitals or soup-kitchens, and found that to do
something for other people was not half so tedious as they had supposed
before they gave it a trial. This was a very salutary piece of natural
adjustment, and they all felt much the better for it. A certain number
of confirmed drones I suppose there will always be, but certainly
London has become a much more industrious hive than it ever used to be.
Another process has contributed to the recuperative process, for
the details of life have been much simplified. When your income is
ruthlessly cut down, as has happened to most of us, it is clear that
something must be done. The first thing we all did, naturally, was to
raise a wild chorus of asserting that we were ruined. But when these
minor strains did not seem to mend matters much, most people, under
the recuperative force, began to consider and make catalogues of all
the things which they could quite well do without. It is astonishing
how voluminous these catalogues were. Those who had footmen who went
to the war, like proper young men, suddenly found out that there were
such things as parlour-maids. Those who rolled about in motor-cars
discovered that there were taxicabs, and it was even hinted in more
advanced circles that 'buses plied upon the London streets and tubes
underneath them. There was some vague element of sport about it: it
was something new to lie in ambush at a street corner and pounce on
No. 19 that went up Sloane Street and along Shaftesbury Avenue, or get
hopelessly befogged in the stupefying rabbit warrens that are excavated
below Piccadilly Circus.
In spite, then, of the huge tragedies, the cruel bereavements, the
distress among those whose economies were in no way a game, but a
grinding necessity, we have adjusted ourselves, and are alive to
the amazing fact that the day of little things, the small ordinary
caresses and pleasures of life, is not over. For a while it was utterly
darkened, the sun stood in full-orbed eclipse, but now (not callously)
we can take pleasure in our little amusements and _festas_ and fusses,
though, owing to more useful occupations, we have not so much time for
them. To compare a small affair with these great ones, I remember how
a few years ago I suddenly had to face a serious operation. The moment
at which I was told this was one of black horror. There the doctor
sat opposite me, looking prosperous and comfortable, and said: "You
must make up your mind to it; have it done at once." Being a profound
physical coward, the thing seemed quite unfaceable, an impossibility.
But before an hour was up, the adjustment had come, and once more the
savour of the world stole back. The sun that day was just as warm as it
had ever been, food was good, the faces of friends were dear, and the
night before it was to take place I slept well, and when finally I was
told it was time to go along the passage to where the operation was to
be done, I remember turning down the page of the book I was reading and
wondering less what was going to happen to me than to the characters
of the novel. Nothing, in fact, is unfaceable when you have to face
it; nothing entirely robs the eye and the ear of its little accustomed
pleasures.
But what is much more important than the fact that the little things
of life have put forth their buds again is that as a nation our eyes,
half closed in dreamy contentment, have been opened to the day of
great things. The outbreak of war in August last year was an earthquake
inconceivable and overwhelming; but it has become one of the things
that is, an austere majestic fact. Among its débris and scarred
surfaces, not only has the mantle of growth with which Nature always
clothes her upheavals begun to spring up, but the smoke of its ruin,
like the cloud of ash over Vesuvius, has soared into high places,
and its deepest shadows are lit with splendours that irradiate and
transfigure them. It is not of terror alone that tragedy is compounded;
there is pity in it as well, the pity that enlightens and purges, the
unsealing of the human heart. God knows what still lies in the womb of
the future, but already there has come to us a certain steadfastness
that lay dormant, waiting for the trumpet to awaken it. We are, it
is to be hoped, a little simpler, a little more serious, a little
busier over doing obvious duties, a little less set on amusements and
extravagancies. And I do not think we are the worse for that. The
faith in which we entered the war, that ours was a righteous quarrel,
has proved itself unshakeable; the need to stand firm has knitted the
nation together.
Of our necessities, our failures, our endeavours and our rewards in
these great matters, it is not possible to speak, for they are among
the sacred things that dwell in silence. But there are, you may say,
certain condiments in life which can be spoken of. First and foremost
among them is a sense of humour, which has been extremely useful.
Without losing sight of the main issue, or wanting to forget the tragic
gravity of it all, it would be ridiculous to behave like pessimists and
pacifists, and with distorted faces of gloom and pain, to shudder at
the notion of finding anything to smile at. Even while we are aghast at
the profanity with which the German Emperor regards himself as a Moses
of the New Dispensation, and steps down from the thunderclouds of Sinai
with the tables that have been personally entrusted to him, on the
strength of which he orders his submarines to torpedo peaceful merchant
vessels, we cannot (or should not) help smiling at this Imperial
buffoon. Or why waste a shudder on his idiot son, when a smile would
not be wasted, since it would do us good? Surely there are bright spots
in the blackness. Or again, though hate is a most hellish emotion, and
it is, of course, dreadful to think of one white nation being taught to
hate another, yet when people compose a hymn of hate for the English,
words and music, and have it printed and sold at a loss all over the
German Empire in order to root more firmly yet the invincible resolve
of the Teuton to strafe England, is it reasonable not to feel cheered
up by the ludicrousness of these proceedings? Certainly it is a pity
to hate anybody; but, given that, may we not treasure tenderly this
crowning instance of the thoroughness of the frightful German race? I
am glad they did that; it does me good. When I think of that, my food,
as Walt Whitman says, nourishes me more. I like to think of Prince
Oscar sending a telegram to his father, saying that he has had the
overpowering happiness to be wounded for the sake of the Fatherland. I
am glad his father sent for a Press agent and had those precious words
published in every paper in the Fatherland, and I trust that Prince
Oscar, since he likes being wounded so much, will get well quickly and
go back and be wounded again. I am pleased that when Russia was sending
hundreds of thousands of troops through England to join the Western
battle-line, the fact was put beyond a doubt by somebody's gamekeeper
seeing bearded men getting out of a train at Swindon on a hot day and
stamping the snow from their boots, which proved they had come from
Archangel.... It all helps. Queen Elizabeth was a wise woman when she
said that we have need of mirth in England. God knows we have.
I have been a year in London, hardly stirring from it by reason
of things to do; but a fortnight ago I escaped into Norfolk for a
breathing-space of air and sea. It was a good sea, in the manner of
northern seas, and though it was impossible not to contrast it with
the hot beach and lucid waters of the _Palazzo a mare,_ I would not
have exchanged it for that delectable spot. High, sheer sand-cliffs
lined the coast, and on their edges were dug trenches with parapets
of sandbags, while here and there, where the cliffs were broken away,
there were lines of barbed wire entanglements. These, I must hope,
were only, so to speak, practice efforts, for I found it saved time,
when going down to bathe early, to step through these, with an eye to
pyjama legs, rather than walk an extra hundred yards to a gap in those
coast defences. But it all gave one a sense that this was England,
alert and at war, and the sea itself aided the realization. For there
every day would pass cruisers or torpedo-boats, no longer in peaceful
manoeuvres, but engaged, swift and watchful, on their real business.
Sometimes one would be running parallel with the coast, and then turn
and roar seawards, till only a track of smoke on the horizon marked
its passage. But that was the real thing; the armour of England was
buckled on; it was no longer just being polished and made ready. The
whole coast was patrolled, and all was part of one organized plan of
defence, and when the moment came, of offence; somewhere out there the
Grand Fleet waited, as it had waited more than a year; these ships that
passed and went seaward again were the sentries that walked round the
forts of the ocean.
A week on the coast was followed by a few days at a country house
inland before I returned to London, and once again the realization of
war had a vivid moment. The house where I was staying was surrounded by
pheasant covers that came close up to the garden, where one night after
dinner I was straying with a friend. It was warm and still; the odour
of the night-blooming stocks hung on the air; the sky was windless and
slightly overclouded, so that the stars burned as if through frosted
glass, and we were in the dark of the moon. Then suddenly from the
sleeping woods arose an inexplicable clamour of pheasant's cries; the
place was more resonant with them than at the hour when they retired
to roost. Every moment fresh crowings were added to the tumult. I
have never heard so strange an alarum. It did not die down again,
but went on and on. Then presently through it, faintly at first, but
with growing distinctness, came a birring rhythmical beat, heavy and
sonorous. It came beyond doubt from the air, not from the land, and
was far more solid, more heavy in tone, than any aeroplanes I had ever
heard. Then my friend pointed. "Look!" he said. There, a little to the
east, a black shape, long and cylindrical, sped across the greyness of
the shrouded sky, moving very rapidly westward. Soon it was over our
heads; before long it had passed into indistinctness again. But long
after its beat had become inaudible to our ears, the screams of the
pheasants continued, as they yelled at the murderer on the way to the
scene of his crime.
For half an hour after that some stir of uneasiness went on in the
woods; the furred and feathered creatures were aware, by some sixth
sense, that there was danger in the air. Then muffled and distant came
the noise of explosions and the uneasiness of the woodland grew to
panic again, with rustlings in the brushwood of hares seeking cover,
and the cries of birds seeking each other, and asking what was this
terror by night. Presently afterwards the beat of the propellers was
again audible to human ears, and the Zeppelin passed over us once
more, flying invisible at a great height, going eastwards again. It
was moving much faster now, for its deadly work was over, and, flushed
with its triumph, it was bearing home the news of its glorious exploit.
Those intrepid crusaders, Lohengrins of the air, had taken their toll
of smashed cottages, slain children and murdered mothers, and the
anointed of the Lord next morning, hearing of their great valour above
a small Norfolk hamlet, would congratulate them on their glorious
exploit and decorate them with iron crosses to mark his shameful
approval of their deed.
* * * * *
London at night has become a dim Joseph's coat of many colours. The
authorities are experimenting in broken rainbows for the sake of our
safety from above, and for our vastly increased peril on the ground.
Instead of the great white flame of electric lights, and the hot
orange of the gas, we have a hundred hues of veiled colour. What
exactly all the decrees are which produce these rainbows, I do not
know; but the effect, particularly on a wet night when the colours are
reflected on wet wood pavements and asphalte, is perfectly charming,
and we hope that, in compensation for the multiplied dangers of the
streets, we shall be immune from the flames and fumes of incendiary
and asphyxiating shells. The prudent householder--I am afraid I
am not one--has had a good deal of pleasant occupation in fitting
up his cellar as a place to flee unto when we are threatened with
Zeppelins, and one night, shortly after my return, I had the pleasure
of inspecting one of these. It lay deep in the bowels of the earth,
and if the absence of air would not asphyxiate you, I am sure its
refugees need fear no other cause of suffocation. There were several
deck-chairs, and at a slightly withdrawn distance a serviceable wooden
form on which the servants would sit, while the bombardment was going
on, in a respectful row. There was a spirit-lamp on which to make
tea, a tin of highly nutritious biscuits, and a variety of books to
read by the light of electric torches. Upstairs the same thoroughness
prevailed. Nightly, on retiring to bed, the lady of the house had
on a table close at hand a bag containing the most valuable of her
jewellery, and a becoming dressing-gown much padded. Her husband's
Zeppelin suit, the sort of suit you might expect to find in opulent
Esquimaux houses, lay on another chair, and outside in the hall was a
large washing basin filled with some kind of soda-solution, and on the
rim of it, hung like glasses on the top of a punch-bowl, were arranged
half a dozen amazing masks, goggle-eyed and cotton-wooled, which, on
the first sign of an asphyxiating bomb, would be dipped in the solution
of soda and tied over the face. To provide against incendiary bombs
there was a pail of sand and a pail of water at every corner, while
below the cellar beckoned a welcome in case of explosions. Given
a moment for preparation, this house was a fortress against which
Zeppelins might furiously rage together without hurting anybody.
Whether they sought to suffocate or to burn, or to blow to atoms, this
thoughtful householder was prepared for any of their nasty tricks.
All this was perfectly entrancing to my flippant mind, and after
dinner, when the servants had washed up, we had, at my particular
request, a rehearsal of the Zeppelin game to see how it all worked. The
servants and my host and hostess retired to their respective bedrooms,
and we put out all the lights. As guest, I had no duty assigned to me,
I was just going to be a passenger in the Ark of safety, so I remained
in the hall. When I judged I had given them enough time to lie fairly
down on their beds, I sounded the gong with great vigour, which denoted
that a Zeppelin had begun dropping bombs in the neighbourhood. Then the
house responded splendidly: in an incredibly short space of time my
hostess came out of her room, with the bag containing the regalia in
her hand, and her beautiful padded dressing-gown on; my host came from
his with the Esquimaux suit over his dress-clothes--looking precisely
like Tweedledum arrayed for battle--and the servants, with shrill
giggles, waited near the basin of soda-solution. Then we all put on
masks (there was one to spare, which was given me), and, omitting the
ceremony of dipping them in the soda, my host caught up the basin,
and we all trooped downstairs into the cellar. The servants plumped
themselves down on the bench, we sat in the deck-chairs, and there we
all were. The time from the sounding of the gong to the moment when
the cellar door was banged, and we were safe from explosives and
asphyxiating bombs, was just three minutes and five seconds. The only
thing unprovided for was the event of the Zeppelin dropping incendiary
bombs after we had all gone into the Ark, for in that case the house
would be burned above us, and we should be slowly roasted. But that
cruel contingency we settled to disregard. It would be the kind of bad
luck against which it is hopeless to take precautions. So then, as it
was a hot evening, my host took off his Zeppelin suit again, and after
testing the nutritive biscuits, which were quite delicious, we went
upstairs again with shouts of laughter. No doubt their provision had
a solid base of reason, for it certainly would be very annoying to be
asphyxiated in your room, when such simple arrangements as these would
have resulted in your having a cup of tea in the comfortable cellar
instead; but there was this added bonus of sport about it all. It was
the greatest fun.
This house where I had been dining was in the neighbourhood of Bedford
Square, and I left about half-past ten, with the intention of walking
as far as Charing Cross, and there embarking on the underground. I had
hardly gone a hundred yards from the house, when on to the quiet night
there came a report so appalling that it seemed like some catastrophic
noise heard in a dream. It was quite close to me, somewhere on the
left, and I ran as hard as I could round the corner of a block of
houses to be able to look eastwards, for there was no doubt in my mind
that a Zeppelin, nearly overhead, had dropped a bomb. Before I got to
the corner there was another report as loud as the first, and, looking
up, I saw that the searchlights, like pencils of light, were madly
scribbling about over the sky. Suddenly one caught the Zeppelin, then
another, and next moment it was in the meeting focus of half a dozen
of them, hanging high above my head, serene and gilded with the rays
of light, a fairy creation of the air. Then began the sound of guns,
one shell exploded in front of it, another far below it. Disregarding
all the regulations for their protection, people ran out of their
houses, and, like me, stood gaping up at it, for the excitement of it
was irresistible. I noticed that one man near me put up the collar
of his coat whenever there was a loud explosion, just as if a slight
shower was falling, and then quite gravely and seriously put it down
again. Others stepped into porches, or flattened themselves against
the walls, but none did as they were told by the police regulations.
A special constable was there too, who should have herded us all into
cover; instead, he stared with the rest, and put the lighted end of his
cigarette into his mouth. For, indeed, this was not a thing you could
see every day, a Zeppelin hanging above you, and the shells from guns
in London exploding round it. It fired the imagination; here was the
Real Thing, which we had been reading about for a year and never seen.
The air had been invaded by the enemy, and guns in the heart of the
securest city in the world were belching shells at it.
Then came the end of this amazing sight: a shell burst close to that
serene swimmer, and it stuck its nose in the air, and ascending with
extraordinary speed, like a bubble going upwards through water, got out
of the focus of searchlights and disappeared.
By this time the eastern horizon was glowing with a light that grew
steadily more vivid. The airship had dropped incendiary bombs in the
City, and fire-engines were racing along Oxford Street, with gleam
of helmets, clanging of bells and hoarse shouts from the firemen.
But there was no getting near the seat of the fire, for a cordon of
police had closed all streets near it, and I walked homewards along
the Embankment, with eyes fixed on the sky, and cannoning into other
passengers, because I did not look where I was going, as you may see
ladies doing when they gaze in a hypnotized manner into hat-shops, as
they walk along the street.
Apart from the actual thrill of the adventure, there was a most
interesting psychological point, which I considered as I went
homewards. There were we, the crowd in the street, just average folk,
just average cowards in the face of danger, and not one, as far as
I could see, gave a single thought to the risk of dropped bombs or
falling pieces of shrapnel. We might any or all of us be wiped out next
moment, but we didn't care, not in the least because we were brave, but
because the interest of what was happening utterly extinguished any
other feeling. Probably the majority of the crowd had passed gloomy and
uncomfortable moments imagining that very situation, namely, of having
a murderous Zeppelin just above them; but when once the murderous
Zeppelin was there, they all forgot it was murderous, and were merely
interested in the real live Zeppelin. Just in the same way, in minute
matters, we all find that ringing the dentist's bell is about the worst
part of the tiresome business.
The sequel as concerns the house in which I had dined so few hours
before delighted me when I was told it next day. I suppose the
realistic character of our rehearsal preyed on the servants' minds,
for they groped their way downstairs to the cellar in the dark, and
none thought to turn on the electric light. My hostess picked up
her jewel-case and groped her way after them, forgetting about the
soda-solution and the masks, and my host threw open the window and
gazed ecstatically at the Zeppelin till it vanished. Then he turned on
the lights and fetched his household back from the cellar, since the
raid was over.... It is but another instance of how, when faced with a
situation, we diverge from the lines of conduct we have so carefully
laid down for ourselves. I once knew a family that practised fire-drill
very industriously in case that one day there might be an outbreak in
the house. There were patent extinguishers to put it out with, and
ropes to let yourself out of window all over the place, and everyone
knew exactly what he was to do. Then the opportunity so long expected
came, and a serious outbreak occurred. On which the owner forgot
everything that he had learned himself and taught everybody else, and
after throwing a quantity of his valuable Oriental china on to the
stone terrace, he performed prodigies of single-handed valour in saving
a very old piano which nobody wanted at all.... (I think this pathetic
story contradicts my theory about the calmness of the crowd on the
Zeppelin night, but who wants to be consistent?)
* * * * *
I had arrived this September at a break in the lease of my house, and
six months before (see page two of the lease in question) I had given
notice to the owner in writing that I should evacuate. Consequently for
the last few months I had been an assiduous frequenter of house-agents'
offices, and the God of addition sums alone knows how many houses I
had seen over from garret to basement. The extraordinary thing about
all these was that they were all exceptional bargains, such as the
agent had never before known, and that in almost every case another
gentleman was in negotiation for them. In spite of that, however,
if I chose at once and firmly to offer the price asked, there was a
strong probability of my securing one of these marvellous bargains,
and thwarting the ambitions of the other gentleman. This opportunity
to thwart the other gentleman was certainly an appeal to the more
villainous side of human nature, and often, if a house seemed to me
the sort of habitation I was on the look-out for, the thought of the
other gentleman getting it was an incentive to take it myself. But
never before did I realize how hopelessly traditional is that section
of the human race which designs our houses for us. The type, in the
modest species of abode I was looking for, never varied. There was a
narrow passage inside the front door, with a dining-room and a back
room opening out of it, and a staircase up to the first floor, where
lay two sitting-rooms, invariably knocked into one. There was a bath
on a half-landing, there were front bedrooms and back bedrooms higher
up, all exactly alike, and for a long time I looked in vain for any
house that was not precisely like any other house. In fact, this became
a _sine qua non_ with me, and ceasing to care whether I thwarted the
other gentleman or not, I think if I had found a house where the
bath-room was in the basement, or there was no staircase, so that you
had to go upstairs in a basket with a rope, I should have taken it. I
almost despaired of finding what I wanted, and thought of revoking,
if possible, my notice of quitting, for in my present house there is
something which is not quite like other houses, for some inspired
tenant threw down the wall between the dining-room and the entrance
passage, making a sort of hall of it, in the middle of which I dine.
That there are inconveniences attaching to it I don't deny, for the
guest sitting nearest the front door occasionally jumps out of his skin
when the postman thunders with the evening post close by his ear; but
the house isn't quite like other houses of its type, which is precisely
the reason why ten years ago I took it.
With a pocket full of "orders to view," and plenty of shillings for
the patient caretakers who mournfully conducted me over their charge,
I used on most days to set out on these explorations after lunch,
returning discouraged at tea-time. I could not see myself in any of the
houses I saw, or imagine going to sleep in any of those front bedrooms,
or spending the evening in the back-room behind the dining-room, or in
the two sitting-rooms knocked into one. But then, though it lingered
long, came the Mecca of my quest. Even at the front door I had some
premonition of success, for the knocker was not like other knockers,
and when the door opened, I saw, with a beating heart, that the
staircase was not like other staircases. Some four feet from the ground
it turned at right angles towards where the dreadful little back room
should be. It couldn't go into the door of the little back room, or
if it did, it would be very odd. You would have to pass through the
dining-room in order to get to the bottom of the staircase.... Then
advancing I saw: the staircase turned into a little hall (originally,
no doubt, the dreadful little back room). Beyond lay a broad passage,
and the dining-room was built out at the end. Through the open door
of it I saw the windows looking out, not on to a street at all, but
on to full-foliaged trees that grew in a disused graveyard. Between
it and the house ran a way for foot-passengers only. Something in my
brain exulted, crying out "This is it!" and simultaneously I felt a
soft stroking on my shin. Looking down I saw a grave black cat rubbing
against me. Was there ever such an omen? I had already settled in my
mind that this must be the house intended for me (it was), and here was
the bringer of good luck congratulating me on my discovery.
I made the usual grand tour, but in how different a mood, and as I
mounted my spirits rose ever higher. In front was a square (so-called
though it was an oblong) closed at the top end where my house was
situated, so that no traffic came through it, and at the back was this
big graveyard, with its church, and the dome of the Brompton Oratory
(concealment is useless) rising over its shoulder like the Salute at
Venice. Literally not a house was in sight; there was but the faintest
sound of traffic from the Brompton Road; I might have been a country
parson in his vicarage. I went straight to the house-agent's, made an
offer, and didn't care one atom whether I thwarted anybody or not.
Naturally I hoped I did, but it made no difference.
A little genteel chaffering ensued, for I felt so certain that I was
going to live in that house, that I felt I was running no risks, and in
a week it was mine, with possession at this quarter-day of September.
Then having got my desire, I began to feel regretful about the house I
was leaving. I had spent ten jolly years in it, and now for the first
time I became aware how I had taken root there, how our tendrils, those
of the house and of me, had got intertwined. The roots consisted of
all kinds of memories, some sad, some pleasant, some ludicrous, but
all dear. I was digging myself up like a plant, and these fibres had
to be disentangled, for I could not bear to break them. For though
memories are immaterial things, they knit themselves into rooms or
gardens, the scenes where they were laid, and those scenes become part
of them and they of those scenes. Just as a house where some deed of
horror has been done retains for sensitives some impression of it, and
we say the house is haunted, so even for those who are not sensitives
in this psychical sense the rooms they have lived in, where there has
been the talk and laughter of those they have loved, and maybe lost,
have got knit into them, and must be treated tenderly if parting comes.
And I imagined, when I came home after definitely settling to leave
this month, that the house knew about it, and looked at me with silent
reproach. For we had suited each other very well, we had been very
friendly and happy together, and now I was deserting the home in the
making of which we had both been ingredients, and the spirit of the
house I was betraying was full of mute appeal. It did not want to be
left alone, or, still worse, to be mated with people who did not suit
it. But what could I do? I was going away; there was no doubt about
that, and I could hardly give it a present of fresh paint or paper some
of its rooms to please it. That would have been ridiculous. But I would
leave it all the bulbs I had planted year by year in the garden. There
would be a great show of them next spring.... Poor dear little old
house!
I had got possession of my new house "as from" (this is legal
phraseology, and means "on") the first of September, when the front
door-key was given me; and thus I had four weeks for decoration,
and took a header into the delightful sea of paints and papers and
distempers. The most altruistic of friends, whom I will call Kino
(which has something to do with his name but not much), vowed himself
to me for the whole of that month, to give advice in the matter of
colours, and not to mind if I rejected it, to come backwards and
forwards for ever and ever from one house to the other, with a pencil,
a memorandum-book and a yard measure incessantly in his pocket. For
when you go into a new house you have to measure all that you possess
to see if it fits. It never does, but you can't help believing it is
going to. You have to measure curtains and curtain rods to see where
they will go (the idea of leaving a lovely brass curtain rod behind was
an idea before which my happiness shrivelled like a parched scroll);
you have to measure brass stair-rods and count them; you have to
measure blinds, and carpets and rugs and grand pianos and beds and
tables and cupboards. Then with the dimensions written down in Kino's
memorandum-book, we hurried across to the new house, and measured the
heights of rooms by tying the tape on to the end of a walking-stick,
and the spaces between the eyelets on stairs which in favourable
circumstances retain the carpet rods in place, the widths of recesses,
comparing them with the measurements of the articles we hoped to
establish there. Also with sinkings of the heart I surreptitiously
took the size of an awkward angle of the staircase (up which my grand
piano must pass), and came to the conclusion that it wouldn't. I said
nothing about it to Kino, because it is no use to anticipate trouble.
But later in the day, when we were back in Oakley Street again, I came
unexpectedly into the drawing-room and caught _him_ measuring the
piano. Of course I pretended not to see.
The previous tenant of the new house had taken away most of the
fixtures, but was willing to leave certain degraded blinds, which on
my side I did not want. On the other hand, I had not long ago got a
quantity of new blinds for my old house, which I should have liked to
use if possible, and the question of blinds became a nightmare. I had
before now deplored the awful uniformity of architects in matters of
building; now I raged over their amazing irregularities with regard
to windows. In an insane anxiety for originality, they seemed to make
every window of a different size; my drawing-room blinds were three
inches too narrow for my new drawing-room, and two inches too broad for
the front bedroom. Then Kino would have a marvellous inspiration, and,
running downstairs, discovered that the hall window was of precisely
the same width as the drawing-room windows in the old house, so that
a home was found for one of the blinds. So he measured all the other
windows in the new house, to find a home for the other drawing-room
blind. Then we lost the measurements of the windows in my old bedroom,
and I went back to Oakley Street, to measure these again and telephone
the dimensions to him. On going to the telephone "the intermittent
buzzing sound" awaited me, and after agitating discussions between
me and the exchange, I found that Kino was simultaneously ringing
me up to say he had found the list in question, and by a wonderful
stroke of good luck my bedroom blinds fitted the back bedroom on the
second floor. There was only one window there, so we had left over (at
present) one drawing-room blind and one bedroom blind.... That night
I dreamed that Kino was dead, and that I, as undertaker, was trying
to fit a bedroom blind on to him as a shroud; but his feet, shod in
Wellington boots, protruded, and I cut a piece off the dining-room
blind to cover them up.
But through all these disturbances the work of painting and
distempering went swiftly on, and the house began to gleam with the
colours I loved. For a mottled wall-paper in the hall and passage
which resembled brawn that had seen its best days, there shone a blue
in which there met the dark velvet of the starry sky and the flare
of the Italian noon. Black woodwork with panels of white framed the
window, and of black and white was the staircase; a yellow ceiling made
sunshine in the dining-room. The drawing-room was fawn-grey, and on the
black floor would gleam the sober sunsets of Bokhara; even blinds that
would not fit and brass curtain-rods that there was no use for had, so
to speak, a silver lining. Marvellous to relate, there seemed every
prospect of the work being finished by the twenty-ninth of the month,
and with an optimism pathetically misplaced, I supposed that it was the
simplest thing in the world to put the furniture of a small house into
a larger one. I knew exactly where everything was to go; what could
be simpler than with a smiling face to indicate to the workmen the
position of each article as it emerged from the van? It is true that
the thought of the grand piano still occasionally croaked raven-like in
my mind, but I pretended, like Romeo, that it was only the nightingale.
I suppose everybody, however lightly enchained to possessions, has
some few objects of art (or otherwise) to which he is profoundly
attached. In my case there were certain wreaths and festoons of gilded
wood-carving by Kent, and before the actual move took place, Kino and
I had a halcyon day in fixing these up to the walls of the blue hall,
where they would be safe from the danger of having wardrobes and other
trifles dumped down on them. So on a certain Sunday we set off from
Oakley Street in a taxicab piled high with these treasures and with
hammer and nails, and with a bottle of wine, sandwiches of toast and
chicken, apples and two kitchen chairs. Disembarking with care, we
ate the first meal in the house, and did not neglect a most important
ceremony, that of making friends with the Penates, or gods of the home,
who, like my _strega_ in Alatri and the fairies of _Midsummer Night's
Dream,_ police the passages when all are asleep and drive far from the
house all doubtful presences. There on the earth we made burnt offering
of the crumbs of chicken sandwiches and apple-rind, building an oven of
the paper in which our lunch was wrapped, and at the end pouring on the
ashes a libation from the bottle of wine. All was right that day; the
nails went smoothly home into the walls, we did not hammer our fingers,
and the gold wreaths arranged themselves as by magic.
The great manoeuvre began next day, when at an early hour the vans
arrived to begin taking my furniture. That day they moved dispensable
things, leaving the apparatus of bedrooms, which was to be transferred
on the morrow, at the close of which I was to sleep in the new house.
Dining-room furniture went on the first day, and when I came back
that evening to sleep in the old house for the last time, I found it
dishevelled and mournful. Canvas-packing strewed the floor, pictures
were gone, and on the walls where they had hung were squares and
oblongs of unfaded paper. The beauty and the amenity of the house were
departed; I felt as if I had been stripping the robes off it, and its
spirit shivering and in rags went silently with me as I visited the
denuded rooms, with eyes of silent reproach. I was taking away from it
all that it had reckoned as its own; to-morrow I, too, should desert
it, and it would stand lonely and companionless. Never in those ten
years had it been so pleasant to live with as in that last week; it
was as if it were putting forth shy advances, making itself so kind
and agreeable, in order to detain the tenants with whom it had passed
such happy years. One by one I turned out the lights, and its spirit
followed me up to my bedroom. But to-night it would not come in, and
when I entered the sense of home was gone from my room.
* * * * *
All next day the chaos in the new house grew more and more abysmal
as the vans were unloaded. The plan of putting everything instantly
and firmly into its place failed to come off; for how could you put
anything firmly or otherwise into the dining-room when for two hours
the refrigerator blocked access to it? Meantime books were stacked on
the floor, layers of pictures leaned against the walls; the hall got
packed with tables and piles of curtains, and finally, about five of
the afternoon, arrived the grand piano. The foreman gave but one glance
at the staircase, and declared that it was quite impossible for it to
go up, and pending some fresh plan for its ascension, it must needs
stop in the hall too, where it stood on its side like the coffin of
some enormous skate. By making yourself tall and thin you could just
get by it.
Trouble increased; soon after nightfall a policeman rang at the door
to tell me I had an unshaded light in a front room. So I had, and,
abjectly apologizing, I explained the circumstance and quenched the
light. Hardly had he gone, when another came and said I had a very
bright light in a back room. That seemed to be true also, and since
there were neither blinds nor curtains in that room, where I was
trying to produce some semblance of order, my labours there must be
abandoned. But the more we tidied, the more we attempted to put pieces
of furniture into their places, the worse grew the confusion, and the
more the floors got carpeted with china and pictures and books. It was
as when you eat an artichoke, and, behold, the more you eat, the higher
on your plate rises the débris.
About midnight Kino went home; the servants had gone to bed, and I was
alone in this nightmare of unutterable confusion. Till one I toiled on,
wondering why I had ever left the old house, where the spirit of home
was now left lonely. No spirit of home had arrived here yet, and I did
not wonder. But just before I went to bed I visited the kitchen to see
how they had been getting on downstairs, and for a moment hope gleamed
on the horizon. For sitting in the middle of the best dinner-service,
which was on the floor, was Cyrus, my blue Persian cat, purring loudly.
His topaz eye gleamed, and he rose up, clawing at the hay as I entered.
He liked the new house; he thought it would suit him, and came upstairs
with me, arching his back and rubbing himself against the corners.