"Sanidin?" queried Denis almost flippantly, as he held up a fragment of
rock.
He was not particularly eager to hear Marten's answer. He had thought,
only a few days ago, that he would like to be a geologist; Marten had
inspired him with a fancy for that science. The fit was already
passing.
How quickly this geological mood had evaporated. How quickly everything
evaporated, nowadays.
All was not well with Denis. Early that morning he had tried his hand
at poetry once more, after a long interval. Four words--that was all the
inspiration which had come to him.
"Or vine-wreathed Tuscany...."
A pretty turn, in the earlier manner of Keats. It looked well on the
snowy paper. "Or vine-wreathed Tuscany." He was content with that
phrase, so far as it went. But where was the rest of the stanza?
How easily, a year or two ago, could he have fashioned the whole verse.
How easily everything was accomplished in those days. To be a poet:
that was a fixed point on his horizon. Any number of joyous lyrics, as
well as three plays not intended for the stage, had already dropped
from his pen. He was an extraordinary success among his college
friends; everybody liked him; he could say and do what he pleased. Was
he not the idol of a select group who admired not only one another but
also the satanism of Baudelaire, the hieratic obscenities of Beardsley,
the mustiest Persian sage, the modernest American ballad-monger? He was
full of gay irresponsibility. Ever since, on returning to his rooms
after some tedious lecture, he announced to his friends that he had
lost an umbrella but preserved, thank God, his honour, they augured a
brilliant future for him. So, for other but no less cogent reasons, did
his doting, misguided mother.
Both were disappointed. Those sprightly sallies became rarer; epigrams
died, still-born, on his lips. He lost his sense of humour; grew
mirthless, fretful, self-conscious. He suddenly realized the existence
of a world beyond his college walls; it made him feel like a hot-house
flower exposed to the blustering winds of March. Life was no longer a
hurdle in a steeple-chase to be taken at a gallop; it was a tangle of
beastly facts that stared you in the face and refused to get out of the
way. With growing years, during vacation, he came in contact with a new
set of people; men who smiled indulgently at mention of all he held
most sacred--art, classics, literature; men who were plainly not insane
and yet took up incomprehensible professions of one kind or
another--took them up with open eyes and unfeigned zest, and actually
prospered at them in a crude worldly fashion.
He shrank at first from their society, consoling himself with the
reflection that, being bounders, it did not matter whether they
succeeded or not. But this explanation did not hold good for long. They
were not bounders--not all of them. People not only dined with them:
they asked them to dinner. Quite decent fellows, in fact. Nothing was
wrong with them, save that they held a point of view which was at
variance with his own.
It was a rude awakening. Every moment he was up against something new.
There were quite a lot of things, he discovered, which a fellow ought
to know, and doesn't. Too many of them to assimilate with comfort. They
crowded in upon him and unsettled his mind. He kept up a brave
exterior, but his inner core was suffering; he was no longer certain of
himself. He became easily swayed and changeful in his moods. That sure
touch in lyrics, as in daily life, was deserting him. His dreams were
not coming true. He was not going to set the Thames on fire with poetry
or anything else. He would probably be a failure. Aware of this
weakness, he looked up to what was strong. Everything was different
from himself, everything forceful, emphatic and clear-cut, exercised a
fascination upon him. He tried in an honest, groping fashion, to learn
what it was all about. That was why he had taken to Edgar Marten, the
antithesis of himself, bright but dogmatic, a slovenly little plebeian
but a man who after all had a determined, definite point of view.
Denis repeated:
"Sanidin?"
"Let's have a look at it then," said Marten condescendingly, "though I
can't say I'm in a geological temper this morning. The south wind seems
to rot one's intelligence somehow. Hand it here. Sanidin be blowed!
It's specular iron. Now I wonder why you should hit upon sanidin? Why?"
He, too, did not pause for a reply. He turned his glance once more down
the steep hill-side which they had climbed with a view to exploring
some instructive exposure of the rock. Marten intended to utilize the
site as a text for a lay sermon. Arrived on the spot they had sat down.
As if by common consent, geology was forgotten. To outward appearances
they were absorbed in the beauties of nature. Sirocco mists rose
upwards, clustering thickly overhead and rolling in billowy formations
among the dales. Sometimes a breath of wind would convulse their ranks,
causing them to trail in long silvery pennants across the sky and,
opening a rift in their gossamer texture, would reveal, far down below,
a glimmer of olives shining in the sunlight or a patch of blue sea,
framed in an aureole of peacock hues. Stones and grass were clammy with
warm moisture.
"It's a funny thing," said Marten, after a long pause. "I've often
noticed it. When I'm not actually at work, I'm always thinking about
girls. I wish I could talk better Latin, or Italian. Not that I should
be running after them all day long. I've got other fish to fry. I've
got to catalogue my minerals, and I'm only half-way through. For the
matter of that, I haven't come across half as many nice ones here as I
thought I would."
"Minerals?"
"Girls. I don't seem to take to these foreigners. But there's one--"
"Go on."
"You're a queer fellow, Phipps. Don't you ever look at women? I believe
you have the making of a saint in you. Fight against it. A fellow can't
live without vices. Here you are, with lots of money, stewing in a back
bedroom of a second-class hotel and getting up every morning at five
o'clock because you like lying in bed late. Is that your way of
mortifying the flesh? Got a soul, eh? Get rid of it. The soul! That
unhappy word has been the refuge of empty minds ever since the world
began. You're just like a man I used to know at Newcastle. You can't
think what an ass he was. A sort of eugenical crank, who talked about
the City Beautiful where everybody would lead regenerated lives like a
flock of prize sheep. Everything sanitary and soulful; nothing but pure
men and pure women. An addle-headed theorist, he was, till a woman got
hold of him--one of the other kind, you know--and gave him something
practical to think about. That's what will happen to you, Phipps. I can
see it coming."
"I've been analysing myself lately. I find I have too much romance in
my composition, as it is."
"What do you call romance?"
Denis thought awhile. Then he said:
"When a man invests ordinary people or objects or occurrences with an
extraordinary interest. When he reads attributes into them which they
don't possess, or exaggerates those which they do possess. When he
looks at a person and can't help thinking that there is nobody on earth
quite like her."
"Too celestial for me, on the whole. But I'm glad you said that last
part. Glad for your sake, I mean. It shows that you've perhaps got
something better than a soul, after all."
"What is that?"
"A body. Look here, Phipps. I also have my romantic moments, though you
wouldn't believe it. I can be as romantic as ever you please. But not
when I'm alone."
"I should like to see you in that condition. And talking Latin, no
doubt?" he added with a laugh.
"I daresay you would," replied the scientist. "Given the circumstances
under which I become romantic, you'll find it a little difficult. But
there's no knowing. Funny things happen sometimes!"
Denis had picked up another stone. He scrutinized it with close
attention, and then began to turn it round and round in his hand in an
absent-minded fashion. At last he remarked:
"We are not doing much mineralogy, are we? What do you think of
chastity, Marten?"
"Chastity be blowed. It's an unclean state of affairs, and dangerous to
the community. You can't call yourself a good citizen till you have
learnt to despise it from the bottom of your heart. It's an insult to
the Creator and an abomination to man and beast."
"Perhaps you never gave it a fair trial," suggested Denis.
"Perhaps I'm not quite such a damned fool as all that. A man needn't
handle everything dirty in order to be doubly sure about it. If you
tell me that a dead donkey smells bad, I'm quite prepared to believe
you without poking my nose into it. Chastity is a dead donkey. No
beating will bring it to life again. Who killed it? The experience of
every sane man and woman on earth. It's decayed; it ought to be buried.
You ask me to give it a trial. Perhaps I will, when I'm in the same
mellow condition myself. Everything in its proper season. Don't let us
reverse the natural order of things. When we cease to practise, then is
the time to preach. A fellow of your size! And with your good looks,
too. Who knows how many golden opportunities you've missed. Try to make
up for lost time, Phipps. Get rid of conventional notions, if you value
your health."
"I will, when I find them wrong. What do you think of women--generally
speaking, I mean?"
Marten replied, without a moment's hesitation:
"Thank God I'm a Jew. You must take that into consideration. I think
the Mormons have made a good shot at solving the woman question, if the
question exists at all. Mormonism is a protest against monogamy. And
please observe that it's a protest not on the part of man alone. It's a
protest on the part of woman. Never forget that. In fact, I don't
believe any woman would ever bind herself to one fool of a man if she
had her own way. She wouldn't marry at all. She needn't, nowadays. She
won't, very soon. A man who marries--well, there may be some excuse for
him, though a love-match is generally a failure and a money-match
always a mistake. The heroes, the saints and sages--they are those who
face the world alone. A married man is half a man."
"Ahem!"
Marten was silent.
"I did not ask you to stop," said Denis. "You've got it very pat!"
"Plain sailing, my boy. It's the social reformers and novelists who
create these artificial conundrums; they want to sell their rotten
literature; they want to make us forget that the only interesting and
important part of the business is what nobody talks or writes about.
What does it all amount to? Man creates intellectually and physically.
He classifies minerals or blasts out a tunnel. Woman creates
physiologically; she supplies the essential, the raw material; her
noblest product is a child. I get on splendidly with women, because we
both realize the stupidity of the average sex-twaddle. We have no
illusions about each other. We know exactly what we are after. We know
exactly how to attain it. I tell you what, Phipps, Female Emancipation
is going to do away with a lot of cant and idealism. Knock the silly
male on the head. There'll be an end of your chastity-worship, once
women are fairly started on the game. They won't put up with it."
"Disgusting," said Denis. "Go on."
"I'm done. What, sanidin again?"
Denis still held the stone in his hand. He was thinking, however, of
other things. He liked to collect fresh ideas, to be impregnated with
the mentality of other people--he knew how much he had to learn. But he
would have preferred his mind to be moulded gently, in artistic
fashion. Marten's style was more like random blows from a
sledge-hammer, half of them wide of the mark. It was not very edifying,
or even instructive. Keith was the same. Why was everybody so violent,
so extreme in their views?
Marten repeated:
"Sanidin?"
"It might be sanidin in places," replied Denis. "I do know a little
something about crystals, Marten. I have read Ruskin's ETHICS OF THE
DUST."
"Ruskin. Good god! He's not a man; he's an emetic. But you never
answered my first question. You always hit upon sanidin. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's rather a pretty word, don't you think? It would
do for a Christian name. Girls' names are so terribly commonplace. They
are always Marjorie, or something. If I had a daughter, I should call
her Sanidin."
"You're not likely to find yourself in that position at this rate. If I
had a daughter, I know perfectly well what I should call her."
"What?"
"Angelina."
"You would?" asked Denis slowly. "And why?"
"Oh, it's rather a pretty name, don't you think?"
"Not a bad name at all, now I come to think of it. But it sounds
foreign. I thought you did not care about foreigners."
"I don't. But there's one--"
"Go on," said Denis.
Mr. Marten winked.
The mists had fled from the hilltops; rocks and vineyards, and the sea
at their foot, lay flooded in sunshine. With one accord, the two young
men rose from the ground and turned their steps homewards. The
mineralogical lesson was over.
"Coming to Keith's to-night?" enquired Marten with a fine show of
nonchalance.
"I don't know."
"I would if I were you. They say he does things properly. There'll be
an awful crowd--a regular bust-up. He only gives one of these
entertainments a year. Dancing and Chinese lanterns and champagne in
torrents. Won't you go?"
"Perhaps later in the evening."
Denis was perturbed. He scented a rival in this brutalitarian, though
it seemed hardly possible that Angelina should take much notice of him.
Meanwhile, he felt in need of some gentlemanly and soothing influence,
after such an outpouring of vulgarity. He thought of the bibliographer.
He liked Eames; he admired that scholarly detachment. He, too, might
end in annotating some masterpiece--who knows? To be a
bibliographer--what a calm, studious life!
"I think I'll go to Eames," he remarked.
"Really? A colourless creature, that Eames. As dry as a stick; a
typical Don. I promised him a mineralogical map, by the way. You might
tell him I haven't forgotten, will you? I wonder what you can see in
the man?"
"I rather like him," said Denis. "He knows what he wants."
"That is not enough, my young friend!" replied Marten with decision. "A
fellow must want something sensible."
"What do you call sensible?"
"Sanidin, and things like that. Things with pretty names. Eh, Phipps?"
Denis said nothing.
His friend continued jovially:
"The tavern mood is upon me. I am going to Luisella's to get a drink.
One gets sick of that Club. Besides, I've taken rather a fancy to that
younger sister. The second youngest, I mean; the one with the curly
hair--you know! I only wish I knew a bit more Latin."
Luisella's grotto-tavern had become quite a famous rendezvous. You
could drop in there at any hour and always find company to your liking.
Don Francesco had a good deal to do with its discovery; he discovered,
at all events, the second eldest of the four orphan sisters who managed
the house. After a time, having convinced himself that they were all
good penitents and being a kindly sort of man, he thought that other
people might like to share in the seductions which the place afforded.
He took foreign friends there from time to time, and none were
disappointed. The wine was excellent. Russians, excluded from the Club
by Mr. Parker's severity, frequented the spot in considerable numbers.
They were nicely treated there. Not many nights previously one of the
Master's disciples, the athletic young Peter Krasnojabkin, who was
credited with being a protege of Madame Steynlin's, had distinguished
himself by drinking sixteen bottles at a sitting. He afterwards smashed
a few chairs and things, for which he apologized so prettily next
morning that the girls would not hear of his paying for the damage.
"It's all in the family," they said. "Come and break some more!"
That was the way they ran the place, as regards drinks. The quality of
the refreshments, too, was quite out of the common. As for the girls
themselves--their admirers were legion. They could have married anyone
they pleased, had it not been more in accordance with the interests of
their business, to say nothing of the personal inclinations, to have
only lovers.
As Marten disappeared under that hospitable doorway, I flashed through
the mind of Denis that Eames was a confirmed recluse; he might not like
being disturbed in the morning.
Besides, he was probably at work.
He thought of going to see the bishop. There was a glamour in the name.
To be a bishop! His mother had sometimes suggested the Church, or at
least politics as a career for him, if poetry should fail. But this one
was so matter-of-fact and unpretentious in his clothing, his opinions.
A broken-down matrimonial agent, Don Francesco had called him. Mr.
Heard was not his idea of a shepherd of souls; he was only a colonial,
anyhow. A grey type of man--nothing purple about him, nothing glowing or
ornate. He did not get on particularly well with him either.
Besides, he hardly knew him sufficiently to intrude at this hour of the
day.
One thing was certain. He would go to the Cave of Mercury that very
evening. Keith was right. He must try to "find himself." He wanted to
be alone, to think things out. Or perhaps--no. He did not want to be
alone with his thoughts. They were too oppressive just then. He
required some kind of company.
Besides, Keith had said "full moon." The moon was not yet quite full.
No!
He would see what the Duchess was doing, and perhaps stay to luncheon.
Eames could wait. So could the bishop. So could the cave. He was fond
of the Duchess.
Besides, it was such a quaint place--that austere old convent, built by
the Good Duke Alfred.